End of the School Year Festivities

The last few weeks of school were lots of fun.  With plays, sports days, concerts, and Avery's graduation of Junior School, there was much to celebrate. 

Avery had a great sports day, placing in all his races and surprising us a bit with his long jump at 3.82m! This year, Avery has discovered his love for running and Athletics (track and field).

Avery's school spent the last month of school focused on their play "Frankie and Me." Not only was the play very entertaining, we were really impressed by all the great singing that the boys did during the show.  Avery was a member of the chorus, and also played a female ghost towards the end of the play.

Yes, that's Avery on the left with some amazing hair!

 Alexa got her chance to show off her musical talents as well at her schools Prize giving day, singing "Do-Re-Mi" from The Sound of Music.

 

Mia and her friends got to take center stage twice at the Strawberry Serenade, her Junior School concert.  This first video is a poem that she and her friend recited after winning the poetry competition in their school.



 



 Mia also performed as part of a group doing a song from "Matilda the Musical."

 

Overall, it's been a great 2 years at these schools.  It was really hard to say goodbye, but we look forward to more fun times in Burnt Hills!

Rugby

I'm so proud of Avery learning to play Rugby.  He started off on the "B" team, as he is just a beginner, and has worked his way up to being on the "A" team of the U11 boys....he just turns 9 in 2 weeks!  He really loves playing.  He's gotten most of his thrills by being aggressive at tackling, but has scored for his team as well.  Since moving up to the higher level, he hasn't been quite as successful but that's to be expected.  He's probably the skinniest kid out there!

I think playing Rugby has really toughened Avery up.  There are no tears when he gets tackled, stepped on, or knocked heads.  You know, I really was hoping that I would never be a Football (American) mom because of all the violence, but now I'm letting him play Rugby?  With almost no protective equipment? 

It's fun to see him learning and being active.  He has games once or twice a week and they're usually during school hours (2:30-3:30).  He gets to represent his school, which is definitely different than in the US.  He's got a few more weeks left of Rugby and then after Christmas they switch to Hockey...in American terms it's called Field Hockey.  Keep in mind, it doesn't snow much here, so they play outdoor sports all year round.  And then in the Spring, he'll be playing Cricket.  All sports that he wouldn't have been exposed to in the US...all the better for Avery!

Pray for no concussions!

Our first Football Game

I'm sure you all realize that Soccer is called Football here.  Though if we Americans refer to the sport as football, people usually thing we are talking about American Football.  So we usually just call it Soccer, and then people know what we mean.  We went to our first professional football game on Saturday, to watch Derby vs. Millwall.  Since we live in Derby, we've decided to be Derby fans of course.  The Derby County Football Club has a really beautiful stadium with the partial roof suspended from the outside, so that there are no bad seats in the stadium.

We were seated in a family-friendly section...away from the die-hard fans that are really loud and constantly chanting.  There is quite a bit of banter that occurs at these games between the home and away fans...a lot of it using not-so-good words for kids.  Thankfully, we were on the complete opposite corner of the field from all of that.  The video clip below wasn't a particularly exciting part of the game, but you can hear the chanting in the background and get a sense for what it was like.

At half time, Derby was winning 2-0, and they scored a third goal in the second half.  Derby played great defense, therefore allowing them to dominate throughout the game.  Alexa and Mia didn't seem to really pay attention to the game too much, but Alexa did really enjoy screaming when Derby scored.  The whole game was over in less than 2 hours, so it was a great family outing.