Catching Up

I haven't blogged much lately. It's been busy with birthdays, End of Grade tests and the other stuff that goes along with wrapping up a school year and an AWANA year at church. Not to mention the writing I'm doing. That's going well and I'm excited about it; I just don't want to "talk" about it too much.

This past Sunday, T and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary. The girls stayed with a family from church while we went out to lunch and browsed in the newly-opened Mighty Dollar. We're planning to go hiking on Memorial Day if the weather is good - just the two of us. The girls have school that day as a snow make-up day but both T and I should be off work. I know for sure I am since the library is closed but they haven't posted it at work for T yet. Sunday was also AWANA Awards Day at church. S got the Sparky Award for completing all 3 books on the Sparks level of AWANA. M got a 'good friend' award and A got the 'Care bear' award in T&T. All three girls got participation awards. They've worked hard this year and two of them will continue working in their books over the summer.

Saturday, we spent the day in Asheville enjoying some family time and touring both the Western North Carolina Nature Center and the North Carolina Aroboretum. That was an early birthday trip for S since I have to work on her actual birthday. I'll devote a separate post to each of those places. We also went strawberry picking at a local farm recently. The strawberries were delicious and disappeared quickly.

M had art work on display at the Hickory Museum of Art as part of the annual student art show earlier this month. It's the second time she has been selected for the honor.

A and M both had End of Grade Tests last week. We know they 'passed' since they are not currently doing remediation to prepare to retake the tests. A is actually helping other kids in her class get ready for the retests. Her teacher told her she "passed with flying colors." The teacher isn't known for being lavish with her praise so I'll assume A did very well on the tests. She was nervous since this was her first time taking them.

M is currently finishing up an independent study project. She's comparing and contrasting the Harry Potter series to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. We've had some interesting conversations about that. I'm just starting to read the Percy Jackson series and M has done an excellent job of not giving me lots of plot details while talking to me about her project.