In addition to all the birthdays, we had a ton going on in May. John got to go to Austin for a fishing trip with some of his friends from Dell. Of course he stopped by Buc-ee's. I was very jealous. I think it may have made him a bit homesick for Austin.
The elementary school had a track meet. I kind of feel bad for EZ, because he is not very fast and he knows it and having to compete like this just kind of rubbed salt in his wound. But I think he had fun hanging out with his friends.
That night, after the track meet, the school had it's technology fair and EZ was in heaven. The robotics team was there and the high school student who won was letting everyone play the computer game he had created. Oh and EZ's class had a demo table where EZ got to help people play coding games. I am thinking EZ has more of an academic future then an athletic, but hey that worked for me.
While I was a the tech fair with the boys, John was on a church daddy daughter camp out with Netta. It rained all night, and I don't think anyone got any sleep, but they still had fun and I love that they get a chance to do stuff like this together.
My sister Sarah had her baby girl Hazel at the end of April, so of course I had to have an Austin trip as well. Thanks to my companion pass status on Southwest, I decided to surprise EZ and take him with me. The only bummer was he had to miss his big 4th grade field trip to Conner Prairie in Indiana, which in my defense was no where on the calendar when I planned the trip. I was going to surprise him the day of and just throw him in the car and say "we are going to Austin!" but he was getting way too excited about the upcoming field trip so I had to tell him about 2 weeks before we left. I was hoping his initial reaction would be excitement, but instead he started crying. Oops. But once I reminded him that he would get to see all his Texas friends he perked right up. And I promised we would go to Conner Prairie as a family this summer.
Of course EZ was in heaven with all his old friends. Here he is with his buddy Bradly. His mom Maggie, who is also one of my good friends, was cool enough to pull him out of school for the day, so they could have lots of fun together.
Of course I loved seeing all of my friends, but I also loved eating all of my favorite food. Visiting Austin as a tourist is so much fun! I had all my favorite places packed into one awesome weekend. I got to eat my favorite burgers and pitas and of course queso! I especially love the queso at Torchy's Tacos, but EZ couldn't get over the swear word in the slogan. As soon as we walked in he starting giggling hysterically and said "Mom don't turn around. There is a swear word behind you."
I loved being able to get my food fix and my baby fix on this trip. Hazel is such a cutie, although it did kind of confirm to me that I am happy with the size of my family and while I am sad to never have the experience of giving birth again, I am ok that we are done having kids. Luckily, I think some of my sisters will still be having more babies for me to play with.
When I started planning this trip, I found out that one of EZ's best buddies Ethan would be moving to Georgia at the end of the school year, so we had to make sure they had lots of time together. They are 2 peas in a pod and couldn't have had more fun. We haven't been letting EZ have friend sleep overs yet, but I let that rule slide this one time and he was ecstatic.
One the flight home, I wanted one last pic of me and EZ together and without my knowledge he made this great face here. He is such a goofball. Luckily, he did cooperate for one good one.
The end of May marked the end of Kingston's preschool career. He has made so many strides this year. His teacher said he was hands down the most improved and he is ready and set to go to kindergarten. I would try and work with him on stuff at home, but he had no interest. I know preschool made all the difference for him. Besides just improving academically, he actually got somewhat over his fear of performing. Much to my surprise he sang all the songs with his classmates at the end of year performance instead of refusing to even stand with the group like he used to. Here he is with Ms. Kelly and Ms. Arianne. They had to say what they want to be when they grow up and he said "A food fight," which is a character from Skylanders. That is really confusing if you are not up to date on little kid video games.
Pre-K was the year that EZ broke out of his shell a bit and actually made friends and the same is true for King. He has some really great buddies from this class and luckily one of his best buds Mia will be going to Brown for kinder as well. We are praying they will be in the same class together, because he keeps insisting that he is not going to go to kinder and that he wants to stay at preschool.
My parents came for Memorial Day weekend and we were able to hit up this awesome arcade. It is about 40 minutes away, so we probably won't get to go there a ton, but it was definitely worth the drive for how much fun everyone had.
At the end of the month the town had a kind of creators festival for anyone to come show off stuff their group creates. There were science and art exhibits and EZ got to be a volunteer once again and teach people how to play some coding games. It has been a bit of a hard year with his teacher, because of way to much homework and him having a naughty bunch of boys that are always getting the whole class in trouble, but I have to say that he has loved all the technology that she has incorporated into the classroom
