May

At the beginning of May was the Sonatina Festival.  Elise and Corinne played their sonatinas and did well.  Ryan got a great picture of Elise with her good friend Eleni (who is pretty much a piano prodigy, among other things.)
  

Elise turned eleven!  We got an Oreo ice-cream cake, and went to the Vegas Seafood Buffet (not in Las Vegas.)  Her main gift was a subscription to Kiwi Crate - a craft box that arrives once a month.
   

Being twins with Ashlee Peralta

Buffet Desserts

Clothes from Nana and Al

In rememberance of Grandpa, we celebrated his birthday by doing math puzzles one evening.  I was surprised by how much the kids enjoyed it.
  

Ryan took the boys to the Father-Son Campout.  It was chilly, but at some point they saw a bunch of Bison.  That's pretty much all I know.
  

Evan and Corinne did their graduation performance in their gymnastics classes.  It was pretty cute.  Also kind of long, since there were two hour-long ceremonies back-to-back.  But they got medals at the end, which is mostly what they cared about!
  

Corinne's Grand Entrance

Recitation Night!  All the kids' school classes showed off the things they've learned this year, and awards were presented.  Celeste was pretty wiggly, so I didn't get a ton of pictures.
  

Corinne - Kindergarten

Evan - 2nd Grade

The young kids got to sit with their families when their classes were done performing.

Elise - First Form Latin

Connor received a "Gold" certificate for his National Latin Exam results.

Random good pictures:
  

Celeste loves the toys at Mrs. Yoder's house.

Lizard

School Offerings for Next Year!

Doughnuts Downtown with Aunt Helena

Making a Lean-To for the Pioneering Merit Badge

Playdate with SASHA!!

At the end of May, we drove downtown, parked at the train station, then took a shuttle to the airport, then caught a flight to St. Louis to start our Tennessee Trip!  (All those steps were just to save a few dollars in parking fees.)  We spent a day in Saint Louis visiting Ryan's friend George, then drove to Dyersburg, where we stayed with Nana and Al.  My primary goal on the trip was to see a firefly, and I was immediately overwhelmed by how many there were in Dyersburg - it was magical to the point of seeming unreal, every evening.  Al made fun of me for calling them fireflies.  The proper term there is "lightning bugs."
       

Sago Mini Toys on the Airplane

Birds of Prey at Reelfoot Lake

Elise and I were so excited to catch a baby frog!

Walks with Ryan (With Rainbows and Fireflies)

Toads!

After a couple of days, we left Dyersburg with Nana and Al to take our trip north to see the Ark Encounter.  On the way there, we saw a turtle crossing the road and couldn't help stopping.  It peed all over when I picked it up.  We also passed through the "Land Between the Lakes", where we paid to drive through the "Elk and Bison Prairie".  We saw no elk or bison, unfortunately, but we did see a flock of wild turkeys, which was almost as good.  We made a brief stop in Louisville to visit the primary campus of Highlands Latin School - the flagship school that created the curriculum we use at Highlands Latin Pasadena (called Memoria Press.)  
  
Ryan had a bad attitude about going to the Ark Encounter, but even he had to admit it was pretty impressive.  They've created a life-size replica of Noah's Ark, with displays all throughout that suggested ways that the animals and people could have survived and stored supplies.  It was a very literal viewpoint that I found fascinating - they interpret certain scriptures as meaning that there were dinosaurs on the Ark - so more than a third of the animal models inside are of small "juvenile" dinosaurs.  There was also a petting zoo outside (no dinosaurs), where the little kids fixated on the goats and wallabies.  We ended the visit with dinner in the on-site buffet.
     

The next day, we parted ways with Nana and Al to detour through Kentucky to visit Mammoth Cave.  On the way, we got to experience a real summer thunderstorm.  I'd forgotten that rain back east is not the same as rain where I grew up - it's like driving under a waterfall.  We pulled under an overpass for a few minutes until it felt safe to drive again.  At Mammoth Cave, the kids (except for Connor - he thinks he's too old) did the Junior Ranger program there, and we took a cave tour.  The cave was amazing in its size, but I was a little stressed because the park rangers said (after we got into the cave) that I couldn't put Celeste in the backpack carrier, and they got after Corinne for wearing flashing shoes.  It wasn't the most pristine cave we've been to, but it was still beautiful, and is supposedly the longest cave system in the world.
 

River Ferry

  

"Fat Man's Misery"

Junior Rangers

  

We stopped in Nashville the next day to eat hot chicken at Hattie B.'s, then went home to Nana and Al's house.  We spent a few more days with them - visiting their friends, catching toads, staring at lightning-bugs, and visiting a drive-through safari where you could feed the animals from your car window.  That place was so awesome, but never, ever would you see something like it in California.

  

 

  
We left Dyersburg on our second-to-last morning, and drove to St. Louis again, where we visited the Saint Louis Arch.  I was not a fan of the dodgy AirBnB Ryan chose for us, nor was I keen on the fact that we ended up wandering in the dark in one of the most crime-ridden parts of St. Louis.  The arch itself was as cool as I remembered it, though.
    

Wearing Al's Slippers

Ryan's Cousin, Savannah

Not for the Claustrophobic

Crime Map.  Note the icons of people being stabbed.