So its official, Garret is no longer in elementary school. Next year he moves on to middle school. Crazy! I can't believe how fast the time goes. I can still so vividly remember his first day of kindergarten...like it was yesterday! He clung to Kyle, hiding his head in Kyle's chest, begging us to not leave.
Garret makes us so proud. He is a smart and funny boy. He loves to read, geesh he can read a book faster than anyone I know! He says his favorite subject in school is science. He'd like to be an author someday and with his creative imagination I know he'd be successful! He loves penguins. He loves cheese. He enjoys playing football and basketball. It's such an amazing journey watching him grow and change and become the person God means for him to be.
A group of us 5th grade Mom's have been fundraising most of the year to raise money for the 5th grade celebration. We wanted to do it at Bullwinkles Family Fun Center, rather than in the school gym like years past. We reached our goal in May and so the celebration was on! We had it Monday, and the 5th graders had a BLAST! It was really fun...bumper boats, mini golf, batting cages, go carts, video games, laser tag, oh my! Left at 9am and got back to the school at 2;45pm. The teachers had just as much fun with the kids. I got to take a ton of pictures and then on the drive home put together a video slide show for all the parents to see.The school doesn't do a "graduation" but we had parents meet in the gym and called up kids to receive a certificate of achievement, watched the video I put together and then had some cake. We also had some t-shirts done up for all the 5th graders to wear and so the kids finished signing shirts with sharpies too. Garret had a great time, it was really fun for Kyle and I to go with them to Bullwinkles and see Garret enjoying himself with friends.
So we packed up and headed out of town this weekend. We sort of decided last minute that camping would be fun and Kyle was able to get Friday off so we left out Thursday. Reserve America said there was not one reservable site in the state of Oregon for the weekend. But we decided to take our chances. We went with some good friends of ours and they left out early afternoon Thursday and were planning on hitting all the first come first serve sites on their list from Lincoln City to almost Florence. They called that afternoon and had found two spots at Cape Perpetua, about 23 miles south of Newport. It was listed in Kyle's top 100 tent camping sites book. So we figured it had to be a good spot! And it was! There was so much to do!
The weather was beautiful, sunny during the day and just a bit chilly at night. We hiked trails around the campground, we took a lighthouse tour, explored some tide pools, fed a blue jay named "Jay" (I think every site had their own personal blue jay), and of course made smores! Camp hosts came by our 2nd night to let us know we may not want the kids to wander off to far because one of the other campers came across a Mountain Lion. We were also told at the visitors center that the day before one of the forest rangers spotted 3 black bears! Fun! Well of course the mention of Mountain Lions sent the kids into a bit of a frenzy and it was the talk of the camp the rest of our trip. 
We only had one injury and thankfully it came as we were packing up to go home. Bryn ate it on the scooter and took out a big chunk of skin on her knee..its pretty gross! Thank goodness she was wearing a helmet! So the only negative about Cape Perpetua was the lack of showers! So when we got home we had several days worth of dirt and grime to soak off. haha! Ewe! But we can't wait to go again! Hopefully we'll get to camp a few more times this summer. Here are a few more pics of the weekend! 
