My First Day

The last one of the bunch.  Not sure if it's the picture or the outfit that isn't very flattering but here's my first day of school!

Same position, year five minus two recess duties!  It doesn't sound like much but it gives me another hour a week of plan time and I can pull kids in for a few minutes of recess to fix math papers the day they are corrected.  It's way better than them trying to fix them at home a few days to a week later!

 

Someone Needs to Adjust Their Cooking Amounts

We had just a bit of food in the fridge.

but it's not just me!  Jeremy smoked three different things this weekend!  Including these manicotti noodles stuffed with sausage and cheese and wrapped with bacon.  They were delicious.

 

First Day of School!

8th grade

Sophomore year

5th grade, with a brand-new to our school and community teacher.  It's not often Nicholas is a blank slate to teachers.  Every one he's had so far has also taught at least one of his siblings or known our family first.

Ready to go!

Thomas was our only big transition this year and he moved in a week and a half ago so this year's first day was pretty low key.

And after 14 years of loading kids on the bus we realized Julia goes to school and comes home from school at the same time as Philip and Nicholas 8 out of 10 times a week while she has early band and 10 out of 10 time once early band is over in November, so she's taking them.  She finished her drivers ed driving earlier this summer (which includes the drivers test) and we sent off for her school permit last week.  I'll drive the boys on Tuesday and Thursday mornings when she has early band and take Nick on the Wednesdays BN has late start but St. W doesn't.  Samuel and Thomas could never take the littles because they had both early band and lifting in the fall and some sport practice every day after school so their leaving at the same time ratio was more like 1 out of 10 times.  Philip and Nicholas are getting up about half an hour later than other years...but that is largely due to no longer needing the "cartoon buffer" which means they had to be ready early in case the bus was early and then watched tv with their extra time.  They are skipping the tv time and leaving for school about ten minutes later than they got on the bus too.  So far it seems to be working well!

Last Evening of the Summer

at least for these kids.

Samuel and Thomas are both moved in at school but neither one starts classes until the 21st.  I don't start till the 24th (insert happy dance here)! 

One Last Adventure for the Summer

Actually, we don't do as much adventuring now that we take real family vacations so this may have been the only adventure of the summer.

They wanted to go to the Fremont pool.  There's two big slides, a wave pool and a train water feature there.

They worked hard to snag one of the six inner tubes so they could float while the waves were going.

I just watched the wave pool but I did get in for some water tag. 

He's a Climber

But when your rescuer gets stuck what do you do? (Can you see the would-be rescuer pointing to the cat in distress?  Yep, they were both stuck.)

Call in Dad.  Dad's rescue mission was successful.

Julia says the whole thing was a cat-tastrophe.

Transformation

She got her braces off!

And then two days later we both got our hair cut and colored!  Mary gave Julia another balayage as a bonus for cleaning the shop.

Eight inches off for me and fourteen off for Julia.  We have to see if she can donate.  The ends are bleached and some places won't take bleached hair.

She looks like a whole new woman!
 

And Just Like That

 There's two less to feed and house and do laundry for and generally keep track of.

Philip will be moving downstairs one of these days.  Then Thomas will bunk in upstairs with Nicholas when he is home and Sam will bunk in with Philip when he's here.

Moving In

Thomas had to head to school for a two week bridge program before classes start.  It sounds like they will have various college skill classes in the morning and group bonding in the afternoon.  

After being assigned to the wrong dorm, having he lady in charge of assignments take the week off immediately after sending assignments out (a month before classes start and only two weeks before Thomas had to report) and then getting no response for another four days after she got back, Thomas got his correct dorm room and roommate assignment.  Except by then there was no personality matching going on.  He got stuck in what was left open.  He and his roommate don't have a lot in common, including what year they are in school, but Thomas says he's nice enough that getting along for a year should be fine.

Thomas seems to be settling in and enjoying the time with the other Scott Scholars.  Classes start soon!

Band Camp

Julia enjoyed band camp this year.  They are doing Cross Reference songs.  I guess it's a Jesus band.  The themes were trickier to dress for.

Each section had to make unleavened bread.

This was a boat for the day the flutes walked on (bottled) water.

And here she is as Jesus in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Enjoy the season and the piccolo, Julia!

When You Think You'll Never Have to Label Your Kid's Stuff Again

and then you do.

Announcing a New Family Member...

Dexter!

Go Away finally did go away in June.  He died slightly dramatically one evening before dinner.  He came out from behind the house, collapsed and lived long enough for everyone who wanted to to say goodbye.  We think we had him 7 or 8 years.  He was a good cat and smart enough not get hit on the road.  Hopefully Dexter will be that smart too.

Jeremy had a coworker who had a kitten that just showed up so we figured it was time for a new cat.  Before the mice try to move in this fall.

Nicholas is in love.

Even Thomas played with him a little.

He's littler than we expected.  Eventually he'll be an outside cat but not yet.  He'd get eaten the first night at this point.

Sam made this list of name possibilities.  They are all plays on names of other cats we've had.

In the end the three younger kids each came up with a name, wrote it on a slip of paper, put some cat food by each choice and then "let the cat choose."  The other possibilities were Comrade and Tucker.

Nick was so excited he wanted a friend over soon after we got Dexter so he could show him off.  Ainsley was appropriately impressed.

Here's to not using up your nine lives too quickly Dexter!

Last Family Time of the Summer

Thomas moves on Sunday and Samuel is working in Lincoln this weekend so we had our last family dinner earlier in the week.  Afterward there was mandatory fun.  We started with a family game of tag requested by Nick (which I did not participate in, I would have just been it the whole time) and followed by Apples to Apples requested by me.  

Bittersweet.