We had a lot to celebrate today, so as soon as Josh got home from school we headed for the train station and uptown Charlotte.
Josh has been doing exceptionally well the past few weeks according to his teachers and therapists. He earned the rare "purple crown" on Wednesday because he did an entire assignment during class by himself and somehow produced very good handwriting on unlined paper. He appears to be going through some kind of maturity spurt right now, and it's amazing to watch him change so quickly.
We're celebrating with Molly because she's done so well on potty training at home that we've decided diaper days are over and we'll brave taking her out in public wearing panties. I've taken her to at least six different public restrooms today, some more than once (at her request), and she's doing great.
Today also is Chris' last day of unemployment, and we visited the Bank of America buildings, where he'll start work Monday, on our uptown walking tour this evening.
Our first stop uptown was at the children's library, which has computers and bathrooms.
Everyone was starving by the time we got to Fuel Pizza. Josh kept looking in my bag for food because we always take picnics when we go out because of Josh's dietary restrictions, but we treated him to a meal out tonight of deli rolls and French fries. He didn't complain! The kids weren't too happy, though, about having to wait for their food.
We ended the day at the Green uptown and let the kids play on some concrete fish that usually are part of a fountain.
Today is sadly Molly's last day of preschool, so we took a picture to commemorate the event. Below is the picture from her first of preschool in late August. She's come a long way, especially in the hair growth department!
The kindergartners spent the morning participating in their annual field day, which involved a relay with a rubber chicken, badminton and throwing rubber pigs through hula hoops set up like Olympic rings. I stopped by for a few minutes to cheer Josh's class on. I must say Josh is quite good at rubber pig throwing--the fifth graders helping out were ducking for cover when it was his turn.
I'm not sure if Josh has inherited my love for badminton--when he actually hit the birdie it went sideways into the rubber chicken course. That's the net to his right.
Josh celebrated the end of his run by tossing the rubber chicken high into air, so his team lost some time on the chicken handoff.
Here's the video of Josh's dance to the Jackson 5's "ABC 123" at the kindergarten end-of-year program. It's worth watching through to the end, when the kindergartners do their freestyle dance. Josh is standing behind the kid in the yellow on the far left. Enjoy!
We got together today with a bunch of my friends from UNC, and here we all are with a huge brood of children. I had not seen some of these people in 15 years, and it has been a very enjoyable day catching up with them. Josh and Molly enjoyed meeting new friends and getting muddy on the playground while the adults talked.
Corinne is here for the weekend, and Josh and Molly are very happy that "People" has come to visit! Josh insisted on wearing the bee hat to the reunion today, so at least it was easy to point out which kids were mine: the blond puffball and the bee.
Today's Kindergarten program was a far cry from last year's preschool end-of-the year program, where Josh stood like a deer in headlights and did not sing a word or do any movements to the songs. This year, we were thrilled to watch Josh dance (!), sing and do all of the motions to about five songs. For once, he was not standing next to a teacher, in the "special friends" section or in the back row.
We thoroughly enjoyed watching kindergartners dance to Jackson Five songs, including one with a freestyle dance at the end where all of the kindergartners showed off their moves. Josh's personal dance style involved a lot of jumping. It's amazing what a year of maturity, along with lots of therapy, nutritional supplements and a strict diet have done for Josh.
Molly was standing in front of me, so the only picture I could get of her was an extreme close-up. Molly was very proud of her brother, and yelled, "That's my Joshy!" when she found him in the crowd. Amazingly, I got a picture with both kids looking at the camera after the program.
Wilmington was only an hour drive from White Lake, so we headed over to our dear friends' Melanie and Phillip's house after the race. Josh and Molly pitched a fit about having to leave the hotel in White Lake, but they quickly forgot their distress when we arrived in Wilmington!
The kids spent several hours playing in the sprinkler and water spigots, and they sufficiently terrorized Melanie and Phillip's cats, all before bedtime. We let them go back outside in their pajamas to see the fish jumping in the canal behind Melanie and Phillip's house.
This morning we attended our church in Wilmington, which we haven't been to in five years, and had brunch with Steph and JoEllen. It was so nice to be back in our old town and see longtime friends.
Here are Molly and Jo outside the restaurant waiting for our brunch table.
Our last stop was at the Cape Fear River after driving by our old house in downtown Wilmington. The kids loved watching the boats on the river, and they were thrilled with our friend Doug arrived with his Great Dane, Sammy.
We began a very fun weekend with a trip to the White Lake Half-Ironman Triathlon to watch Steph compete. We spent Friday night in a hotel in White Lake, which the kids thought was one of the must fun places we'd ever been. We got up early Saturday morning and walked to the edge of the hotel parking lot to watch Steph come by on her 56-mile bike ride, which came after her 1.2 mile swim.
Josh and Molly passed the time between Steph sighting by playing with umbrellas, hanging out with other kids and lounging.
We were pretty tired after our six hours of spectating, so we could only imagine how Steph felt after completing the half-marathon portion of the race. It was an amazing accomplishment for her, and we were very proud we could be there to cheer her on!
We had a lot to celebrate today, so as soon as Josh got home from school we headed for the train station and uptown Charlotte.
Everyone was starving by the time we got to Fuel Pizza. Josh kept looking in my bag for food because we always take picnics when we go out because of Josh's dietary restrictions, but we treated him to a meal out tonight of deli rolls and French fries. He didn't complain! The kids weren't too happy, though, about having to wait for their food.
We ended the day at the Green uptown and let the kids play on some concrete fish that usually are part of a fountain.
