Well, April showers brought...more May showers...and baseball practices!! We have had a really rainy spring, so many practices were cancelled. We managed to have a beautiful day for pictures though!!
May also brought Caleb's annual Spring Fiesta Fundraiser. The Spanish Immersion program is successful because of our use of native speaking interns in the classroom. This allows for a natural communication between two native speakers that the kids can listen to and learn from. It also allows our kids to have a unique situation where we can increase the teacher/student ratio when kids in traditional school cannot. Each intern is approx. $3500.00 and we needed about six this coming year...so the kids got busy showing all their talent!! Caleb is pictured here with his teacher, Sra. Calderon. She is an excellent teacher and he loved her this year! Caleb was selected to sing a solo part in the dance that he did and he also had a part in a little poem that they performed.
This was his dance / solo partner this year, Dori. They have become good friends.
This is Caleb's dance partner from last year, Claire. She is in a different class this year and was a mouse in her class performance.
Joe and Margaret came to Sioux Falls to see the Spring Fiesta and to also celebrate Mother's Day!
We lucked out with another sunny for Mother's Day!!
I got all kinds of nice notes and cards from my boys!! I felt soooo loved!!
Cassidy came with Gma & Gpa to see the Fiesta...and to goof off with her cousins & Uncle Jon!
Caleb also had his Cub Scout graduation ceremony and picnic. He has informed us that he does not want to be in Cub Scouts again next year...bummer! His favorite part was selling popcorn & the pinewood derby..."everything else was pretty boring!" Oh well, we tried!!
Now on to more exciting things, I guess!! It was Caleb's second Scooby Doo race at Rosa Parks school. The gym teacher, Mrs. Meyers, has challenged to kids to run for 30 minutes by the end of the school year. Caleb did great and this year, Jon ran too!
It is also a fundraiser for an orphanage in Africa. The kids raised about $1600.00, if I remember right, and that means that all the kids that are there will be able to attend school next year because of the money raised! It was neat to see how excited the kids were to raise all that money from spare change and doing chores. They were encouraged to see that kids can make a difference too!
This is Caleb's gym teacher, Mrs. Meyers! She is one of those "one-of-a-kind" teachers that everyone loves. Her enthusiasm and genuine care for each student is so apparent. Unfortunately, she is retiring this year and everyone is so sad to see her go. Whoever takes her place next year will have big shoes to fill!!
Josh had a special event this month too...he completed his first year of preschool!! Yeah!!! He was so excited to perform at his preschool graduation! This is his teacher, Mrs. April.
They sang all kinds of cute songs. Josh does not have a grad hat because he is attending another year of preschool next year. He was the youngest one in his class and did great!!
He was pretty proud of his certificate and little bible...
We celebrated Caleb's last day of school with a visit to Chucky Cheese! His favorite game is "Deal or No Deal!"
Josh's favorite game is the race cars!
Pallisades State park was hosting a family fishing day, so we thought we would check it out! We brought along a picnic and did a little hiking around too.
I love this picture of Josh holding Jon's fingers. He was looking at the river here...so content :)
There are lots of unique rock formations and places to climb and explore.
Josh did not hesitate to dig right in to the slimy worms...better than Jon or I could do...yuck!
Josh was pretty interested in the idea of fishing...Caleb preferred to watch :) The boys watched a walleye swim right up to their worm and then swim away! Bummer!!! Jon re-cast it in front of him again and he just turned his nose up (do fish have noses?!) I wonder if he has been in the "catch & release" program a few times already...smart fish!
The boys were busy in their room one day and came out with these great signs...we felt so loved!!
We went out to the farm for our first trip of the summer the end of May. Lots of fun 4-wheeling & making smores' at the Frericks' home! I think Cassidy liked giving the boys rides on her little 4-wheeler! Caleb was chasing Cassidy & Josh when they went around & around the house...they loved it!
We had quite a few rainy days, so Jon got the idea to have a little fun in the rain. The boys were still in their PJ's, but I guess that didn't matter! We had a real down pour that night, so there were puddles every where! So, why not have a water gun fight too!? The boys were totally up for that!!! Looks like Jon even found a soggy worm!
Off they go to chase down daddy!
It was also time to let all the cows & calves out to pasture. I think they will feast on all the lush green grass this spring / summer! That is one benefit to all the rain! Looks like heaven to a cow!
Jon decided that we should have a fire at Joe & Margaret's too, so he got busy chopping some wood. Josh liked to pretend too!
And he liked swinging as usual. Caleb was at Cassidy's place today, so we don't have any pics of what they were up to! He always has lots of fun though!!
We got all the chairs set up and thought we would enjoy the sunshine until the Frericks crew arrived!
After church on Sunday, we decorated some of the grave sites...
We left for home on Memorial Day so that Caleb could start his tennis lessons the next day. When we got home, he got busy being creative with his Webkinz! He created an entire "movie" with his little critters and this panda (Bamboo) was the chef! He did a great job with the chef hat!!
I have attached a few videos of Josh...one of his graduation and the other of him swinging at the farm. The little girl next to him was his best friend in school, Lily! They were inseperable! Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the blog to mute the music player so that you can her the videos!!
