Natalie's Fifth Grade Graduation

Half of my family left town this morning. Patrick dropped Alex off at the airport at 4am, and I dropped Patrick and Anthony off at 8am. I have some time off this coming week, but somehow, it's not the same without the rest of the family around. I'll get to spend lots of time with Natalie and Eric, at least. After dropping off Patrick and Anthony, we went straight to Natalie's club swim morning practice. We came home to eat lunch then we went to the dollar theatre to see "The Croods". Natalie had the chance to see the new animated film "Epic" with some club swim friends, but she chose instead to see the older movie. It was cheaper for me, although with popcorn and an Icee, the "dollar movie" cost us $14.25 total. This evening I get to drop Eric off with friends to go to the neighborhood swim team practice while I take Natalie to her club swim evening practice.

Before the running around this evening, I need to catch up on last week's events. Natalie had a fifth grade graduation ceremony on the last day of school last Thursday, June 6th. I came home from being on call and immediately got back in Patrick's car to go to her school for the ceremony. She received the President's Award, an award for being on the "A" Honor Roll all year, and a Perfect Attendance award. She had a variety of other certificates in her yellow folder. We're very lucky that our kids are smart and do well in school.

This is a picture of Natalie shaking her teacher's hand on stage after her name was called. The other fifth grade teachers were on stage as well along with the principal. They called the name of each fifth grade student in alphabetical order class by class (three classes). The whole ceremony was a little more than an hour long. Too long since most of us were sitting on the cafeteria benches that were uncomfortable. After the ceremony, they got to parade around the school being cheered by the other students and then the rest of the day they walked to a neighboring pool for a celebration pool party.

Patrick's Mom and Dad went to the ceremony. They went to all the ceremonies on Thursday, which made for a very long day for them. Natalie's friend had done her hair and she started taking it out by the time I took this photo. We don't see the grandparents nearly enough, so it was nice to get them in pictures with the kiddos.

Alex's and Eric's ceremonies weren't very long or very big, so I'll combine them into one post for tomorrow. Until then, I'll be at swim practice.