Emma's GPA Award

I'm sure you can tell we had a lot going on the last week of school. One of the things was Emma's award ceremony at the middle school. 

She recieved a GPA award for maintaining a 3.8 or higher the entire school year.  She had one class that she had a B in for 2 quarters.....other than that...every class, all year....straight A's.

Her final report card she had a 4.0.

Pretty darn impressive, my report cards never looked anything like that!

We are super proud of the effort she puts into her school work, and that she's entirely self motivated. Really. There is no pressure from us to get straight A's. I was raised to always try my best, and if that ended up with straight C's, then that's fine, and I've repeated that to her over and over again.

Did I mention she carried an A all year in Advanced Math??

That comes from Brian, not me.

Anyhow, we are very proud of her!

 She's the tall one in the middle, have to keep it blurry because of the other kids faces showing.

Sophie's 5th Grade Graduation

 Well, these are going to be totally out of order, but the gist is  she received some beautiful gifts that were hard earned, and we had fun celebrating! Above and below are pictures of her new boots before I wrapped them. We had gifts hidden all over our bedroom for months before her big day.

 A few days before, I moved everything out to the living room so she'd have to suffer a bit.

 This was at graduation, those balloons got moved : )

 I let her open one pair of boots the night before because I knew she'd want to wear them.

 After graduation I signed her out for the day and she went shopping with her grad $, got a new hat.

 This was at dinner with Auntie Jill and Grandpa. She's opening a beautiful locket from Grandma Jackie.

 Again, out of order here, but this was opening her flowery cowboy boots.

 Right after graduation..

 She's opening a beautiful carved box with horses on the lid.

That's the last gift, her new black cowboy boots.

Thank you to everyone who went the extra mile to make this a special occasion for Sophie. We really, really appreciate all everyone did, and the especially thoughtful gifts she received. 

Now I get to breath for a bit until next year.....Emma's 8th grade graduation!!

School is Out!!

I have so many pictures to get up and just no time yet to upload them.....
Summer has hit fast and things are in full swing. I'm still waiting for that first morning of summer break when we all sleep in......hasn't happened yet. School got out at 12 on Thursday and we've already been hiking, gone to a few movies, Six Flags, met up with friends, Emma's off to a sleep over tomorrow.....just fun summer life stuff.

Other than a run/workout/mowing the yard tomorrow and booting Emma out the door when her sleep over family swings by....I don't think we are doing anything else tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get the pictures into the computer at least, and get a post up. I'll have to go back in time to Sophie's graduation, and can't promise to do any editing...but I'll try to get that post up!!

I'm Much Too Young.....

(Insert the rest of Garth Brook's lyrics here)

I can't believe that next year I'll have two kids in middle school.

Today is 5th Grade Graduation, Promotion, whatever you want to call it.  Yes, I know. There's only one graduation, and that's from 12th grade. Seriously, though.....if you have kids in elementary school and/or middle school then you know - they are working so much harder then we did when we were kids!! I have 2 girls who settle for nothing less then straight A's, 3's (elementary school's version of an A) and "excellent" on their report cards. That means hours of homework every day.  Every day, including most weekends.  With so much being done on computers now, and each kid having their own google account for school....reports and presentations are now what they used to be for college level stuff....but in grade school.  Sophie gave numerous power point presentations this year. Not to mention she's learning math concepts I barely was introduced to in high school.

So, while I know it can seem silly to celebrate these odd years - kindergarten, 5th grade, and 8th grade- and call them graduations.....I am one of those parents who really appreciate how hard our kids work and the effort they put into their school work and that they really do want to learn as much as they can (speaking for my own kids here, not all kids : ), the hours of homework done to achieve their own version of excellence when they could get by ok doing much less, hours of studying, hours of putting together presentations, typing, creating graphs, charts, and slides, and realizing it's really hard to back track your online sources for those darned bibliographies (ugh)....yep....I'm one of those annoying moms who thinks all of that does indeed need to be recognized and celebrated as much as possible when the occasion arises to do so!

So, today is Sophie's 5th Grade Graduation....and we are up and getting ready for a day of celebrating all her hard work, and her last 2 days of elementary school!!

Congrats, Sophie!! We love you, and are so proud of you!!!

Pictures are from her first day of kindergarten.

Juniper/Summit Trail Loop

 These pictures are from Tuesday's adventure on the mountain. It was perfect weather up there, 65 - 70 degrees, little wind but a nice breeze every now and then.  Good times. Truck question...see the front wheel well and how it's black above the tire. Now see the back tire and how it's white above the tire?? Is there any rule against spraying that white part black?? It looks odd to me how it is now. But I do love this picture of my truck!

 I can't not do it every time I'm here-

 

 Giving myself stink eye for forgetting to take a pic at the summit, but we did go all the way up.

 My running buddy left me in the dust more than a few times on this run.  She appears to have none of the usual newbie fear of bombing the downhills. She has definitely graduated out of newbie status.

 Glancing out across the mountain, it looks like a sea of dead grass. I'm always surprised at how many flowers there are. It never gets old.

A little deeper, and a little wider and I could totally justify driving up to Juniper Campground for a nightly bath. What a view.

For National Running Day-

Pictures from recent runs, from my favorite place to run!

 I want to pitch a tent in the middle of this beauty.

 It's like a city of horses down there. Smells so good!

I don't know that I've ever seen a Quail in a bush or tree. It looked very odd.

Rattlers!

All of a sudden the snakes are out!! I've seen a few Gopher snakes, and smaller snakes so far this year, but hit the "2-for-1  Rattler Special" earlier this week. This was on a small single track trail behind Macedo Ranch, right at the top of Little Yosemite trail. My running partner was not getting anywhere near these guys. I offered to get a pic with her phone, but she said something along the lines of "I don't like snakes".    These were huge rattlers. I've seen my fair share.....these were long, and fat. Most likely full of ground squirrels, which usually are what pops out of this hole when I run by.

 I took looking close at these pictures to find the other snakes head. The one was pointed right at me the whole time, the other one is down in the hole facing into the hole. I never could find it's rattle, but it's tail is under the other one's tail. Neither ever rattled and I got fairly close.

 Before we saw the rattlers, we saw this Gopher snake, which looked really big, until we came up on the rattlers!

And if you missed today's earlier post, here's a link to it , although it may show right below this one.

Student of the Month - Sophie

May's quality all the students at the kids school were to work on was 'Best Effort'.

Sophie was chosen by her teacher to win her class award for showing that quality.

She had no idea, and Brian and I stayed hidden in the kitchen of the cafeteria until the last possible second, but she did spot us, so she knew her name was about to be called. 

Still pretty cool, and we are very proud of her.

 And below, a few trombone pictures for you. She played for the first time this year, and learned a lot. She had a concert with other elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools, which was a lot of fun, too. I snapped these pictures as today was her last day with the trombone, it was turned back in today.