Ryan & Erinn's Family: May 2019

At the beginning of May, Ryan took the boys to an airshow marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

Elise turned twelve! She celebrated with candy, dinner at Din Tae Fung, a renewal of her craft box subscription, and an Oreo ice cream cake. Since she was already attending Young Women, it seemed like she had already been twelve for awhile.

Dumplings, Fried Rice, and Mango Slushie

Right around Elise's birthday, we also got a visit from Nana and Grandpa Al! On one of the days they were here, we went to the Ronald Regan Presidential Library. It's a pretty great museum - the kids had fun and learned a little history. Nana cooked for us almost the entire visit. She and Al are always so kind to our family!

Celeste Liked Nana's Sloppy Joes

Piano Concert

I enrolled Celeste in a week of intensive swim lessons. I had always bashed this type of lesson, preferring the idea of gentle exposure and teaching kids to "love the water." But, I was so worried about Celeste finding her way into the pool this summer that I went ahead and subjected her to water torture. She cried a little the first two days, then settled down for the most part. By Friday, she was putting her face in and swimming to the side or steps of the pool independently! Since that barrier had been broken, I was then able to work with her all summer to the point that, by September, she was 95% pool safe. (Although, obviously, she wasn't old enough to be left alone.)

First Day!

Last Day + Lollipop!

After a year of preparation, Ryan and I went on our first-ever hunting trip up in Parkfield, CA (near Paso Robles). The trip had been scheduled for March, but rain had washed out the roads and we had to reschedule. We watched the forecast all week, worrying that the same thing would happen again. Our guide's name was Kyler Hamaan, and he was actually a realtor with a degree in wildlife biology who did hunts on the side to be able to keep his family's ranch. He was really interesting to talk to. We would meet him before dawn, drive around in his SUV all day looking for pigs, then head back to the little Parkfield Lodge to sleep. We saw a bunch of pigs, but never got a shot at any, for various reasons. It was so much fun to just be out in nature, away from kids and work, that I didn't care at all that we didn't get anything. Ryan cared a little, but he still had a great time. We're super grateful to the Swarts, who watched the kids at night while we were gone. During the day, they mostly babysat themselves, although Adrienne Allen stopped in twice to make sure they were being slightly productive.

Population 18

Parkfield Lodge Common Room

Jen Swart gave these to the kids for "Red Nose Day"

We finally came to the end of the school year! Recitation night went really well, even though I was stressed about having to participate with my Latin class.

Junior Choir

1st Grade

Fourth Grade

Henle + Third Form

Junior High Graduation Certificates

Shakespeare Selection (Taming of the Shrew)

National Latin Exam - Intro (Second Form!)

National Latin Exam - Level 1

Senior Choir

The littles are always bad at Recitation Night. It's kind of long!

Then there was the Recitation Night after-party!

Emmy, Vivienne, Aliya, Eleni, Elise

Conrad was serving as skateboard judge.

Clockwise: Levi, Jeremy, Sasha, Peter, Scarlett, Valentina, Micah, Corinne

There was an additional performance/picnic a week later where, among other things, the whole upper school performed "Don't Stop Believing" as kind of a joke. It had become something of an obsession that year for reasons nobody understood.