Last Day of School

Last day of school, June 17, and none of them actually went on their last day. Fitting end to the craziest year ever! We made sure to have last-day-of-school cookies, though.  In the fall we’ll have a 5th grader, an 8th grader, a sophomore, and a senior. 

Look at the cutting board that Joel made in his wood shop class this term. He hardly went to school the last month or so, between tennis, not having much to do, and not wanting to get quarantined, but he did go often enough to finish his cutting board! :)

Strawberries

 I picked strawberries three times this season--once alone, once with Grant and Joel, and one more time with just Grant. I bribed the boys with strawberry-lemonade slushies and donuts. 

I froze some, and we ate a ton! Grant decided to make chocolate covered strawberries with some of them, and boy, were they good! He delivered to our neighbor friends and to Grandpa and Grandma Arnold. All were duly impressed. 

Driver's Ed

This certificate was hard-earned. Doing the class over zoom had its benefits (class from the comfort of your own home/couch), but it did seem to be more difficult to learn the material than when Kari did it in person. Joel suffered through 10 weeks of Saturday classes from 4:30-7:30pm, but he got it done. The driving portion of the class was more exciting, but not necessarily in a good way! The instructor was very happy with Joel's driving abilities. His partner, however, struggled. She was a terrible driver! After the first drive, Joel came home shaking and sweating profusely. He was absolutely terrified and feared for his life when that girl was driving. The instructor had to grab the wheel multiple times and kept saying things like, "What are you doing?" and "I don't think you're hearing me!"  On the second drive she ran over the curb--twice. On the last drive, the test, Joel passed, but his partner didn't even attempt it. She needed more time to practice. One good thing about having a terrible driver's ed driving partner is that it makes you look really good! :-)

Come January, all he'll need is the application, fee, and photo, and he'll be set to drive. 

Lake Tapps

We spent a weekend with several other families at a big, beautiful house on Lake Tapps up in Washington the first weekend of June. After missing out on the church retreat two years in a row, Tiffany had this great idea to just get together with a bunch of families for a weekend away. When we planned it, we had no idea that sports would be happening again, but we decided to go ahead with it anyway, and I'm so glad we did. It was such a fun time! 

We ate good food, played games, relaxed, enjoyed the lake view, swam, rode paddle boats/boards/kayaks, and just had an amazing time together. The weather was not super warm, but that didn't stop the kids from jumping in the lake. The forecast said it was going to rain all weekend, but it didn't! The house was decorated to the hilt in Americana-style. Flags and red, white, and blue everywhere! Eric planned a scavenger hunt that included finding as many flags as we could in the house (~100) and also bible quotations (~36). 

Kari, Aubrey, Grant, and I rode up with some of the other families Friday afternoon, and Greg and Joel met us there after his basketball game on Saturday. They arrived in time for Joel to jump in the lake and play in the water for a half hour before he had to start his 3 hour drivers ed online lesson and test. There was much rejoicing when he passed his test! :)

We have great friends, and we made lots of fun memories together that weekend. The pictures show how much we enjoyed our time.