June

The end of the school year brought a lot of small adventures to our family.

Lydia finished up her second season of Girls on the Run.  Besides running, the girls learn lessons in confidence, kindness and decision making skills.  Then at the end of the program, they run a 5K.  

I was Lydia's running buddy.  Whereas Lydia alternated between bouts of energy/sprinting and walking, I jogged at a very slow steady pace the whole time.  

Later that day Derek and Lydia found a DeKay's brownsnake on our driveway.  Derek is our snake expert (and Lydia's expertise follows close) and finding a snake is always a huge highlight.  The snake was playing dead because it was scared.  They eventually moved it to 'Thorn Forest' in our backyard and the snake was gone the next time they looked for it.  

At school, 2nd grade had an Invention Convention, where each student or pair of students invents something.  They then create a prototype, an advertisement, and a presentation for the parents.  They don't have to worry about technical details of how their invention will actually work.  Derek and his closest friend Christopher (pictured below) invented a necklace that will make ferocious/deadly animals like you.  It would enable people to safely approach crocodiles, lions, etc., and it only costs $900.  They did a great job. 

Lydia was promoted from 5th grade, finishing elementary school.  She will start middle school in August.  At the promotion ceremony, each student's name was called and the child had to walk across the stage, shake some hands, and was presented a certificate by their teacher.  

Lydia had the same teacher in 5th grade as Karina did.  They were both lucky to have Mrs. Jenkins as their homeroom teacher:

At Nate's work, there was a celebration hosted by the Australians that we got to go to with free food and some other activities.  Lydia and Derek took advantage of the face painter there, who we thought was very talented.  Below are Derek the snake (it's hard to see his face paint) and Lydia the tiger.  

Many kids had a water fight afterwards and the paint was washed/smudged off before we got home.  Derek nearly caused an international incident by being too aggressive squirting some of the Australian kids in the water fight, but we found a diplomatic solution before tensions escalated. ;-)

Lydia's birthday happened to be on the last day of school.  This is the 3rd time her birthday has coincided with the last day of school, and the second year in a row it happened.  She thought the end of school was a pretty good birthday present to go with all her other gifts.

At the bus stop, we got a photo of all the graduating 5th graders:

As per tradition, there was a huge water balloon and water gun fight at the bus stop on the last day of school.  Our bus stop moved this year, but somehow some of the parents managed to convince the bus driver to go to our old closer bus stop where the squirt guns and water balloons were waiting.  As per other years, Lydia did not want to participate, but for Derek it was a huge highlight.  He pelted as many people as he could with water balloons, and enjoyed everything about it.

Lydia had a small celebration that night for her birthday with one friend coming over.  She picked a flag cake since her birthday happens to be on Flag Day.  After pizza and cake, Lydia, Toni, Karina, and I headed to an escape room to try to escape from 'Island Adventure' where a volcano has erupted and you have 60 minutes to find the keys to a boat to escape. 

We very barely escaped with less than 3.5 minutes to spare.  It was a great adventure and lots of fun.

For the past month, Lydia had been working diligently on weaving.  She was using fancy yarn leftover from her great grandmother.  I think her creation turned out beautifully and I am excited to display it.  

After school ended, we have been on a number of outings.  One was to a fancy neighborhood pool that had a lazy river, whirlpool, splash pad, lap pool, baby pool, pool basketball, and it was a lot of fun for the kids. 

Another day, we went to Cunningham Falls State Park and the beach/lake there with another family.  The kids built large moats and had a blast digging and swimming.  

We also dog sat for a neighbor for 8 days.  Zozo is a very large sheepdog/king poodle that lives in our neighborhood. The kids have loved playing and cuddling with her.  I think Zozo had an incredibly enjoyable vacation with us and she loved our fenced-in yard too. 

Zozo also loves to play tug of war and she is so strong.  She always wins, and if she isn't winning, sometimes she will knock your hand down with her paw, cheating.  She is really fun. 

Lydia built a whole bunch of balls with magformers.  I only got a picture of a few of them, but she had balls made of only triangles; only pentagons; pentagons and triangles; squares and triangles; pentagons, squares, and triangles.  She is very creative.

We also enjoyed going to Northpoint State Park and the beach there on the Chesapeake Bay with another family.  I thought the kids would play in the sand most of the time again, but instead, they stayed in the water for hours.  

On two other days, I took the kids to tour two colleges: Johns Hopkins University and University of Maryland College Park.  I thought it was super interesting to walk around the campus and see the architecture, etc.  The kids were probably less interested than me.