San Antonio Trip

I have often said that I would love to move to a different state and live there for a while.  California is WAY too expensive, and I think there are other parts of the United States that offer a great lifestyle at a much cheaper price.  Having said that, Texas is not the place.  And I think it is safe to say we can rule out any other high humidity areas.  Me and humidity do not get along.  We've tried to make it work, but we are not meant for each other.  It happens.  As jealous as I was to fly into a VERY green and luscious San Antonio (drought living has taken its toll on us), I soon felt it was a great place to visit and then leave.  Quickly.

The first night we arrived it was so late that nothing was open as far as restaurants around our hotel.  We took off down the River Walk and tried to find something, anything, and came up empty.  The only place open at midnight was Denny's.  Yep.  Denny's.  I feel SUPER sorry for my kids, because they LOVE Denny's, and I'll never eat in another Denny's again.  We were so desperate to eat, that it was kinda, barely kinda, worth it to eat at a table where I asked for napkins to lay down on the table so that when I wasn't using my fork, it had a cleaner place to rest.  No joke.  The entire restaurant was filthy and the first thing I did when we got back to the hotel was take a scalding hot shower to clean my entire body.  No bueno. 

Here is the River Walk at night, when it's midnight, and nothing is open. :(

Here is the view from our hotel.  You can see part of the River Walk and all the green beautiful trees. :)

The next day, we headed out for lunch.  Aaron, one of the other guys who is at the shows with us, said that he wanted to go and see The Alamo.  Little did we know it was two blocks away, so we took a walk through downtown to find it.

Cool old hotel.

 
The Alamo.  I turned to Aaron and said....I think this just became a work trip for me too. ;)

Lunch! Because a German restaurant in the middle of San Antonio makes perfect sense. 

And, On-The-Go Margaritas.  Nothing else to say.

The last day we were there, we sought out some Tex-Mex food.  Success.

My carnitas enchiladas.

Rich's BBQ brisket nachos.  Enough said.

We braved the weather on the last day.  It was hot and humid and gross.  But the walk along the River Walk was so cool, it was worth it to be out and see all the shops and restaurants.

Principal's Office

So, it was bound to happen, right?  I mean, sooner or later this was going to happen.  When?  We didn't know.  Why? Any one's guess.  But just so you know, and I am sure this is shocking, breaking news to all of you, I have told both boys that if I ever walk into the office and see them sitting there waiting to see the principal, things would get ugly.  Fast. Because let's be honest,  having your mom on campus can be a pain the butt.  Several times over.  I know EVERYTHING that goes down.  I get daily updates about things that happened in class and things that were said in class.  And daily, after school, we have our little talks about why it's not appropriate to say or do certain things in class. Daily.

So again, it wasn't an issue of...IS this ever going to happen?  It was always....WHEN is this going to happen?  It happened a couple of weeks ago.

And before I tell the story, let me tell you the funniest part of this.  All parties that were involved (excluding Ryan) were a little afraid to tell me anything of what went down.  The principal included.  Now, how was Ryan in his behavior towards me?  Like he didn't have a care in the world.

During lunch Ryan dropped his banana (anyone else already seeing where this is going?) on the floor.  As he reached down to pick up the banana, he apparently did not make it standing ALL the way back up, and held his banana somewhere in the region of where you should NOT hold a banana.  In his little show of funny, he failed to see not one, but two cafeteria helpers standing close by watching the entire thing.  Nope, when you are on stage, and people are laughing, common sense never prevails.  As Ms. Tammy goes over to have a talk with him, the principal, Mr. Odell, walks in and she explains what had happened.  He then asks Ryan to meet him in his office.

Now, at this point I have no idea what has taken place, but I do remember seeing Ryan from my classroom window SKIPPING his way to the office and I thought to myself....Hmmmm, that's funny, I wonder why he is headed that way.

When my class gets ready to line up for lunch, one of the other cafeteria helpers comes up to me and said, "We have to tell you what just happened in the cafeteria with Ryan."  And because I am such a mild mannered lady, I have no idea why her voice was shaking as it appeared she was afraid to tell me what had happened.  The minute she said, "We had an incident with Ryan", she actually looked like she felt sorry for him and looked to be changing her mind about telling me.  I said..."Ms. Kim, spill it.  Now.  What did he do??"   After her explanation of what her and Ms. Tammy had seen, and that he had already gone to the principal for a talk, I told her that under no circumstances was he to ever have special treatment and needs to be punished just like every other student.

As I made my way to the staff room for lunch, I popped my head in the Mr. Odell's office and the look on his face was simply...Oh crap, she's here.

I looked at him and said, "Tell me everything."  He then smiled, voice shaking a little (whatever), told me the same story I had heard from the other ladies.  I asked him then what was Ryan's punishment and he just smiled and said, "I told him that it was inappropriate and to not do it again."  I started laughing.  Loud.  Kinda in his face.  Is that wrong?  To laugh at your boss right to his face?  Meh, probably, but he doesn't live with Ryan.  He has no idea that asking him not to do it again nicely is like asking him to do it a thousand more times, just don't be dumb and get caught next time.

I'll spare you the conversation Ryan and I had after school.  I'm not putting any of that in writing.  The only thing I will say is that he said SEVERAL times that he did not do it.  Oh, and his voice was shaking too.

That night when Rich gets home, I tell him that he needs to take Ryan with him to the store so that Ryan can explain what happened, without his brother as the audience.  When they get back, Ryan heads to his room and Rich comes to see me. This is our conversation:

Me:  Can you believe that????
Rich:  He said he didn't do it.
Me:  Well, duh!!
Rich:  I think I believe him.
Me:  (jaw dropped open)  Are you serious?  Rich...you've met Ryan, right?  Rich, 99% of the time if we see him do something with our own eyes and tell him to stop doing it, what does he say?
Rich:  That he wasn't doing it.
Me:  EVEN THOUGH WE SAW HIM DO IT!!
Rich:  But he explained what happened and he said he was just standing up and that he did not have the banana anywhere near that area.
Me:  Rich, he held a banana up to his crotch in front of his friends to get a laugh. Period. End of story.  And can we get back to the point that TWO ADULTS SAW HIM DO IT!!??  Are we those people that take a shady eight year old's account over what an adult said happened???

Ryan's punishment was taking all electronics away from him for the weekend.  Anything that can be plugged in or charged was completely off limits.

When given his punishment, he nodded eagerly.  My guess is he thought the punishment would be much worse than what we decided on, and he was more than accepting of it.

I'm thinking that speaks volumes....

Sixth Grade Promotion

There has to be perks for working at the school where your son is promoting on from, right?  And I am all about abusing a privilege if possible.  This morning I delivered a coffee for our custodian Barb because she had roped off seats for our family and Lynn's family, in the front row of all the action. I had absolutely no problem taking the heat from all of our friends when we walked up and sat down in the front row.  Perks people.  Use them.  However, I can't say Matthew was pleased with our seat assignments.  As he walked out, he was like....YOU ARE IN THE FRONT ROW??  

Yep, we are those kind of people, get used to it.  

I have to say I have been quite emotional this last month.  Just the thought of him not being on campus anymore is like someone coming and ripping a security blanket out from under him.  I am super thankful that at his new school he will have one of my good friends as a teacher and she can keep her eyes on him and report back to me.  I told him he can run, but he can't hide.

He unfortunately looks like he is now ready for middle school.  Somehow he looks older here and it is not appreciated.

Here he is walking in...right when he realized where are seats are.  I also need to confess that I held it together right up until the flag salute (which happened approximately two minutes after they walked out), and then I started crying,  Like teetering on the ugly cry, but I was able to hold on to the lump that kept creeping up my throat. 

One of four athletic awards handed out.

Promotion certificate.

This was also that moment when I kind of lost it, again.  Out of 90 kids, only ten of them received the Presidential Award.  It is an award that celebrates excellence in academics and citizenship for intermediate grades.  This kid has worked so hard since the first day of kindergarten and we could not be more proud of him.  I don't want to speak for Rich, but I can 100% guarantee that I was never this dedicated as a student.  Whatever had to get done, got done at the last possible moment.  He has been the most responsible kid from day one.  We have never had to tell him to do his homework, or work on a project, or plan out a timeline for big reports.  He always just does it without our nagging and never complains.  

Proud boy! 

The boy with his Nana Sharon and Nana Bobbie.

Family pic.

The boy and Papa.

Ms. Leach.  Pretty epic sixth grade teacher! He adores her.

The kids who have been friends since birth.

MMC

I just feel this could be a future prom picture....and I would LOVE IT!!!!

The moms and the kids.  These ladies are amazing! 

Such a special day!  

Mother's Day

First of all, let me apologize for my complete lack of attention to this blog.  The last quarter of school is a killer and has sucked the life out of me.  This week is the last week of school, which also means it is Matthew's promotion from sixth grade, so I am sure there will be a sob filled post from me at some point next week. 

On Mother's Day Rich had asked what I wanted to do and I told him I wanted to go to lunch.  As he started to throw out some ideas, I said..."Oh, I'm sorry.  I meant I want to go to lunch somewhere that any time I look up, from any angle, I see the ocean."  He got the hint.

We headed to Half Moon Bay for day.  Our departure time was 5:00am.  I'm guessing lunch with a view AND sleeping in was too much to ask for.  It turns out that it was for the best because there really is only one way into HMB and with traffic, an hour an a half drive can turn into a three hour drive very quickly.  We had no traffic going (shocking) and when we left after lunch, had no traffic going back.  We were home by 3:00pm and it was a perfect day.

An overcast day at the beach is my ideal day.  We all had sweatshirts on and flip flops.  Perfection.

Mine.  All mine.

  
This picture makes me laugh because Rich looks like he's posing for a prom picture.  Not that he went to prom....but maybe this would have been how he smiled if he had.

A little walk downtown...

We took a wrong turn and found this bed and breakfast.  This is where I want to stay next time we come.

Lunch!!

I promise, I had more than just this for lunch.  The lady sitting at the next table ordered this at the same time and when the waitress brought them to us, we toasted each other to a happy Mother's Day.

Yeah, they don't serve this in Lodi. 

Great day with all my boys.