The Hintze Family: End Of Year

The end of the school year was great. Hailey got to put on several shows, from a gym show with her whole grade, to a dance, and gymnastics show, and of course she had her graduation from Infantil. It was all so much fun. Hailey was even the "star" of the ribbon portion of her rythmica class. Avery also had an end of year show. Her class sang a couple of songs. The second song the teachers told the kids to pick a word that described them and then they put it into the song. Avery choose the word Beautiful. ;) I asked why she decided on beautiful, and she said, "because Fina said I should choose that word and I liked it and so I choose it." Haha, but she is definitely a beautiful little girl. We love these girls so much. It's been so fun to see them learn and grow over this last year.

This year was probably overwhelming at times for Hailey. We moved to a new country and only a couple weeks later she started school from 9-4:30 with every other day being completely in Spanish, and all of her classmates Spaniards. I can't imagine. She is one resilient little girl though. She had some low times (which really made me question what we were doing to her as her parents and if any of it was actually worth it!) but she came out of them so quickly and by the end of the year she was speaking Spanish so well. Everywhere we go in Spain people comment on her Spanish. She doesn't always conjugate everything perfectly, but she does really well. What most people comment on though is her accent. They all say it's perfect and she sounds completely Spanish. She loves to correct me if I get lazy with my pronunciation. She has learned and grown so much. She hardly seems like a little girl anymore. She is so grown up and mature for her age. We love our Hailey. ;)

Avery also had, an at times, overwhelming year. She started her first pre-school away from home twice a week. Her school, fortunately, was completely in English, but it was still a little stressful for her. After the first week or two she was fine, but by the end of the year she was ready to be done and to move on to bigger and better things. We gave her the choice of staying at her school next year, or going to Hailey's school. There was no doubt about it she wanted to go to Hailey's school! In fact we took a tour of Sek with Avery and she loved it so much she started throwing fits when she had to go back to her regular pre-school. She is so excited for next year. I am a little worried that school from 9-4:30 at 3 years old will be way too much, but she is one determined little girl, and she seems very sure that this is the thing she wants to do. She is anxious to start learning Spanish. She has been very aware that people here speak another language, and it's been a source of serious frustration for her. She has started trying to speak with our cleaning lady, Juicy, whenever she comes over, and she tries to speak in nursery as well. It will be fun to see how much she is able to pick up next year.