end of school odds and ends

 Ethan's Cambridge language arts class put on The Prince and the Pauper for any parents who wanted to watch, so Chris and I went to enjoy the show. The kids did a great job, although we had to laugh that all but two of the kids had no emotion in their voices or faces as they recited their lines. Ethan had two or three lines, and since he was gone the day they chose their parts he was assigned to be the sheriff -- he said he would have chosen a part with fewer lines.

 Ethan was invited to the awards night at his school, and got a medal and certificate for being on the honor roll and having good citizenship.

 Ethan has been friends with this boy Jack since we moved here. He's been a good friend to Ethan, and we'll miss his friendly, perky personality when we move.

 This year Josh surprised us by joining the Morning Mile fitness club. He always complains whenever we do anything physical or active, so we were pleased he chose to start running in the morning. Luckily our bus came early enough every morning that he had plenty of time each day to run.

 Here are all the second graders who ran this year. Anyone who ran got a certificate, but the kids who ran over 25 miles during the year got a t-shirt. Josh was proud that he got one!

 He also got the award for being his grade's top mile marker. He ran 61.8 miles over the last 8 months.

 One of Ethan's last science assignments was to show a collection of something science-y. He called up his Uncle Tanner the geologist and figured out what all the pieces of his rock collection were, and he proudly told the class about it. He said one kid purchased a rock collection on line, but Ethan enjoyed telling the kids where he got the rocks.

 Some Josh art. The bird says Kaw, the other bird says Twete, and the fish says Bllub.

 All the kids went on cool field trips (I didn't get pics of Ashley's horse show, or Ethan's Adventure Island water park field trip because I wasn't there) at the end of the year, and Josh's last field trip was to a fishery. We had to use giant nets to fish "critters" out of the water, then examine them.

If I had known what was in store in this field trip, I might not have gone. The lady made the chaperons hold the water bugs and beetles, and other creepy crawly things so the kids could get a closer look.

Then after learning about fish, they handed us some big rods and some rotten, greasy, frozen hot dog pieces and had us go fishing. Josh immediately caught a fish, and we waited forever to flag the lady down so she could help us get the fish off the hook, since I'd never been fishing before. Then when the other boy in our group caught a fish I had to take the hook out of the fish's poor little mouth. I wish I took a picture of Josh catching a fish, but it was too late, my fingers were covered with slimy hot dogs and fish juice. Just know that Josh wasn't too happy about catching a fish, it freaked him out a little, and he didn't want to fish anymore after a few more tries.

3 more days and school will be done! Bring on summer.