AVS Graduation

This is going just way too fast… Lilia’s time at Alexander Valley School came to an end today with a quite moving graduation ceremony for her class of sixth graders. Amazing to think this group of kids had been together for seven years: from kindergarten, through COVID and now maturing into a group of teenagers. It was a wonderful ceremony, with a memorable welcome delivered by Joe and a speech from each of the graduates along the way. It was great to see Mindy recognized for all her volunteer work for the school, and to see her daughter Audrey awarded the academic award for the class. Lisa and I had some puffed out chests as Lilia received a President’s Award for Educational Excellence along with a few of her classmates, and were very moved to see the sixth grade teacher – who usually exudes quite a tough facade – tear up as she was delivering her farewell speech to the class. The thank you speeches delivered by each of the sixth graders to the crowd were so well practiced and thought out, lots of proud parents and grandparents in the crowd as they were talking… Lisa and I held it together for the most part, although I did fight back a few tears when the sixth graders sang their goodbye song with the kindergartners. AVS has been such an amazing gift to our kids, I’m sad that one of them will be moving on but also thankful that Maxie has a couple more years to go.

The Kreck family very generously offered up their beautiful ranch on Chalk Hill Road for a post-graduation pool party, so nice of them to host everyone for the afternoon! It was great to reflect on the years at AVS with the other sixth grade parents, and enjoy lunch with everyone on such a memorable occasion. Thanks Jeremy and Mindy (and Jeremy’s parents!) for hosting, couldn’t have imagined a better spot to celebrate the day. So proud of all the kids, they have such a strong bond between them, we’re all looking forward to watching them mature into junior high schoolers next year…