Piano Recital

For doing well in school, we gave the girls little bags of gifts that included games and little toys and activities for the summer. But the big gift was to take them to a big piano recital. We took them to see Pianist Simone Dinnerstein play Bach at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Segerstrom Concert Hall in OC.

Christian got us pretty nice seats. We had a box that overlooked the stage. We sat directly behind and above the piano, so the girls could see her hands and fingers as she played. She played a French and English Suite and two Partitas. It might have beeen a bit much for someone of Caitlyn's age but she did pretty good. It didn't start until 8:pm so she was getting tired by intermission and fell asleep in my lap halfway through the last Partita. She woke up when the clapping broke out and she was awake to hear the encore which was a lovely piece by Schumann called "Of Foreign Lands and People." The kids were familiar with the piece, thanks to Classical Baby! Overall, the girls enjoyed the experience (and mom and dad greatly enjoyed the performance) and hopefully it will inspire them to work on their piano lessons this summer!

Father's Day

The only break Christian got for Father's day was that he did not have to attend any meetings before church on Sunday as the Bishop was out of town. Christian was at least well enough to attend church with us (just barely). By the end of the 3 hour block, he was dying though. He still came in to help me with my class during the last hour.

Christian normally cooks on Sundays to give me a break but since it was Father's day, it didn't really seem fair so I did cook and do the dishes. He chose to have one of his favorite dishes, chicken curry. Emily picked out the dessert for him, peanut butter torte. The kids had a bunch of little gifts for him which included some homemade cards and gifts and some movies I picked out for them to give to him.

Arts Walk

On Thursday evening, our friends from the Mt. Roubidoux Ward, performed at the Arts Walk in the Life Arts Building downtown. We were so excited to see them perform but Christian could not go in the end as he had been sick all week.

Apparently, he got a really painful abscess. Let's put it this way, after I got back from Emily's award ceremony on Tuesday morning, he had me take him to urgent care. If you know Christian, he has to be in extreme pain, dead or dying to go to the doctor. I asked him before I left in the morning whether he wanted to go to the doctor. He was still insisting that he didn't need to go. By the time I got back, he was dressed and ready to leave for the doctor. Luckily, there was no wait and they took him in immediately. The nurse said he was so pale, she was afraid he was going to pass out. She came back out to the waiting room to get me...just in case. They tried to drain it but it had not progressed enough. They gave him pain killers and antibiotic to see if that would take care of it. If it did not show progress in a few days, we would have to take him back to try to drain it again. Thankfully, the medicine showed signs of working after a couple of days. He's been home a week and a half now and he is finally able to function now (mostly). It will be a little while before he is back to normal.

Also, a hour before leaving for the recital, Caitlyn seemed to have an emotional episode of some sort. No one can figure out what she was so upset about. She just cried and wouldn't even eat her dinner. Emily and I ended up going on our own.

Downtown was really crowded...which is why we usually avoid the Arts Walk or even the library on Thursday nights. The performances was wonderful though. It is really nice to see our friends performing. Musical numbers in church isn't really the same thing. They did a selection of classical and broadway numbers.

Emily and I had a lovely evening!

Emily

On Tuesday, Emily had her awards ceremony. She got high honors again and special honors for being in the honor roll all year (she actually had high honors all year long). She also got a citizenship award. Something we have not been able to get Caitlyn to get because she does not communicate well with her teachers (asking for help, responding, etc).  But I have to admit that Emily's teacher is a lot easier on the kids about these things. But at least she is responsive when spoken to...I can't say the same for Caitlyn but I think she is getting better.

Christian helped me adjust my camera for the low light and depth of field problems I always have and the pictures came out a little better than the previous day, but Emily kept pursing her lips and doing other odd things so in the end, I didn't get very good pictures again...*sigh*.

The third graders did not get their end of the year picnic until Thursday. The third grade teachers seemed to be much more prepared to entertain the kids. They brought all kinds of equipment for the kids to play games with, they had organized games and other stuff like bubbles and chalk and balloons to occupy all the kids.

Emily's best friend this year moved after the 2nd trimester so she seemed a little more disconnected and lost. She played with various friends but she kind of just went from one group to another.

Overall, all the kids looked like they had a ton of fun. On Wednesday, they had their AR (accelerated reader) party for all the kids who met their goals. They got to choose free books and had snow cones. Caitlyn and a couple of kids in her class got to go too. In fact, Caitlyn's goals by the end of the year was as high as Emily's was at the beginning of this year and she met them with no problems. The first graders also had a group of people to come on Wednesday to put on a "mad science" exhibition for them as they missed out on their trip to the Long Beach Aquarium this year because of some scheduling conflict with buses.

Friday, they are only in school for half the day and they are done for the year.

Caitlyn

On the last week of school, the kids had their last trimester honor roll assembly. The previous principal always neglected to bother to do this and it always bothered me. The kids still worked really hard and should be recognized for it. They were too busy planning for 6th grade promotions and endless parties. I guess the previous principal was also already looking forward to the summer break and didn't want to do any more.

Caitlyn had her assembly first on Monday morning. The lighting in the multipurpose room is awful though. I can never get decent pictures. Between not wanting to use an obnoxious huge flash and being distracting and annoying, the bad lighting and the other rude parents blocking the way because they are all taking pictures one foot away from their kids with their iphones, you can't get a good picture.

We were so proud that Caitlyn got high honors for this last trimester plus she got special honors for getting honor roll all year long. That is one of the new awards this new principal has created for the kids. They even gave out medals for those who had perfect attendance all year. The girls were super disappointed to miss out on that one. Caitlyn missed two days this last trimester from sicknesses and Emily missed by one day this trimester and I think she missed one in the first trimester as well.

After the assembly, the first graders got to go out to the park adjacent to the school and have a picnic.

They just got to play all morning at the playground. They played tag and a few other games...and for those who needed a break, they had coloring and other activities they could take a break doing. They had their lunch out there and there were tons of juice pouches and snacks for after lunch.

The girl in the yellow t-shirt that appears in almost all of Caitlyn's pictures is one of Caitlyn's closest friends this year. Even Emily played with the two of them sometimes during certain recesses that they shared. I really liked her because she was a good kid who involved and taught Caitlyn to play more active games like soccer and things that I don't think Caitlyn would have otherwise joined in on. Plus, she is a pretty big girl and there was less of a chance anyone would mess with Caitlyn with her around! That's always a good thing!

Unfortunately, she lives on the eastside of town and will be changing schools with the re-alignment of the school boundaries that came with the closing of Hyatt. I think Caitlyn is losing several friends because of this.