Mikayla's End of 2nd Grade Luau Party

Mikayla getting ready to make a flower for her hair.

Allison

Mikayla hula hooping

Mikayla making a lay.

She looks embarrassed.  Her teacher was taking most of the pictures because I was helping the kids make the flowers for their hair.

Getting a raspberry smoothie

Jordan, Mikayla and Allison

Today the 2nd graders had their end of the year Luau Party.  They were put into groups and rotated around to different Hawaiian Themed stations.  They had fruit kabobs, hula hoops, pineapple toss, raspberry smoothies, bubbles, made lays, made flowers for their hair, decorated pineapples and coconuts and got to eat snow cones.

Crandall Peak-Memorial Day Weekend

 Friday afternoon after work we loaded up for a weekend trip to Crandall Peak.  The plan was to go to our friends property again, but their was snow at the property and the roads leading into the property were closed so we went to a place called Crandall Peak instead.  Crandall Peak is up past Mi-Wuk in the Stanislaus National Forest.

Saturday afternoon we went for a drive.  Those with dirt bikes and quads rode those, the rest of us either went in a jeep or a scout.  John and I and the girls along with our friends youngest daughter followed the pack in a jeep.

Everyone getting ready to go.  There were at least 15 dirt bikes and quads.

Mikayla, Riley and Ashlee in the back of the jeep.

The trail we went on.

The trail led us to Sand Bar Flat.  There was a little campground there and this huge waterfall (spill way).



Brooke, Mikayla and Allison climbed to the top of this rock.



The whole time we were there, we experienced just about every type of weather imaginable.  The sun would shine for a while.  Then it would get cold.  Rain, hail and even this:

 That's right.  SNOW.  Those white dots are SNOW.  Not stars.  SNOW in MAY in CALIFORNIA!

 It even started to stick to the ground.  There was even enough to make little snow balls.

Ashlee and Alyssa

Austin making a snow ball.  He through it at everyone standing around the campfire.  That ignited a snow ball fight between John and Austin. 
All together their were 5 families. 18 Kids between 5 families.  15 girls and 3 boys.  Here is a picture of all but one of the girls.  One of the familes, just came up for the day Saturday and went home Saturday night.  We came home on Sunday. John and I had to work on Monday.

Sarah, Taylor, Ashlee S., Alyssa, Ashlee A.
Riley, Brooke, Allison, Mikayla, Heather

HUGS

More hugs.

Another camping trip that came to an end way too soon.  Three more days and school will be over with for the summer.  Maybe some more camping trips will be in our future....

Tracy Invitational Swim Meet-First Swim Meet for 2011

Ashlee doing the 50 yard back stroke. 

Ashlee 50yd backstroke



Mikayla getting ready to swim the backstroke



Mikayla on edge of deck waiting for whistle to get in pool.  Her back says "Eat my bubbles."



Mikayla.  Finally smiling after a very ROUGH start to her day.



Ashlee swimming 100 yd freestyle.

Ashlee 100yd freestyle

Ashlee getting ready to dive in

 Today was the first swim meet of the year.  We went to Tracy for this swim meet.  It was an invitational swim meet which meant that every team in the league was there.  There are so many swimmers and events that they have to divide the meet up into two days.  Since the second half of the meet was on Sunday, we only went to the first half on Saturday.

Ashlee swam the 100 yard freestyle and the 50 yard backstroke.  Ashlee was so close to winning both her events, but she uses all her energy in the beginning and looses her "steam" in the end, so the other swimmers catch up to her.  She really has to work on pacing herself.  She did a great job.

Mikayla's day got off to a very ROUGH start.  She woke up screaming and crying on Saturday morning.  She decided some time during the night that she didn't want to swim in the meet today and she wasn't going to do it.  Not doing the meet wasn't an option.  The team had to pay $20 for each swimmer to enter the meet and the money was non-refundable so she had to swim.  I finally got her calmed down and convinced that she could do it. 

Once we got to Tracy, she discovered that the coach entered her into a relay race to do the breaststroke and she didn't want to the the breaststroke.  She started another screaming fit.  Needless to say, I had about had it with her for the day.   It was only 7:45am and we had already been through two screaming fits with her.  If she couldn't swim the relay, that meant the whole relay team couldn't swim the relay.  She finally decided to ask the coach to switch her to the backstroke in the relay. Lucky for her,  he was nice enough to do that, but that meant that two other people on the team had to swim a stroke that they were not comfortable with.  Talk about a MESS.  Needless to say, their relay team got disqualified ALL because of Mikayla and her screaming fit.  I felt so horrible for the team.  I also felt like a horrible parent, with this child that screamed and cried and through a fit until she finally got her way.

For some reason she has it in grained in her head that she can only swim the backstroke and won't swim any other stroke.  Even though she is probably better at the other strokes.  She thinks since she got first place swimming the backstroke last year that's all she can do.  Plus she has developed some sort of fear about putting her head under water.   She doesn't have a problem swimming these other strokes under water at practice all week.  Go figure!    I am thankful our coach is being patient with her.  He know's she is good and doesn't want her to give up.  But I don't know how much longer the patience is going to last.  He continues to bend over backwards to make her happy and she continues to be a pain.  He doesn't want her to quit, but at the same time, it's not fair to everyone else on the team.  I HOPE SHE GETS OVER THIS SOON.  VERY SOON! 

Integrity

Each year the school usually has a luncheon for all the parents that volunteered their time throughout the school year.  This year they decided to do something different.  They had each class do a short little skit for the parents that volunteered in their classroom. Each volunteer was recognized with a bookmark and a pen at the assemebly.  The pictures above are of Mikayla's class doing their skit.  The sign read "Your help has made us bloom."

Only a few students from Ashlee's class along with some students from the other 4th grade class participated in her class skit. Ashlee was one of them.  They read an acrostic poem about everything volunteers mean to them.

The second half of the assembly was a life skills assembly.  Each month they learn a new "life skill" in life skills class and each teacher picks a student that they believe exhibits that life skill the most.  This month's life skill was INTEGRITY.  Mikayla got the award for her class.  Ms. Reyes (her teacher) explained that Mikayla always does what she knows to be right, even when no one else is looking.  She said that Mikayla was always listed on her sub plans as the one student that could help the sub.  Here are some pictures of Mikayla getting her award.

Ms. Reyes and Mikayla.  (Mikayla is in teal)



Mikayla getting a hug from her principal Mrs. Smith



This is the award Mikayla received.

Great job Mikayla.  We are proud of you.