Busy week for Miss Monika

 5 days after her younger sister turned 10, Monika turned 11.  She picks F*mous Dave's for her birthday meal for the food and for the ice cream sundae with a big big candle on it

 Her cousin that she hasn't seen for a few months came for a visit and brought her 4 month pitbull along.  He was a nice dog and very playful.  Monika was in heaven and continues to work on me to have a dog.  She truly is wonderful with dogs and I do feel she would be a great caregiver to the dog, but this mama just isn't ready.

 Last day of July was the last day of school for Monika.  This is her favorite Elementary teacher.  She had her for 4th and 5th grade.  They had a graduation ceremony for the 5th grades because that is how high the school go.  This spring their school was up in the air whether it was staying open(if they did they would add 6th grade, and just a few weeks ago, they found out they will stay open) or close.  Monika and Katie are transferring to home school where Jenny goes.  They will be on the traditional schedule starting this fall.  Monika teacher decided to pursue other teaching jobs because of the uncertainty.  She was such an awesome teacher to Monika and also a great teacher for the parents.  She is compassionate, she is patience, she is understanding, she is flexible, she understands importance of family time and playtime.  She worked with us with Monika homework because of gymnastics, she help balance it for her.  She also taught Monika to enjoy reading, no matter what it was, just as long as she read something.   Monika is finally starting to read more books and not viewing as homework and being forced to read.  It so nice to see her reading over being active at times as she would only read if it was homework or we were in a car going somewhere.    Her teacher also would share some of her personal ups and downs in life, which I think helped the kids connect better, because they saw and understood that teachers are human too and she was a good role model to them.  She encouraged her students to stay in contact and whenever there were school functions she was very popular with students and former students, you could see how well like she was.  Thank you so much for teaching Monika many things that will help prepared her for the future, and also for her self growth

 Dave and I with our recent graduate

 My mom has been staying all week with us.  It has been great having her with us.

flowers that she received from me and my mom.  We had gone to lunch with my sister earlier in the day and where she works there is a farmers market close buy.  They always have beautiful boutiques of flowers. 

Congrats to you Monika for turning a year old and graduating from your first elementary school.  She is transferring next year to another elementary school so we will go thru this again next June.