Kindergarten!

First Day of Kindergarten

Yep.  This was inside the house

This was at the bus stop which was a little park just at the end of our back alley. 

 This was all on the first day.  Dustin would take him to the bus stop every morning that David had school and I would pick him up.  Sometimes we would play at the park with friends after school, sometimes we would just come on home.  There was a last day of school too.  Honestly David didn't spend much time actually at school on his last day.  There were all sorts of field trips he got to go on because he was a top earner for his class when they did the walk-a-thon a couple weeks prior to the end of the school year.
Between the first and last days of school there were lots of school days.  The kindergarten program here has the kids on a flex schedule, they either attended the Tuesday/Thursday class or the Wednesday/Friday class.  Mondays were alternated between the two classes.  They stayed all day on their school days.  David really enjoyed bringing his lunch to school and only bought lunch 3 or 4 times.  I hope he continues to like brining his lunch.
David was very advanced for his age school-wise and I often wonder if I should have just tested him out of kindergarten and into 1st grade.  He came home most days telling me he was bored at school or that he didn't want to go back.  Hopefully 1st grade will be better for him.  School almost starts - it's just a few short weeks away and I will officially have a 1st grader!

Craters of the Moon

Who would have thought lava could be so cool!  After a wonderful trip to Alaska we decided to hit up a local National Park - Craters of the Moon.  We picked up my brother Brian and away we went.  Little did we anticipate just how hot it would be at that national park!!!

IT WAS HOT!!

There really isn't any shade because there aren't really any trees.  There is just a bunch of black lava rock.  Vegetation is slowly starting to come back but it's still hot.  This park is definitely one to visit in the colder weather months!  These are the only pictures we were able to get.  Most of the things we wanted to see we couldn't get to because of park road construction - maybe we will try again this fall.  The caves we had intended on checking out but with a good 1/2 mile walk to get the the mouth,  a VERY cranky David and all the heat we decided to save the caves for another visit.

Alaska: Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada

Prince Rupert

Initially we were under the impression that you could only get off at the port if you had a passport.  Well Dustin & I didn't spend the money to get passports for this trip so just planned on staying on board the ship, this was the shortest port visit by far - just 2 or 3 hours.  About an hour before everyone needed to be on board we found out that at long as we had our driver's licenses we could visit the city.  Dustin and I left the boat and leaving the kids behind with Grandpa we explored the little bit of the city we could see in the short time frame.  It was beautiful, hilly and green!  There was a walking tour that we did a part of but really we just enjoyed walking the bit of town that we could.  We did get a picture of a totem and an old steam roller.

Alaska: Skagway

I know it has been FOREVER since i posted.  Here is one of the last posts that corresponds with our Alaska Cruise - last summer.  Yes, I know, it's been over a year since we took that trip.  I know, I know, I know.  Life got crazy, I did some rethinking about the blog and have decided to finish what I started and continue on.  Anyway, back to the trip....

Skagway, Alaska.

It's pretty cool.  The whole city is a National Park because this is where people came for the Klondike Gold Rush.  This was the starting point of all the expeditions.  Skagway is a small but very beautiful town.  Most of the town still looks like the town as it was built back at the turn of the 20th century.  The buildings are wonderfully maintained and have that charm of living in the time of the Gold Rush. 

There is a narrow gauge train that runs from Skagway called the White Pass Railway.  We didn't ride the train but we did get to see one of the snow plow trains that would help clear the tracks.  David was excited because we have a picture of this train in his train book.

Dustin & I did make sure that David was able to complete the Junior Ranger program here.  He was even able to get be an Alaska Adventure Ranger because he visited 3 Alaskan Public Lands.  He visited the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center, Mendenhall Glacier, & Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.  We were pretty proud.