School's out for summer

Tonight our house has someone who has completed preschool, someone who has completed first grade, and someone who has completed six years of teaching.  Lindsey finished first grade with all A's and was the second-place Accelerated Reader for the entire first grade.  She learned so much this year and will probably pass my knowledge of anything except reading and grammar next year. 
Benton finished preschool and exceeded our expectations;  we simply hoped he would not move his owl every day for behavior.  Not only did he only move his owl a handful of times all year (and who doesn't have a few off days?) but also he learned to spell his name and count to 100.  We are proud of all he accomplished in preschool.
I completed year six of teaching and still love my job (almost) every day.  The first four years were great, but the past two years of teaching gifted and Advanced Placement students have been a blessing.  The juniors I had this year were my sophomores last year, so I was able to form relationships with the students and get to know them well.  The same goes for my sophomores this year; I had some of them as freshmen and will have all of them next year as juniors in AP.  Here's what I learned:  they are great kids.  I truly felt loved and respected by my students and consider it an honor that God called me to this profession. 
Now I'm looking forward to ten weeks of being a mom.  For the first summer since Benton was born, I will not be a student at any point this summer.  And, unless someone suckers me into something else, I will not be a trainer either.  I have ten weeks ahead of me full of vacation, swimming lessons, art camp, tennis camp, cheer camp, sleeping in, play dates, staying up past bedtime--and am looking forward to holding the titles of wife and mom with no strings attached.

Our accelerated reader!

A milestone we hit this spring--Lindsey learned to ride her bike with no training wheels!  I thought she would keep those on forever--she was not shamed by all the younger kids on two wheels--but she and Abby Grace decided to learn together.  Now we can not keep up with her!

Benton is content with his training wheels for now.

Have I mentioned which child is not like the others?  This daredevil put on B's helmet, climbed on his bike, and took off.