May 21, 2013

  • An Adorable Graduation....

    TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

    She made it!  She graduated from kindergarten.  A lot of the grandparents, families and friends of the children were talking before the program started and some of them talked about how different things are now from when they were kids.  We really had no idea what the program involved except that Chewlee said they were going to sing and it was a surprise.

    A surprise it was, indeed.  The kids didn't just sing ONE song, there were 10 different songs in all.  The kids sang well and enthusiastically.  We could see Chewlee who was on one of the back benches that were tiered so you could see all the kids.   She was actually one of the taller kids in her class so she was on the back bench.  We were kidding around and hoping she wouldn't come up with an idea of mooning the audience (she didn't.  She behaved well and we watched her singing like she was an opera star).  The kids (9 kindergarten classes total) even sang a song where they were signing so that deaf people would know what they were saying.  I think everyone was amazed.  Who knew they could all keep it together and sing so well as a group.

    The Beast realized he had brought the wrong lens on his camera.  He got a few good shots of the stage but I haven't seen them all yet.  I'll still try to get a few to post tomorrow.  I don't think he got a close shot of Chewlee but, like I said, I haven't seen all the pictures yet.

    Afterward, we drove to a local restaurant to eat and talk about the program.  Chewlee was actually doing a word search problem that was on the restaurants kid activity/coloring pages.  She would circle the words and then color them in so you could see all the words she found easily.  She was also doing a maze problem that was giving her fits.  She decided to save it for later to do at home.

    We were exhausted when we got home (my excuse for not doing this earlier) so we put our feet up and took a nap.  Mine ended up being for four hours....sorry!  I don't know about you but being in a huge crowd of people (especially after the program was over) just exhausts me.  You have so many bodies to get around and we were parked so far away from the auditorium.  I spotted the Princess and Johnnycakes and they had found Chewlee so I made my way over to them.  I got a big hug from Chewlee.  The kids all had different color tshirts on for each class and the kids were on the grassy area with all of their classmates so you just had to look for their class color to find your child.  With nine different classes, they took up a lot of lawn area.

    Everyone was in a good mood because the program was just so cute.  I think everyone was amazed at how many songs the kids learned AND remembered all the words.  Only one song had an adult voice that sang with the kids.  There was one little boy that looked like he was going to cry all the time.  Later on, when he was outside, I saw him with his family and realized he looked like that all the time!  When he finally smiled, he had the cutest face with big dimples.  When they handed out the certificates showing they graduated, some of the kids were Mexican/Spanish and they had long names because of the mother's surname being a part of it.  One little boy ... and I mean he was very small....had this LONG name.  He wasn't the only one but he was the first.  When he strolled out on the stage, he just didn't fit his name.  I remember his first name was Ulysses.  He looked like a little elf.  So cute.

    I guess you can tell I had a good time.  I also had some of the best French onion soup I've had in a long time when we went to the restaurant.  It was extremely cheesy.  I loved having to wind the cheese around my spoon because it was nice and hot when I got it so the cheese was very stretchy.

    The weather was great...no rain to ruin the time after the program.  Tomorrow we should have more of the same, including hot weather.  I am watching the late night weather channel coverage of the tornado damage in Moore, OK.  It's incredible and I am so sorry for the loss of life as well as the kids that were injured because they were in school when the tornado hit them.  So many acts of heroism by teachers who ended up injured protecting their students.  Please remember to add them to your prayers.

    Gotta get this posted now.  Love you all.  Be careful and stay safe.  These storms are not good ones.