This was our second “last day” this year (the first was back in China), and it was fun to be amidst all that eager anticipation of freedom in such a different way this time around.
Lucy’s friend invited all their friends over for doughnuts before they headed out for school that morning.  This was before the majority of them arrived but I couldn’t resist taking a picture.
Here they are as they all gathered to ride their bikes to school.  It was a momentous day for Lu because it was her first day to ride a bike to school (see her there the third from the left?).  

Her great dad ran alongside her all the way amidst that gaggle of cute girls because she’s still not ready to do it completely solo, but she was pretty excited about that.

Claire’s friend’s Mom has a tradition of doing a little breakfast for all their friends for the last few years (so nice).  This is the picture she sent me of all the kids who came.

Whoa.  Thank you Suzanne for hosting all those kids!!

Grace hosted some girls over here for their own fancy breakfast before their “Golden Scholar” ceremony.

She assigned everyone something to bring and they made a little feast (with the help of my great Mom who was in town for all the hoopla).

Love these great girls.

Then we dropped them all off at school for the last big day…

…and headed over to the elementary school parties and to give our great teachers their gifts.
Oh how we love Lucy’s teacher.
…and how we will miss her!  She was Elle’s teacher too back when she was in second grade and has taught for a lot of years.
She retired at the end of this year and I told her I believe God must have known she needed to stay until this year because she made a big difference in Lucy’s life.  So very grateful for all the wonderful people who have nurtured that girl of ours.
We went to see Claire’s class too.  

 So fun to have my Mom there for all this fun last-day stuff.

 Then we headed to Grace’s “Golden Scholar” ceremony.

That’s for all the kids with exemplary grades.

So proud of this girl for working so hard.

(and the other kids too…Claire’s is back here…and we somehow missed the memo on Max and Elle’s because they didn’t let us know until the ceremony was over.  China messed up a few things like that…)

This is the only picture I got of Elle on the last day…telling me she really didn’t need a picture, way too mature for that 🙂

But I got this one a few days before…which may heart jump because this is happening for HER next year.

I guess that’s the only problem with having kids 14 months apart.

…except for the difficulty of having two babies at the same time that I have long since forgiven and forgotten because it has become so darn fun.

Usually we have big groups of kids here after school on the last day but this year everyone scattered to all kinds of different parties and I worked my heart out on a slide show of all the seniors that sent them in for the big party I was helping with that night after graduation (a breakfast from 12:30-3:30 am).  More on that later.

Then we headed over to save seats for the big graduation.

To be continued….

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7 Comments

  1. Hi Shawni, my daughter is Grace's friend Kyla in the striped dress. Thank you for having her over for breakfast that morning! Will you email me the pictures that you took of those cute girls there and at the school?

  2. Love seeing all of your girls!!! Haven't seen as much of Grace lately and it was wonderful to see her beautiful smiling face. Congrats to all your girls for 'moving on up'. I can't wait to see what next year brings.

  3. I JUST started reading your blog tonight and am very impressed. I read a LOT of the back blogs you have written and have a couple of questions. Do you work outside of the home? If so, what do you do? What does your husband do for work? And, do your children attend Mormon school (if there is such a thing)? My father comes from a Mormon family and my mother was Southern Baptist. QUITE the combination! LDS have always piqued my interest, though, and I loved reading your interview on religion. Hope these are not nosey questions…just curious.

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