Goodbye Middle School

Yes, the twins have graduated! We were a little confused as to what the event actually was. In years past, our middle school had a bigger event off site but has recently down scaled to a “celebration” at the school itself. We got there and it definitely looked like a graduation. Kids marched in, close to 400 of them, and sat and rose on cue. Adam and Royce marched in together so that was a nice moment, though we were too far away to take a good photo. The grade 8 students practiced all week and were good marchers. The twins got dressed up and went despite some nerves on both of their parts. All in all, a nice event and closure to the middle school experience.

Middle school ended with a flurry of activity. The kids went to Washington DC for a few days.  They visited a number of sites, stayed at a hotel and had their grade 8 dance at the hotel. Royce texted us throughout the trip, telling us historical facts and figures. Her favorite site to visit was Mount Vernon, where she bought us all postcards and jam. I asked Adam if he liked Mount Vernon. He said no. I asked him if he liked the Air and Space Museum. He said yes. When he got off the bus, he had no voice, totally hoarse. So we know he was talking non-stop there, just not to us about the learning experience. We also got lots of pictures of Royce and her friends before the dance. We have no pictures of Adam at the dance but Royce assures us he was there.

After the graduation, we invited neighbors back to our place for pink and blue cupcakes and Shirley Temples and Roy Rogers. All very nice and so kind of everyone on our street to celebrate the end of middle school at our house. We even had some friends from Hong Kong who now live in our town in attendance. It was nice to have someone there who remember the twins when they were starting Reception 2 at Hong Kong International School. Made the whole thing feel full circle. We reveled in the moment, then got everyone to bed. The kids graduated on a Thursday and had to go to the final day of school on Friday. Short and sweet, just like the whirl of years in elementary and middle schools!