Celebrating!

There has been a lot of celebrating this week! On Sunday Peter made his final presentation for his Masters program!  yay! now we just wait for graduation.  The past two years have been so busy and very tiring.  Peter has worked really hard and has been really dedicated to his school work, all the while still being a dedicated husband and father....we are lucky to have him.

Monday I took my last finals for the quarter.  I am so glad to have this quarter finished!  I am going to school through the summer, so it's not quite as exciting as Peter's finishing...but I have a few weeks off and I got an A in a very frustrating class, so I'm still celebrating :)

On Wednesday Claire finished her last day of preschool!  She LOVES preschool, and was really mad at me when we drove Vi to school on Thursday and not her.  Claire has a wonderful group of preschool teachers and she has learned and grown so much this year.  She is a nutty kid with no respect for personal boundaries, but she is also the sweetest little angel...also she really likes to cut her own hair...like A LOT!

 To celebrate the end of preschool, the kids had a Popsicle party and sang a song, Claire got stage fright and didn't do it, but she loved showing us all her hard work in her folder...also she loved getting roses.

 Claire is always climbing on something...or jumping off of something...or somewhere in between....I think I'm starting to get some grey hairs.

First day of School and Last day of school!  Look at how much she has grown and look at how nice she can write her name now!  Violet has worked so hard in kindergarten this year and is making some fantastic progress.  She will be going into first grade next year.  And I think maybe we ought to start swimming lessons so she can begin working on being a swimming pool diver :)

First and last day of school for Claire.  She has become her own little person this year...Lots of attitude and independence with this one!  Claire claims to want to be a swimming pool diver too...I think she just wants to jump off of things for a living.

 Today was Peter's graduation!  We just went to the "hooding  for Peter's masters program, the general graduation was about 4 hours long and was to be held outside...rain or shine...it was raining when we left.  The Hooding ceremony, was very nice, all the speakers knew the students and had taught their classes and the students had all been together for 2 years, it was a nice celebration.  Lots of cheering, standing ovations, tears and laughter.

 Violet was so excited to see her Dad graduate, mostly I think she is excited that Peter won't be leaving for night classes anymore.

 Claire was totally bored, and took about 9,000 pictures on my phone...so if anyone wants blurry pictures of the carpet and that kid she is sitting next to...I have an abundance.

I got to "hood" Peter.  It was nice to be apart of the ceremony.  It was very personal.

Congratulations Peter!! I love you!  You have worked so hard and I am so proud of you, you have sacrificed so much time, sleep...and video games to get your degree.  You did it!!!

I'm procrastinating...so I'll blog

 I'm supposed to be getting ready for a Young Women's meeting...It starts in 30 minutes and I'm still in the clothes I've been cleaning the house in all day and I have no hair or make up done.  So...I'll blog :)  Above is a picture of said Young Women.  That is about half of them at our yearly Bishop Youth beach retreat.  They are a sweet group of girls, but oh the dramas of teenage girls!!

We stayed at a place called Seabrook.  It is so cute and the beach is great.  It is right near Pacific beach. A couple families in our ward have homes here and nearby and are so kind to let us spend the weekend out there.  

 Pacific beach.

 Violet turned 6! We had a great party, lots of friends, fun and pinata!

 Violet is all decked out for soccer!  Soccer doesn't start for a few more weeks, and Claire will be playing too, but the girls have been practicing and getting ready.

Peter is so close to finishing his degree and has had several meetings for his final project.  His last meeting corresponded with us needing to be in Tacoma so we went with him and spent the day on the docks of tacoma playing at the park while he worked with his group.  We are LOVING this sunny weather.

Nothing like a beach full of rocks to occupy two kids for a few hours!

 Beautiful day on the docks.

 they were trying to balance each other and not fall in, they almost fell in a few time because holding on to each other was making them imbalanced.  It was pretty funny to watch.

After Peter's meeting we met up with my family at the cemetery to put flowers on all the family graves and we renewed an old tradition of having a family picnic in the cemetery.  It was actually a really neat experience and it was fun to sit around and talk with Grandma about the people who were buried there.

Great Grandma, Grandpa, Mom and the girls.

ok that's all I have for the blog..I better get ready for my meeting!

ummm...I should blog more than twice a year, here are some pictures

 I visited our blog for the first time in a while today, and realized I had not posted anything since December.  Way to fall off the face of the planet.  Anyways, we have had a great couple of months.  Life has been busy, playing with our kids, going to school, work, and church callings.  Peter is still in school, he will be done in June and we are both so excited!  I'm in school too and between the two of us one of us is gone between 5 and 10 Monday through Thursday.  We are looking forward to summer so we can actually see each other :)

For Easter we actually had nice sunny weather.  We went to my parents for dinner and an Easter egg hunt.  We did manage to get a family picture in before the girls changed out of their dresses so they could play.  Claire was not happy about this and combine that with Peter laughing and this is our best picture....oh well :)

 Violet has started posing for the camera.  I love it.  She is such a little nut and is loving kindergarten.  Vi is getting ready to go into first grade next year.  She loves to sing and dance and has started using a kickboard to kick across the pool and begs to go to the pool everyday.  We are going to have to get a YMCA membership when we move from this apartment someday.

Claire is the bossy pants of the house.  Here she is instructing a yard full of adults on how to properly find eggs.  Watch out world, Claire is on the loose.  She wears me out, but I love her anyways.

I am still in Young Women s, this is from our Young Women in Excellence, my friend Alana did all the art work, she is amazing.  I made the little cupcakes with the truffula trees.  The night turned out really cute.  Our theme for the year is stand in holy places so we did a take on oh the places you will go...changed to stand.  This summer will be a fun and busy time with Young Women's.  We are planning a high adventure activity, a mother daughter run, a beach leadership retreat, girls camp, and a regional 5k Virtue Run, and the Laurels are invited to do the RS triathlon in September so we are going to do a little prep for that with the girls too.  It's going to be busy but so much fun.  We have a great group of girls and I really enjoy being a part of the program.

 We went camping in Anacortes and saw the tulips. It was so much fun.  This is one of my favorite camping trips of the year.  It is relaxing and the place we stay is so gorgeous.  We had some crazy weather but we did manage a few hours of good sunshine.

Here we are at the tulips!  It was pouring down rain.  

The girls were not bothered by the rain, they just ran through all the puddle and were soaking wet by the time we left.

 me at the tulip fields.

 flying their mini kites at the campground.

The beach, about 100 yards from our cabin.  The girls love throwing rocks and Vi even waded in....briefly, it was sunny, not hot.

the campground is on a reservation so you can't take anything off the beach and there is a ton of driftwood, and this one just was such a neat color combo, I thought it was pretty.

Anyways, the West Oly Corier's didn't fall off the earth.  It's been busy, but we have been able to have some fun too.  Hope everyone is doing well.  Love you all!