And all through the house are notebooks and pens and lunch boxes and the sounds of clothes washing and lunch fixing and nervous energy. Allie has a teacher she doesn't know but seems comfortable with the kids in her class, though they aren't her close friends. She cannot wait to be issued a school laptop. Julia dreads getting back into the work of school but is excited to see friends and hopeful about cheerleading tryouts this week. Gray is pretty happy with a more low key schedule than last semester and feels good about his one difficult class- AP Chemistry, since he likes the teacher and did well in the first chemistry class last year. He also likes the look of his mythology class, where they will study Tolkien's writings and other interesting stories. Joshua has a really difficult schedule. He's taking 4 AP classes this year, plus his capstone Engineering class. He's calm about it, because that's him, but it's going to be a lot of work. As always, it's hard to believe the summer is over and the kids are another grade further into their schooling.
Here's what we did the last month of the kids' summer...
Julia had one camp- band camp. Here she is at the end of her concert with her flute buddies.
Allie did a tennis camp and loved it, in spite of the terrible heat. She's ready to get back into it so we will probably sign her up for lessons soon.
As a birthday gift from Nanny and Pa, Allie got to visit a local goat farm with lots of animals and fun.
Gray settled right into his new job at Hillsborough Landscaping. This day he stayed late on the farm and went fishing with a friend. In true Gray fashion, he sent us this picture of him "catching a fish", which he later told us was really his friend's catch, but he had told him where to cast, so they did a "redo" after his buddy reeled it in and let Gray claim it.
Julia took on caring for the Moores' dog Sammy while they went to Canada. It was a big job and several things went wrong, though not anything major. Jeannie and I both received a multitude of voice texts describing these mishaps. In the end, Sammy survived and I think Julia learned a lot and was thrilled to make money. She also got a babysitting gig at the end of the summer, watching a toddler for several half days for a few weeks.
I went back to work and enjoyed being with the teachers I've gotten to know over the years and learning a new partnership with the teacher I work with this year.
Allie got to take her annual trip to see Mimi and GrandGene and got spoiled with fancy breakfasts and such.
I took Joshua for another prospect day at Anderson University and went over to Clemson to wander around and try to remember my life there. We had a disastrous time checking into the hotel the night before. We had to change rooms three times due to broken toilet and smoke smell and then ended up with a room with a leak but, as it was close to 11 and we had an early morning, we made do. That next day was so hot they ended the prospect day early, which was somewhat frustrating to Joshua since he felt he hadn't had enough time to show his stuff. We are still in the midst of the college decision process and he has 3 offers to play, which is wonderful. Praying for a path for him that will provide growth and fun, good friends, and a great education.
Nanny and Pa took the kids to a super cool Lego exhibit in Raleigh.
Raven gets all the snuggles.
Game night with all 6 of us.
The boys played in a tournament for high school teams, part of the "unofficial" off season at Orange. It was such a hot day but they had fun being back with their teammates.
Matt and I had our 20th wedding anniversary. It was on one of my half-day Wednesdays, which was perfect timing. We got my favorite shrimp and mushroom quesadilla at Los Altos for lunch, hiked Occoneechee Mtn, and went to Matt's favorite restaurant- The Wooden Nickel- for dinner, while Jeannie watched and fed the kids. It was a good day.
My work bff Nina and I are having a great year! Smoothest start to kindergarten I've ever experienced.
The girls spent their last week of summer at EI with Nanny and Pa. They ate well and played well and Julia finally got a coveted surf lesson.
We celebrated back to school with what has become our annual ice cream party. This year it happened to coincide with the Young Life fantasy football draft that Joshua coordinated, so we had a big crew of high school boys join us.
Allie was all smiles. She had one close school friend move to a different school and the other wasn't in her class or recess, but she's got no trouble enjoying the kids she has, though she's proud to say she hasn't been talking on the carpet during lessons "yet". It's only Day 2, girl. She still cannot wait to get her school laptop and I would gladly put that off for another few years.
Julia was mostly smiles the first morning except after viewing each of the pictures I took of her and lamenting, "Why do I look like that?!" You're beautiful, Julia. She came home stressed because cheerleading practice was really hard for her and she's worried she's not going to make the team after all. When the dust settled, she did say she likes most of her teachers and the school part of the day went well.
Gray began the first morning of school by rising extra early and lifting weights. He has his own parking place at school and opted to drive himself, leaving before Joshua. He came home thinking it will be a pretty smooth semester and he likes his teachers pretty well. He's especially happy that his English teacher is a big improvement from last year, which he said was the worst he'd ever had. He ended the day with a skills evaluation for another season of rec basketball. We keep thinking this phase of life is over but it's back again!
Joshua began his senior year and had a pretty good day, in spite of a tough change over the weekend with him and Katelyn breaking up. He had a lot of friends in most of his classes and hung out with his fellow senior lacrosse members at lunch. He has still been really into fishing but is picking up another new hobby now-- golf, which he plans to play with some friends this week. I was reminiscing on his first day of kindergarten and read the post below about it. Really can't believe he's almost done. He's a blessing to me and I'm so thankful for being his mom.
http://themattcrabtreefamily.blogspot.com/2011/08/first-day.html
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