Graduations, awards, recitals, and plenty of other celebrations

The week of  June 10th was filled with graduation ceremonies, recitals, awards, and loads of pride and fun.  Charlton "graduated" from his little joy school.  My friends threw a little party, and the friend who offered to host had made some beautiful and tasty treats in the shape of graduation hats.  Charlton kept telling everyone that he graduated and is going to the big kids' school next year.  He's got another year, of course, till kindergarten, but this coming year he is going to a professional preschool. He met the teacher and is sooo looking forward to start school.  He loved his friends from joy school and they are truly his best friends.  The girls have already decided between themselves who is marrying who.  As for Charlton and his buddy, William, they are happy to let the girls fight over them.  This is the best and sweetest age ever!  I can't stop laughing every time they open their mouths.

Gillian followed suit with her own graduation on Wednesday.  I know that many people think 5th grade commencement is not a necessary thing and that we shouldn't make such a big deal about it, but I felt so proud of my girl walking up there, all grown up moving from one stage of life to a new one.  Gillian has grown a lot this year, academically and in confidence.  She finished with straight As, strengthened her confidence in math, grew in leaps and bounds in science and history, and no one could catch up with her in English and writing.  In the graduation ceremony, she received three different awards, one being the Outstanding Achievement in all fields of life from her class.  Elijah, my mother, Charlton and myself were all in attendance, and I had tears in my eyes the whole time.  For some reason, seeing her there all grown up, confident, beautiful, talented, and all around amazing made me nostalgic for those bygone days of my little Gillian needing me for even the smallest things.  I'm grateful, however, that we have a great bond with each other. She is a blessing to have as a daughter.

Gillian was also asked to give the commencement speech.  She wrote it all on her own, and I loved it.  The only aid she got from me was helping her get on Google and find a few quotes relevant to her topic, everything else she wrote all by herself.  I was impressed how confident and clear she sounded up there in the pulpit.  I guess all those voice lessons and performances on stage help in more than one way.  Listening to her speech filled me with pure joy and a knowledge that Gillian will truly succeed in life.  Here is what she said:

The Value of Education

A great American musician, B.B.King, once said: “The beautiful thing about learning is no one can take it away from you." Since the moment I was born my mother was reading to me.  As she spoke, her words seeped into my brain and I soon started to read on my own.  My mother is a smart woman.  By starting to read to me at a very young age, she opened the door to education, and no one could take that away from me.

Education at a young age will help you when you grow into adulthood.  Say you wanted to get a job, in your interview your employer will ask you what schools you go to or went to.  The employer wants to make sure that you are his best choice.  If you are not well educated your employer will likely choose someone else. 

One day when you get older, you will get married and have children, your children will look up to you for answers.  They will copy whatever you do or say and will learn about the importance of education from you.  It is important now to educate yourself and learn the ways of the world, so that you can be better prepared for the life ahead of you.  Listen to your teachers.  They are here to help you.  The things you learn now and the way  you act will affect your life forever.  If  you can achieve a good education, you will be amazed.  People will look up to you, every employer will want you, and you will be happy. 

I love to hear new things.  When I figure out the answer to a hard math question and I can see the light bulb pop on, I always get a proud feeling.  I am delighted when I learn a new word, or discover a different way to do something.  Whenever I write I can almost see all my thoughts zooming around my head.  The light and glow of knowledge that is in every mind is just waiting to be unleashed.  Through education you can open a door.  Your brain is ready to show the world all it knows, only if you let it.

When I grow up, I want to be a writer, a doctor, or even an astronaut.  If I am a writer, I could inspire people with my writing.  If I am a doctor, I can save people’s lives or find the antidote for cancer!  What do you want to be?  A singer, a dancer, a juggler, a farmer, a designer?  Whatever you want to do or whoever you want to be if you work hard, if you never give up, and if you have an education, the world is yours.

A wise man, Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon with which you can use to change the world.” Go forth then and change the world.

Continuing with graduation theme, on Saturday Gillian, Jefferson, and James gave their final piano recital for the school year.  They all graduated from their corresponding level, received awards for being among the best for their National Guild performance, with Gillian having received 100% in all of her seven pieces.  In the end, their teacher also distinguished the very few students who received above 90% in their California Certificate of Merit Theory Test, with Jefferson achieving one of the highest scores, 97%.  The recital was beautiful with all of Mrs. Morrison's students performing each a new piece.  I didn't bring my camera with me, so I ended up taking pictures with my phone, but most of the pictures didn't turn out that great.  Sorry about that.

This week, we also celebrated Father's Day.  The kids loved making little gifts and cards for Elijah.  Elijah's big gift from them was a new ginormous tent for the whole family.  The boys can't wait to go camping.

I'm so grateful that Elijah is such a sweet, kind and thoughtful dad.  All of our kids feel the right amount of love, awe and respect for him.  It's beautiful to watch.  I love it that they each want their personal time with dad, telling them about their day, their ups and downs, wanting to play or do a projects with just him. They each have a strong relationship with Elijah and think the world of him.  He has taught our kids many things through out the years, but what my kids love and appreciate the most is his calm disposition, the love and patience that he shows when he teaches them a principle about life, his willingness to share his time with them even when he is exhausted beyond words, his unwavering testimony about the gospel and his love for Heavenly Father, his work ethic, and Elijah's love and respect for their mother. My favorite thing about Elijah as a father is the prevalent importance he places in fatherhood.  I get tears in my eyes when I get little reminders in my email or texts about articles he read or scriptures he found that would be great to share with the specific child, with whom he had had a heart to heart conversation the night before.  In all he does, the children and myself are number one in his life, and we have never had a doubt about that. I couldn't have asked for a better father to my children.

I asked Jefferson to take a picture of Elijah and me that day, and since I've been teaching them how to take pictures as of late, any chance they get they want to do a photo shoot.  Today's subject was their mother, and Jefferson and I had a great time switching our places, with him telling me what to do and me trying to pose for him.  Needless to say he was in heaven.  I know it should have been Elijah in the pictures being Father's Day and all, but as Jefferson said dad is amazing in most things, but when it comes to modeling mom is more playful and funner to work with :)  We took a lot of fun ones, but here are some of my favorite pictures of me taken by Jefferson:

 

My gift to Elijah for Father's Day was a relaxing date with me.  We usually plan our dates together, but this time I told him it was a surprise.  He was a bit apprehensive, since he likes to know what's going on.  I think he was worried I would be taking him bungee jumping, or dance classes, or some place where he would be embarrassed.  Nothing of that sort.  This was a gift after all, not a punishment.  Elijah and I spend a nice afternoon eating dinner at Lake Chalet in Oakland located on the shores of Lake Merritt.  I love any body of water, be that an ocean, sea, lake or river.  The movement of the waves and the current, mixed with the breeze, have a soothing effect on me.  After the dinner, I had made reservations for a 40-minute gondola ride on the lake.  The gondolas were brought from Venice after having been used for a short while transporting tourists from one end of the city to the other.  Even our gondolier was Italian.  He sang some Italian songs to us as he rowed our boat around the lake, but I wished Elijah had sung to me instead.  That boy had no singing talent whatsoever.  Nonetheless, the whole experience was beautiful, and most importantly Elijah enjoyed himself.  We ended our evening with some delicious gelato.

I know this post has gone way beyond long, but amongst all of the hot weather days of this particular week, we experienced one rainy day that made my boys crazy with desire to play outside.  They couldn't have enough of "singing in the rain."  Rainy days are good for reading and relaxing, but since this week was completely taken with celebrations, I was glad to find some time to clean and tidy up.  While I was hard at work, the boys were having fun outside playing, singing, dancing, and taking pictures.

These were taken by James while Jefferson was showing off the many facets of his personality:

The many expressions of Jefferson

Jefferson took a lot of pictures of my younger boys singing and dancing, but these are my favorite:

Birthdays, our sweet Bekah, and much more of such fun celebrations (August 6 - 12)

On Monday, August 6th, we celebrated Elijah's 35th birthday. If we had been in Albania, he would have had a wedding-scale celebration, whether he wanted one or not. Since we weren't in Albania, I tried to be considerate of his desires and had a small birthday party with just our family. We made his favorite diner, we loved eating his favorite cake, and presented him with our gifts, his favorite being a very nice baseball glove with which he could play baseball better with his children. He even got me out to play catch with him. The favorite part of his birthday, however, was snuggling with his family. And that's exactly what he wanted for his birthday.


On Tuesday, August 7th, my friends and I took our kids to a nearby regional airport for a tour of their rescue vehicles, as well as to check out the inside of a helicopter and single engine planes. This was heaven for my boys, especially Jefferson who dreams of becoming a pilot. He was the first to enter the airplane and pretended to be flying it. Gillian loved seeing the helicopter better because it reminded her of the helicopter they use in the T.V show MASH, which she told me she watched last year with her grandfather. She said she loved it. Funny thing is I watched MASH for the first time while I was pregnant with her, and I loved it too.
Charlton also liked the helicopter the best, especially climbing inside. Since visiting the aircraft carrier the previous week, he has been obsessed with airplanes and helicopters. He has been playing with his toy airplanes taking them to bed with him as well. I told Elijah that it's already too late for Charlton to change his mind about his future career; I've already decided he is going to be a dentist. Too many teeth to fix in our family! I was comforted by the idea that came to my mind that children change their interests every week. I'll keep telling Charlton what a great dentist he will be. As for our fun tour at the Buchanan Field Airport, I really enjoyed it. It was short, it was close by, it was educational. We got back just in time for lunch.

On Wednesday, Elijah decided it was time for us to taste some of our own corn. We have been harvesting our own tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and green beans for weeks now, but we hadn't tried our corn yet. We shared some with our neighbors and friends, and boiled the rest for ourselves. And that corn was delicious! Fresh and juicy, it made for a great snack and side dish. And more importantly, it increased a desire in our kids to rely on our own garden continuously. Next year we plan to plant even more vegetables and fruits.


On Thursday, I took the kids swimming, and while they played and swam, my friend and I conversed about everything under the sun. It's really helpful to find friends you like whose kids get along perfectly with your kids. And what's even better is having a daughter who doesn't mind that most of my friends' children are boys. I guess to her it feels like an extension of the games she plays at home with her brothers. I love it that she is so easy going, although I know she misses having her best friend Mary around. Those two girls were so well-matched. Just the other day they were talking on the phone to each other as if they were teenage girls, which was very fun to witness. I hope Gillian finds a friend like that nearby. I think we can all honestly say that having a bosom friend during this age is very important; I still find myself reminiscing about my childhood and friends of that period.

Friday morning was spent cleaning and getting the house in order for our guest, Elijah's sister, Rebekah. My kids love her, but Gillian was most excited. They get along very well with each other as if they were sisters. They even look alike, and sometimes I find Gillian use facial expressions that I've seen on Rebekah. Needless to say, Gillian was really looking forward to being with Rebekah.


When we got home from the airport, Rebekah gave my older kids a little gift and was going to give Charlton his on his birthday. Charlton, who is very sensitive, came running to me whispering that Rebekah didn't have anything for him. And then he started crying, which of course melted our hearts at once. When Rebekah gave him his gift - a superhero mask and cape - he couldn't have been happier. He had just changed his clothes and was still in underwear when we put the costume on him. He looked so funny that I couldn't help it but take a few pictures of my sweet, sweet superhero flying to the rescue.


On Saturday, Elijah and I went to the bishop's storehouse, our church's food resource center, to work on our 1 year supply of food. Although we do have a couple of months food storage, Elijah feels strongly that we need to work on having in store 1 year supply of food for our family. Do you know how much space we need to store all that food for six people? We have just started with this project, after having finished with our 72 hour kits and three months rotating food supply. Getting all that wheat, which is good to have since it can store for more than 10 years, made me realize how unprepared I am when it comes to preparing meals from the food storage. I don't even have a grinder!!! But I'm not put down. As long as we start somewhere and work a day at a time in following our Lord's admonishment in being prepared in all things, we'll be blessed. I hope our guests don't mind sleeping surrounded by food cans and cereal boxes.

On Saturday afternoon, we took our kids to a friend's birthday party, where they were introduced to laser guns. Now even my youngest child wants a laser gun for Christmas. I'm sure next year he will ask for his own iPad. Continuously I'm reminded how hard it is to try to provide my kids with a childhood similar to mine, where books and friends played the most important part. This summer has been somewhat a similar experience for them - just an old fashioned childhood filled with magic tree house games, swimming with friends, and reading lazily in the hammock. They watched a movie now and then, used the computer when they would remember once a month or so, and learned how to cook. They rarely felt a need for other things except each other. I will keep those laser tag guns and Wii games out of my house as long as I can, which from the look of it, it isn't that long.


Early Sunday morning I took Gillian to sing with her choir. They were performing the national anthem at a regional swimming championship.
I was a bit skeptical about doing this on the Sabbath. Till now keeping our Sabbath day holy has been relatively easy since our kids were young and they didn't have many activities that they needed to participate on Sunday. Each family has their own set of rules of what constitutes relevant activities for the Sabbath. Elijah and I have always maintained that sports isn't one of them. Good music on the other hand offers peace and inspires. Listening to that choir sing the national anthem I had no doubt that this was an edifying activity. But it was still a hard decision to make. And I thought taking care of babies was hard; being a parent to growing children with their individual issues is proving already challenging. I can't wait till they become teenagers! I hope by then I would become a bit more wiser. I'm also truly grateful to have a husband who is a strong leader for our family and always on my side. It helps to know that you are not alone in this journey we call life.