Graduation and Camping

Jenna graduated from preschool on Friday. She actually has two more days this week because of all the snow we had this winter, but they went ahead and held the graduation on Friday. I am not a big fan of graduation for preschoolers. I like the idea of a "moving up ceremony," but I feel that graduation should be reserved for bigger accomplishments. In high school and college one must work hard to graduate. In preschool, you just have to pay money and show up. Anyway, the school went all out, and they had caps and gowns. Jenna looked very cute. Her class recited the books of the Old Testament (she goes to a non-denominational preschool at a Baptist church), sang the "Presidents' Song" (with the last names of all of the Presidents of the U.S from Washington to Obama), an "ABC...Jesus Loves Me" song and a poem about how many days are in each month of the year. It was pretty impressive. She has had a phenomenal teacher for the past two years. Ms. Darlene has been wonderful to Jenna. Jenna was so shy when she went to preschool last year. Ms. Darlene took her under wing, loved and encouraged her, and Jenna has really come alive this year. She was really blessed to have such an amazing teacher.

On her way to her seat


Jenna


Performing with her class


Receiving her Certificate (I think they actually did call them diplomas)


Jenna with her teachers, Ms. Julie (the assistant) and Ms. Darlene


Friday to Saturday was a Father/Son campout for the males from our church. They went to a boy scout camp about 1 1/2 hours from our house. Unfortunately it poured on them Friday night. I think they had a good time anyway. The young women also had an overnight campout that night too. Since Derek and the boys were off camping, Jenna had to go with me to the young women camp. We had a good time together. Camp was at the farm of someone from our church about an hour from our house. It was beautiful. I have no idea how much land they have, but we drove for four miles on their property to get to the camp site. They must have camping events up there fairly often because there was a pavilion, benches around a huge fire pit, and two flag poles. It was really fun to hang out with Jenna. She copied all of my night and morning routines. When she saw me do things like wash my face and put on deodorant, she wanted to do the same thing. I let her. I figured it wasn't a big deal for one day. We were really lucky because even though it thundered and lightninged all around us, it never hit us. We had a lot of wind, but that was it. I had to re-stake parts of my tent a couple of times, but it was no big deal. Overall it was really fun.

Jenna all ready for bed (It was completely dark when I took this picture, so I had to guess where to point the camera. I was happy that she was actually in it). :)


Jenna eating breakfast on Saturday


Jenna took this picture of Amanda at the campout. She did a good job.


This is our little group of tents. We had about 10 people (7 young women, 2 leaders, and Jenna) in our ward area.


Jenna looking at a stream on the property.


Amanda and Jenna


The stream




I took this picture from where we all parked our cars. We set up our tents in an open area on the other side of the bridge.


Pictures of the property. It was so beautiful.




On an unrelated note, we have not officially put the house on the market yet. It is on Craigslist. We decided to put it there while we negotiated with some Realtors. We did find one that will work with us. Hopefully we can meet up in the next few days, and have it officially on the market this week. Please pray that it will sell quickly.

Jenna's moment of Zen:

Jenna said that Derek made Jared cry.
He said "I didn't make him, he chose to cry when I told him what he needed to do."
She said (angrily) "I just decided to cry because of what you did to Jared."