Wrapping up Kindergarten and a surprise trip

Does anyone who regularly read this blog remember how emotional I was before Bennett started Kindergarten? It was really hard for me to send my little 5 1/2 year old daughter across down to a magnet school that was pretty far from our house. I prayed for her all summer and my heart was filled with dread as the school year quickly approached.

I even wrote this blog post for her as I prepared to send my first born off to elementary school.

Well, here we are 10 months later, and my friends, she rocked Kindergarten. She has changed so much in this past year that I barely remember the pre-schooler that she used to be. She is a reading, writing, counting, adding and subtracting fool. She made some wonderful friends, learned so many new things and developed a love for learning that I pray stays with her for the rest of her life.

Her school has an honors day at the end of every year and Bennett received a good conduct award and an advanced reading award. We were so proud of her.

 Performing with her class in their program

 Afterwards receiving her awards. Way to go, Bennett!!

 Bennett on her final day at Montana Magnet School. We will always have a special place in our hearts for this wonderful place. I cannot say enough good things about it. It is a first rate school in every way possible and we are thrilled that Bennett got to go there.

Oh, and a little off topic, but I wanted to put this out there so we will have it preserved for the future. You have to test into this school and our little buddy tested in for next year. According to a teacher there, he tested very well and had a high score. We are super proud of you too, Will!

We wanted to surprise the kids on our first official day of summer so the day after school ended we told them to get in the car and we were going to run a few errands. They weren't paying attention and so they had no clue what was happening. After about 20 minutes of driving Will said, "Where are we going? This is taking forever!" and then about 10 minutes later Bennett absentmindedly said while staring out the window, "These errands sure are taking a long time."

We had been driving for nearly 40 minutes before Bennett finally noticed out the window that we were in Florida. And you know you are a family that goes on a lot of road trips when kids don't even realize that they are on one until 40 minutes in. We told them we were going down to the beach for the day and they started yelling and screaming. Lainey did too, but only because her older siblings were. She would have been thrilled with a trip to Target.

We arrived in Panama City Beach and headed to Pier Park to have some lunch. And then we went to ride some rides at Miracle Strip.

Rob then took the older two to the beach while I rode around and let Lainey nap in the car.

And then we told them our big news. To celebrate a successful school year, we had booked a sunset dolphin cruise. What a wonderful day to celebrate the start of summer.

We had seagulls surrounding the boat and the captain handed out Cheetos to feed to the birds. Kind of weird, but okay.

We saw a ton of dolphins. They were swimming right next to the boat almost the entire trip. By the end, they weren't even a big deal anymore.

Just sitting on a boat....relaxing....thinking about life...

The sweetest boy in the whole world.

Me and my baby. Is this shot not amazing? I am so glad that Rob caught it.

And then I snapped an equally awesome one of Rob with his littlest girl.

And who can forget this beauty?

What a great way to kick off the summer.