Wordless Wednesday

last day of school
Josh being goofy
backstage at dance recital
waiting for big sis to hit the stage

Girlfriends

One of my friends is moving to Maryland in the beginning of July and it got me thinking about how much I miss my girlfriends! Because I'm not working and I don't drive it's really hard to get together with them and I just wish I could see them more often.

I met a majority of my girlfriends when I worked at Zagat Survey, so we dubbed ourselves the Zagat girls! We went through some many major life changes together (weddings, babies, divorces, loss of family members) and they were the greatest support group. At one point their were about 8 of us in our little clique. Everyone at work knew how close we all were. Birthdays were always a big deal and we all made sure to go out and have fun together to celebrate!

These girls are more than just my girlfriends. They became my family. Right now we update each other via e-mails, IM's or myspace but I know if I picked up the phone and called any one of them right now that we would laugh and talk for hours like we did before.

Julia finished school this week. I can't believe she is finished with 1st grade already!!! I remember getting her tested for admission into this school last summer and being told that she would have to start the first half of the year in Kindergarten because she was weak in reading! I asked for her to be retested at the end of the month because I knew she was capable of the work and ready for 1st grade. We got all kinds of reading books for her and when she retested she was enrolled in 1st grade! She has grown so much this year and is reading chapter books on her own now! What a difference a year has made. It has been a great blessing sending her to this school and I know she will continue to grow and learn with the wonderful group of teachers that work there.

The last day of school she brought home all her workbooks. She said the teachers didn't give them work to do over the summer but told them if they wanted to they could finish up the workbooks. That very night I found Julia working on her grammar book! I was so proud of her. She decided to do the work all on her own :) And the next morning when she woke up I found her working on another one of her workbooks. She has also been reading some of her books and writing in her brand new Hannah Montana journal.

She also finally got a pink Nintendo DS for her birthday. Besides continually asking for a puppy, the nintendo DS was also very high on her list of things she just had to have. My parents got her the pink DS and we got her this game called Nintendogs were she could take care of a virtual puppy. We figured this was the next best thing to a real puppy, which we can't get her because we live in a very small apartment. She got the chihuahua edition because this is her favorite breed of dog. She has a webkinz and ty beanie baby chihuahua too. She loves the game and is taking very good care of her "puppy" which she named Cutie!

I'm hoping to keep her busy this summer. This is the first summer she isn't in some kind of camp or class. Since I'm not working, we figured we would try and take the kids to the park and other fun stuff around the city. I definitely want to take them to Coney Island so they can visit Astroland park before they close it. Also would love to take them to a Cyclones game and a Mets game this summer.