End of School Year

Hello! Finally, the school year is over. This winter was really long and cold here in Michiana. Our school had six snow days. That's exceptional. We rarely have more than three snow days usually. So we had three make up days through the Spring semester and even in June we had three more. That is why our Summer vacation started late this year. Yesterday was the last day of my daughter's third grade year. It has been pretty busy and messy around here as you may imagine. And you know, today is not just a first day of Summer vacation. It is the first day that Moms get busier and messier. Before my hair gets disheveled too much I would like to share things recently happened around my sweet girl.

She had a small piano recital. She played five songs. It wasn't perfect but she did pretty good. Surprisingly she never gets nervous before the events like this. Piano recitals, ballet performances, school talent shows, and so on. I guess that is a good thing, right? She could be something. Maybe....

She had worked hard on her school project in May. It was "Living History Museum". Every student pick one famous person in American history and research about the person. Then they present the result in front of parents and teachers pretending they are the persona they have in their reports. The picture below is Nina painting her background. I helped painting the green grass.

Her famous person in American history was BILLIE JEAN KING. I whipped up a skort from her old uniform shirt two days before the presentation. I needed to buy big framed glasses and deliver to Nina at school that day. I could not find an appropriate pair of fake glasses so I just grabbed a biggest pair of sunglasses from a store rack then ran to school. The glasses sorta look weird but she did great anyways.

Can you tell who is who? This was really a fun event and kids did very well. I think this was a very good way to learn history. Nina even remembers other students' persons' life histories. That is great.

Nina's 9th birthday was May 15th as I told you in this post . We usually have her birthday party right after school is over. But this year we had it the last weekend of school year due to the snow days make up. We had over twenty guests at St.Patrick's county park. This was the first time for us to have a party at park, and we liked it very much. St.Patrick's park is a beautiful place and very well maintained. We went skiing there many times this Winter and there are nice skiing (trekking) trails in the woods.

The second birthday cake was not home made. (You can see the first home made one here.)

It's cake time!

Mr.Tim challenged to the limbo. The cake wasn't home made but the limbo equipment was!!

The last weekend of May Nina's ballet school and company had the Sleeping Beauty ballet performances at DeBartolo performing arts center at Notre Dame University. I have been watching their productions for five years and this one was my most favorite. We are very fortunate to have such a good ballet school in the region. Nina is pretty much enthusiastic at ballet so far. I am not going to force her to keep going forever, but to be honest, I sometimes dream to see her dancing a main roll on stage someday. (I majored in dance and theater. After graduating college I worked as a dancer for a while. That made me a ballet Mom!)

Nina (and I) made a thank you gift for her teacher. A "stuffed teacher" is the thing we make occasionally. You can see the other stuffed teachers we made in the past here and here.

I attended the assembly to see Nina received some awards and celebrate that our school year was successful. I cannot believe that she is already going to be a forth grader next year. The parents her graders' started worrying and talking about which middle school we should apply for two years later. That is going to be a big decision.

I am glad we had another great year in school. We will enjoy the Summer in Michiana more than usual. Because we are not going to Japan to see my family. They will be coming here!! My Dad and sister's family will stay for about a week ( I know! It's too short! But it is really hard for my sister and brother in law to have a long vacation. ) We are looking forward to it. I always wanted to show them how I live in this country. It has been nine years. It was a long time.

 

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you started a wonderful Summer (or Winter in the South Hemisphere). Have a beautiful day!!