The second half of Griffin’s Spanish exchange has begun. He flew off to Madrid on Monday, June 8, and we’ve gotten a few pictures from his first two days. He is staying with Irene, the student who lived with us for two weeks in September. In one of Griffin’s first texts, he wrote, “I already feel my confidence in Spanish improving over the course of an hour. Irene’s little brother is asking me so many questions lol!” Thank goodness for inquisitive kids!
Here are some of the first pictures we’ve received.
Since this blog’s birth in 2009, we’ve never gone longer than a month without posting until now. This spring has been particularly heavy. A combination of external events (ICE activity), family health scares, and unexpected challenges at school pulled my attention away from this online family scrapbook.
The good news, however, is that the health scares are behind us, ICE has mostly departed (with plenty of caveats), and the school year has ended.
I’ve got some additional posts coming soon. (I may backdate some posts so they fit into the sequence properly, but this is my first actual post since February.)
Oliver wraps up his third grade year this week. This is a big transition year in Montessori from “Lower Elementary” to “Upper Elementary.” Oliver has spend the past three years in the same classroom. At this point, he is one of the leaders. Next year he will enter a 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classroom as one of the newcomers. He is, of course, both ready and excited for the change.
The final days of school have dress up themes. Wednesday’s theme was “Fancy.” Alas, Oliver discovered that he had outgrown his suit, but we think he came up with a pretty good substitute. And the hat! Love the hat.
Despite all the land around our house, we haven’t grown many vegetables yet. We’ve planted a few tomato and pepper plants around the edges of other plots, and a few herbs, but nothing like the small farm we had at our old place.
With her characteristic energy, Sarah decided to do something about that this summer. Using recovered cedar and some redwood from our old deck, we built two new raised beds. Sarah came up with the box design and built the first one. Oliver and I then tackled the second, larger one. In addition, Sarah has been extending the existing mulched plantings in the yard to introduce local prairie grasses, milkweed for the monarchs, and native flowers.
