I knew this day was coming and I have been dreading it. I knew I would log on facebook and see her name- Penny Hoffman born June 23, 1970. And I knew this was going to be a very difficult day for many who knew and loved her. So, part of me doesn't want to say anything, but the bigger part of me wants to say something in honor of her beautiful life.

I was reading the paper this Sunday and I came across a story written by Harlan Coben about his father. He said he was writing an uplifting Father's day story. He wrote how his father had passed away when he was 10, I think, and he was talking about how seeing a picture of him and his dad made him break down into sobbing tears. I really resonated with some of the words that he wrote and so I want to share them with you but in reference to Penny:

Wait. Didn't I say this wasn't a sad story? So here is the uplifting part: It's okay to feel this pain. In fact, when you have been as lucky as I was in the sister-in-law department, it would be an outrage not to cry. You can't have an up without a down, a right without a left, a back without a front- or a happy without a sad. This is the price you pay for having a great friend/ sister-in-law. You get the wonder, the joy, the tender moments- and you get the tears at the end, too. My sister-in-law, Penny is worth the tears.

Happy Birthday Penny. We love and miss you. Thank you for all the sweet memories.

It has been an exciting last month with Poetry Parties, Drama Club presentations, Awards Assembly, Field trips, and all kinds of other fun activities to close out the year. Here are some random pics from some of the festivities:









BUT NOW...

No more classrooms
No more books
No more teacher's dirty looks-

SCHOOL'S OUT! (finally, and don't they look smarter)






Way to go girls! We are so proud of you.

We took a walk last night around our neighborhood. We do this pretty frequently. The older girls usually fly ahead on their scooters, Macie rides her scooter for about half a block and then she retires to the wagon, and Jamie and I bring up the rear. We have tried several different routes around our house, but we always seem to end up on one particular route because of the "big hill". In the beginning I used to warn them when we got close, but I never really give the girls a warning about the hill anymore. They are very careful and I have seen them go down it unscathed at least 50 to 100 times. But sometimes I guess you can just sense that there is going to be trouble as a parent. And the girls were being extra competitive last night so Jamie told them as they headed for the hill, "Don't race down the hill. You could get hurt".

Now normally I can see the girls go down the hill, but Macie decided she wanted to start riding her scooter again, so we were getting her situated and fell a little behind. Then sure enough I hear Isabelle's cry--which may or may not mean anything is wrong. And then sure enough Isabelle is walking up the hill without her scooter- stil crying and looking a little scraped up. I picked up my pace to meet her and between tears she exclaims, "We both fell on our scooters and Tori is bleeding". I didn't hear Tori so I started to run with the wagon to where she was. She was at the bottom of the hill with dirt on her legs, shirt, shorts, hands--everywhere. Her big toe was covered in blood and obviously torn up pretty bad. She wasn't crying but looked upset. She tried to blame the fall on the mud at the bottom of the hill, but admitted to Jamie that she and Isabelle were racing down the hill when they fell. I am pretty sure they heard an "I told you so" along with some other choice words of instruction and I am pretty sure their scooters are in time out, too.

We finished our walk home and as soon as we entered the sanctuary of the house, the tears began to flow and flow and flow. It took me about 20 minutes to get them to trust me enough to clean all their wounds and get band-aids on them. Tori had a minor scrape on her elbow, her knee, her shoulder, and her hip along with the toe injury. She claimed she was only going to be able to take cold showers and she was not going to be able to sleep last night. Her pain was unbearable until thankfully Grandma called and apparently a talk with Grandma heals a multitude of wounds. :) Isabelle did not nearly get it as bad, but almost her entire chin was scraped up so her wounds were a little more obvious to the naked eye. This morning she was trying to walk around with her hand over her face and finally realized that probably wasn't a feasible solution for a 7 hour school day.

We are calling it "The Scooter Accident of 2010". I think they learned their lesson. But if not I will keep reminding them what happened the last time they didn't listen to their parents--that should get me at least a day or two of good behavior. :)