Summertime = Schools out!

Payton is now officially a 1st grader. We already have gotten his end of year report card and teacher assignment for next year! He did great this year and is looking forward to next year. He is doing lots of reading and workbook pages so far this summer. The end of the school year is filled with all kinds of exciting stuff. (I think they were done with ‘school work’ well before the end of the year!) The Friday before the last week, Paytons entire school was supposed to go on a field trip the the Kansas City Zoo. I had arranged to take that day off to help chaperone, but it got cancelled due to weather. (Which by the way, we had a tone of wacky weather, tornados and all that the last few weeks! It was not fun sitting is a stairwell at work for an hour, or having the kids in a bathroom at daycare for 1 ½ hours!!) We were already thinking of heading to Des Moines the next day for a graduation party for one of my cousins, so we decided to drive west and spend the night and go to the Omaha Zoo on Sunday to make up for the fact that he didn’t get to go with school. Mom and Lindsey went along and we had a great time, minus some bumby weather along the way! Easton still refuses to sleep anywhere but home, so that got interesting, but all in all it was a great trip!
The next morning was Paytons Kindergarten Graduation! He was not feeling well at all from the car ride the night before and a bit of a tummy bug that Easton had passed on to him. But he went and made it through the day. I was so worried about him getting sick! I couldn’t even really focus on the graduation or get emotional or anything, I just kept watching his face waiting for a sign that he would get sick! The next day he seemed to perk up and be okay. That week he also had field days that Justin got to attend and on the last day I spent most of the day at the school for their last day parties! He loves his Kindergarten teacher so he was a little sad to not be able to see her this summer. Luckily he got the teacher he wanted for 1st grade!
On Memorial Day weekend we went to the hot air balloon festival that we went to last year and again the balloons didn’t launch b/c of weather! This is 3 different times we have gone to these festivals, and not once have they launched! I think we are jinxed! On Sunday we went to a huge Memorial Day celebration and Union Station and the Liberty Memorial downtown. It was awesome! It is something we will be doing again!
Now that school is out, Payton is going to the day care that Easton goes to (and he goes to after school) for their summer program. He is having so much fun! I feel bad that my kids don’t really have a summer like we used to where we were home and could do whatever. But I think he is having more fun there! Next week he is going bowling, swimming, to a movie, swimming again and roller skating! He is not there this week because this week he is at a camp called Camp Invention! We heard about it from school and it is a camp that he can go to to build, create and invent things! One the first day he learned about Thomas Edison. How perfect is that for Payton! He is only from 9-3:30 this week, so Justin and I have had to do some adjusting of schedules, but we have made it work. He really enjoys it so far, and he doesn’t even know anyone there!
Now that the weather is nice (well 96 degrees with a heat index of 105) outside, we have been doing a lot of outside stuff. We went to the pool and will probably be there a lot this summer! This week is Eastons 2nd birthday and party, so we are all gearing up for that next!