P- T- AHHHH!!!

So the 2011-2012 school year was my first time on the PTA Board.  Honestly, I really like being on the PTA, but I did do 85% of my service hours during the month of May.  I always enjoy getting done with my school at the end of April and then having a month with the kids in school to get my act together.  This year was definitely a little different!  As soon as I was done with school, I spent about 15 hours a week at the kids' school making up for a year of not being able to help out in the mornings.  (Teachers rarely want volunteers in the afternoon, I have discovered, which is a bummer for me.  Maybe that will change as they get into the upper grades.)  

Anyhoo, I got to help with lots of fun stuff like Bulletin  Boards and Teacher Appreciation and our Second Annual Adams Eagles FIT Fun Run!  And let me tell you something: 

My Son Can Run!!!

I am a little bummed we only have video of soccer this year, I didn't have any pictures.  But I tell you what:  He is fast.  Period.  Matt and I both went to his first soccer game this season and our jaws dropped.  He has always been pretty good at soccer; I think he's always one of the best players.  But this season, something happened.  It was like a little switch turned on inside him and it all came together" Speed, Strength, Aggression, Footwork.  He's got some moves.  Anyway, I tell you all of this because my favorite, my very very favorite part of watching Isaac play soccer is when someone from the other team takes the ball from him (or anyone on his team really).  You know what happens?  That person is sorry.  That's what happens.  Isaac starts to run.  And then he turns on the switch.  He's like a Cheetah, I tell you. He will sprint down the field and take that ball back almost every time. Part of me used to feel that this could be explained by his height advantage, but  Even the handful of kids comparable in height cannot compete with his speed.  (I know I sound like a complete show off, but I'm compensating for the lack of pictures... forgive me) Anyway, I tell you all of this to preface my story about our school's 5K Fundraiser.  We trained a little, but the girls had a hard time, and we never even got through more than 3 miles with them.  So the day of, I wasn't even sure if they would finish the race.  I didn't get to run with them because I was selling pizzas.  So Matt ran with Daphne and pushed Tori in the stroller.  Isaac took off on his own.  Daphne and Tori  stopped half way and came back to hang out with me.  Matt ran back to check on Isaac.  And you know what?!!

He came in 3rd place with a time of 24:36!  

He also said he would have passed the person in front of him but he wasn't sure where to go, so he just hung back!!  Ha!  I can't tell you how it fills my heart to watch my children be successful and happy and proud of their accomplishments!  Who knew it could be so wonderful?!

So a few weeks later, I got to run Field Day for the entire school.  Yep, the whole day for the whole school. It took weeks of planning and was a huge undertaking, but I was excited.  Turns out, it went OK!  I have a lot of ideas for how to make next year run more smoothly and have more fun.  Matt was my devoted assistant/ time keeper/ strong man/ awesome partner in crime.  He actually took two days off work to help me pull it off. (Isn't he fantastic?!)  We were waaaay too busy to be photographers as well, but Matt did snap this one shot of Daphne and me.  

The biggest negative about field day was my lack of concern for my own skin!  I actually applied sunscreen once, but did not even think about the backs of my legs.  This was me the next morning:

My legs were almost purple and I peeled for weeks.  Not brilliant.  I still have a line on the backs of my legs.  It's pretty trashy looking.  But hey, that's just me, I guess! 

Sometimes, I think I get so used to the face that my children have Native American skin and rarely burn that I start to think I'm invincible or something.  Who knows what I was thinking, really?  Mostly about schedules and whistle blowing and water buckets and... you get the idea.  At least I won't make the same mistake next year.  Yeah, I'm in charge of Field Day again.  Yippee!

Rendezvous!

At the very end of Fourth Grade, the kids get to have a big day called Rendezvous!  They study Utah history for a good portion of the school year, and this day is supposed to resemble the times when Native Americans and Pioneers would meet together barter services, play games and exchange goods.  I was so grateful that this, too, took place in May so that I could help!  Everyone was encouraged to dress up like a Native American, a Pioneer, or a Mountain Man!  With a little help from Aunt Raegan and Paige, Isaac won the Costume Contest!  

I spent the morning helping the kids make candles.  They rotated through stations where they made candles, whirly gigs, scones and a few other things  I can't recall. 

The Afternoon was the actual Rendezvous itself!  The kids had earned "Beaver Pelts" for good behavior and that was the currency of the day.  Each child was encouraged to use Beaver Pelts to obtain a business license and start a booth where they could sell goods or run a game.  Isaac went into business with his friends Jake and Dakota and they did all three!  Dakota sold Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and sodas, Jake sold a bunch of his little sister's toys, and Isaac ran a game!

We borrowed this fabulous Bow and Arrow set from Nanny and Papa and Isaac and Jake painted a target onto an old TV box so kids could practice their archery skills.  We also brought the Pig from PIGWAB (who was conveniently dressed as a Native American from our last Thanksgiving themed PIGWAB) in order to have a bean bag toss.  This was mostly because I was worried we would get shut down for having weapons!   But we didn't, they just thought it was great!  I stayed there to supervise and make sure everyone was safe.  

Isaac and Dakota:

That's Jake on the right with the hat:

Isaac had so much fun teaching the kids how to use the bow and arrow.  It was really empowering  for him to be the expert.  The kids had a blast and it was such a good experience for all of them.   Way to go 4th grade!  This totally made up for the lame field trip.  

A Tale of Two Field Trips

Since I teach Part-Time and most teachers seem to want Volunteers in the morning hours, May is a big school volunteer month for me.  I finish up my semester at Weber State at the end of April and usually have about 4 weeks where my big kids are still in school and I'm not.  So.... I sign up for all the May activities!  The school does all of their field trips in May, and I was fortunate enough to get to go with both of them this year!  

Daphne's 2nd grade field trip was first... we headed all the way up to Logan to go to a farm there that is sort of frozen in time around 1920.  We had so much fun!  

All of the tour guides wore period clothing and stayed in character... the kids loved it.  Here she is in the "Summer Kitchen".  During the winter months, the kitchen was the warmest room in the house, so that's where people stayed most of the time.  But in the Summer, it was too hot to have the oven on all day in the house, so they had a little building out back where they kept the oven and did the cooking for the Summer months.

They got a chance to wash clothes the old fashioned way.  Ugh.

This is the tour guide warning them about the smell in the chicken coop.  It was the most disgusting thing I have ever smelled.  Ever.  

She got to churn butter!  This was a shockingly painstaking process.  It made me start to use the last little smears on my butter dish instead of grabbing a new stick right away.  So much work went into making every little bit of butter!

And... we got to milk a cow!  The kids were a little nervous, but everybody tried it!  We had so much fun laughing and talking and playing on the way. 

Isaac's field trip was a different story entirely.  He is in Fourth grade, and they took the whole grade to the Farmington Wetlands.  First of all, I didn't even know we had wetlands here.  Isn't this a desert?

They divided us into groups and we each took a turn with a different tour guide.  Our first tour guide was fabulous!  He was a guy, and took us around to see rattlesnake skins and scat and droppings and knew just how to make it interesting for kids this age.

Here we are on his tour:

I have ZERO pictures of our second group because we were with an extremely soft-spoken Russian woman who had a milk mustache and in very broken English walked us around and pointed to different grasses telling us why they are important.  I think there may have been two children who actually heard or understood anything she said.  The high point (or low point) of this group was when she told the children to break off a particular piece of a plant and eat it.  This is just after we learned how to spot all the different types of animal droppings everywhere.  Oh, joy.

Next, we went into Verma's group.  Yes, there is a woman who is actually named Verma.  I don't know what her parents were thinking, but they actually named her Verma.  I kept getting mixed up and calling her Merva, because that seems like it might actually be a name rather than a rodent, but she kept correcting me.  Verma it is.  Here is Isaac measuring his wingspan next to that of the bald eagle:

Isaac and his buddy Michael:

So Verma's station essentially consisted of several tubs of pond water and a bunch of turkey basters.  She wanted the kids to suck stuff up into the turkey basters and then look under the microscope to see what the found.  

Now, I am aware that I am nature-challenged.  I am also Science-challenged.  But this seemed like the most disgustins and pointless activity ever to me.  For some reason, we were at this station for the longest time (like almost 40 minutes!!)   Good ole'  Merva, I mean Verma was so completely enthralled with the microscope that she never checked in the kids with the water.  So... although they were pretty interested in the water for about 10 minutes, pretty soon, 10 year old boys realize they can get 10 year old girls to shriek if they are wielding a turkey baster full of nasty pond water as a weapon.   So I mostly ran around trying to prevent any of the girls from getting completely soaked by one of these terrible boys.  

On an completely unrelated note:  the boy and girl to the right of Isaac in this picture are a "couple".  They stayed everywhere together and she acted like his mother the entire time, keeping him from getting into trouble or starting a fight.  I was deeply disturbed.  Do fourth graders have boyfriends and girlfriends?

Our last group was with the "Mean Lady".  I had noticed this woman talking to other groups in a  very harsh manner and I warned the kids to stay with her so that she wouldn't yell at them.  This is a woman who clearly should never be allowed to work with children.  She would try to get the groups to rotate and then become overly frustrated when they wouldn't follow directions exactly perfectly like little soldiers.  Then, she proceeded to pass out "BEYE- NOCKS" *something the rest of the English Speaking world refers to as Binoculars, to the children.  She became very impatient that they were not doing this as quickly or efficiently as she desired.  Then, she walked us all around and said things like, "If you look to your left, you'll see the nest of the Great Blue Heron".  But after the first five minutes, the kids would be looking through their binoculars and saying, "I see Lagoon over there!"  (Lagoon is the theme park around these parts)  It was a joke.  I'm not sure if they learned anything or enjoyed themselves at all, but it was fun to get out of the school for a few hours.

And now I will tell you the real reason I am glad I attended Isaac's field trip.  Other than the fact that I got to spend some extra time with him, I am mostly glad that I went because after the Wetlands fiasco, we went to a park and let the kids have lunch.  The children who were just playing in pond water, looking at dung and eating grass grabbed their lunches and started showing down.  Not my boy.  Only after I had bathed him in hand sanitizer and rubbed the park table down with antibacterial wipes, then and only then, did he eat his lunch.  

I am so grateful that I got to have that time with them!  It was so great to spend time with them on the bus.  I was pleasantly surprised that they both wanted to sit by me, even though they are getting a little older.  I'm sure one day I will look up and they are too cool to be seen with me.  But for now, I'll treasure these days together; even if they are in a chicken coop or laced with filthy pond water.  I'll take every moment I can get.

For Love of the Trampoline

When we moved into this house back in October, we inherited this trampoline.

 It seemed like a bonus at first, until we realized that the mat turns your feet black, and it is incredibly old.  But when Spring came, Matt put the mat (ha!) back on and the kids were ecstatic!   Victoria was especially excited.  She would hurry and get dressed and eat breakfast quickly so she could jump for 10 or 15 minutes before we would have to leave for school.  This girl LOVED the tramp.  First thing when she woke up from nap?  "Can I go jump on the tramp?"  And as soon as she finished her dinner, bouncing out here is where she wanted to be!

 That made it all the more sad when the poor dilapidated thing started falling apart.  One by one, the springs would just pop right off.  Until, eventually, on one fateful day in May, about 10 Springs in one place popped at the same time.  And by then, 1/3 of the mat had no springs, so it was unsafe to use at all.

 Poor Tori was heartbroken.  She spent the next few days drawing pictures of the good old days when she could jump on our trampoline.  Sad, Sad day at our house.

(Shhh!! It's a secret.  You  Don't have to worry!  There's a happy ending to this story!  Stay tuned for my next post!)