Summer School
The girls have two days of summer school left before summer officially starts. They can’t wait to finish, so they can play with their neighborhood friends who are out of school.
Allison is thoroughly enjoying her new summer classmates and watching the first years make their way around the classroom. She’s done a LOT of pin-poking, tracing. And, she claims to be reading to her teachers. Katherine is learning about the first grade work plan, which is what the teachers use to hold students accountable for their weeks’ work. Katherine told me that she finished her first week work plan last Wednesday. She started a new one yesterday. Her one complaint has to do with length of recess, which is apparently shorter than that of the preschoolers. Otherwise, she loves having her own desk where she works, eats. Once she heard about the desk, Allison was very bummed to be still in the Mezzo building, asking me “When can I go to the Main Building??”
Recent Activities
The girls and I brainstormed a list of goals for our summer (seriously!). One of our goals is to get in shape for our Yosemite trip. To that end, we biked 11 miles roundtrip from Redmond Town Center to the Red Hood Brewery. Allison rode the trailer bike behind Steve. I cruised behind Katherine, who was on her bike. The first half of the trip was hard mentally for Katherine – but once she saw the brewery she perked up. The back half was much easier. For one thing, we had a great lunch (no beer). And, just as importantly, Katherine was able to count down the mile markers on the Burke Gilman Trail. Now we know that RTC is at mile ~0.5 and that the brewery is at mile 5.5.
What else? The girls are working on “exercising their bodies” which includes swimming classes and gymnastics. Katherine was thrilled a couple weeks ago to officially do a cartwheel in gymnastics class. This means that she’s earned 5 stars in level 1 gymnastics. Once she demonstrates a kick over (hang from a bar, kick legs over and end up leaning forward on the bar), she qualifies for level 2. I have to say that it’s been a long hard road with gymnastics. She started level 1 last summer, and we just managed to stick to it this past year. I gave her the choice of quitting gymnastics or moving up a level once she finishes level 1. Katherine has decided to stick with it – which means more gymnastics fun next year!
We have other activities lined up for post-July 4th. They’ve just started thinking about what they want to do for Derby Days this July. Derby Days claims to host the largest kids parade in the US, where the kids dress up themselves and their bikes and go a whopping 0.3 miles thru Redmond. After discussing this with their next door friends, they’re thinking of a soccer theme. I expect that this will change quite a bit over the next week before we rush to decorate our bikes. As well, the kids are chomping to go back on the 545 Express to visit Seattle, and they want to go to the Reptile Zoo to see the 2-headed turtle. It’s going to be a very interesting summer.
It’s Finally Out
We’re all relieved that Katherine has FINALLY lost her third tooth – lower left of center. This tooth was literally ready to come out for several weeks. Steve kept offering to pull it. Katherine kept pushing it with her tongue. Finally, after chewing some steak at a BBQ next door, Katherine shrieked, “My tooth came out!!”
Discussions got tricky after that. Katherine is pretty sure that her parents are Santa. And, she’s pretty sure the same is true of the tooth fairy – although I would say that she’s hopeful that we’re not. To that end, she wrote a very neat note and put it under her pillow:
“Dear Tooth Fairy, Please can you Not take My tooth. But you can take my Note.”
We left the tooth plus $2 and took the note. ๐
Fur-mination
At a friend’s recommendation I took Bisco to Petsmart to get Fur-minated. This sounds like a very nasty procedure. But, it’s just specially formulated shampoo (hmmm) and 30 minutes of brushing with a special tool. Voila! He looks great.
