Graduations 2012

Before the last trimester at Madison High started, Erika only had one required class left to take.  Rather than spend a full trimester and five classes finishing the year she decided to transfer to Central High and do the block course in two weeks to finish and graduate.  In four days she finished all of the required work, took the two tests and the final and was done.  A week later, on March 8th, they called to let her know her diploma was ready.  She had no desire to cross stage, wear a gown, send out invitations, none of the hoopla that goes with a typical American graduation.

Without even a glance back at high school she is moving on to ISU with a major in Psychology.

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Vivien was taking a Child Development class and for 4 weeks of the class they did a preschool for local kids.  Hyrum got to go to preschool for 4 weeks and he loved it.  Actually, he would tell us every morning that he didn't want to go but every day when I picked him up he would tell me the songs he sang, the stories they told, the activities they did and the treats they had.  After the first day he told us that a girl had kissed him on the cheek and he was embarrassed that the teachers thought it was cute.  Every day I got an update on whether or not "that girl" was in class.  She never did kiss him again but I think he was watching out for her and stayed away from her.

Vivien had to do a portfolio for the class and chose to do it on Hyrum.  That meant we got to have some cute preschool pictures of him and a description of his class time and what he learned there.  He liked to brag to Nathan that Vivien was one of his teachers.


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Nathan's kindergarten class had a final program with a circus theme and a graduation after.  Nathan was one of the fierce lions who jumped and rolled through a big ring of fire (hula hoop with streamers).  I wondered why he wouldn't smile through any of the songs and looked like he was about to cry when they gave him his diploma.  After it was over he ran over to me in near tears, threw his papers to me and ran off to the bathroom.  He had to go through the whole program!  After he got back we were able to get a couple of pictures with him smiling instead of concentrating on not wetting his pants.  

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Vivien's graduation came all too fast!  Though we were so ready for school to be over, we were not ready for our time together to be over.  She did get to experience an American graduation, silly cap and all.

Her favorite teacher (total sarcasm), Mrs. Ashton. American History was a tough class!

Final pictures with some of the other exchange students and the host mom

There could be several reasons for these pictures:

1 - the water fountain was spiked

2 - the school is really scary between the hours of 10pm and 3am

3 - Mrs. Ashton was chasing them down for another essay or political cartoon

4 - Vivien and Solver were super hyper that night

Anything is possible at a senior all night party.