Miscellaneous May Photos

As I went through photos from May, there were several that either didn't fit in with any previous post, or got lost in the shuffle. What follows is patchwork summary of some May events ~

Photo 155 of 365, taken May 8th:

Emma's piano recital, 2013. I miss her piano recital every year because it is always scheduled for a Wednesday night {when I teach at church}, despite asking her teacher to do it on another day. But she did great, I was able to see the video, and I hear her play at home all the time. One of her favorite songs to practice this year was "Money Can't Buy Everything."

Emma and Ava after the recital.


These are a few pics from our yummy Mother's Day brunch at Café Centraal. It was our first time eating there and we loved it! The girls were especially pleased with the homemade donuts, and Alyssa was impressed with the huge variety of teas they have.


Rebekah looks forward to playing on the tot lot outside Alyssa's singing lesson when the weather is nice. It's different than the playground at school and she is getting really confident with the monkey bars.

Photo 156 of 365, taken May 19th:

Dave and I won {or I should say I won, because he couldn't believe I even bid on it} tickets to a Murder Mystery Dinner Event at our school's auction in April. So we went and it was super cheesy, but lots of fun too. Here we are pictured as the class of 1957 Prom King and Queen, suspects in our murder mystery.

Photo 157 of 365, taken May 27th:

Our first parade of the summer season was kind of a bust, it felt more like Halloween than Memorial Day with the occasional cold drizzles and wind.

There were lots of umbrella covered and blanket wrapped gymnasts, but all the kids made the best of it and seemed to have a lot of fun despite being chilly. Emma was only kind of giving me a heart attack as she did aerial cartwheels on a wet slippery road.

Photo 158 of 365, taken May 29th:

At the local district level of the Hershey Track Meet, Emma won the long jump, advancing to the next sectional meet. She took second in the 50m as well. In an effort not to miss church that night, Emma chose to run the 50 as opposed to a longer distance race occurring later in the evening. She enjoyed it!

Celebrate America!

These first few photos are from Memorial Day weekend, but they seemed fitting to celebrate Independence Day as well.

Photo 154 of 365, taken May 26th:

Thank you, veterans and all the servicemen and women who are currently active in all branches of the military! Freedom always comes at a cost and it is humbling to think of what others have sacrificed to make this nation great.




This week we had lots of parades and gymnastics shows to kick off the 4th of July weekend celebrations.

Someone was captivated by her first sparkler ever!

And now for some freedom explosions in the sky ~ I thought some of them looked like flowers and others like planets, but they were all beautiful:








Happy 4th of July!

A Wild Goose Chase

Continuing with our park theme for the day {see the post below}, we headed to the Urban Ecology Center after lunch for canoeing.

It was a nice quiet day on the water, we were the only ones in canoes. Rebekah seemed unsure about wanting to be out there, but she settled in pretty quickly. Before we left the ecology office we were told that there is a small island we could dock at and explore, and Emma soon saw a teepee structure that she was curious about.

We paddled over to the island where we noticed two geese guarding the dock area. Emma was determined to see the teepee, so we continued walking up onto the island, much to the dismay of the geese who hissed at us. Alyssa yelled to us from the other canoe that one of the geese was in it's "attack mode" and we should retreat to our boat. It was pretty fast work to scoot past the mad geese, and we thought we were in the clear.

About half way to our destination on the opposite side of the island, we saw the clear source of our unwelcomed arrival at the island.

Photo 153 of 365, taken May 25th:

Poor Rebekah looks terrified in this photo and I wish I could say that the worst part of our adventure was behind us. Getting back into our canoe proved more challenging than getting on the island had been. I had to take the girls one at a time {Emma hid behind a tree while I took Rebekah first}, placing myself armed with a big stick between the girls and the geese. Alyssa was curious about the island too. Not curious enough, however, to leave the safety of her own canoe, where she remained the entire time yelling out encouraging advice. Thankfully, the stick was enough to keep the geese at bay. I debated yelling and swinging the stick wildly at the geese to let them know I meant business, but it seemed logical that a quiet presence would exude the least amount of threat, so being new at goose evasion, that's what we went for.

The girls talk about this incident every time they see a goose anywhere now, Emma has educated her entire team about how mean geese are, and I am pretty sure I will never be able to get Rebekah to willingly go canoeing again. Just another family fieldtrip turned traumatizing experience for the children.

Scenes from a Park

We were looking for a place to picnic after the BGMC fun day and gymnastics practice and stumbled upon a park we had never visited before.

Photo 152 of 365, taken May 25th:

There was tons of play equipment to climb on spread out across five different play structures. It was endless fun for the girls as they each pretended to be Queen of one of the "lands."

















Memorial Day Weekend is off to a fun and playful start!

Home Stretch of the School Year (Photos 144-151)

Photo 144 of 365, taken May 6th:

This photo is from Monday of Teacher Appreciation Week at school. Typically each day is themed, so on Monday the kids each bring in one flower to be assembled into a bouquet, or a piece of fruit for a fruit basket, and each day throughout the week the teachers are honored in a different way. It's a lot of fun to see the teachers getting their treats. We are very thankful for them and their hard work with all their students!

Hermle Visit:
Near the end of the school year we had a local German company at both of our schools for a tour and presentation. Hermle Machines is based in Germany, but they have their North American headquarters nearby, and we were very happy they were excited to come see the things going on in our schools. They make very technical and precise pieces of machinery and tools. The visit was not only a chance for the company to see the cool education our kids are receiving, but also an opportunity for the kids to see the very practical application of how they can use their German language skills in a future career.
Photo 145 of 365, taken May 21st:

Dave and I got to take the tour with the company representatives. In this photo, one of the German guys was very happy to see kids conversing in the classroom in his native language. He also commented how the school seemed very much like the schools he grew up going to in Germany, which would be expected and is certainly a goal of the curriculum, it's just nice to hear a native German say that.

After the school tour, Hermle gave our 5th graders a presentation about the kind of work they do. Had she been there, this cute piggy would have been Emma's favorite part of their presentation.

And her least favorite part of the presentation...when the pig is pictured as canned meat.

Photo 146 of 365, taken May 21st:

This is Alyssa's year end band concert. She sits way in the back, so you can't see her here, but she was super excited about this concert because they played a couple of popular songs like "Gangnam Style" and "Forget You". She had a small horn solo in Dynamite.

Kinderfest:
Photo 147 of 365, taken May 24th:

The huge parade around the schoolyard. The kids look forward to Kinderfest all Spring!!

I had watched Rebekah march all the way around the playground, trying to get her attention, but she never saw me until the kids were asked to sit down before being dismissed to play games. Here she is when she finally spotted me in the crowd.
Photo 148 of 365, taken May 24th:

All of the Mount Mary Art Projects were "on parade" at Kinderfest, they looked great! This is the art sculpture Emma worked on with a few friends. They named it King Bob.
Photo 149 of 365, taken May 24th:

Rebekah with King Noah. They did not have to create a royal character of any sort, it just happens that both girls were in a group that decided that their sculpture was a king. I should have taken better pics of all the characters. There were some very cool ones including Mickey Mouse and Darth Vader.

Rebekah playing a bean bag game. This was the first Kinderfest I can remember where coats were necessary. It was a beautiful, sunny day, just a little windy and chilly.
Photo 150 of 365, taken May 24th:

This is some of the girls artwork before the hallways were cleared for Summer. Rebekah's is on the top, Die Wiese means "The Meadow." I was in the class helping with this project and her teacher and I walked around the room writing the words in block letters for the kids and they had to draw things they would see in a meadow to fill up the page. Emma's artwork is a watercolor exercise they did inspired by Monet's artwork.

Photo 151 of 365, taken May 25th:

We started the Memorial Day weekend at church with a Boys and Girls Missionary Challenge Fun Day. The kids could choose to jump rope, hula hoop, dribble a basketball etc. They collected pledges for the number of minutes they participated in these activities and the money went to BGMC and Convoy of Hope. Emma was at gymnastics practice, but Alyssa and Rebekah had a great time.

Slowly but surely, I'll make it to summer!