Proud of Nathan

I wrote this on Facebook one Friday...
"Found out this afternoon that one son got a very exclusive award at middle school and the other had in school suspension. We are totally proud of both of them!!! You would have to know the details."

So here are the details for why I am so proud of Nathan. Darin's details are in a different post. We got a call from the school counselor telling us how Nathan's team of core teachers chose him to be awarded the Knight of the Round Table award. It is super exclusive! Each team of core teachers chooses only one boy and one girl from all the children they teach to become a Knight of the Round Table. He was chosen out of about 200 kids by his teachers for the very first quarter of Middle School. I would say that makes him a pretty special kid! There are 3 sets of core teachers so in all of 6 grade with about 600 students they only chose a total of 3 boys and 3 girls.

Knight of the Round Table is awarded to students who exemplify academic and social excellence. I know there are really outstanding kids at my boys Middle School so to be recognized for this is such a BIG deal!

Here's the thing, when the school counselor told me about it she said it would be nice to surprise him. They pull the kids out of their last period for the day. But she said she totally would tell her kids so she would understand if I told him. I didn't though! Seriously it was the hardest secret to keep EVER. We wanted him to be surprised, so Ken and I just talked about it secretly.

He totally was surprised, when I walked into the gym with the girls he was like what's going on? They just had the kids lined up and a teachers was starting to explain it to him. His smile was so HUGE! He was totally in shock. Look at that cute boy! The stage all set for him to be knighted.
Waiting to go up!
Being Knighted. His friend is actually the school mascot so Nathan thought that was kind of cool.
He shook hands with the principal so fast that I missed it:-)
My Nathan! I am so proud of this boy!
The official award.
Love from his sisters. Who managed to sit quietly through the ceremony. That was a miracle because they were on one that afternoon. I bribed them with lots of snacks.
One last time with the Knight!
Group Photo. In total there were 18 kids form 6-8th grade awarded this. Which sounds like alot but there are almost 2000 kids in their Middle School.
Me and Nathan. Unfortunately Ken had a conference that he was presenting at in downtown Austin. Of course, it happened to fall on the same day. And here we were cheering that the conference was finally in our hometown instead of him having to travel out of town. So I only had the girls around to take our picture:-(
The other bad thing was that it was also the day of my Auxiliary Training. I wouldn't have gone if I was a Counselor or Secretary but I felt like since I was the President I should be a good example. In the end I was glad that I went. I needed to hear alot of the things that were taught at it. But I was really bummed on missing out on Nathan's special dinner.

I still cooked it for him though and had fun doing that! He had a roasted chicken, homemade macaroni and cheese, and asparagus. Yummy!
I made Ken promise to take pictures of them for me. Ken said that they totally enjoyed it all and Nathan felt super special. Ken also said that he told Nathan over and over how much I loved him and how proud I was of him. I really hate when I miss special moments like this.
For Dessert I made a milk chocolate and white chocolate fondue for them. They had white little cupcakes, pretzels, strawberries, marshmallows, and bananas to dip in that chocolatey goodness.
Ken said it was another Hit with the kids. And Nathan felt really special cause it was a Thursday and they never have dessert on Thursday.

We really are so proud of Nathan. He really does try to do his best at school and to be a good friend to everyone. We are normally proud of him anyways, he is a really great kid and really fun to be around. But sometimes it's nice to see that other people (especially his teachers) can see all the great qualities that he has too. We love you so much Nathan!