Tasha's Graduation Party

 We were proud to celebrate Tasha's HS graduation with her on Sunday.  She is the first of the grandkids to graduate.  She plans to attend St Josef's in Fargo this Fall.

 Tiffeny and Mark (who owns The Hilltop where Tash and Tiff work) performed the Green Day hit "Time of your Life".  Tasha cried......again...

 A rare and cherished moment of love between Eric and Megan

 Jonathan and Holly played a few rounds of Ladder ball.  Judging by the look on Holly's face, he was winning.....BAAAA HAAAA HAAAA!!!

 Tiff had all of Tasha's things packed and ready to go, and moved all the furniture out of her room to prepare for it's transition to her new walk in closet.

For some reason, I really liked this tree.  If I had more cooperative kids, I would have taken lots of pics of them by it.

2012 Playgroundpalooza

School resumes Aug 22, 2012.  Our goal is to visit 30 different playgrounds between now and then.  We have also added a challenge within the challenge to visit 10 school playgrounds. 
We were in Park Rapids for the weekend. It seemed fitting to visit our first playground while visiting Grandma and Grandpa, since last summer we visited our first playground while visiting the other Grandma and Grandpa on Memorial Day weekend. We had not been to this playgroung in PR before. The kids loved it. There were some funky teeter totters. Megan loved the colors. The boys liked the 'zip line', since it made a funky swooshing sound when you hit the end of it. Don and I found a geocache that was hidden in the trees near playground as well. 
The kids all loved this playground.  It may become the preferred playground when in PR.  It is near Burger King, which may have some other benefits as well.

 Darn....Don and I couldn't play....

 The teeter totters criss-crossed each other, so you would sit diagonally from your teeter totter buddy.

We would like to visit Oak Park this summer, which was the first park of last summer.  It was in the area flooded.  We are curious how it looks now.

Tuesday we will meet up with some good friends at playground #2 of the year.

The Last Day

They have been walking to school since I broke my foot Mar 28th.  Last week they starting riding bikes instead..They are so cool.

Megan's last day of pre-school

While the boys and I have one day left of school, Megan's last day was today. Her pre-school class had a program and party this afternoon. They did a dramatic re-enactment of "The Three Little Pigs". They next performed their favorite pre-school songs from the year.

 Megan acting her heart out

 This is our first documentation of Megan actually participating in a music program.  Her head is not down.

 Miss Jenna, the classroome aide

Miss Swanson, her teacher. 

Almost the last Day of School

Today was the second to last day of school.  I took the obligatory student-teacher pictures today.  The boys were not happy with me doing this for several reasons:
1) Instead of getting to ride their bikes to school, I drove them.
2) The photo-op cut in to their morning recess time, especially since we dropped Megan off first
and
3) They were seen inside their school with me.....

 Eric's teacher was Miss Wickham.  She is all smiley all the time, says all kinds of nice things about him, makes really cute artsy projects, and puts lots of smiley faces on his papers when he does well.  She was a perfect teacher for him.  He has wanted her to be his teacher since he was in the first grade.   His confidence has boosted this year.

Jonathan's teacher was Mr. Rexine.  He has been a reading teacher at Ft Lincoln the past 2 years.  This is first year with his own classroom.  We give him a big thumbs up.  He is getting his Master's Degree in Technology in Teaching (or something like that....)  Being a techie, he is 'in charge' of the ipads that their school has.  Among other things, this means the ipads the school owns are stored in his room.  This means his students have lots of time to play with them.  Can you imagine how happy this makes Jonathan????  He is always talking about the really cool ways that Mr Rexine teaches.

The boys brought all of their school supplies home today.  Tomorrow they will play games, have their school end of year program, and have their ice cream party.  Miss Wickham always brings her dog the last day, so Eric is excited for that. 

Disney, Day 8

No pics from today.  Our breakfast was scheduled at 6:45 am, and we were off the ship by 8 or so.  We got to the airport by 9:15.  Our flight didn't leave until 3:40.  The 6 hours went by amazingly fast.  The trip home was relatively uneventful.  We were delayed leaving Orlando, and ended up being re-routed a bit in the flight to avoid weather.  Megan slept for 3 of the 3 1/2 hours, which she needed!  It's always good to be home.

Disney, Day 7

 This is Johanna from Baltimore.  We were so happy to have such a nice family to be seated with at supper.  For awhile, I was worried the scremer and her family would be on the cruise and seated with us.

 Yes, the boys wore the same outfits to supper each night.  Packing space was limited.

 The kids and our head server, Sasa.  His wife is also on the ship.  He will return to Croatia for a vacation on Sunday.  In addition to being a cruise server and magician, he is also a professor of language and literature.

 The kids and our assistant server, Alberto.  He is from the Dominican Republic.

Our cabin was on Deck 8 on the aft end of the ship

We were at sea on day 7.  It was a beautiful day.  Jonathan and Don played on the sports deck while Eric and Megan slept in until 9:30.  Once the other 2 woke up, the boys went to the sports deck and Don and I played with Megan in the Nemo splash area and pool, along with the rest of the ship.  After lunch, we dropped the kids off at the Oceaneer's Club.  Don and I ventured off to the 18 and over part of the ship, where we discovered chaise lounges on the deck 12.  Bummed we didn't find this space earlier, as it was really quiet and relaxing, and had a great view.  We picked Megan up a few hours later.  The boys wanted to keep playing.  Megan and Don did the virtual detective game.  We ate supper at the Enchanted Garden.  This was my favorite restaraunt decor.  Megan loved the pink shirts our servers wore.  I had prime rib that I didn't even need a knife to cut.  It was a bittersweet evening because it was our last one.  I think we all wanted one more day.  Sasa did more magic tricks for us.  After supper, Meg and Don did one more detective adventure and I took the boys swimming.  Cinderella was playing on the jumbo jumbo jumbo tv.
We hope to do another cruise!  Maybe an Alaskan cruise.  Eric said the cruise was ten times better than Disneyworld.  There were so many things to entertain the kids, both with their parents and without.  The ship was incredibly clean.  The food was wonderful.  I had seafood every day.  Don and Jonathan were adventurous with what they ordered.  Jonathan had sushi.  Both boys tried wasabi.

Disney, Day 6

 Look at how blue that ocean water is!

 The boys' favorite beach activity

 Don and Megan on the Aqua Duck

 The boys eating on the pool deck while watching The incredibles

 Getting ready to snorkle

 We met Captain Jack Sparrow along the way.  I borrowed some of his rum

 And now I am enjoying a rum based beverage on the beach

 This is as close as Megan got to snorkeling

 Ahoy, matey!  Bandanas were provided.

 I had another rum based drink with supper.  I'm wild that way.  I also had rum soaked chocolate cake for dessert.

Castaway Cay.  Yippee.  So excited for this day!  It was a bit overcast and a little rainy in the morning, but the sun was shining in the afternoon.  We spent the morning at the beach.  We opted to return the the ship for lunch instead of eating at the beach.  We had the pool and AquaDuck slide almost to ourselves!  We watched The Incredibles on the jumbo giant jumbo screen while we played in the pool and ate lunch.  We had our sting ray feeding/snorkeling exursion at 2, so we returned to the beach.  Megan was terrified of the sting rays, so she sat on the beach.  Jonathan and Don each fed one, but Eric was a bit too scared.  One sting ray swam behind him and brushed up against his leg.  His reaction was priceless.  I couldn't tell if he was screaming or laughing, but he sure was jumping!  Jonathan snorkeled for a bit with Don.  Eric just stayed close to the shore.  Megan sat in a beach chair and cried, even out of the water.  I took a turn at snorkeling, and Eric eventually went out with Don.    We went back to the beach for a bit before returning to the ship for the Pirate Party.  After supper, we took Meg to the Oceaneer's Club and the rest of us went to hear a ventriloquist.  The boys laughed so hard.  Eric then joined Megan at the Oceaneer's club for a bit, and Jonathan and Don went on a virtual detective hunt.