Hailee's 8th Grade Grauation

Tonight we attended my niece, Hailee's, 8th grade graduation.  She graduated from the same school that her great grandma, grandpa, dad, and countless great aunts, great uncles, cousins and other relatives attended.  This school seems to have a lot of generations attend it, so for part of their graduation ceremony, they did a ceremony where the graduates spoke about their past generations of family members, and awarded them with a mug with the school logo on it.  Hailee was the 4th generation in her family to graduate from this school.

My Grandma Irene (Hailee's Great Grandma) was there put it was easier for Hailee to walk to her, it all happened so quickly that I didn't get a picture.  This is Hailee awarding my Dad (her grandpa) with his mug.  My dad was lucky enough to be there.  A few days before this, he was in the hospital, he had his second heart attack in less than a year.  

End of 5th Grade Class Party

The girls don't get out of school until June 5th, and let me tell you it cannot seem to come fast enough!  This last stretch just seems to be dragging on.  Mikayla had her end of the year class party yesterday.  Her class and the other 5th grade class, went to the park.  They walked to the park, had a bbq, snowcones, and played water games. baseball, jousting, etc, all day long.  I don't think there was one kid that did not get wet from water balloons or squirt guns.

Serena, Mikayla, Allison, Karah and Brooke

In the middle of the grass is Mikayla and a couple of her friends wheeling an ice chest full of water balloons.

Mikayla and Jordan S. jousting

Living Museum Project

Ashlee has been working on her Living Museum Project since December.  Originally she was suppose to do her project on Mildred Taylor, the author of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, but our county library did not have any books on her,;so she had to change her person to C.S. Lewis.  Ashlee did a great job on her project, she did everything on her own, with little help from me.  I just helped her assemble the final project.

John's 37th birthday

For the first time in John's life, he has a job that gives him a day off for his birthday, and he decided to go to work anyways!  The girls and I made dinner for him and the girls did a little bit of decorating.  His schedule is so unpredictable, that I never know when he is getting off work, one day it could be 6pm the next 9pm.  We had dinner done at 7:00ish and he did not get home until 8:15pm.  The kids and I were ready to celebrate his birthday without him, as wrong as that is.  The girls go to bed at 8:30pm, so it was somewhat of a rushed birthday celebration. While typing this post, I just realized that I didn't get any pictures of anything else besides the decorations, because it was too late at night! Oh well, it's the thought that counts!

Alcatraz

Mikayla had her 5th grade class field trip today to Alcatraz.  The traffic getting there was awful.  It took us 3 hours to get there.  We left at 6:45am and a friend of ours left an hour after us and they made it there 5 minutes after we did.  That's how bad it was!  Other than the traffic, the rest of the day was fine, we had a fun trip and on the way back we stopped at The Cheesecake Factory for a late lunch early dinner!

On the third floor of the boat.

Lining up to get on the boat to go out to Alcatraz Island

Jordan, Karah, Allison and Mikayla

Outside of Alcatraz looking towards San Francisco

The Golden Gate Bridge

Allison,Mikayla and Jordan

Allison, Mikayla and Jordan

On the boat, arriving to Alcatraz Island

Qualidra, Mikayla, Karah, Allison and Jordan

Qualidra, Jordan, Allison and Mikayla

Qualidra, Jordan, Allison, Mikala and Karah

The area were the inmates got to do sports like baseball.

Mikayla and Jordan behind bars!

I wonder what the true reasoning was behind shutting this place down.  Towards the end of the audio tour, it says something along the lines of, "Kennedy shut Alcatraz down, because they felt that prisoners needed to be rehabilitated instead of punished"!  That about sums up why we have the mess we have today, don't you think?  We are living in a society were right is wrong and wrong is right, and there are no consequences for ones actions, or respect for others and their property!

Love Turlock

Today the girls and I along with my brother, and my niece and nephew participated in a community service project called Love Turlock.  Hailee, my niece needed to complete some community service hours to graduate from 8th grade so Ashlee decided she would go with her, and then Mikayla and I decided to go too.  We were assigned to a group and our group was assigned to two senior citizen mobile home parks.  There was lots to do.  Window washing, pressure washing, weed pulling, yard clean-up, hauling off garbage, etc.  The service project ended up being about 5 hours long.  After that we went to help John and Adam do work at the rabbits.  Needless to say after 5 hours of Love Turlock and 4 hours at the rabbits, we were beat when we got home!

Ashlee, Hailee, Mikayla and Landon

Landon holding a bunny

Mikayla holding a bunny

Easter

After attending church we went to my Mom's house and had lunch with family followed by an egg hunt.  This year we had more eggs than places to hide them.  For the last three years we have hid a golden egg with money in it.  And every year Hailee is the one that finds it. John was a bit awnry (I know that's surprising) as he was hiding the eggs, he was eating the candy out of them and stuffing them with grass or leaving them empty.  So the kids were not too happy when they got grass filled eggs or empty eggs!

Mikayla, Ashlee, Hailee, Landon, Dylan

John stuffed eggs into a hole in the railroad tie.  Landon is digging them all out.

Landon basically filled his bucket with the eggs stuffed in the hole.