Danika Graduates from 5th Grade...

June 9, 2012

Today Danika graduated from 5^th grade.  The time seems to have flown by.  They don’t have graduation for the fifth grade here, so Danika is very sad that she missed hers at Paxson Elementary School in Missoula.  We decided to celebrate in our own way.  To start, a quick pic before we set off for school.

When we picked the kids up from school, we ran in and took pictures of their classrooms.  This is Danika’s regular classroom.

And this is Jason’s regular classroom.

This is the lady who works at the front office...

These are Danika’s teachers: (right to left) Maestra Grazia, Maestra Carla, Maestra of Religion, Maestra of Geography.

Her Italian teacher, Maestra Grazia,  is going to publish a story that Danika wrote and she will send it to us…

This is similar to a picture we took of the kids on their first day at Italian school.  It was cold and snowy back then, so different.

As a little aside story…  Every day we walk to school we walk past this little place that is a woodshop, called a "botega".  We greet the man every day, but never really knew him. The first time I really remember him is when I saw this gorgeous night stand he was working on.  It was then that I realized he was a true craftsman.  I decided that I couldn’t leave without meeting him because I loved to look at what he was working on every day as we walked to and from school.  So, on the last day of school, I went inside and introduced myself.  His name is Franco and he is in his seventies.  We told him how much we admired his work.  Then we asked if he had anything small for sale, something that we could take back on an airplane.  He showed us around his workshop, and then he showed me some really fine little woodworking he does on pieces that he attaches to furniture.  They were really nice intricate carvings with flowers and scrolls.  He ended up giving me one and wouldn’t let me pay for it.  Seriously, really nice people in Perugia…

That evening we had Christopher and his dad, Thom, over for pizza.  Christopher’s mom is away for two weeks with work. 

We had a really nice evening to mark the last day of school until the fall.  Hard to believe we will be leaving on Tuesday.

~Mary