Back to School

"Remember that one time that Mom thought it would be fun to take BART into San Francisco on a Monday night to go school shopping with 7 kids in tow?"  Yeah, never again!

Another school year is upon us again!  The kids started at a brand new elementary school this year.  It was a hard decision to transfer the kids from the school they've gone to for the last four years, but the fact that this new school is offering a more traditional single subject middle school experience tipped the scale for us.  We're excited to be a part of a school community from the ground up and hope we can help shape the culture and educational values here.  I've been working over the summer to help get the PTA off the ground and have high expectations for the coming year.

Meilani in her last year of Elementary School!  8th grade!

Eli, heading into 6th grade.

Sariah, ready to conquer 4th grade.

Liam and his buddy Caulder heading into their 2nd grade classroom.

Another hard decision was determining whether or not to put Seth in a Transitional Kindergarten class.  It's essentially free preschool for those kids whose birthdays fall between September and December and would have made the old cut off date for Kindergarten.  Out of principle I'm not fond of the program but we decided that Seth needed a more formal, everyday program to challenge his energy and curiosity (read: he and Ammon were constantly getting into mischief and I needed a break from the insanity!)

Seth has a bunch of friends from church in his class and loves going to school with them.

Ammon was a little sad to see Seth walk off without him.  For several weeks into school he insisted that he needed his backpack and tried going into class with Seth.

And cute Ruby girl for the awe factor.

Ben's first day of school was quite monumental.  I didn't get a pic of him before he left the house but he called me in a panic because the didn't have anyone coming to take a photo of the whole student body of Mountain House High School on it's first ever first day of school, so I was drafted.

Here's Ben talking to the kids at the start of the rally.

MHHS Student Body.  I got a bit teary eyed watching the rally seeing the fruition of a great deal work and sacrifice before my eyes.  It's been pretty exciting to see it all come together.  Cheers to a great year for all!