Lantern Walk

Thursday evening we had a lantern walk at Anna's school. It was a beautiful time of celebrating the changing of the season. The lanterns are symbolic of each child carrying their inner light out into the world and bringing love and compassion to those around them. We all gathered in the evening at her school, after dark with a full moon shining. After gathering in the cafeteria, hearing a story and practicing the lantern songs, we all headed silently out into the dark with lit lanterns for a walk around the property.Josie and Ruthie had made lanterns with me at home so they could participate as well.
Their lanterns, glowing in the dark:

I wish you could have had the perspective we had of hundreds of lanterns glowing in the dark moving silently along, stars and a full moon overhead... It was incredible. At the end of the walk we all gathered in the field and sang some songs that the kids had learned (and had attempted to teach their parents).

Beautiful evening, beautiful lanterns, beautiful children.

Anna's 1st Day of School

Boy howdy was this girl excited today! I have never seen her ride her bike as fast anywhere as she rode on her way to her first day of school.Josie is already looking forward to her turn next year.
All grown up and still our baby girl, so many people, so much to overwhelm, still wanting to hold her Daddy's hand.

BCSIS has a Rose Ceremony to welcome everyone back. The teachers form a drum circle and sing as their welcome, the 5th graders give the Kindergarteners each a rose to welcome them into the community.

Then the parents make an archway and all the students pass through the arch on their way to their new classrooms. Kindergarten parents get to go through it with their Kindergartners.

I love how BCSIS marks special occasions with special ceremony, highlighting their importance in the life of your child, celebrating the milestones. We feel very welcomed into the BCSIS community.

Anna with her Daddy'O, she's still looking a bit nervous and intimidated here.

And with Mommy. I'm so proud of my little girl.

It didn't take her long to feel comfortable and confident, just a few minutes of play on the playground and she was smiling and running around playing with her new classmates.

Anna doing a rhyming activity with her teacher, Mrs. Wells:

And reading with one of the para's:

Her first day is under her belt, a huge milestone in the life of this family. My firstborn, my little girl, taking steps away from the nucleus of this family, out on her own. It was fun to see her walk into her classroom with her teacher for her assessment so confident and secure, her eyes sparkling. That's my Anna.

Vacation is Over

And summer has begun.

At least it feels that way to me.

Which is better? Vacation or summer? I love them both. They seem mostly synonymous this time of year. Vacation, in this family, meant Mitch not working or schooling (and me not blogging). Summer means sunshine. I like it best when they both go together.

For those of you who have wondered where we have been and what we have been spending our time doing:

We have been doing

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Well, that's not really true. It can't be true in a house where three active little ones live. But we haven't gone anywhere and haven't done a lot of things that we normally count as normal in the daily rhythm of our hectic 'dad's in school' lives.
We HAVE been on lots of bike rides, spent lots of time in the garden now that we're finally past our frost date and can plant all the warmer weather crops!, gone to bed at a decent hour and gotten up at a decent hour, felt well rested!, played, laughed together all through our dinner meal, sat in the sunshine together, had a few normal bumps in the road that go with being in a time of transition between a crazy schedule and a normal, healthy, daily rhythm, had lots of family around, celebrated a graduation, said good-bye to a good friend who graduated and left the area, started a new summer job, enjoyed our morning coffee sitting on the couch together with both of us fully awake!, finished a ballet class...
And basically have fully embraced and enjoyed switching to a healthier rhythm of life for our family.

Congratulations, Mitch, on graduating with honors!

Hooray for Daddy'O!

Mitch with his brothers Chad and Jeb:

(Thanks for the pictures, Chad!)

Meeting my niece, little Maia Sage, for the first time:Windy bike rides with Jeanette, Michael, and Maia:

(Thanks for those pictures, Jeanette!)

See, we are still alive and quite well! Enjoying our days, laughing lots. Hooray for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Done!

by Mitch

All of the semesters since I have been back in school have been tough, but this one topped them all. Now it is finished! That is definitely reason to celebrate in our household. There were times when we were not quite sure how we would make it to the end of this semester, but now we have made it. I'm not sure who is more relieved, me or Katie.

Katie likes to post pictures of different projects she is working on from time to time, so I have to post my own version of my projects. This is basically what the largest portion of the semester distilled down to, construction drawings for our Senior Design Project:

Okay, I know Katie's projects are probably of a lot more interest to most people who read this blog regularly except for Hashim, but this project has consumed so much of the last three months that it seemed like it had to make its way into the blog somehow. And yes, the design project entailed a lot more than just those two drawings, but I figured I might be pushing it a bit already. (Sorry, Hashim, the structural drawings didn't make it in. I am a hydraulics guy afterall.)

The last final was over at 10:30 last night. So now how to celebrate?

First, just relaxing.

This picture is actually from last Tuesday. Hashim is reading to Ruthie while we were relaxing after our final Senior Design presentation.

Then today I got to spend the entire morning with Anna, Josie and Ruthie just playing and going for a walk/bike ride (Anna on the bike). Katie actually had a chance to work on some of her projects and have some time alone.

Later during nap time it was a chance to get out on the road again and get a nice thirty miles in.

Tonight it will be a chance to get together with some fellow students to celebrate the end of the semester together over dinner.

The part of celebrating that Katie and I are looking forward to the most, though, is just having some evenings together for a few weeks where I don't have to do schoolwork, and we can just sit and talk.

Family Sabbath

We finally had a much needed break as a family in the last day. Whew! That means that the last two weeks are over and we made it through. Mitch had an intense work load, a big midterm project due (he put in 70 hours last week on one of 5 classes, I don't even know how many hours this week). When one person in a family feels that much stress, it effects the whole family. We were busy surviving, not doing extra things like blogging. But we are all feeling more whole and connected again as a family now after a relaxing day and a half. Last night we taught the girls how to play charades (a modified version) and they had a blast acting out what they were supposed to be without any words and trying to guess what the actor was. They caught on quick how to play! It was good to laugh as a family and spend quality time together. Then we had a slumber party in the living room. We turned all the lights out and Mitch and I told stories by candlelight and then we all snuggled off to sleep. Today was another relaxing day, Mitch's first full day off in a while. We took a good family walk along the creek and played on the shore of the pond upstream from us a ways. Good times. Enjoy the following blog posts, pictures from the last two weeks that I'm finally finding the time to post.

On Vacation

What a concept! When was the last time the Clements got out of town? I mean further than 10 miles from the home base? It's been a while. But we are right now! We made it all the way to Grandpa and Nona's Farm outside of Kansas City and are enjoying a week of relaxing and lots of fun with family. The girls are in heaven with grandparents to dote on them and cousins and aunts an uncles and friends to play with and a whole farm to explore. You have to understand we use the term farm very loosely around here. But suffice to say they have plenty of space to roam around in, a whole swingset to play on, a real treehouse, sandbox, ponds to get muddy in, throw rocks in and watch fish, birds, frogs, crawdads, snakes and turtles in, rabbits, dogs, butterflies, flowers, thunderstorms, ticks, a hammock, a rested mom and dad... Who could ask for more? This blog is on vacation too, until we get home to a faster internet connection. Then we'll show you more pictures of fun on the farm. Have a great week!
Oh, and Mitch wanted to tell you that he did, in fact, do well.

Finishing Well

Okay, so Mitch wasn't actually too pleased with his last final, but the other two went really well, and he did incredibly well all semester. He had a pretty big cushion to not do too well on the final and still do really well in the class. But he's a bit bummed. He wanted to feel like he'd finished strong. Sometimes we have a different definition of what it means to do well in this house. I thought I would clarify after my last post so you would know how different members of this family are actually feeling.
Now on to the interview later today...

Mitch is done!!!

YAHOOOOO!!!

That's what I have to say. The semester is over! Now on to warmer days and a well rested Mitch around more and fully present when he is around. (He did well in his finals in case you were wondering. I wasn't. I already knew. Maybe he was wondering, but I wasn't.) The girls and I made brownies for Mitch to celebrate. Mmm, mmm, mmm! Here's what the girls looked like as I put the brownies in the oven, making silly faces for you:

Now that the greenhouse is gone (it's all been planted) I moved the girl's easel into that space by the window. They have been having fun with crayons, markers, pencils, finger paints and anything else they could find to do art with in the last 24 hours. Josie is very tactile. She wants to touch everything, get her hands dirty with it. Finger paint is wonderful for her (not that Anna doesn't love it too). But the other side of Josie that you might not expect is that she will 'write' for hours and make all sorts of minuscule 'letters' on her paper. Her artwork tends to be small marks, lots of them, with small movements, very fine. Anna, on the other hand, likes to draw big with large gestures. Always in dark purple, of course. My two opposite girls. If they are both coloring on the same paper you can always tell who did what. In this picture Josie is doing her homework (I swear, that's what she told me!) and Anna is drawing purple strawberries:
This is Ruthie playing in the new "Mommy can make dinner without Ruthie screaming the whole time" spot. But what I was the most excited about today was that Ruthie said 'Mama'!!! Twice! When she wanted me to pick her up two different times today! How exciting is that! Here she is playing with toys in her booster chair:

Mitch

Sometimes the stress is so thick in our house you could cut it with a knife. It finds its way in at the beginning of each semester and settles in like it belongs here, one of the family. It creeps in through the pressures of going to school with a family, through the lack of sleep, through high expectations and perfectionism, through the roller coaster ride of emotions. It builds with each passing week, becoming more tangible as the semester progresses, peaking higher with each wave of exams, building as finals approach. In school, there is no reprieve, no moment when all the work is done and you can breathe, until the semester is over.

Last Friday was an exam day. One with extra pressure: the professor announced that anyone getting a 95% or above on the exam was exempt from the final. Mitch studied hard, wrote furiously during the exam, checked his work, turned it in, walked out, and began the wait. Full of the nervous energy that is the result of any exam he passed his day, plowing into the work yet to be completed. Hours were spent on a group project (its own form of stress for a perfectionist). When he came home that night you could see the cloud around him, trying to engulf him, the nagging voice telling him 'you're not good enough, you should have done better...' The lies that beat us down.

An evening of laughter is good for the soul, it speaks the truth to you, it opens up new horizons, it lets the light in again, it strengthens connections in our family. Struggling to be energetic, lighthearted and carefree, wishing it was not a struggle, loving and feeling the full knowledge of being loved in return no matter what. No matter your struggles, no matter the other voices in your head trying to beat you down.

That night I was lying with the girls putting them to sleep when Mitch came bursting into the room dancing a jig (literally). He was trying to make it a subdued, 'you can still go to sleep girls' sort of a jig, but failing. You could tell by the huge grin on his face, the kind that puts happy wrinkles all over your face and a twinkle in your eye, that he had received good news. Sometimes there is a tangible reward for all your hard work. "No final for you," I asked?

"I got a 100%," was the reply.

Way to go, Mitch. You deserve it.