Maya Memorial Walk

We have been missing our dear and amazing school dog, Maya, dreadfully at school but we have found comfort in doing things to honor her. When we got back from Christmas break we immediately began coming up with ideas of how we could honor and memorialize her at school and in our community... we want to spread some of her ashes at school, since that was her favorite place on island and build a bench with Paul (my dad) that would display pantings of her and tennis balls, but that is going to have to wait till warmer weather!

So, we did some other activities in the meantime...

First we created a bulletin board at school that would be in honor of Maya.

Quinny created a great sign with "BONGOS" on it... which was Maya's nickname around town. 

We knew we wanted the  bulletin board to have pictures and captions.

So we went with the theme "Lessons Bongos Taught Us."

We used cut out tennis balls to write down the lesson we will always remember from Maya.

Like to always be yourself.

and to get dirty once and a while...

and to remember to gives hugs and kisses...

and to play hard and claim what is rightfully yours!

This is one of my favorites!

And of course to love every moment!

We love you Maya!

Next we decided we wanted to have a little event that we could invite the community to in honor of Maya. Dalton came up with the idea of a dog walk! Quinn and I set to work on the details while Dalton was in for the week to get his braces on (pictures to come!)

First Quinn and I went rock hunting for some flat, round stones to make memory rocks of Maya to give out at her walk.

We wanted to paint them to look like tennis balls... so you needed just the right color green.

Perfect!

Next the strips and then we glued on little photos of Maya in all her glory!

The finish products... I love these stones so much. I have mine in my pocket everyday!

Next it was onto baking, of course! And we got a new hand mixer at school from Barbara Hitchcock so we were baking with gas!

You can't have a community event without baked goods you know...

Time for special gifts for the boys... Maya mugs!

Dalton's mug... and do you notice the braces?

Test testing... 

Is that tennis ball green frosting I see?

Oh yes it is! Tennis ball cupcakes! Delicious!

Tying string on tennis balls for our memorial tree!

Time for the event... writing messages on tennis balls!

Hanging the tennis balls on the tree out front of school!

Even some little guys came out to honor Maya. This little guy would often hear a dog barking and say "Maya!" No matter what dog it was!

So many people came... it meant a lot.

Time to walk.

We walked the Red Ribbon Trail, one of Maya's favorites!

Then we gave out cupcakes and memory stones.

Lots of good messages on the tennis ball tree.

Little one.

Love and peace for Miss Maya.

And the finished tree. How many tennis balls can you see? It is really nice to walk to school and see all those tennis balls swinging from the tree!

Thank you to all who were able to come to Maya's walk. It was such a wonderful, simple, sweet time to remember the bestest school dog we could ever have hoped for.