End of the Year Celebrations

School ends tomorrow for us in Shrewsbury. My kindergarten class was over on Wed! I am looking forward to a relaxing summer. I'm sure it will still be very busy, but our sport schedule is much less which means I can garden and sew and exercise!

The end of year is filled with field days and celebrations for middle and elementary school.

The week began with Sarai having her field day on Monday. She slept over a friend's house so I don't have pictures of her. She was on 8 Blue. I found a few pictures of her on facebook. Technology is amazing.

She's here with her good friend, Michelle.

Here's Carmen dressed for field day. She was on 6 Green this year.

Wed was Rachel's author celebration. Her teacher, Miss Tougher, had them do multiple research papers at the end of the year. Rachel is holding up a desktop she created on Phylis Wheatley.

This is the cover for her other research paper. She researched wild cats and created her own non-fiction book.

After the celebration, the kids went outside to have popsicles and received t-shirts to sign.

The signing begins!

and more

and more

Here is the class.


This is Miss Tougher and Rachel. We have enjoyed the year with her. Rachel came into her class loving to write and has left a writer.

The 8th graders went on a Boston Harbor cruise Wed afternoon as part of their graduation celebration. She's here with Bill and other friends.

Today, Thurs. June 17th, Sarai graduated from 8th grade.

Sarai is in the chorus. The chorus sang during graduation.

This is Bill McKenna, Sarai's boyfriend.

Ms. G and Sarai. Ms. G was Sarai's LA teacher. They had a great connection this year. We will miss you Ms. G!

Sarai plays basketball with all of these girls. It is great to get a picture of them looking beautiful.

Kristen, Sarai, Taylor, Elizabeth, Michelle and Cally.

Congratulations to all my kids for finishing off another year and doing well! I don't have any pictures of Tobin from this week. It was finals at the high school.

Happy Anniversary and Welcome Sierra

June 12th was my anniversary. It has been 17 years!

It is also now my niece, Sierra Paige Dancy's, birthday!

Isaac brought Aidan to my house around 11am on the 12th. Jenna wasn't in labor, but her water had broken and we were all waiting for the "baby" to arrive. It was a rainy day so we played a bunch inside. Here are some pictures of Aidan having fun at my house.

Aidan loves books.


we took Aidan to the attic and we found this great drill! He played with it the rest of the weekend.


Aidan knew to use the drill on the screws in my play tool box. I had to unscrew the screws many, many times.


Isaac brought Aidan's bike to the house. Due to the rain all riding occured in the basement. This didn't deter either him nor Rachel from having fun.


He did discover a new trike that he insisted on riding much of the time.




We found out that Sierra was born at 11:34pm via text from Isaac. I love that our god daughter was born on our anniversary!

Here she is:

We brought Aidan and Rachel to meet Sierra early on Sunday morning. I was able to see her open her eyes. They are dark. I don't think they are going to stay blue like Aidan.

Sleeping beauty.

Here's Aidan holding his sister for the first time.


We left the hospital at 10am and came back around 1:30 with the rest of our children. Everyone wanted to hold her. I took pictures of everyone. At some point there should be a picture of me with her too.

Tobin and Sierra

Sarai with her

Carmen's turn

Rachel holding her


Marita's turn


She is just beautiful! Nice job Jenna and Isaac! She looks a lot like Sarai did as a newborn.



Aidan came back to my house later on Sunday so Isaac and Jenna could eat dinner together. While he was at my house he and Rachel had bike races down in the basement.

The trike became a tandem.

Rachel also used my old roller skates to race Aidan on the trike.

This picture of Rachel makes me laugh. the only way she can ride the trike is by sitting in the bucket. I think this is how the tandem came to be!

Then they came upstairs. Rachel loves to sit on my balance ball and bounce on it. We gave Aidan a soft soccer ball to do the same. He is vigorously bouncing on the soccer ball.

Welcome to our family Sierra. You are so loved. We enjoyed having Aidan with us. I am so happy that everyone is doing well.

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend was a slower sport weekend for us. It was nice to only have two sporting events, although they were far from each other.

Carmen played her last AAU Shamrocks basketball game in Peabody, MA (that's over an hour drive east from our house). Carmen's team was made up of only 6th graders. She enjoyed playing, but is happy to have time to recover from tendinitis in her left shoulder, elbow and wrist.

Tobin qualified to run in the state qualifiers for the mile in spring track. He ran a 4:44 mile in order to qualify to run on this day!

Tobin and Curtis ran in the first heat of mile runners.

They both looked strong and calm in the first lap.

Tobin and Curtis led the pack in the second and third laps.

The last lap was all about the kick. Curtis is an amazing hockey player with a great kick to finish his race.

Tobin finished third in this heat.


He finished with a time of 4:42.3. He ran his fastest time of the season for his last race. This is the runners dream. Although his time was fast, it wasn't fast enough to run at states. In the second heat of mile runners, the winner ran a 4:15 mile and 5 other runners beat Tobin's time. Only the top 4 runners make it to states! Tough competition.

Here are Tobin, Chris, John and CJ. They are some of the top runners in the 2 mile and 1 mile for spring track. John ran a 9:15 2 mile on this day!

John is congratulating Tobin on an amazing run. Tobin took 20 seconds off of last year's best time. He has had an amazing season.

Shrewsbury High School marching band played for the Memorial Day parade. Here's Tobin in his marching band uniform. He plays the french horn in the band, but plays the euphonium for marching band. The euphonium is the marching band french horn.

Carmen was also in the parade as a girl scout. She was the only one who showed up from her troop, so she is marching with another troop.

The parade goes through the center of town and ends at the cemetery. We live a mile from the cemetery so we walked to and from the parade. Here is a great picture of our gang! Carmen is wearing Tobin's hat. We are blessed to have 4 children who get along so well. As we walked home a number of people complemented Tobin on how wonderful the SHS band sounded. It was a very nice morning.


We ended the weekend by going to Cambridge to see Dave's new condo. Sarai seized the opportunity to use the scrabble pieces to leave Dave and Deonnie a note!