Summertime!

First lemonade stand at the new house!  This time raising money for Ukraine.  They also baked cookies and our neighbor had had a graduation party and gave them a bunch of leftover drinks to sell.

 

End of K, start of swim team

B and I had a special last day of school date.  He wanted to go to Billy's Inn for lunch and get ice cream from Cooies afterwards, so that's what we did.

Swim team started before school was over, and this little guy has been loving it!

B and his two BFF's from school.

He helped make these cute little end of year teacher gifts.

 

Jussi!!!

Growing up, exchange students were a big part of my life.  We had our first when I was less than 2, yet we stayed in close contact with her.  Naoko is Japanese, and she has come to visit as well as us visiting her in Japan.  We then had Toshiko, also from Japan.  When I was 16, I lived in France for a summer with an exchange student my dad had when he was younger.  His family welcomed me as a part of their own.  Upon my return, we hosted Jussi for a year.  He's from Finland and was here in 1995/96.  He is a brother in my mind, truly.  He seamlessly joined our family and after his return home, my younger brother went to live with him for a semester.  We also hosted Nacho (who Brian has visited twice in Argentina, and both Brian and I visited.  He has also come with his wife to stay with us since).  Jussi hadn't been back to Denver (we met him on the East Coast once) since 1996, but we were lucky and he came to visit 2 weeks ago.  We had the best time, and loved having him meet everyone!

 

Happy 15th LT!

With all the graduation fun, we decided to celebrate LT's birthday a few weeks early with his friends and have a low key family day for his actual birthday.  Lucky for him, his middle brother loves baking and is incredibly thoughtful.  He made this cookies n cream cake and decorated it with a disc.  It was so delicious!

 

Brothers

 

Randoms Lately

Ice cream after a hot day at camp.

Our yard is underway!  

I am on the board of our pool and organize all the social events.  Last Saturday was the teen Luau party!

When the New Kids on the Block come, we go :)

Tired Teen at the first swim meet of the year.

B swimming his first ever 25 free.

And this happened!  We went out for the first time and drove through the cemetery, which ended up being a great first place.

 

Graduation

We celebrated LT's 8th grade graduation on June 3rd and 4th.  On the evening of the 3rd, there was a dinner for the parents and kids, followed by an individual speech for each kid given by their advisor.  It was remarkable how well each advisor knew each kid.

Here is LT's given by his advisor, Ace:

https://youtu.be/k5eZM-Yre7Q

LT has had the best group of buddies at this school.  I am so grateful that a few will be together for high school and hope that they all stay in contact.

We went out to lunch afterwards to celebrate graduation and his birthday the next day.

       And that evening we rented out our pool and invited the whole 8th grade to celebrate!

Rose Ceremony

The kids' school has an end-of-year ceremony where the kindergarteners present roses to the graduating 8th graders. It's a sweet and very cute tradition that was extra special for us this year because B gave a rose to LT.