Sailing Up to 6th Grade

 We reached another milestone in our family this year! We don’t have any more kids in Elementary School! Mark graduated from 5th grade and is moving on to 6th grade this school year (which is middle school here). It’s still hard to believe that kids are so grown up now!

First week of June is when “drive through” 5th grade graduation was happening at the school. Katya and Alex made posters for our car and decorated it with balloons. “Mmm Wat Cha Say” are words from Jason Derulo’s song which is an inside joke because Mark really got into that song during quarantine. He made his “work out pump me up playlist” on Spotify and this song was one of them. 

So this was REALLY funny and a little embarrassing for Mark 😂

We all had to park in our designated spots and drive up to the the teachers one by one to receive a “diploma” and a cupcake. 

As we drove away, we turned up Jason’s Derulo’s song and celebrated-hahaha. It was silly but fun! Mark chose not to take pictures of him on the rock the day of the graduation, but we did go back later that week and got a few shots. 

When we came home, we took few pictures in the garage, by his tennis wall, with the sign that Robert had made for him before he left for work.

NO ONE noticed that there was something wrong with the sign!!! Hilarious! 

Mark is an excellent student! He is a pleasure to teach according to his teachers and well liked by his classmates. We are always so happy with how he behaves at school!

To celebrate, Alex and I took Mark to Chick-Fil-A for lunch (Katya was working) and got huge snow cones from Pelicans afterwards. 

A few days later Mark’s teacher, Ms. Beickert, stopped by to drop off a few books for Mark and a gift for me (I was the classroom parent). She has been so great to Mark and so supportive with all his sports ambitions--she has come to his tennis matches and basketball games--and has always been interested in helping him stretch himself.

I loved the note she wrote on the back of his “graduation certificate” with the quote from Arthur Ashe and everything. So sweet! And a great message for Mark to remember.

We are all very aware that the next school year will be anything but normal, but we remain hopeful that kids can continue to learn and be excited about school. Middle School--here comes Mark! 

Lyana.