Goodbye 1st grade. Goodbye 3rd grade.

Julia and Holly had their promotion ceremony for school today. Here's Julia just after receiving her promotion certificate.

And Holly after receiving her promotion certificate:

Luckily they each got a few other awards and I got another chance to get a picture of them with the teacher/principal:

They both earned a medal for memorizing their Bible verses. And they both think that's pretty cool. Julia has even requested a bulletin board for her room so she can put all the certificates on it.

I'm not sure what it is about these ceremonies that makes me just want to sit there and cry. Maybe it has something to do with the many school changes they've gone through. Julia has attended a different school for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades. I don't think it's scarred her. She's still friends with her friends from 2nd grade - at least the ones in the neighborhood. And she has an amazing attitude about moving and making new friends.

Julia still seems to feel like she did at age 3. I wanted to take her to the park on Pope Air Force Base one day, and when we drove by the big park we usually went to, there were 2 buses parked there. I thought it would be too crowded for her to play on anything and too crazy with all the kids running around and passed it to go to a much smaller park on down the street. I don't think she noticed the park or the buses and we played at the smaller park with maybe one other little girl or alone. And on the way back home she spied the park and the kids and wanted to know why we hadn't gone there. She didn't like my explanation of how crowded it was and pouted from the backseat, "But they could all be my new friends!"

I so wish I had that attitude sometimes. I haven't shied away from a park since then because of how crowded it was.