So here are are, the last day of March with five feet of snow left on the ground. It has been a busy winter and everyone is soooo ready for spring.
Nate finished his second (and last) IP season. He'll be a mite next year and will start to play regular games. He graduated to the chair lift our last trip to Alyeska and wiped out only once on the chair 7 run. He had a fun 6th birthday party at Happy Hoppers and got some great presents but I think the highlight for him was wearing his birthday hat in kindergarten and being the center of attention all day. He has lost two teeth - his adults are huge and coming in crooked, which does not bode well for the future :( He is currently the Angry Birds champion, which stumps Roger, who can't figure out how a 6 year-old can outwit some of the levels.
Mary Grace has started up swim club again twice a week and is considering joining another Girl Scout troop when our current troop - the one she's been in since kindergarten - dissolves after our troop leader moves this summer. We just finished cookie sales this week and will dive into another round of fundraising for an ocean kayaking trip to Valdez in June. The girls hosted our annual Birthday Box drive for all the area girl scouts, and we had our best turn-out. (Birthday boxes are equipped with everything to host a party - favors, food, decorations, etc. - and donated to Alaska Family Services for kids who need them.) We also celebrated 100 years of Girl Scouting with a bonfire and huge gathering. At Christmas, we created our final holiday float that gave 150 little girls places to sit during the Colony Christmas parade. Her class at Academy just finished Community Profiles where they interviewed various movers-and-shakers (she got the police chief) and then painted their portraits. There was a grand gallery opening at a local restaurant and the portraits are now hanging in a coffee shop in Palmer. Grace also had oral surgery to remove 8 teeth (!) in Feb and will get braces in April or May.
Luke's high school hockey team successfully defended their Regions championship before falling in the quarterfinals at the state meet. (There are great photos of him and his team at www.matsusports.net) His competitive hockey team lost in the crossovers at their state meet and it is a HUGE relief to be finally finished for a few months. He's participating in track right now, and also working with the high school coaches to develop next year's high school team. We lost 8 seniors this year so Luke is coordinating orientation for incoming eighth graders, organizing practices, etc. to get a jump on a cohesive team for next year. He will either work at Vanderwheele's farm this summer or in Nova Scotia, should a job open up there. He got his license a month ago, which is very nice for me as he has to work for gas money. My kitchen has never been cleaner. :)
Roger is working out of New Hampshire on his 20 day rotations. He's taken a short vacation right now as Grace and I head to Juneau for her class trip the second week of April. We are replacing the carpet on our stairs with oak treads and repainting both stair wells and a lot of wall, so that's his project while he's home. He seems to enjoy being a mechanic again - a lot less stress and now he gets paid overtime (yay) - although the time away from home is hard on all of us.
I am looking forward to spring and gardening and being outside, although I'll miss my students. I've had such a blast this year at Academy and honestly can't wait to do it all again next year. I wrote a nice grant that included a Wii Fit w/ electronic dance pads for an entire classroom, as well as enough $ to do a XC ski unit with my 3-5 graders. If all goes well, we'll break ground on a 10 classroom addition this summer, meaning most of our classes can move out of their ancient portables and into the main building by next spring. That also means we'll have room to permanently set up our Wii Fit with a projector or big screen TV, so the kids can earn passes during lunch to come work out as well as during PE. Construction will adjoin the gym - which will be noisy and a pain - but once it's finished, it'll be really great.
