Today was the last official day of school (although they only went for 2 hours - they still consider it a day). Kelsi is now a Junior in high school, Daniel will be going to middle school as a big 6th grader and Maci has graduated from Kindergarten and will be going into 1st grade!
Daniel got together with some of his good friends before school for breakfast at a local restaurant and so I got some great pictures of them together (they'll love it when they're seniors). :-) Of course he and his best buddy Taylor got their annual "mohawks" for the last day of school. This has been a tradition they have done since 1st grade...they don't get their hair cut for at least 2-3 months prior to school getting out to let it grow long and the night before the last day...it's all shaved except the top and "wah-lah"...their struttin' their mowhawks. They only end up keeping them a week or so because then they shave it all off for summer baseball season (All-Stars). I think Maci is really going to miss the routine of school every day this summer - she is such a social butterfly. But with Kevin out with the kids, they'll keep plenty busy and we'll get her into swimming lessons and maybe try dance too.
Kelsi got out of school a couple of days early this week because she was chosen as the one student from her sophomore class to attend the HOBY leadership conference - and I heard from her this morning and she's having a blast! We're so proud of all the kids!
We had a graduation/going away party for Evie last weekend. She leaves on Monday morning to go back to France. We are all very sad because she has become such a part of our family and she will leave us with a big void in our family. We hope that she will come back to visit one day. On another note of exchange students, years ago we hosted our "son" from Thailand (March) and then his sister (Belle) the following year. We always told them when their younger brother was of age and wanted to go on exchange, that we'd be happy to host him....well...it looks like he may be joining our family this summer for the next school year. We're hoping some things work out for him so he'll be here in the next couple months. AND we are hopeful March will be coming with him to visit us too! It's always so hard to say goodbye to these kids, but it's always so nice when you get to look forward to them coming "home" to visit again.
Last weekend Kelsi volunteered to help out with a local mock emergency with a couple hundred National Guards, all local emergency agencies, etc. and she had a blast! She got to run through it twice and given different scenarios....she came home all dressed in a white hooded suit and IV's hanging from her.
I hope each of you have a fantastic summer - and I'll keep updating this site to let everyone know how the kids are doing. :-)
