It's official - I'm a graduate....whatever that means! On Tuesday night 52 pre-k kids graduated from Carolina Kids. Each class had the chance to present songs and poems for the parents and grandparents and then we each received a diploma. You have never seen so many kids playing with their graduation hats!
My actual last day at school will be Thursday. It has been a wonderful 3 years with almost all the same kids. I sure am going to miss seeing them all every day. Mommy says she is going to miss the fact the school provided breakfast and lunch five days a week! I now get to spend a week with Daddy and then I will be going to Gymnastics camp for the summer. I hear we get THREE field trips a week and it costs HALF what my current daycare costs (mommy says that is important to parents). Each week one of the fieldtrips is to my favorite bowling alley. You all know how much I love to bowl....it's going to be a great summer!
May has zoomed by with all of our activities. My parents said they are ready to just sit and relax in June! On Mother's Day we took our first visit to the Great Wolf Lodge. Mommy scored some cheap day passes as part of a charity promotion. We had so much fun. The wave pool was especially neat and there were 2 kids areas with water sprayers, slides, etc. I couldn't be talked into the big mat and tube slides, but Mommy & Daddy took turns enjoying those. I hope they offer the same promotion in the future because I'm not sure I can talk my parents into the expensive hotel rooms that you usually need to enjoy the park.
The annual Strawberry Festival took place in early May. The word is out on this festival because it was PACKED. Unfortunately my parents would like to block this outing out of their minds. After about a hour of fun I had a complete melt down when the ice cream line was too long. It went from whining to full blown hysterics. Despite a warning I just couldn't slow it down. So my parents had to carry me kicking and screaming for the half mile walk back to the car. I then spent the next hour crying hysterically about wanting to go back. My parents would like offer their condolences to every parent who has to deal with that type thing on a frequent basis. They said once in 5 1/2 years was PLENTY for them. Definitely not a Hallmark moment.
Last week I tested for my first Karate belt. I will hear next week if I earned my low yellow, but it looks pretty likely. This was another non-Hallmark moment for the Hare family. The first half of the test went great. But then they needed a small child to spar with a higher belt (put on protective vest and kick each other). They asked me but I said no because I was scared about what you had to do. When I saw how fun it was and that I had missed my chance I completely broke down in tears. Thankfully the instructors were super kind and hung out with me while I cried. The end of the test was positive because I got to break a board, but the crying put a damper on the whole day.
Finally (I know we did a lot - I'm exhausted just writing about it!) we had a free hotel stay we had to use up before May 31st. We decided to visit Gatlinburg, TN to see what it was all about. It's only a 4 hour drive from my house. We had fun, but we all agreed we didn't quite see what the hype was about the area. Gatlinburg was quaint, but small. We actually stayed in Pigeon Forge. Mommy had heard it was the Myrtle Beach of the mountains and boy were they right. Billboards, go karts, mini golfs, restaurants and oh the TRAFFIC.
Since we were there we decided to try Dollywood. Again, we were all a little disappointed. It is a gorgeous park, but they sure missed the mark for kids. There were very few kids rides and the singing shows were pretty repetitive so a few hours in the park was plenty. We've seen the TV ads for years so perhaps we were just expecting too much?
All in all, we are glad we saw the area, but we're not sure we'll rush back. Though there are some AWESOME outlets Mommy would like to visit again and you can't beat all the mini-golfs!
Enjoy the pics and videos....
