Recitals

For memories sake, I wanted to share the recitals from this December. Avenly played the violin in two recitals, the piano in one, and sang during the Festival of Lights musical performance at school. Zaylee played the piano at one recital and also sang for the Festival of Lights. Trexton sang at the recital and Festival of Lights. Here is the video from the three of them singing. I also sang my song during one of the recitals. Josh recorded me, so why not throw the video on here, as well? One last video is of Zaylee showing off some ballet moves she learned this year. She did ballet twice a week this semester after school.

School Kidz! (and Mom)

After 11 years of being a stay at home mom, I went back to full time work... for 4.5 months. I had the opportunity to be a temporary 4th grade teacher to cover a maternity leave. I was hired as a full time teacher, but only for the first semester. I forgot how much teachers work!!! Many times Josh would ask me why I was working at home. I was in my element and I loved it, but it was a lot with four kids. The experience showed me I can do it if I want to in the future, but I now know what to expect. I LOVED being in the school with my kids, and hope to someday work in the school with them again.

Trexton on the other hand, did not love that he had to go to full time preschool without me. He made friends and had fun, but ultimately, I am his favorite. In fact, he came to my classroom most mornings and had morning meeting with my 4th graders. It only lasted 15 minutes because they went to their Portuguese and PLL class. After sending the 4th graders off with my teaching assistant, I would take Trexton to his class. The 4th grade students absolutely love Trexton.

Before I dive too deep into the semester I taught, I want to touch base on Trexton's preschool before this school year. As mentioned in my last post, Trexton did a two day a week preschool for 3 hours each day with his friend. I would take a day and my friend would take a day. The two boys did all sorts of fun crafts and activities. We took so many pictures, and I wanted to blog about his experience, but never did. Here are some of the pictures that were taken during his co-op preschool.

This last semester he still did many fun craft and activities, but he just got tired of being in school for 7 hours every day. It is a lot for a 4 year old. His teachers were great, and they shared many awesome photos.

Every day Trexton would wake up and say, "What day is it?" He came to know that Monday through Friday we go to school and Sunday was church day. The first day of break, he woke up saying, "I don't want to go to school. Can I sleep in?" When I told him he was done with K4, he said, "Yay!" haha He was excited to start school with the kids, though. I think we were all excited for the new school year.

The first two weeks of school were interesting. I had a bad herniated disc. I did special excersizes every night and lunch to make my back finally feel better. It was a crazy couple of weeks. The rest of the semester was busy, but it was good. We did a lot of "extra" things that needed to be done during the school year, but not necessarily the first semester. It just worked out that way. We did a 4th grade led assembly, published books, and even went to the orphanage to deliver gifts that the students bought. I love that Avenly was a fourth grader because she is the only "student" that I can really post pictures of. Here are a few from the book signing and orphanage visit:

My birthday happen to also land during this semester. My birthday was just a few days before my teaching assistant's bithday, so the moms of the class were so awesome and bought us cakes and cupcakes to share with the class. They also bought me a $120 dress.

The fourth grade team decided to dress up as pirates for Halloween. I can't blog about my semester and not share the photo.

I wish I could share the picture of the students all giving me a massive hug my last day. They were such good students and I love them all. I will miss teaching them. They were sad that I will not be their teacher next semester. They wrote me cards and almost all students said something about missing Trexton, too. I am glad that I will still get to see them next semester because Avenly is still in 4th grade. It was a busy but awesome semester of teaching!

Some things I missed posting in 2023

Sometimes life just gets crazy, and I don't have time to blog. My temporary teaching job ended on Friday, so I actually have a chance to play catch up. There are a few things I wanted to blog about, but never got around to it. Hike with Friends We have some friends who we met in DC before coming to Brasilia. John was in the same A100 training group as Josh and both of them were assigned to Brasilia. We got to know them a little bit before heading here, and now we have become good friends. Our family sizes are different, but we still have fun. We went on a hike to get a good view of the JK Bridge with the arches. In the middle of our hike, we had a quick storm that drenched us, but it cooled us off.

Carnival Carnival in Brazil is a HUGE thing- especially in Rio, but the Brazillians throw parties everywhere for it. Brazillians love their parties!! Anyway, the school even had a little party the day before Carnival started. It was a bit wild in the lower gym where the party took place, but the kids sure had a great time.

Paranoá Lake The kids had the entire week off of school for Carnival. Josh had three days off. For one of our days we decided to take our kayak to the lake. In the almost two years that we have lived here, this is the only time we have done this. We had a fun time.

5th Grade Trip (in Brasilia) The 5th grade went on a 3 night trip that costed $1000. We opted out of that trip along with two other families in our ward. Instead, we took our 5th graders on little adventures around Brasilia. We went to the Jardim Botanical and to the lake to do kayaks and bike boats. I think they did one other thing, but I can't remember, and I don't have pictures, so... that's why I always take pictures. lol

Little Blue Farm Trexton did a little preschool with his friend, Quinnten. Basically, I took Quinnten once a week and his mom took Trexton. We would do preschool things. (Check out the next post about Trexton's preschool experiences). One of our themes was farm, so we decided to plan a time to meet Quinnten's family at the farm. It was the cutest little farm. We got to hold the baby bunnies and goats, feed the animals milk, ride the horse, fish in the pond, and play at the playground.

Payson and Zaylee Graduate...

Payson officially graduated from Elementary School. At their current school, they call it a "Moving Up" ceremony. He moved up from lower school to upper school. He started middle school this school year and loves it. He graduated with 4 other kids from our ward, who all moved away or transferred schools. After the ceremony, we had refreshments and had a chance to take pictures with his friends.

Zaylee also had a moving up ceremony. She graduated the ECP (Early Childhood Program), which includes Kindergarten. Her ceremony was extra special because Payson got to be the MC for it. Zaylee also got to sing a little quartet for the main song, "A Million Dreams."

For both ceremonies they played, "A Million Dreams," but it was pretty cool because, before the ceremonies, a special video was made with the students and parents singing. The music teacher even had me play a blurb on the piano for the recording. Here is the video:

Kid's Birthdays The only birthday I blogged about this year was Zaylee's, and it's because she had a the big party this year. I still did birthday pictures for my other kids. It's amazing how fast they grow. Payson's was an extra fun photo shoot because we did it under water in the pool.

Brasilia Temple It was an exciting day when the Brasilia Temple was dedicated. We were able to take people to the VIP tours where, I had the opprotunity to give one of the the tours to a couple of Avenly's friends and their moms and one of Payson's teachers. Later I accompanied some people from the embassy during the public tours. I am glad we were able to go on the VIP tour because the public tours were in Portuguese. It is a small temple, but so beautiful.

Itiquira Falls One Saturday in September we ventured to Itiquira Falls. It is the tallest waterfall in Brazil... I think! Most waterfalls in Brazil, you can go right under, but not this one. It was pretty wild and windy the closer we got to the base of the waterfall. Payson loved it!

Halloween This year the girls decided to dress up as a ferry and a mermaid. Trexton was spider man for part of the time and a pumpkin for part of the time and both for the other part of the time. I am not sure what Payson was, but he did like the $2 cloak I bought him. We went to both the embassy and school party.

Aguas Correntes This was a fun waterpark close to home. I love how it has such a natural element to it, like they all do here in Brazil. The water was warm and everyone could go on the big fast slide. We hope to go back before we leave Brasilia.

Primary 2023 - Primary this year was a bit of an adventure - mostly because the kids learned songs in Portuguese and English, and when it was my turn to teach the English songs, I had a hard time managing some of the little Brazillian boys who didn't understand my bad Portuguese. There were times I was ready to be done, but in the end the Primary Program was really nice. I wanted to share a little about it becuase it was Payson's LAST Primary Program and Trexton's first. Avenly played the violin, and they all did a great job on their speaking parts. Here is a couple pictures of Trexton's first day of Primary:

Here are their cute faces after the Primary Program: