Goodbyes + Graduation

For most of this year, Zane has had a really tight friend group. They've gone through the pandemic together connecting virtually in the beginning through Zoom and games on the PS4, and later at school where they're all in the same class. The one on the left is moving back to Indonesia tomorrow so we've been attending many playdates and goodbye parties hosted by different people. These boys are so tight. It's sad, but happy that they're making so many memories together before he leaves. In a month the one second from the right will move back to Iraq.

Hannah joined the dancing toward the end.

It was warm enough to check out our favorite swimming hole at Three Creeks. The water was high due to all the recent rain!

We spent a lot of time in the creek building a chute for the tubes.

This is what it looked like before our engineering.

Zane enjoying a nice float on the lazy river.

We damned it up before we left to help keep the water level high. We plan to spend a lot of time there again this summer!

Kids in nature.

Zane is on to middle school!!! His graduation ceremony was last week even though the last day of school isn't until the 3rd. He assures me that he is done learning this year and its just going to be fun stuff now. Here he is accepting his award for academic excellence from his teacher.

We clean up nice.

All the boys.

We hosted happy hour in the backyard for my teacher friends. It was a lovely night to sit outside by the fire since it was a wee bit chilly. It was also rejuvenating to have people over again!! It's nice to have a large vaccinated crew to be able to hang out with!!

One more going away party for Zane's friend. I was unaware there was going to be food. So much food. And you can't say no. These are traditional dishes from Iraq made by another friend. 

The boys : Lee, Mohammed, Zane, and Arafa. I'm happy we live in a day and age where they will still be able to keep in touch no matter where they are in the world.

The group hug nearly brought me to tears.

But it quickly moved into a 3-tiered piggy back ride to lighten the mood.

Mother's Day + STEAM Day

I took a personal day last week and it was lovely. I brought lunch to Mason, who has a new job as the District Manager at Rost Landscaping (I can't remember if I've mentioned that yet), and got a tour of the nursery and greenhouse. It was a really cool space and now I want all the plants.

For Mother's Day we started with Lego waffles, of course, and some lounging before rallying for a walk on the MKT trail between the MLK trailhead and Flat Branch. It was a scenic walk on a part of the trail we haven't explored yet.

I was gifted a Pineapple plant too! I won't kill it. I won't kill it. I won't kill it. 

The school auction is always an impressive display of what the kids are capable of. I won a piece from Zane's class. They are Ginko leaves painted to look like butterflies. Zane's is in the upper right. My dad will be bringing a piece of plexiglass to fit over the top to protect them so they can live long, whole lives. 

STEAM (Science, technology, engineering, art, and math) day was fun! My co-worker and I were sort of thrust into running a station for classes to come explore. The whole day was themed around biomes, so we came up with making a desert biome collage. We learned as we went (such as always print more animals than you think you'll need because when given the choice, kids will pick ALL of them, not just a few) and in the end kids had neat biome pictures and we slept well.

Hannah's class was the first to come to our station!

Kona Ice, an Italian Shave Ice food truck, parked in our back parking lot for the kids to enjoy a nice treat before recess. 

Both kids were Facebook famous that day. Zane was featured on the Kona Ice website...

...and Hannah's picture was taken by the guy running the Curiosity Fair and posted to the CPS Science page.

5th graders designed Tiny Planets in art and they were displayed at Uprise Bakery downtown. 

Hannah and I chilled with friends after school last Friday. It's always a good time in the woods with them.

Hannah drew a little robot. I posted it on Facebook because I thought he was sweet and cute. My uncle Tom saw it and made him into a cartoon. We LOVE it!! Thank you so much Uncle Tom!!!

Birthdays + Animals

Here is Hannah being goofy at recess. I really like being able to see/hug/talk to them during the school day. Next year will be a big change when Zane moves on to middle school...sniff...sniff.

Zane with his fuzzy brother.

Rue is less enthusiastic about photos.

See. Not having it.

Yard animals! I don't know what kind of moth this big guy is, but he hung out for a long time.

We also had a chill little frog buddy in the back. He let Hannah pet him and she named him Todd.

A friend (Zane's 4th grade teacher!) and I ran (well, she ran, I did a run/walk) a 5k to support the Columbia Art League. It was a gorgeous morning with great company.

Hannah went to an outdoor birthday party at a park. I'm so glad we can start to do these things again!

All these kids go to Locust and it was fun to see them in a non-school setting.

Zane came too since he's friends with the older brother. All of these guys are in the same class at school and 2 of them will be moving back to their home countries soon because their parents just completed their studies at Mizzou. Zane will miss them, but they can at least keep in touch online...and he'll have friends in Iraq and Indonesia should he ever visit!

Mason is 41!! Happy birthday, hun. Neither of us could have predicted having to navigate this last year, but I feel like we did a pretty good job and I'm glad we did it together.

2nd Degree Black Belt

To simply say we are proud of Zane is a massive understatement. He has been working a little over FOUR YEARS to reach his goal of 2nd Degree Black Belt! Four years of going twice a week every week!! Since starting this journey he's said that he wanted to get to 2nd degree (so he could be one belt ahead of Uncle Adam and Uncle Chris) and despite wanting to quit a few times and definitely wanting to skip class on more than one occasion, all his hard work and dedication paid off. HE DID IT!!

Form.

Weapon: Double Bong Mong EE

Board break #1: Hammer Fist

Board break #2: Step Jump Reverse Sidekick. This one was giving him trouble all week. It's hard. He had to spin and then break the board while he was still in the air. He got discouraged and then he tried again. He practiced on the bag in the garage and worked on the form in the living room. It all paid off because he broke it on the first try!!

Proud new 2nd Degree Black belt!!!

With Master Hockman and Ms. Henson.

Proud Mama!!

Proud Papa!!

These are stills from the videos of the moments he broke his boards.

Well done, Zane, we are so SO proud of you!!! Now Hannah wants to start and says she'll get a 3rd degree...but first, we'll take the summer off :)