The Baranko Family: Purple Class Graduate

We are proud to announce that Luke graduated from the purple class at his preschool. It was touch and go there for a while, he had to do some extra finger painting and sandbox digging to squeak through:) Just kidding, as far as I know everyone "graduates". We had his end of year program and it actually was kind of awesome seeing how far he has come throughout the year. He didn't cry during the singing and he even sang along a tiny bit. He really has matured quite a bit in the past year, but don't worry, he's still my little stinkers. A few days before Matt and I had his parent-teacher conference. It was similar to the one we had earlier in the year. The teachers said he is well behaved, confident, very verbal, very curious and outgoing in the classroom. They said again that he is a leader among his peers. In his school instead of having a pre-determined curriculum they choose their subjects based on the interests of the children. Matt and I thought it was weird that all of their subjects seemed to be things that Luke loves, like first it was trains, then it was fire trucks, then it was the beach….it turns out that Luke is such a leader that he would lead the classroom in what they should study next. He would suggest something and then other kids would chime in that they liked that idea, too. For example, the beach subject came up right when we got back from Florida, where he had beach on the brain. Turned out other kids also went to the beach around Spring Break time so an idea was born! We love how Luke beats to his own drum and definitely knows his own mind, as frustrating as that can be.

Luke receiving his diploma after his name was called

Luke and his teachers and teacher assistants. The teacher in the pink, Mrs. K, he had a special bond with. We love Mrs. K!

Since I am out of order with my posts, we're going back in time to the middle of May. Fitting that this post is also about our basement flooding since I just wrote about that in the Father's Day post. Yes, our basement flooded again on May 13th, which was a year to the day from when we had our last flood. (I remember because it was the day after my birthday for two years in a row!) Of course it sucks big time that the basement floods every time we have a "100 year rain", which seems to happen A LOT more than every 100 years. Matt has the whole de-flooding process down pat now, though, so we didn't even call the experts in like we did the last two times. Not only did he plan ahead to get all the stuff off the ground before it flooded, but once it did flood he just brought in a ton of dehumidifiers and tons and tons of fans to air out the carpet and get the moisture out. It will take some pretty intense (read: expensive) sewer work to disconnect our house from the street sewer, which is always the cause of the flooding. Grrrr. Until then, it seems to be our once (or twice or three times) a year gift from the rain gods!

Luke & Claire got antsy to get back to their playroom on day 3 of the air out so were "helping" down there.

Other pics from the week.

Claire at gymnastics class. Ha!

Iso took them out for Indian food one day, brave soul. They loved it! Luke keeps asking to go back.

The day after Luke's end of year program was the end of year picnic at the park. Matt and I joined them for the burgers and hot dogs, but unfortunately it took a turn for the FREEZING that day, so we sadly had a bundled up picnic that day.

Friday we had an event at work for the product my team and I market, the Balance Financial Prepaid Mastercard. This is the Roush Fenway Racing Stage 4 Mustang that we sponsor through our Race Around America promotion (learn more at walgreens.com/racearoundamerica). This car was doing wheelies in our parking lot, driven by a real race car driver.

Tabling event - this is my team:)

This kook is another guy I work with.

Planting Day!! My annual pilgrimage to Home Depot to fill my car up to the gills with flowers and garden plants.

Newly planted garden

The kids were a big help in preparing the soil for planting

We went to Ian's graduation party on Saturday night. Ian, my youngest cousin, graduated from Concordia College this year. Congrats baby cuz!

Enjoying the graduation party. Not going to lie, we spent much of the evening chasing the kids, who were doing laps around the house.

Had on her hiking boots for this intense hike through Open Lands:)

Sunday D&E came over to babysit so Matt & I could go downtown to see our show. We have this board in the sand box in the hopes that all the dump trucks that dump sand over the side of the sandbox will be dumped on that board instead, thus keeping the sand in the sand box. That hasn't worked out so well, but Claire does like balancing on it.