Camping, "round up," pre-graduation festivities, and graduation

 

It was an emotional month .. for sure. Lots of changes, lots of goodbyes. Increasingly, Rosemary and Louis turn to each other for support, which is so sweet and makes us feel so happy as their parents.

 

The month of May started with a really great camping trip to Enchanted Rock during a cold spell where it was in the low 40s at night! It was the most beautiful camp site we've experienced to date, and definitely our most successful camping trip to date. Aaron Barker was really excited about it because it was a special place for him and his brothers while he was growing up. We got there on a Friday and the kids were WILDLY excited (nice that they've been camping enough now that they know to look forward to it). The drive there was totally gorgeous and wildflower-filled. We got one of the best campsites in the park, which backed up onto the rocks and the "trail" (it's a large pink granite bolder so you mostly just find your way up) up Little Rock.

The kids immediately started scaling the boulders, which kind of made me nervous as there were some significant crevices, but  they all survived. And then it was S'mores and hot dog and Alicia Barker-steaks-with-blue-cheese-over-the-fire and red wine time, and all was good. The night was unseasonably cold but we slept WELL.

Special rock with a place for both sets of kids to eat...

In the morning it was time to take off! Both families scaled Little Rock, not really on a real trail, but just following Aaron's lead up the rock. I was SO proud of the boys -- we didn't carry them at all. All those years in Happy Hikers paid off!

That SAME day, the moms stayed with the little boys and waded in the creek while the dads and older kids went up Enchanted Rock proper -- and apparently the girls basically ran up the Rock. I can't believe their stamina. There are really TOUGH KIDS. On the way home they instantly fell asleep in the car. We woke up Rosemary for lunch in Fredericksburg, but did not successfully wake up Louis -- he basically slept walked to the restaurant and then slept in James's arms through lunch. We did GOOD WORK.

The next Tuesday was "Kinder Round Up" for Esme and Rosemary, where the parents register the kids for Kindergarten and they have a little open house. Much to my surprise, Rosemary was incredibly excited and ran all the way from Esme's house (we picked up Esme on our walk over, which I imagine we'll do in Kindergarten) to the school, excited. Just the week before, we had lunch in the cafeteria at BHE with our neighbor to see what it was like, and she looked like she was going to throw up the whole time and couldn't talk she was so scared. So I guess the worst was over, because she looked like she owned the place. I was so happy to see how many of the incoming Kindergarteners we knew already, and the excited parents. I was not happy to hear of all the rules in Kindergarten, and be reminded of the start time of 7:45 -- I think we'll get in trouble a lot next year, but that's OK as I think we have just about the perfect neighborhood school and that's what I really wanted from our move to Austin.

James had a final rugby match in Dallas so we went for the weekend and had a relaxing time with Mamo, swimming, and of course PLAYING WITH UNCLE DEV's toys!

We decided to celebrate the end of preschool with -- what else? Brunch at the Four Seasons with the original "gang of four" -- Rosemary, Esme, Flora, and Stella, who became friends in the two year old class at St. Marks, were the original Happy Hikers, and all the moms became friends too. It has been truly beautiful and sweet to watch them grow together. Not always easy -- mark my words, these girls are complicated -- but definitely overall a wonderful thing to have a solid group of friends like these for Rosemary and for me! The girls had a wonderful time running around the lawn and climbing the trees at the Four Seasons and got their pretty dresses covered in mud, as they should.

   

Here's some pictures of Kyle and her sister Doria, who came to Rosemary's graduation. For the past three years, we've been incredibly lucky to have Kyle Zamcheck in our lives. She has been a caregiver to Rosemary and Louis, a member of the family for me and James, and generally just an incredibly warm, loving, wonderful, dynamic, creative, trustworthy, loyal presence in our home. Rosemary has indeed gone from baby to little girl here in Austin, and has benefited enormously from this relationship with Kyle -- in everything from helping her express her feelings, creating beautiful art, learning to navigate friendships and relationships, and just becoming a confident, happy little girl. The kids adore her, and so do we.

 

As if that wasn't enough, we not only had Kyle, but also her sister Doria, for the past three months, who came with Kyle to babysit every time and was amazing with the kids and is in general amazing. Doria is one of those people that makes you feel that you are a better person just by knowing, and I can't really go into how sad I was the week she left Austin to move to California with her boyfriend and how much I miss her. I was happy for her, of course, but so SO sad to see her go (and so was everyone).

The final ballet concert on the last day of school. Again, we've had ballet recitals twice a year for the past three years, and they've all been adorable. I was disappointed that Louis absolutely refused to dance at this recital -- and regret even more that I didn't video his performance at the fall recital when he stole the show -- but I guess he was old enough to realize he was the only boy and to be shy. Ms. Margaret even had bought him a spiderman uniform. Rosemary and her friends did wonderfully.

 Looking proud and confident on graduation morning.

During the graduation ceremony, the kids sang a really sweet song (see below for a video), and Rosemary did great, I could hear her voice and she was very poised. But then I think she got overwhelmed and looked really GREY when they were doing certificates... I wondered if she was going to throw up. I think she wasn't feeling well, so we took her straight home. But I also think the whole thing was a bit much for the sensitive ones. It was too much for me, I was really a mess.

 

Rosemary's first teachers, Ms. Melissa and Ms. Jennifer. They have had our children three years straight -- Rosemary one year and Louis the past two (and now, coincidentally ??, are both leaving teaching). They are sweet, funny, caring, and gave our kids a great introduction to school. What else could we want?

 Rosemary's hilarious, dynamic, and really special pre-K teachers, Ms. Kiki and Mr. Henry

Rosemary and Louis on the last day of school (Louis with his new Spiderman mask, which he picked as a prize for finishing a week of his job chart -- he has four jobs, which include feeding Sophie, waiting until 7:15 to wake us up, cleaning up his toys, and setting the table).

The Sunday after the last day of school it was on to an incredibly fun, wonderful visit with Aunt Summer, Uncle Dev, Beatrice, Arthur, Uncle Travis, Nani, Nana and new Kumar fetus. I can't believe how much we managed to pack into every day of their visit -- it was a true death march but -- and this shows the kids are getting older -- everyone seemed up for it! I wasn't the lone relenting voice pushing everyone a few inches closer to the grave!

I don't think I can do better than Summer's very sweet posting and picture editing, so read more about it here. It was  so wonderful to see the cousins playing together -- they really did have fun together, and it was kind of funny to see Louis taking to suddenly not being the youngest (he climbed up Enchanted Rock with Uncle Travis all by himself -- he was the first one up! He would have NEVER done this even a few weeks ago, I don't think. He did -- I thought this was really sweet -- wait for us just at the end so we could all summit together).