Graduation Girl

Kara Brielle graduated from kindergarten last night.
Can’t believe how quickly she is growing up!

Here she is all ready to go.

 

 

Here’s the whole crew. : )

 

 

And the whole school.

 

 

With her diploma and Bible.

 

 

Kate, Kara, & Alex with Mrs. VDT

We are thankful for the teachers who have labored diligently with our children during this school year. We praise God for the blessing of our school.
And we have lots of exciting things planned for this summer! : )

~

If you’d like to watch video clips from the gradation, you can do so at the links below:

Kindergarten & 1st Grade Special Number

Kindergarten Diplomas

Grades K-8 Special Number

Playing Catch-up, part 2

Here are some random photos from the month of April…

 

Ryan shootin’ some hoops

 

Cousin Tyler and Ryan chatting on Grandma’s play phones. : )

 

TP Brides at Anna’s shower : )
Ari, Miley, Lanae, Kara, Jayda, Carly, Joanna, Anna, & Kate

 

 

“Can we please buy this hat?”

 

 

Mama’s big helper

 

 

Clean-up Crew

 

 

 
Ryan has a little too much fun with the vacuum. ; )

 

 

Ryan & Tyler, mowers-in-training

 

 

All ready for church!

 

 

  
They never get tired of iding the horse at HyVee

 

 

   
Harlem Globetrotters date night!

 

 

Going for a ride with Grandpa De Jong

 

He even brought them to school one morning!

 

Holding our new baby cousin, Micah Daniel…

What a cutie! : )

 

Fun times at the park

(Yes, Ryan likes hats, as you may have noticed by now. ; )

 

 

We love tractor rides!

Playing Catch-up, part 1

Been a little quiet on the blog front the last while, so we’ve got a bunch of random photos to share. Here are a few from the month of March…

Kara & Ryan camping out

 

 

I think these glasses might be a little small : )

 

 

So happy to be playing outside!

 

 

Walking to the mailbox

 

 

Trying out a snowboard (with his favorite train in hand ; )

 

 

Two boys in a tunnel

 

 

SkyZone fun

 

 

Tried to print something and got an error message saying the printer cartridge could not move… opened it up and sure enough, that was true. (Thanks for the airplanes, Ryan! : )

Also had to call a furnace repair man because our furnace wasn’t working…
he discovered the outdoor vent pipe had been filled up with rocks.
Ryan’s always up to something. ; )

 

 

   
Mama’s big helper 

 

 

Happy Birthday, Paul!
(Since his birthday is close to Easter, it’s become
a tradition to give him a chocolate bunny every year. : )

Jenna made his cake, and it was delicious!

 

 

Ryan holding a bunny at the Brummels. : )

 

Ryan’s first convertible ride.
Thanks, Mrs. Brummel! (& Ethan ; )

 

 

One of Paul’s patients knits slippers for our kids…
here are just a few of the ones she has given us. : )

Interscholastics

Our school recently participated in the area vocal and instrumental Interscholastics.

Here is a video of the 6th-8th graders rehearsing their song… It was beautiful!
*Please note – If you are viewing this post in your email, you need to click on the post title “Interscholastics” to view the videos. Thanks!*

“Since With My God”

 

And this one is of Jenna’s violin song… Enjoy! : )

“Gavotte”

 

*Thanks to my sister, Bethany, for recording and sharing these videos!

Travelbug Update

You may remember from this post that our geocaching travelbug was
on the island of Cyprus…

Well, it got picked up by a geocacher who left this note:

“Cool! Our First TravelBug we have found!
We will bring it to another Cache in the next week.
We have a Golden Retriever too!”

“Our Golden Retriever Eddie”

 

They brought our Dakota Golden 1,726 miles to Niedersachsen, Germany!

~

It was recently picked up again by a geocacher who left this note:
“Bei schönem Wetter geht die Reise weiter Richtung Osten.”

Which (according to Google Translate) means:
”Weather permitting, the journey continues eastwards”

This particular fellow has found thousands of caches in Germany, as well as some in
Denmark, Sweden, Czech Republic, Austria, China, and Thailand.

So… we are excited to see where it goes next! Will keep you posted!

~

I meant to include this photo in the original post... This is the map we have at our house to keep track of where our Dakota Golden has travelled.

The red pegs show where our travel bug has been.
Blue is for places we have visited as a family.
The green pegs show where our Operation Christmas Child packages have gone.
Yellow is where our sponsored child, Elinese, lives.
And white is where our friends, the Rojases, live.

It’s been a fun way to learn a little geography!