Last Day of School!!

Thursday was our last day of school.

It is so hard to believe that it is already over and there is one more school year down.

Here is a photo of the boys leaving for their first day of school.

They are standing in front of our "home".  At that time we were still living in the hotel.  I don't miss the close quarters of that hotel, but I do miss the delicious coffee that was available 24/7 in the lobby.

I failed to get a picture of the boys in front of our house on the last day of school.  Darn.  

I need to be a bit better at capturing these moments.  In my head they look exactly the same now as they did then, but the reality is they don't. Eli grew out of his pants by November and now Gabe is wearing those same pants Eli started the school year wearing.  I suppose that is quite a bit of growing.

I told the boys to remind me to get their picture on the last day of school.  But we all forgot. It might have something to do with the fact that I was running late for work and so I shoved them out the door,  pointed them toward the bus stop, and threw out some "I love you" fingers as I passed them by.

It was so moving.  I'm sure they will always remember how special I made their last day.  

Fail.

So I went to work and my coworkers and I spend the last few hours of the school year chatting about summer and enjoying our last day together.  One teacher is retiring and the other is looking for a different position next year.  So this was the last time the three of us will be together at work.  All kinds of craziness broke out about 10 minutes before the bell rang.  Kids were running all over the place, music was blaring from the speakers, and bus horns were blasting.  The kids all waved good bye and gave hugs and then boarded buses.  But that wasn't the end of it, the buses make some sort of victory lap around the school, come back through the bus lane and then left.  Mayhem.  Total mayhem.  

It was fabulous.

Here is a picture of Eli and his sweet friend T at their "moving up" ceremony at school.  The fifth graders never got their chance to be the big kids on campus.  This year 5th and 6th are moving on to Middle School.  They had a nice little ceremony handing the kids their diploma and then a little slide show of all the kids.  They ran out of cake before I could snag a piece.  So wrong.

This little girl is so darn beautiful.  Obviously, she is the reason for Eli's super huge smile on his face.  He asked me not to post the photo on Facebook though because he didn't want his other sweet friend M to see.  He's keeping options open on both coasts.

Although we have had a fair experience at this school, I'm glad we are out of there.  Eli and Gabe both had some fabulous teachers but the school itself doesn't have much parent involvement, the PTA does all of about nothing, the office staff must get paid extra if they conserve their words because they refuse to speak to me, and there is quite possibly the most horrid grumpy woman in the world working there. She calls herself "The Queen" which I suppose is appropriate if she is referring to the queen on Alice in Wonderland.  

So it was with great pleasure that I told the silent office lady 'peace out', and corrected the principal when he told Gabe "see you next year".  I said "nope, he is moving UP to the East Side" or something like that.

The kids and I had a celebratory dinner the last day of school and then I slept in on Friday.  

We are now packed and ready to roll as soon at Matt gets home we are CA bound!