School’s out for summer! Anna with some classmates on the last day of school

The kids have been literally counting down the days until school got out for over a month. And this past Friday the day finally arrived. Jude and Anna are both very excited about the summer and are happy to be done with school. Anna celebrated with a class party at a neighborhood and Jude’s class had a picnic in the park.

Jude with the team trophy and his medal after winning their soccer tournament

This weekend was mostly about soccer. Jude’s soccer team had a tournament to close their season. They have been improving steadily throughout the year and they really put it together for this tournament. They went through undefeated and dominated their opponent in the final winning 11-0. Jude scored three goals over the weekend including a good penalty kick in the final.

Jude’s team and coaches after their final win

On Saturday afternoon/evening we had a block party. We blocked off the street and everyone contributed food and drink. While we have met a few of the neighbors over the last six months it was good to meet many more. What is good is that pretty much all the kids on our block are between the ages of 5 and 12 so there is a lot of potential for playmates, although there are more boys than girls.

Anna and Jude in a scooter race – they are actually going quite fast

Part of the evening was an impromptu scooter race with some of the neighbor kids. It started off as just a friendly race and became quite competitive as the afternoon wore on. After literally a couple of hours of races, we were about to call it quits and then Anna has a pretty bad fall. She scraped her knee and hand pretty badly and was in considerable pain. It was a bummer of an end to a great day.

Anna wearing the new dress she made in sewing class

Anna has been taking sewing classes for several months now and she loves it. She can operate a sewing machine quite well now and she has made all kinds of great things in her classes. This past week she was very excited because she made her very first dress – she designed and sewed it together. Of course, she showed it off on the second last day of school this week.