Busy days, final days

It's been a busy time of packing and saying good-bye and doing normal things.  Our neighbors had a retirement party for our friend Vicki and a good-by for PH and I all rolled into one beautiful evening.

 The glow of the sunset over the lake took over the whole room - including us!  Sometimes the sunset is like that, the afterglow is so bright it turns the inside of the house pink.

Sunday Elizabeth made her First Communion and she was beautiful.

After church the cousins posed for a picture. 

 Colin took the family on a geode hunt over spring break and they came back with many. He broke open one of them so the kids could see how he did it and they each took home a piece.

Today was reading day so here are the selections I chose for the kids.

 Me Hungry was one the Kindergarteners could read to me.  Two words to the page, pictures saying a lot. I held up the book and they read it as a class aloud. Very fun. But Adelaide told me after school that in the future she wants ME to do the reading, please.

 The Gruffalo is one of our favorites.  The mouse outsmarts the owl, fox and snake, all looking for a mouse meal by telling them about the Gruffalo, which of course doesn't exist.  Until he bumps into a real one.  The Gruffalo expects to eat mouse until the little guy outsmarts the big guy. 

 For the second graders I chose Henry Hikes to Fitchburg.   It's a story of Henry David Thoreau and a bet he made with a friend.  Who can get to Fitchburg faster, Henry who intends to walk or his friend who works all day to earn the money for a train. 

 The Incredible Book Eating Boy is about a boy who accidentally discovers he likes the taste of books and begins to eat them in huge quantities, devouring them,  because he also discovered upon eating them that he remembers what's IN them and he finds himself becoming very smart.  But too much of a good thing is too much of a good thing and he discovers he can be just as informed if he READS the books.

Sleeping Bear National Park in Michigan was voted the most beautiful place in the entire United States.  That's a big deal.  There are a lot of beautiful places in the U.S.  There is a legend behind why this place is called Sleeping Bear.   A fire in Wisconsin forced mother bear and her two cubs to try to swim Lake Michgan to escape.  Only mother bear made it across the lake  (the Great Lakes are very, very large)to Michigan. In her sorrow and hope she climbed the high dune and waited for her cubs, never giving up hope they would appear.  They didn't but in her honor the Great Spirit made two islands rise off shore (North and South Manitou Islands) in honor of and to represent her two cubs.  The dune of the side of the cover is Mother Bear.