Reyes Family Time: Garden, school news, and quick kid updates!

A few weeks ago, I registered Miriam for kindergarten. It is very hard to believe that 5 years have gone by and we are already registering her for kindergarten! After many weeks of wondering and waiting (and obsessively checking the waiting list online), we found out that Miriam did get a spot in the public Japanese immersion school we've been wanting her to attend. We know she will be fine at whatever school she attends, but we are very excited about the opportunities this school will provide her, and we are excited to live vicariously through her as she learns to speak (and write) Japanese.

Speaking of Miriam and school, she had her "graduation" from preschool this past Friday. After a difficult transition at the beginning of the year, she really flourished at preschool and made some friends and was excited to go to school. One of her friends from preschool will be attending the same elementary school as Miri next year, and we are hoping that helps her a bit with the transition. We've already started talking to her a bit about kindergarten and after we attended a Japanese festival at her school a few weeks ago, she says she's very excited to go. (Of course, I had to explain to her that kindergarten will not be about watching fan dances and Taiko drumming performances, although she'll definitely get to experience those things at her school.) Her graduation on Friday was short and sweet; they each got a diploma and a bowl of ice cream. We brought Miriam flowers (which she loved) and she insisted on having the flowers in a vase at her spot at the table! She says she's sad that she won't have preschool tomorrow, but we keep in touch with several of her friends from school and we'll be meeting them at a park this week for some playtime.

In other news, we've had several gorgeous weeks of weather here and our garden is flourishing! Miriam is very excited to see the peas and carrots (that she planted) getting taller, and the kids have already picked several rounds of strawberries and eaten them straight from the garden. Our tomato plants have gotten huge and I expect we'll have a sizable tomato crop this year. This area has a lot of snails (we find them everywhere in our yard) and they are getting into the garden, so we are experimenting with ways to keep the snails away from the plants. Mathias loves to find snails and pick them up and put them "with their friends in the bushes," so he's always happy to help find them in the garden and gently remove them.

The kids are both great. Mathias is 2.5 and a busy, busy boy. He's a very physically active little guy, and has no fear about climbing anything in sight. He always heads for the tallest slides and ladders at any park we go to, and jumps off anything he can think of. His language has really taken off and he's constantly talking and chattering away in his sweet little voice. We've started to see more of his personality emerge lately and we've discovered that he's quite stubborn and sweet at the same time. He loves to be a helper and do anything we are doing, but at the same time, he usually just does whatever he wants, even if we'd prefer him not to. The last few months Miri's preschool teachers have been letting him come into class about 10 minutes early to participate in the final activities and songs, and he walks around the house singing the songs he learned at preschool. He loves to water the garden (and his sister, if he can reach her) and helps pull weeds both in our yard and anywhere else we go.

Miriam is 5 and keeps herself busy with imaginative art projects, building with blocks, and reading books. She, too, loves to play outside and has perfected all sorts of upside down swinging maneuvers and tricks on our swingset. She has gotten very interested in gardening this year and helps a lot with the gardens, with planting and taking care of flowers, and making sure the gardens are regularly watered. Every afternoon she wants to head outside in the front and ride bikes and run around with some of the neighborhood kids. She and Mathias both enjoy playing with the neighborhood kids, although they especially love getting rides in the electric ride-on cars that most of the neighborhood kids seem to have.

In other news, we've got most of our summer plans in place, including trips to Europe and the Midwest. I've started keeping an eye out for teaching jobs for next year, so we'll see if anything opens up that matches my license and our schedule. Mario has traveled to Louisiana twice in the last several months for work, and he has a couple more trips coming up in the fall. Overall, we are still loving living in Eugene, and now that the weather is getting nicer we are exploring more parts of the area. Several weeks ago we went on a gorgeous hike up Spencer Butte, which is the tallest point around. The view from the top was gorgeous and it was a lot of fun (and extra great exercise, because we each carried a kid on our back for most of the hike).

We haven't been taking a lot of pictures lately because life has been busy (and we often forget when we are spending so much time outside!), but here are a few we've taken since my last blog post: