Last Day Hooray!

School's out and my babies are all mine again!

It was a BUSY day! We started out with Alex's Kindergarten Graduation, which included a handful of songs, a slideshow, diplomas, and refreshments. He was done by 9:30 and free to go home with us, but we couldn't party too hard yet because we still had to wait for our 3rd grader to get out at 11:05.

Once we retrieved Alyssa we headed out to lunch. Alyssa suggested Bob Chinn's and Maggiano's, both pricey and far away. That girl loves her fine dining. We compromised with Texas Roadhouse but did you know they are only open for dinner? Lame, so we just went to Buffalo Wild Wings since it is in the same parking lot.

Next we had a super fun appointment with the AC guy. Turns out our AC is fried, seemingly beyond repair. They can patch it up for $500-$1000 enough to get it through this Summer but it will still need to be fully replaced soon, so do we want to waste $1000 on a band-aid job for it? Uh, no! And to sweeten the pot, our furnace is on it's last legs as well. We had already been told that a few years ago when we had repairs done, and we knew it was getting worse because our bills are sky high. So the suggestion? Replace BOTH! Do you know how much that costs? It is almost like adding another car payment for the next three years unless we can pay it all upfront. We can't. We can pay part of it upfront, but that would probably send our plans to go to Florida next December out the window, as well as any plans to visit family anytime soon. And so we are deciding. We don't even want to stay in this house for 3 more years so replacing something this big seems crazy, but how will we ever sell the house without AC? And how can we even live in it once the heat conks out? We do have someone coming to offer a second opinion on Thursday.

Minor hiccup in our last day celebration, but such is life and we didn't let it get us down for long. We headed off to the park down the road in IL and played like we didn't have homework, or bedtimes or even a dinner time. I love the laid back vibe of Summer. When we moseyed home we had crepes for dinner and now at 9:30 kids are still up lounging around, and it is beautiful.

Such a lovely day, made lovelier by the fact that Seth took the day off, as well as Tuesday and Wednesday. He was in Utah last week for work and this time opted to stay through the weekend to hang out with family. Can't blame him for staying, but it made my weekend crazy and I feel like I am getting a fun little make-up weekend now. But the highlight of my day may have been my son telling me that he is so happy to have his mommy back and that he had a great day because I was with him the whole time. Ahhh! They miss me too when we are apart.

Alright I am off because new adventures await us tomorrow but I will try not to get too far behind this Summer.

Alex never looks entirely comfortable at these school performances.

The principal is trying to shake his hand but he kept trying to yank the diploma from her hand.

When Alyssa graduated Kindergarten, she got to wear a mortar board. This year they got these buttons instead.

The 4 boys to the right are Alex's main crew. The other boy jumped up to be in the picture and I was happy to see that they threw an arm around him and welcomed him in.

Watch out Kindergarten...you have not seen the last of the Johnsons!

Alex and Mrs. Adams who was an OUTSTANDING teacher. She is so patient and so encouraging and she was perfect for Alex.

Zoom out and you will see that my kids were climbing on the outside of the giant web today. I always make them stay inside in case they fall, but daddy is cooler and said they could climb on the outside. Scared me to bits!

I FINALLY convinced Chloe to go down the super huge slide...

With a $1 bribe.

Oh, I guess I should give the obligatory my kids did so great this year report. I keep reading about everyone's kids staying on green card all year, and winning all kinds of awards. Um, my kids are not those kids. We are happy enough when we stay on yellow card, or under 4 check marks on the board. Alyssa had a tough teacher this year and sometimes even got check marks on the board for writing her name too big on her paper, or having her hair in her face while she was working. Seriously! But she is still smart as all get out and even her teacher had to admit as much. She is consistently way above grade level in all subjects and more than 3 times the grade average in reading. Doesn't apply herself, maybe, but neither did her mom or dad so I guess she comes by it naturally. Alex is a worker bee. He makes every excuse in the world not to read or study at home, but his teacher assures me that he attacks his work when he is in the classroom. They both got fantastic report cards, unless you count PE, which we don't anymore. We just laugh about it. I can't help it because I think I have told you before that my stepdad is a PE teacher and always teased my growing up for failing PE. He would tell me that you have to be trying to fail PE. So me and my kids are classic underachievers and yet we are the only ones who manage to be successful at bombing out in PE. Perhaps I will at least get them both out of training wheels this Summer. We'll see.