We're Soaring, Flying

Not just the lyrics to one of Kate's favorite songs, but a daily ritual with the two sibs. We feel a wee bit guilty that we didn't go ahead and build the swing set when we moved in two years ago. "Alex is too big. He'll never use it." Oops. He's out there several times daily, Kate or no Kate. Better late.

First Grade

Our area of NC has been growing incredibly fast. It is evident in the number of new housing communities, license plates from all over the US and the log-jam traffic on roads. The local schools have suffered from the crush, not being as prepared with enough schools/classrooms to accomodate all the kids that have infiltrated. Last year, in an effort to ease crowding and better use existing buildings, our county schools switched to a predominantly year-round calendar. Most kids in elementary school are on one of four tracks alternating in-school weeks with three week breaks throughout the calendar year.

So while it is summer vacation time in many parts of the country, and even for a lot of kids here in Wake county, for Kate it's first grade time! She's been in school now for several weeks and is loving it. She likes her teachers, enjoys the structure, happily takes her Hello Kitty thermos full of noodle for lunch, willingly does her homework with me in the afternoon and loves the school bus.



We are extremely lucky to have so many friends that want to help Kate so finding a couple of bus buddies was a slice of cake. Emersyn and Zoe, two lovely fifth graders, have been crucial to my retaining of sanity with Kate's daily bus riding. They sit with her on the bus, but, most importantly, meet her at her classroom each afternoon to make sure she gets on the correct bus and makes it home!

Friends

We had such a lovely time this past week with our very wonderful friends, Michelle and Emma, who came from St. Louis to visit with us. Thank you, Tom, for sharing them with us!


And thanks to Michelle for the fun iphone photos.

Learning

We're all good. We're all busy. We're learning so much this summer. And we're keeping busy.

Kate has started school. She's in the first grade at our local grade school. She rides the bus. She was taking Spanish. We felt it better that she wait on that one. She's been to two of her classmates' birthday parties. She loves her teacher. And she doesnt' like it when there is a substitute.

She's rapidly learning English. She can say Gabriella and Sharpay (I'm sure I just misspelled her name) and Troy and Chad, and she runs around outside with the basketball yelling "get your head in the game".

I'm learning not to let her temper flare-ups stress me out. Fortunately we're seeing fewer tantrums. There's a power plant we would drive past every so often near Blacksburg that had a huge banner proclaiming how many days they'd been accident-free. As the days accumulate that we've been tantrum-free, I think that maybe we should post it out there for all to see. Then on those days at the bus stop when I'm looking a little worse for wear, the big zero will provide fair warning to any and all. And what a fabulous head's up for Phil. No more shocking awful when he walks in the door. To be fair, they really are very infrequent and the duration with which she puts the house on lockdown has decreased substantially.

I've been working overtime trying to get caught up on our scrapbooks. I'm currently in France and the year is 2002. Although that isn't really how far behind I am. I typically will go from the most recent and work my way back. I'm also trying to figure out digital scraping and using Photoshop. Thank heavens for all those digital scrappers that have paved the way.