End of 2nd Grade and Sort of an "Era"

Today not only marked the last day of 2nd Grade for Jack but also the end of his time at Bannockburn. He has been there for 3 years, so this is somewhat emotional for us--especially me. Jack will do fine in the public system, but there is something just better about private. That being said however, I have heard only positive things about his new elementary. He will now have neighborhood friends and he will be around a lot more people.

This morning they had the award ceremonies, and Jack dominated academically (and on Track and Field Day on the 25th :)). He maintained a 95% or above in all academic areas, plus did phenomenal with his Accelerated Reading--he read and took tests on 53 books for a score of 78.5 points! This earned him Amy's Ice Cream coupons, a nice certificate, and a trophy. For those that may not know about AR points, this is a great achievement because all this reading and test taking is on top of everything else required. Not only did he earn the AR points, but he had the option to participate in the 6 hour reading program. He did this too and earned himself a ticket to Fiesta Texas San Antonio.

Now onto summer where Jack will attend Camp DoubleCreek, which he absolutely loves. He will spend some time in Wisconsin then head back to start the big 3rd Grade.

Jack and his teacher Mrs. Hammel, August 2009.

Jack and Mrs. Hammel, May 28, 2010.

End of the year bowling party, May 27, 2010.

Jack acting like he's the bowling ball.

Jack and his buddy Vinhsanh.

The Penguin!

Jack's teacher is fascinated with penguins, so for the whole month of January they studied the various types of penguins, their habitats and so on. At the end of the unit, the kids are allowed to dress as a penguin for the day. Jack, from what I hear, had the best costume. I will admit, Duane was the mastermind behind the costume. After it was said and done, we had about a $40 penguin headed to school. The pictures really don't do the costume justice.

Jack did come home describing penguins I had never even heard of, so it was fun listening to his descriptions. His favorite seems to be the Emperor.

This week we are working on a penguin report and a diorama. I helped him with the diorama, and I will have to say, it is very cool! Jack is very creative and really made some neat things for it. The picture of that will be coming soon!

Scatter

Jack and I made the trip to the pet store this weekend for some hermit crab supplies and maybe another hermit crab. We picked out fresh sand, food, and a new toy for the crabs, plus he found one more crab that he liked.

While the worker was boxing up the crab, I saw a little rodent (thought it was a mouse at first) come out in a container on the stand that she was using to get the crab situated. I inquired because I figured they had to be quarantined for some reason. She said there was nothing wrong with them, they just can't be sold since they were born in the store. In situations like that they must be adopted. At this point I was still just having a conversation with her and had no intention of getting another hamster. I then proceeded to ask how much they are to adopt---she said free. Well, Jack heard that and that was the end of the story. Jack knew however that if Hammy did not like her new roommate that the baby would have to find a different.

We came home with $35 worth of crab and hamster supplies and a free hamster. Jack introduced Hammy and Scatter (she got the name because she is all over the place) and they have gotten along great. No fighting!

For rodents, they are quite cute. Jack loves both of them, and I finally had to have them put back in their cage so they could have a break from him. He has made a very nice home for them with a wheel, a playscape like thing, chew toys, and a tunnel.

We assume Scatter is about 5 weeks old, and we have no idea of Hammy's exact age. The picture of Anya is random because no pictures are allowed in her world unless she's in them too :)

Various shots from Christmas

We headed to Wisconsin for two weeks over the Christmas break. In that time we did some skiiing, saw Santa, went snowshoeing, went the Green Bay Packer game, and just had fun in the snow!

On our way to Wisconsin, we stopped in Kearney, Nebraska to visit some friends which was nice. Along on the trip were Bailey and Alexa too, so it was a full truck, especially on the way back with all the Christmas loot.

The pictures are in no particular order and are all goofy because Blogspot was being a pain!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Numero Uno!

It's been awhile since I've updated, so I figured I better get to it once again. About a week ago Jack and I went up to a Badger game, and Jack had a great time. About $70 later Jack was geared up to go and ready for the game.

Jack dancing to some tunes after the game.

Jack was also in the Oshkosh Holiday parade, and this is a few hours before it started. There was some initial resistance regarding the elf hat, but eventually it grew on him.

My dad was the Grand Marshall, so Jack was the Mini-Grand Marshall. He seemed to have a good time riding along once he got going. The firetruck was from the 30s I believe, and at the time it goes $10,000. The man driving, Eric, bought it from someone while it was all in pieces in a box and put it together. A very nice ride.

Since the holiday spirit has begun, here is Jack eating at the classroom Thanksgiving luncheon we had on the 19th. And yes, he does have all 4 food groups on that plate.


This is Madeleine with Jack. She happens to be the same Madeleine that Jack had a "brawl" with only a few weeks back. Sweet little things now, and there actually appeared to be some love in the air with the past behind them :)

Camp Texlake

This past weekend we went camping with some friends at Camp Texlake, which is a Girl Scout camp, but in the off-season they have family camp too. We had a nice cabin with everything in there except a kitchen. We also had a nice private camp fire ring that drew in a little visitor--Mr. Fox. Apparently he just sat about 5 feet away from Duane at night and watched the camp fire with him. I think his main mission was to get any s'more remnants he could find. He ended up chewing the heck out of a Capri Sun pouch too.

On Saturday we hiked around and later in the afternoon we did archery for about an hour. It's a nice area, and very secluded from the city. It was unfortunate that the lake was so low as we were not able to do any boating or fishing.

The recent rains had brought in about 5 boat docks from other locations on the lake. One of them alone appeared to be about a $500,000 dock. That was quickly found however because the wealthy woman who owned it had a GPS system on it that tracked it. I have to laugh when a boat ramp costs more than my house!

Anyway, we had a nice time, and it was nice to get out of the city for awhile.