End of School and More...

These past couple weeks have been relatively busy with end-of-school activities, different parties, holidays, exams, etc.

Life is certainly never dull... :)

The three first graders received special awards in their end-of-year placement exams, and Jenna and I went to take pictures of them receiving their certificates. Their teacher is pictured above with them (l-r: Julissa, Nereida, and Aaron), and I can truly say that I was impressed with her... she did a great job with these three -- and a great job keeping them in line! ;)

Jose and Diego also "graduated" from their first year of kindergarten. They had a big celebration where each of the kids received a certificate, participated in a dance (of course), and then ate a ton of junk... :)

Two of Diego's classmates during the eating part of the celebration -- these kids were seriously wolfing down this food... and come to think of it, the adults were, too!

Left: Jose and Maestra Gaby

Right: Diego and Maestra Sylvia.

The boys will actually switch teachers next school year...

We also had an appreciation dinner for the men on campus in lieu of Father's Day celebrations -- and this was the "cleaned-up" crew... :)

(l-r: David, Mike, Seth, Dan, Juan-tan, Keith, Brad, and Bill)

We were impressed that the guys wanted to get dressed up -- and the two older... ahem... distinguished, I mean to say, gentlemen looked quite smart. ;)

Amanda and Bere hanging up the verse for the evening:

"Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them."

Psalm 84:5

The female preparation crew...

The steaks -- grilled by none other than our own Mr. Bill Schick.

We had a special table set up for the men, and it was funny to watch the younger boys continually stop by and just check out what it meant to be an "hombre grande"... :)

They kept making exclamations like, "Whoa! Whooooooooa!" when they saw the steaks... lol.

Nereida won our star charts for three weeks in a row, and when one of the kids gets that prize, then they can choose where they would like to eat lunch in town -- and invite whomever they want, as well.

So... Nereida asked Bill, Joan, Candi, and I to go with her to the new pizza place. And, of course... we accepted! :)

Above: Candi, Nereida, and I with the pizza place's [weird] Santa Claus menu-holder-thing.

[I know there's an official name for these, but I don't want to take the time to Google it... lol.]

Nereida chose the Premium pizza which had pepperoni, black olives, yellow peppers, mushrooms, and -- in this case -- a very burnt bottom crust... :(

However, it was much better than the other pizza place in town, where you have to mop the grease off the top with your napkin... :)

In our house here, we eat lots of black olives... and Nere loves them! So... she got lots of extras from Bill to add to her pizza... lol.

Candi, Bill, Joan, and Nere at our table; I am so glad the Schicks were able to go!

And afterwards... ice cream, of course!

We went back to Bill & Joan's for ice cream with chocolate syrup just to top off the afternoon. And I think, maybe, perhaps, kindof, sortof, the girls might have had a great time... ;)