Fabulous 50s Spectacular!

 This week Sammy had her performance for their 50s special with her musical theater class.  She really loves this class, and can't wait to do it again this summer.  She had a big solo singing "I Can Hear the Bells" from "Hairspray". 

Singing her solo.

Some of her adorable friends.

Carter-- Sam-- Carter, in a "Carter-"Sam"wich.  

Sammy has been with the theater group since she was in third grade, and now she is one of the oldest kids.  She has a great time up on stage, but she loves all the kids that she meets doing this.  It has helped her meet a lot of kids she will go to High School with.  Most of her friends at school are heading to Skyview High School, not Green Canyon.  This way, she has met a lot more kids, and they are super great!

Our "Grandma Green" friend, Ann-Maree, stopped by to give Luke these potato chips she found at the whole foods store.  She had to buy them because she loved the name, of course.  I took her to lunch this week to celebrate her birthday in April.  She had the kids work in her yard yesterday and spread mulch and pull weeds.  The kids don't love going to work, but I am ever grateful that she had given my kids work.  Laura Lee had to ref soccer games most of the day yesterday, so she got sunburned.  After the other kids got home from working at our neighbor's house, we put them to work stacking fence pickets and gathering raspberry cuttings.  They were super tired at the end of the day.  They did get to play with the brand new kittens and watch the 6 new baby bunnies.  

It has been a busy week, but also a bummer of a week.  The other day, we found out that the boys' Tae Kwon Do instructor whom they look up to very much, is now "bi-gender".  My friend called to tell me that he ran into one of the other Tae Kwon Do moms dressed as a girl.  He asked her what she thought and she told him that her boys will probably not know how to handle this.  The crazy thing is we never saw this coming.  He has always been super masculine, and he never has acted feminine in front of the boys-- ever! My friend's son is devastated and doesn't want to go back to TKD.  He had written a paper at school that said the two people he admired most were his dad and his TKD instructor.  It just shatters the way they see him-- since being a man is a part of his identity. So-- long story short, we told Luke but did not tell Spencer.  We are not going to tell Spencer, because it devastated Luke.  He was so confused and crushed.  He said that he feels like someone has died. They both look up to him and he has been super patient and a great instructor.  We still like him, but he has started to promote things in class like telling the older kids about a LGBQT dances in town, or making a big deal about the "gender neutral" bathroom signs that were just hung up-- and taking a pic of all the students with the signs.  I am grateful my boys were not there those days he did that, just because I feel like this is a promotion of his ideas-- not just a way to teach friendship. 

 We aren't going back, and Luke is just going to start baseball.  We haven't told Spencer, and he is going to be devastated when he learns we won't be going back to TKD.  It is a good time to transition out of TKD anyway because I don't want too many activities.  Spencer's leg locks up all the time, and we don't know what to do-- so it's time to do something else.  We have all just been so very sad.  We really like him, and this has been a sad shock.  The frustrating thing is, we quit and he will probably take it as us being bigoted.  Truly, if he were not promoting his ideas, and if he were just focusing on the tenets of TKD, I could maybe handle it.  I just don't know if I could trust him or the kind of crowd that will now be drawn to the DoChang because of his promotions.  

Then, our neighbors a few houses away are moving.  They have only lived there for a little over a year, and their marriage has been frought with problems, but their little kids come by our house all the time to see if Spencer can play.  They are splitting up for good, and Spencer's friend is going to be leaving.  Rich and I just feel bad that we didn't do more to try and help them.  Their two youngest practically lived here the last two days while they were packing to move.  They are the cutest little kids and it just makes me sad.  Sometimes the world is just so sad.  

I felt burned out this week from VIPkid.  I love my students, I just get tired of the early mornings.  I am going to try and take a few days off at the end of the month. I used to work Saturday mornings, but I found that I really need two days to just sleep in and not worry about classes.  I just signed my second contract with them for another 6 months.  Hopefully I can keep it up!