School's Out for Summer

It's been a busy first week of summer break for us.

Josh is still at home convalescing. He's had more appointments than I can count, seeing the embassy doctor every other day, an appointment with a dentist to make sure the soreness in his mouth didn't indicate any kind of damage to his teeth (they're fine), as well as a couple trips to an orthopedic doctor to figure out why his knee is so slow to improve. An MRI showed a tiny fracture of his femur that should heal fine on it's own given time. He's been using a crutch and staying at home with the exception of the appointments.
He's been able to do most of his work from home, but has been given the all-clear to return to work on Monday. The stitches are out, the black eyes are fading, and we're hoping that the rest of the summer is a little more low-key.
For you military folks-- I think Josh might have added to the statistics of the 101 Critical Days of Summer ;)

And on to the rest of us!

The kids had their last day of school a week ago. Can't believe how much they grew over the course of the school year.

First Day in Monterey.

Last Day in Madrid.

We are so proud of how they adapted mid-year to a new country, culture, school, and language. There were a few rough days for sure, but overall we couldn't have asked for more.

Derek had a graduation ceremony to celebrate the move from Educación Infantil a Primeria, our equivalent of Kindergarten graduation. It was all in Spanish and the microphone didn't work well, so that's about all I can tell you about the ceremony.

In his classroom:

We had an hour between the end of his ceremony and when Alex was finished with school, so I took the boy for a celebratory donut.

This first week of summer was also the first week of their tutoring sessions to keep them moving forward in Spanish.
Carmen is their tutor, and she comes over three times a week and works with them for an hour each. We listened in on the first session to realize that they've totally been holding out on us! They chatter with her in Spanish like it's no big deal, but it's like pulling teeth to get them to speak it to us.
She has fun games that they play to learn vocabulary, and yesterday they baked a cake together as part of their lessons. Her visits give our week some structure.

We also created a chart for both Alex and Derek to help them focus on the areas they need help with to be ready for the next school year.
For Alex, it's reading comprehension in Spanish, Lengua (the equivalent of English Language in the States), and math.
She was naturally still behind at the end of this half-year in Madrid, because the other kids are reading more complex texts as well as learning sentence structure, etc. while Alex was simply trying to pronounce the words and know what they mean. 

For Derek, we're working on his reading skills in both languages, and some math as well.

They've been excited to fill out their sticker charts, but I'm sure the newness will wear off.

In other news, Pat the Bunny arrives for a visit on Tuesday! I will be sure to document all of the odd happenstances that this should bring about. Maybe a special post will be merited,  
Pat the Bunny: Overseas.
She knows about two words in Spanish, so we'll try not to let her get lost in the city.

Random picture of my sassy girl.

I don't know where she learned the hand-on-hip pose. But it's too grown-up for me.