Dillon and Carson's soccer

Carson has absolutely no interest in anything but flag football and soccer.  Given the choice between baseball and soccer, Dillon also chose soccer so we signed them up to play in the YMCA soccer league.  They set it up in such a way that Daddy could coach both teams.  

Carson's team had ten kids and played a different team for all but one game.  They played eight games, one we missed because of our trip to Tennessee.  His team won every single game.  Carson was the leading scorer.  

Dillon's age group was.... Interesting.  There ended up being only two teams.  Each of them were short a player to begin with.  So each team only had six players.  Dillon's team had one player that had to quit due to medical issues and one kid only showed up for the first game.  So they were down to four.  Somehow his team ended up with Dillon and one other kid that was familiar with the sport.  The other two were confused and had a hard time picking up the game.  The other team ended up with most of the kids that had experience playing.  In order to be able to play games we had to have any extra kids we could find play with the team.  They would ask the teams that played just before the game if they wanted to play. Carson ended up playing each of the games (these are kids 12 and under) and held his own.  We were also able to bring Dillon's friend, CJ, that he played with the last two years.  He had fun because of that.  If I had played Dillon with ten and under he would've had more kids to play with and against.  In all honesty, they should've cancelled that age group.  Dillon had fun because Daddy was coaching and CJ and Carson got to play games with him.  Otherwise he wouldn't have enjoyed it.  He got to do some good skill work and didn't have to play goalie much.  He definitely enjoyed getting to play more offensive positions, even if it was exhausting without subs.  He also had a few goals as well which was impressive considering the other team was more skilled.

Carson, Dillon and CJ.

We had an end of season gathering at Dairy Queen after the last games.  Our kids are rock stars!

Last Day of School

The last day of school!  I always look forward to this day.  I absolutely love the time I have with the kids during the summer!  We have so many fun things planned this summer!

Kayda spent the majority of the year going in Monday-Thursday before school and reading to them.  The first few times she went in she read the underwear series.  It's our favorite picture group set.  We first found it as "Dinosaurs love underpants" at the book fair then proceeded to add three more by the same author. The kids love them and because those were the first books she read they called her "Underpants girl".

This isn't a last day of school picture with Ms. M but I needed one in here since we forgot to take one that day. 

 Mrs. B.

 This is one of Kayda's favorite people, Ms. B.  She actually goes by that at school.  I typically just use the last initial on the blog.  She is the PE teacher for the older kids and ran the leadership group Kayda and Dillon loved.

 Mrs. O!  Fingers crossed Dillon gets her next year.

 When we got home the first thing they did was swim!  We ended up having a couple friends over too!

Kayda's "Deck Day"

Traditionally the teachers have had a deck day lunch for the fifth graders.  This was a fairly rough year for the kids because it wasn't going to happen this year.  The "camp security" moms worked together to gather donations and put together the food.  It was a couple of hours of free time to eat, chat, sign yearbooks, watch movies or play board games. 

 Some of Kayda's favorite people.  Taryn, Miracle, Adrienne and of course, Kayda.

We worked so hard getting food together, especially Keren (left) and making these leis.  They were filled with candy, bouncy balls and pens.  The moms spent hours (20+ when you take each person into consideration) to make the 220 we needed.  I'm not sure how we'll pull stuff together next year!  

Kayda's Gold President's award

At the end of the year we were notified that Kayda would be receiving a president's award for academics.  I didn't think much of it (shame on me).  I was substituting for her class that day and I was preoccupied so I left my phone back in the classroom.  Daddy had decided to come see the assembly thank goodness.... unfortunately Daddy's phone takes awful pictures but at least we have one!  Seeing Daddy there, Kayda immediately knew either she or Dillon were getting awards (the younger kids had a separate assembly).  When they moved on to awards for fifth graders she was sure it was her.  First they called up the Silver President's award.  When she didn't get called up for that all the kids around her started saying "I bet you got GOLD Kayda!"  Sure enough.  She was one of six kids in the school to get the President's Gold award.  It means that she has received the highest scores possible (4's) on testing 3rd, 4th and 5th grade.  She is such a smart girl!

On a side note:  The entire day I was there is was informed at least 20 times that Kayda is "super smart", "so smart", "the smartest kid in the class", "so good at math"... etc.  Glad she's not a snob about it!  Love my little smartypants!

Dillon's Track

Dillon chose to participate in the track intro season.  Kayda decided she didn't want to, and Carson isn't old enough yet, so he was on his own.  He did really well and it's always fun to watch your kids do something they enjoy.  His favorite event is the high jump.  My personal favorite to watch was the hurdles.  They only jump over propped up pizza boxes but he was so smooth with his jumps and running... I really enjoyed it.

 100 m dash, he came in a close second. By close I mean a second or less.

 He likes to do crazy things with his hair so while he was waiting in line for the javelin he entertained himself and his buddies by doing this.

 Javelin

 High Jump

 Long Jump

Here are all his stats!

Kayda's swim team

Since we joined the YMCA and got the kids back in to swim lessons Kayda has wanted to do swimteam. She worked really hard to learn all the strokes so she could.  Her favorite stroke is butterfly. The only event she did every single meet was the individual medley.  She got to participate in several relays, she got a kick out of diving over people after they touched the wall.

Her first meet!  Auntie Kina was able to come along.  Kayda was SO excited to show her the race. 

Any time people could watch her race she was over the moon. She got super anxious about the races but was giddy when people were there.  Grandma and Papa H were able to come to one!

 She absolutely loves her coach, Iliana.  Unfortunately, by the time Kayda is about to to participate again her coach will be in Arizona for college. 

Here are her final results.  I had to update some of them based on the information on the ribbons she earned.  The freestyle beginning of the season I firmly believe was a typo since she never got past it in spite of learning flip turns and being a stronger swimmer.  She was very proud of the fact that she swam 1200+ yards every practice and is looking forward to them winter season next year when she can swim on the team again.  Between summer vacations and volleyball she can't do it until then. 

Over the course of the season, within the 11-12 year old girls, she  earned two second place, five third place, and two fourth place ribbons.  She did incredibly well considering she started the beginning of April and ended June 9th.

Carson's Northwest Trek Fieldtrip

We FINALLY got to go on a fieldtrip with Carson's class.  He was very excited to go with his friends and to have me with him.

 Skyler, Carson, Royce and Michael.  These are some of his best buddies.

His whole class got to take a picture together, pretty good for a whole pile of first graders!

The boys were so energetic and excited that they raced through the park.  It's a good thing we weren't there for too long.  We had over an hour of downtime as it was.  Fortunately they have a good children's play area there now so they were easily entertained.