Hiking the Evergreen Mountain trail

The school year ended for Jude and Anna at noon on Friday. At 11am we all gathered in the main school hall for the end of year Rose Ceremony. This book-ends the year because on the first day of school we had the opening Rose Ceremony. On that day the first graders are paired with an eighth grader who presents them with a rose to welcome them to the school. On the last day of school the first graders present the eighth graders with a rose and well-wishes as they move on to high school.

Anna loved her eighth grader, she has even come to babysit a few times. In fact, Anna was crying after the ceremony because she said she will miss her eighth grade buddy so much. They had lunch together every two or three weeks and formed a bond during the year. It was a really sweet ceremony and a great way to end the school year.

This weekend we went for a hike at Evergreen Mountain. This is a popular trail about 45 minutes from our house that is a 5-mile roundtrip that goes up to 8,500 feet. Saturday was hot so we wanted to get up in elevation. Jude really didn’t want to go, he wanted to stay home and he was very grumpy at times during the hike. In the end I hiked with Anna and Marcy stayed with Jude and that worked out better.

One thing that Waldorf talks about is the nine-year change. This happens around the age of nine where they go through a transition of being a little kid and doing little kid things to moving to a more mature stage of life. We have really noticed it with Jude these past three months or so. Before he would play with Anna all the time, they were best buddies, and would play imaginary games together sometimes for hours on end.

Now, Jude turns up his nose at those kinds of games, saying they are for little kids and he is not interested in that any more. He main interest these days is soccer and he kicks his soccer ball around at every opportunity. He also likes to watch soccer and talk about soccer. Beyond that, he also likes to read, play Uno and chess as well as play with his football and table soccer games. But he does not like to play imaginary games any more. This has been hard for Anna because she feels like she has lost her best friend, the one who has been her playmate from the very beginning. Because of this nine-year change summer is going to look quite different for both of them this year.

Anna with her new skateboard

Finally, big news for Anna today. She has a new skateboard. This is something she has wanted for quite some time. She bought this out of her own money and for now at least she absolutely loves it. She played on it for several hours today and she is slowly getting the hang of it. I think this skateboard will get quite a lot of use this summer.