Ethan's 5th Grade Promotion & Bbq

OK, life is slowing down and we have officially kicked off summer with our first RV trip to the beach. We left Thursday night and just got back so summer if officially upon us and my work load is officially very minimal---yaaaa!!!! Before we left on our little RV trip we had a busy week. Monday Ethan had his 5th grade promotion (by the way, I totally don't get this whole celebrating for getting to go up a grade--yippee--really? Do we have to celebrate every grade? How about just the biggies-- like maybe 8th but how about only 12th?? Do we really need to celebrate preschool and kinder and 5th and 6th-- for some and 8th and then finally 12th-- goodness by the3 time we get to 12th its totally minimized--OK, off my soap box for a moment.) Then Tuesday the kids had Fun in the Sun day and Wednesday was the last day of school and we had the staff against the 5th graders kick ball game-- students won-- then the class parties and 5th grade had a huge BBQ which was a lot of fun. We ended the last day of school with a fun lunch out and the boys had friends over to swim, which by the way ended in ER with one of the boys because he hit his head on the side of the pool and cut it open-- pray this is not a prediction about what our summer will be like-- uggg!!! Thursday I had a lunch meeting with the superintendent of the private school the boys are going to next year so we can discuss the implementation of the special ed program I am starting. It is amazing to see how God worked in that whole situation. I just cant believe they took my ideas and are running with them and that I get to work at my kids school one day a week-- too fun!! Anyway, Ethan had a hockey game that night and after the game we left to the beach. Fun and busy but I am looking forward to a relaxing summer-- yippeee!!!

By the way some of you are probably looking back on my blog looking at who the kid was who got their eye all screwed up-- yes it was Owen but exactly one week later the boys were playing at my parents house with their cousins and they were hitting the hockey puck back and forth and accidentally Owen hit it a bit too hard and Ethan took the puck in the eye and it left a big cut (no stitches) and a huge black eye. So, since Ethan hit the water bottle that took out Owens eye and Owen hit the puck that took out Ethan's eye-- wouldn't you call that--

AN EYE FOR AN EYE?????

I just think that is the funniest story-- yes blood is involved but I still crack up that both their eyes were screwed up at the same time.

Monday was Ethan's official promotion ceremony where they got all kinds of awards. I cant remember all the ones Ethan got but I will try to name most of them.

This was clearly honor roll. If his GPA was one point higher he could have been principal honor roll-- but we all slack at the end-- darn. By the way, the cute Asian girl below Ethan is a girl he likes-- isn't that cute. He is totally drawn to Asian girls!!

Not sure what this was for but maybe Track. He was on the track team and in the full district track meet he came in 3rd. Ethan did the long jump and did really well.

I think this was the track meet again.

This was the actual promotion ceremony.

Promotion ceremony- Ethan and on each side is his close friend Tanner and on the other side is his cousin who has always been in the same class- Kaitlyn.

Ethan's full 5th grade class!!

Kevin has been in school for the past 2 weeks and he has 2 more weeks to go. The class is like crazy math type stuff and it is accident reconstruction. There are like 5 classes to the whole thing and on Friday he finished the 4th class and tomorrow he begins the 5th class. It is a really rigorous class so he could not miss a day (it is out of town- not in our area) to attend the promotion and only 2 adults were allowed per family so I took my dad.

Ethan and Papa Owen

Kaitlyn and Ethan with Papa Owen

Ethan and his teacher Ms. Ricco

Ethan, Miss. Ricco and I-- Love Miss Ricco. She even works part time at my favorite store-- Ann Taylor!!!

Then on Wednesday they had the last day of school kick ball game against the staff and the 5th grade BBQ. Ethan tried out for the team and out of 144 5th grade kids only 21 made it and Ethan was one of them-- yaaa!! And, the kids totally won the staff! The kids were sooooooo proud.

Here is Ethan running to 1st base

Waiting to move on.

The 5th grade BBQ was a lot of fun. The kids got their hair spray painted and things drawn on their faces and even their finger nails polished with the school colors-- ugg!! They had way too much fun. Here is Ethan's core group of pals from his class. Carson, Tanner, Ethan and Danny. They were frequently referred to as the 4 Musketeers.

Owen was allowed in on the festivities as many siblings were. It was special for Owen as well because this is his last year at the school (because we are going private school next year) and he will never get to enjoy the 5th grade activities so we were happy they let him attend as well-- Mia had fun too!

Owen had a party in his class too. They had pizza and then set off Diet coke and mentos rockets. They are to cool.-- empty a packet of mentos in diet coke and stand back!

Because this is what happens!! The kids went nuts!! Too fun!!!!

Ethan and Carson-- been close friends since kindergarten.

Ethan and cousin Kaitlyn with the funky glasses. Been in the same class since 3rd grade and we live about a half mile away-- we see the girls a lot!! They are very close.

Ethan now with the funky glasses!!!

Kaitlyn and Mia playing ball-- come to find out, Mia can catch a ball and demonstrated this many time.

The boys favorite teacher of all time-- Mr. Kooyman.

I really wanted just a picture of the boys and Mr. Kooyman because he was so special to them but I could not get the rest of the kids out of the background so I used (not well) that effect in Picasa that you can retouch photos and I scrambled the girls faces-- strange I know, but I wanted it to just be the boys with Mr. Kooyman.

And that was the end of our time at Etiwanda Colony. It was a wonderful 5 years and we will miss the school and staff tremendously but we are looking forward to the next stage of our kids education-- Upland Christian Academy!!!