Endings

Yvon tells me that my last post was a bit of a rant. I did apologize at the end for that, didn't I? Okay, I'll be more positive now.

It's been a couple of weeks of endings and I'm looking forward to summer holidays and spending more time with the kids doing unscheduled things. Like going to the park with a book, making s'mores at our favourite public firepit, camping, swimming in our own pool, going to the zoo -- I think you get it.

Beth and I had our final piano recital a couple of weeks ago. Beth's piece went well, and I stood out as being the only adult. That's impressive, right? It gave the other parents fodder for their motivating their children. "Remember that lady at the recital? It's okay to embarrass yourself in public. Even adults do it. Start early and you'll get used to it."

If you have too much time on your hands, you can listen to me here. You may find it boring or even humourous, but what it really highlights is that I've got about 9,700 more hours of practice before I'm ready to go on tour.

Choir also ended with a big splash. No, actually Beth's class ended with a splash today at the waterpark and her new sunglasses ended there as well. Sigh...

Back to choir though. We sang our way through a cantata of a Mennonite village's escape from the Ukraine into China and finally to our city. It was very moving and there were a number of guest Mennonites that day in the congregation. It was a story told to our choir director years ago ago. This village escaped in -40 degree weather on sleds across a river into China in 1930, the river not being totally frozen over and soldiers being within sight and yet not seeing the 200-odd people in the valley below them. Although their stories are different in many ways, there were also ESL students present from our classes because they truly understand persecution in more personal ways than many of us.

And ESL classes ended with a potluck lunch yesterday. These people can truly feed a feast to a crowd! The students arrive with various cultural dishes and each one seems to bring enough to feed a small army. Somehow it all gets eaten. I was still not hungry by suppertime. We may struggle to communicate with each other, but food is understood by all. I think I ate a dandelion onion cake and it was yummy!

I've got another potluck lunch for the ESL volunteer tomorrow. I need to have a potluck recipe book. Does anyone have a recommendation? I am truly running out of things to try. Tomorrow I'll be making my rosemary bread again.

Soccer is finally ending on Saturday. It's been fun and I'll let you know if Beth's team wins, because this game will clinch it. This has been the most fun season for us. In the past there have always been tears and yelling of "I HATE SOCCER WHY DO YOU MAKE ME PLAY!" but this has been great. The yelling has never, ever come from Beth so I think we've gotten the message pretty clearly now. Laura and Alice hate soccer. Got it. It only took three years. I attribute our slow learning curve to the brain's ability to block pain.

Tomorrow is the last day of school. I offered to make Alice's class a cake because all year she has been unable to eat the treats that arrive in class (because of her allergies). Laura heard me offer, and then she wanted one too. And I couldn't leave Beth's class out then, so I had to make cake for roughly 75 kids! Why do I do this?

It turned out to be fun actually. Laura decorated her two cakes by herself, with no help from me at all beyond making the icing.

We have something called "The Baker's Secret" in our house. It means that the baker gets to test the product, sample the cookie dough, lick the beaters, that kind of thing. Alice helped spread her icing just so she could partake of the "The Baker's Secret" and then dropped out of the game. And this was yummy lemon-y icing and worth sampling!


And the finished cakes (except the outline on Alice's - my batteries died and I can't take even one more picture). They are cheerful and yummy.

Beth has a Grade 4/5 split class and helped create the concept of the caterpillar (can you see him?) crawling from Grade 4 to 5, and the butterfly moving up to Grade 6. I like the colours, but I tell you, if I see a caterpillar on my flowers I stomp on him. I wouldn't want to be graduating from Grade 4. I'd be hiding if I were that caterpillar. I'd seriously consider crawling under that leaf.