Graduations

We had two graduations in our family this year - preschool and 5th grade. Although some people feel that these type of graduations are silly, they do represent a big transition in a child's life. Ben will be moving on to Kindergarten, which means that he will start going to school on a daily basis and learning Japanese. Emily will be moving on to middle school, which means lockers, 7 different classes, changing clothes for PE, and many other changes.

Ben has enjoyed the NEHS preschool. He is the last of my kids to attend there...wow, who thought the day would come?!!!
He is very excited to be moving on to Kindergarten, but he enjoyed every minute of preschool.

He especially liked having his cousins Danny and Hailey at preschool with him. They looked forward to spending the time together.


Emily was not quite as excited as Benjamin to graduate. Her two best friends are going to different middle schools, and she wants to go with them. It will be hard for her to be away from them after six years of going to school together.
Who knows? Maybe they will meet up again at some point. We told Emily that she has to at least try Kelly middle school out next year (I do not want to drive my two middle schoolers to two different schools each morning). Then we will see if we want to make changes when Leilani goes to high school.
It was a nice graduation ceremony. They sang and did a tribute through skits and songs to their teachers in each grade. They are a funny class, with lots of personality. We really enjoyed the performance.
Emily's group did the tribute to the 5th grade teachers, and then Emily was chosen to give the farewell speech (along with a boy) to everyone. Her teacher told me that she chose her because she speaks Japanese so well. She really does enjoy the Japanese. Hopefully she can keep progressing...she is worried that the middle school Japanese class will be too easy.
We are very proud of her and all she has accomplished.