Last Afternoon before Kindergarten

We had told the boys weeks ago that the afternoon before Kindergarten we would take them back to Frankie's Fun Park again.   Jack and mark were so excited when Thursday afternoon came.  Mommy and Daddy took off work and picked up the boys at Granna and Grandpa's house.

We went to lunch at Red Robin and then went over to the fun park.  Not surprisingly, the place was pretty empty due to it being Thursday afternoon and it was also one of the hotter days of the summer.

The boys were so pumped to go play Putt-Putt as well as get on the bumper boats.  Just like last time, they really had a good time, as did Mommy and Daddy.

Here are some pictures from the fun at Frankie's:

Ready for fun?  - Jack

You betcha.  - Mark

This is a tough shot for Mark to have a good stance on.  

The ultimate "look at me" shot.  - Jack

Just finished the bumper boats.  Only one question.  "What's NEXT?"

 

Week at Granna and Grandpa's

With the boys no longer in preschool, and school not starting till Friday, and Mommy and Daddy at work, the boys got to spend the days at Granna and Grandpas.  They had a really fun week.  They went to Pullen Park on Tuesday.  The next day they came back to SAS and had lunch with Daddy before going to Children's House to say hi to their friends and teachers.  Also, there were some trips to Target and other stores to get last minute items for kindergarten.

I am not sure who had a better time, the boys or the grandparents.  Here are a few pictures from the week with Granna and Grandpa:

Grandpa, Jack, Mark, and Granna (along with the boys' favorite stuffed animals)

The happy DeVault family.

Jack and Mark helping Granna water the neighbor's tomato plants.

Time to get the trash out.  

Saying hi to friends at Children's House.

Fun times at Pullen Park.

The boys even wanted to eat breakfast up at Granna and Grandpas.

Meet the Kindergarten Teacher

On Monday, the first week day without Children's House included a photo shoot and more importantly, meet the teacher afternoon.  We went to Cardinal Charter Academy to go meet their teachers.  Jack is meeting his new teacher, Ms. Robinson while Mark is meeting his teacher, Ms. Taugher.  We were really excited to meet them just as their teachers were really excited to meet Jack and Mark.  Both boys were happy we went and they said they are looking forward to the first day of school, which is Friday.  This is a good sign, from what Mommy and Daddy discussed.

Here are a few pictures from Meet the Teacher day:

Walking into Meet the Teacher Day.

Jack at his seat.

Jack and his teacher, Ms. Laura Robinson

Mark at his desk

Mark and his teacher, Ms. Taugher

West Raleigh Baseball

The boys enjoyment of baseball has lead us to sign up for some more baseball, albeit in a more competitive league.  West Raleigh baseball is pretty famous around here for the high quality of baseball that is played.  Case in point, this year's West Raleigh 12 and under all-star team just won the Cal Ripken World Series (think Little League World Series).

The boys joined a team that also includes their friends Drew and Alex.  It definitely is a big instructional league for sure, which is what the boys need.  We have had 4 practices so far and have yet to run a scrimmage.  It has been all instructional and fundamental work.  The boys really like it so far.  They will get to wear uniforms with their jersey numbers on both their jerseys and their hats.  Really cool.  As Heather says, it feels like we are in the major leagues.  It is a shock to the system when you compare it to the level of instruction in the I9 league.

The boys had practice on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons.  Here are a couple of pictures from them playing baseball:

Throwing and catching drill.

A good baseball player takes ownership of his gear.

Last Day of Children's House

On Friday, August 15, known as Aunt Janet's birthday (along with Napoleon Bonaparte), Jack and Mark ended their time at Children's House.  They are getting ready to start Kindergarten and it was their final day in preschool.  It was such a sad and happy day.  The boys have learned and grown so much over the past two years (and even more if you include the infant building) in the Montessori approach at Children's House.  They have made great friends and really have loved their time there (as have Mommy and Daddy).  The teachers have been wonderful and it is hard to say goodbye.  But here we were, at that moment where it was really happening.

That morning, we went in and took each class a gift of 3 floor puzzles that Jack and Mark had already mastered.  Of course, most of them were sports related.  We also got the teachers a little gift as a simple thank you to everything they had taught our boys over the past two years.

After lunch, we went to Jack's class as they were finishing up lunch, to have a little treat with this being Jack's last day.  Jack wanted us to bring marshmallows.  One teacher told us they had never seen anyone bring that gift in until Jack did.  That made us laugh.  The kids all enjoyed the marshmallows.  And the teachers liked it as it didn't bother any of their friends' food allergies.  

After nap time, Mommy and Daddy went to Mark's class to have a celebratory treat.  Mark, just as Jack did, selected marshmallows as his class's snack.  This made it easy on the parents and the teachers again.  The kids in Mark's class all stated one thing they were going to miss about Mark.  Not surprisingly, many of them said that they would miss playing games with Mark.

The entire family enjoyed their time at Children's House.  It seems like not long ago they started out there.  Man, they looked small compared to those 5 year olds.  But now they are the big boys and the 3 year olds look up to them.   The true circle of life.

We now look forward to their next big step...Kindergarten.

Here are several pictures from the last day at Children's House, including shots with their teachers:

Mark on his last day of Children's House.

Jack on his last day of Children's House.

How cool is it to go through every stage in life with your best friend?

Dee and Jack

Dianne and Jack (cue John Mellencamp).  Dianne is the lead teacher.

Debbie and Jack

Michelle and Mark

Eunie and Mark

Kersten and Mark.  Kersten is the lead teacher.

Party time in the cafeteria after Jack's class finishes lunch.  Jack is on the far left.

Mark's class waits to eat the marshmallows until Mark eats the first one.

Mommy, look at me! - Mark

Mark, chew with your mouth closed.  - Mommy

Mark and his good buddy Colton.

Pamm and Mark.

Jack and Clare.

Ben and Jack.

Walking out of Children's House with their paper mache giraffes, which are now proudly displayed in Daddy's office.

Bye Bye Children's House.  We loved our time here.

A busy Wednesday

With the trip to the beach and the trip to Tennessee, we had missed a couple of swim lessons lately.  We needed to make these up as our last lesson is at the end of August, and we needed to fit them into our busy schedule.  We also wanted to get them in before the boys start Kindergarten, which is August 22.  So, this week, they had 4 lessons (Monday - scheduled, Wednesday - make up, Friday - make up, and Saturday - scheduled) in 6 days.  Wow.  But the boys enjoy swim lessons and are learning a lot from them.

On Wednesday, we had an early swim lesson, which was followed by going to the church's annual Block Party, which kicks off the Wednesday night schedule.  The boys really like this party as there are all sorts of bounce houses and games to play in the parking lot at church.

The swim lesson they had that day was great as the other two kids in the class didn't show up so they had a private lesson basically.  The boys did really good.  We have a picture below that show them learning from the teacher.

When we left swim lessons, we ate a quick dinner, and then drove over to church for the Block Party.  It was already going well when we got there.  The boys were so excited.  The first thing, obviously, that they did was the bounce house that contained the basketball goal and basketball.  But they went and did all of the bounce houses and events that they were big enough for...which is most of them.  They had an absolute blast.

What a day it was.  Everyone was tired and slept well that night.

After swimming and floating on your back, let's end the day with a nice ride on a float as the teacher shakes it all around.

Trip to Kingsport

We had just gotten back into the swing of things after our beach trip when the weekend was upon us.  Up next for us was a trip to Tennessee to see Mimi and Poppy.  We didn't get out there until later that night as Mommy and Daddy had to work on Friday afternoon.  But Mimi was happy to see us when we rolled in.  Even happier were Jack and Mark as they were excited to get there, see Mimi, and get out of the car.  After a good night's sleep, the next morning we relaxed and had a good time catching up with Mimi.  We all went out to see Poppy at lunchtime and so we could feed him.  While we were out there, Aunt Janet, Uncle Jarett, Kate, and Macy showed up.  The cousins all had a good time.  Poppy enjoyed seeing the cousins run around in the outside square.

After we got back to Mimis, the cousins all wanted to go outside and play, even though it had rained earlier in the day.  No problem.  The boys and girls made up a couple of funny games, including one with bouncy balls and brooms.  Everything they do turns into a game.  Haha.

The Morgans left after dinner to go back to Knoxville.  The next morning, we went to church.  The boys joined us in the worship service for the first time and then went to the Kindergarten Sunday School class.  Talk about big boys.  They did great and really enjoyed the morning.

We had a great time with Mimi and Poppy.  We look forward to getting back to Kingsport soon.

Here are a couple of pictures of the boys playing their game they invented with brooms and a ball:

Jack looks on as Mark follows through after hitting the ball with his broom.

Look at that form.  Perfect.

Trip to the Beach

The first week of August we went to Mrytle Beach for a couple of days with the Jungs.  Andy has taken a new job as the senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Ablemarle.  In the downtime between jobs, they wanted a couple of days out of town to relax, including playing some golf.

So we went down to the beach and had a great time.  The boys were really looking forward to the trip as they wanted to use their sand tools as well as play in the pool.  We got to Mrytle Beach on Saturday afternoon.  We wound up meeting their friend Alex, and his family, at Margaritaville at Broadway on the Beach.  The Byrds, like us, had decided recently to take a quick beach excursion.  They had come down a couple of days before and we going back on Sunday, while we were doing the opposite, going back on Tuesday.  Jack and Mark had a great time with Alex.  They really are good friends and it is good to see them have fun wherever they are.

The next morning, Daddy and Uncle Andy went to the golf course, which was pretty water logged because of all of the rain the area had received over the past few days.  While they waited out the rain/lightning delay, Mommy, Jack, Mark, and Aunt Amy went to the beach and the pool (as they did not have any weather issues at the hotel).

The boys had a great time at the beach.  It had been a long time since they had played in the sand.  They really enjoyed that.  Then they went into the lazy river at the hotel.  They realized quickly that the water was only 2 and a half feet deep.  Therefore, they could be standing on the bottom and have their heads above the water line.  They thought it was awesome.  The river had a really swift current and the boys decided to make it a non-lazy river.  They thought it would be fun to run around the loop as much as possible.  So, aided by the current in the lazy river, Jack and Mark had a blast doing laps.  It was all Mommy and Amy could do to keep up.   Finally, the boys got a little tired.  Next, they had to go to the big pool and practice jumping in.  This was really good as they hadn't done this well yet at swim lessons.  It didn't take long to become fully comfortable jumping in as high and as wide as possible.

After everyone met up for dinner and ate, we went back to the pool and the girls let Daddy and Andy chase the boys around the non-lazy river.  We were weaving in and out of traffic (tubes with people on top) like we were in NASCAR or something.  By the end of the evening, all 6 of us had blisters on our feet.

The next day was much like the previous day, except that the adult boys played golf first thing in the morning.  That evening, after dinner, the girls went shopping while Jack and Mark played Par 3.  They did a great job.  They had a great time and hit the ball very well.  Their new clubs that their grandparents had gotten them for their birthday worked really well.  The caddies, Daddy and Andy, were duly impressed.

On Tuesday morning, Daddy and Andy played one last round of golf before everyone headed back to Raleigh.  It was a short, rainy trip.  However, we all had a really good time there and were glad we were able to go.

Here are some pictures at the beach:

Alex and Mark.  Good buddies hanging out.

Getting ready for baseball practice.

Guess who loves Krispy Kreme's for breakfast?  MARK DOES!!!

Hanging out getting ready to shovel.

Mommy, are we really at the beach?  I still haven't seen the sun yet.  Is it still up there?  - Jack

J&M Construction Company is now open for business.

Stop taking pictures, Mommy.  I am working hard.  Gotta go get some more water.  - Jack

On the other end of the spectrum, Dr. Jung takes a well earned rest.  

Daddy, Jack, and Mark show the river they just created.

How does Mark cross the ravine?  Easy.  Look at him.

How does Jack make the ravine bigger?  With his shovel. 

Take a picture with Amy's hat on me Mommy!  - Mark

Act will and crazy.  Check.

Best friends.

Jack

The happy family all together.