Spencer's last day of school

Spencer was "technically" supposed to go to school for 1.5 days after Memorial Day, but due to our travel plans (and also feeling that going to school for 1.5 days after a holiday is stupid), his last day was Friday the 26th.  

He got up before me that morning and all on his own decided to cut out a bunch of bubble letters to make a card for his teacher. 

It went well with the Teacher gift pack we got her from Penzeys.

We took all of his last day of school pictures before he left for the bus.  He was actually really happy and in a good mood, so I don't know where the fake smiles and exasperation came from.  

Feel free to just scroll.  I have all of the last day pictures followed by the corresponding first day and last day collage. 

  

  

We went to school after Spencer got home and took his "outside of the classroom" picture. We also decided we're only going to do this particular picture in elementary school.  We'll eliminate it starting in junior high.

And finally, we got out the class of 2026 t-shirt once again for the standard last day of school picture

I decided to do Elliott's last day in a separate post.  Stay tuned. 

The last days of the 2016-2017 school year.

Last Tuesday, May 23rd, both of the kids went into their rooms to get dressed for school.  They each selected their own clothes and put them on while I was in the kitchen packing lunches.   They came out of their rooms at the same time.

Elliott was delighted and Spencer was disgusted that they were wearing the exact same outfit. 

Seriously.  Exact same shorts and exact same shirt.  What are the chances that they would each select the same thing without knowledge of what the other was doing?

At work that day I took a packet of paperwork to a kid in 3rd grade and when I went into his classroom one of my other kids asked if I would sign his yearbook.  I said of course I would and then he opened to this page and told me to sign there. 

Look!  I made the year book.  I don't think that has ever happened before.  In 13 years I'm pretty sure this is a first.  Maybe it's not though and I'm just not aware of it.  That's kind of horrifying to think about. 

Spencer wanted to try his bath bombs again on Tuesday night.  He put in four of them and then they didn't all dissolve, so he had a lumpy bath. 

Elliott took a bubble bath in our tub at the same time. 

Wednesday the 24th was my last day of work before a week and a half off.  I had been working on my end of the year to-do list for weeks and had it down to this for my last day.  This took me all day.  Mostly because the resource teacher made several huge mistakes and I had to fix them before I could do my job.  And yes, I had to fix them.  He's not returning because his contract wasn't renewed and he didn't care at all that it was his mistake and that I literally could not write my part without first fixing what he had done. 

This is the only picture I took at home on Wednesday. 

On Thursday the 25th Elliott and I stayed home all day.  It was glorious.  

That night, after dinner, we all drove to the airport to meet my brother Nathan, sister-in-law Kendra, and niece Bella during their layover.  I got a glass of wine, the kids got gelato, Michael stuck with a boring glass or water and Nathan, Kendra and Bella ate dinner.  

Nathan tricked me into eating a bite of radish.  He claims he had no idea they were radishes.  

We got to spend a tiny bit more than an hour with them .

Up next: the very last day of school- 3rd grade and preschool. 

Michael's very big and special day

Michael found out, about three months ago, that he had been selected as Employee of the Year for his bureau within the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The honor came with no pay raise whatsoever, but he was invited to participate in the annual DPS awards ceremony on Monday, May 22nd.

In preparation of the big day I did a new set of jamberry wraps the day before the ceremony.  They were really pretty but they have not lasted at all.  It's the worst set I've ever done. Maybe I made a mistake, maybe they are defective, or maybe it's just a fluke, but the pointer and middle fingers (on both hands) started peeling the next day. The rest of the nails are faring much better. 

I straight up suck at taking these nail pictures. 

The day of the ceremony Michael went to work and Spencer went to school.  We had invited my family to come back to our house after the ceremony for dinner, so I tried to get some stuff prepped.

I thought I'd cut up the jarred mangos, but it was a no go.  I could not open this jar no matter what I tried. 

The ceremony was at Phoenix College.  The room was nice and large and also incredibly air conditioned, which was great. 

A quick selfie (groupie?) before the ceremony started. 

The whole thing took a little less than two hours.  There were lots and lots and lots of awards. 

Here's Michael- slightly edited for privacy. 

I recorded the presentation which is good because he has amnesia for the time he was up on stage. 

We asked Michael's co-worker to take our picture after the ceremony.  The picture is nice, but there's a terrible butt in the background that I knew I would not be able to edit out. 

Yellow curtain is better. 

The plaque is already hanging in his office. 

We bought this celebratory chocolate cake at Costco, 

which ended up being kind of stupid, since we had brought this cake home from Brendan and Travis's house. 

And how did Ginger feel about all of it?  She didn't care.  She just wanted snacks from the pantry. 

Waiting patiently.

When I went to bed that night there was no thank you note from Michael thanking me for supporting him in his career, but Spencer had tucked Dry Bowser in my bed with a note to snuggle him.