That post will be all about our trip to North Idaho with Brandon's family. I started working on that post, but just uploading the pictures wore me out. I'm hoping to find time (and energy) to write about that trip in a few days. In the meantime I don't want to get behind on the blog by too much. So I'm going to do this post about school starting.
[Guess what, it took 7 months for me to finally get around to writing that post. You can read it here.]
I'm not sure if any of us were truly ready for school to start again. We got back from North Idaho on Friday night. We spent Saturday buying school supplies for Veronica, picking out school shoes for the twins and Veronica, and resting. Sunday was also a resting day. (Not counting the part where we helped take down the set at the Orpheum.)
And then on Monday we jumped right into the school routine. I'd looked up all the school start times online and worked backwards from there to figure out when we needed to leave and get up.
First up were the twins. They are starting 9th grade which is at the High School here. They had to be up at 7:00 and at the school by 8:00. They were pretty nervous.
Here's Charlotte.
I drove them to the high school. Technically it is close enough they could walk, but it's just far enough away that it seems like too far to walk. They would have to cross a busy street and then walk down a road without great sidewalks. And if they walked they would have to get up even earlier than 7:00 which is a hard sell.
So I'm driving them. In January they will be able to get their drivers licenses and we are talking about getting them their own car. (Or rather, getting a newer car for me or Brandon and the twins get one of the old Hondas.) So I probably won't be driving them to school for very long.
The drop off went well - even though we weren't sure where the best place for a drop off was. And soon I was back home for round two.
I'd woken Derrick and Veronica up at 7:30. Both their schools start at 8:40, but since they go to different Middle Schools we had to leave at 7:20 to drop off Veronica and then race across town to drop off Derrick.
Here's Derrick. He's the only one of the kids who wasn't going to a new school. He was doing a second year at the other middle school.
Actually she really only had to find one classroom to start. I really like how the Middle School handles the first day. They have the kids go to their Prime Time classes for most of the day. They get a lot of the things explained to them in there and the 6th graders get taken on a tour. Then after lunch they rotate through their other classes with like 20 minutes spent in each class. It's a good way to get eased into the routine.
The High School did something similar. The freshmen all went to an assembly at the Roper and had a presentation there. The upper classmen didn't even show up until like 10:30. Then they all rotated through a shorter version of the daily schedule.
Derrick and I dropped Veronica off. She's been saying that she's excited for middle school because she will no longer be the tallest in the school. But when she got out of the car and started walking among the other students I could tell that she still is one of the tallest.
Derrick told me that he doesn't want to be in the ERC all day this year which is GREAT because we already planned to have him push out to a lot of resourse and gen ed classes. But on this first day he was in the ERC all day because the schedule was weird.
After I dropped Derrick off I went to work. I'd been gone since the previous Monday. I'd worked remotely from the vacation home on Thursday so I wasn't as behind as I could have been. But I still had a lot to catch up on.
I was trying to take a picture of myself to commemorate the first day.
Here's one with my hair down.
On Monday's the school day is always an hour shorter. This is so the teachers can have meetings after school. So what that meant for me was that I was at work for 5 hours and then went directly to the high school to pick up Charlotte and Lydia.
I wasn't quite sure where to pick them up so I went into the big parking lot where there were still a lot of extra parking spaces. I was like, "Oh this is nice."
The girls found me, but we soon found that this was not a great place to be after school. EVERYONE was trying to leave at the same time. The parking lot was basically a big traffic jam. We were stuck in there for 20 minutes. Which maybe wouldn't have been so bad but I needed to pick up Derrick. Brandon can normally get him after school, but on Monday's Derrick gets out too early for that.
Thankfully things cleared up eventually and we were able to get to Derrick's school only a few minutes late.
Veronica walked home and was home when we got there. Everyone had had a good first day. They were all a little overwhelmed and tired, but so far everyone liked their teachers and was feeling good about the whole thing.
I knew that Monday would pretty much wipe us all out so I had nothing planned for that afternoon. Everyone just kind of did their own thing and decompressed. I signed a bunch of papers and ordered school supplies for the twins.
That night Brandon went to rehearsal for Sweeny Todd. He'd gone to the read through the Monday before, but then had been out the rest of the week. So this was only his second rehearsal. He is the only bass in the ensemble and feels way in over his head. But he's also really happy to be part of the cast. A lot of his friends are in this play so he's having a good time.
Tuesday was very similar to Monday - just with less nerves. After I dropped everyone off at school I worked on things for Castle Therapy. The big billing mess has mostly been resolved, now I'm just tying off loose ends.
In the afternoon I went to Aspen Grove and continued to catch up on things there.
After Aspen Grove I went to the high school to get the twins. Back when we moved to the new office I'd been sad to no longer work across the street from the Middle School, but I'd realized that I would be close to the high school and that would be convenient. And so far I've been right about that. It's really easy to get the girls after school. I figured out that the little one way street that runs between the Roper Auditorium and the High School is a perfect place to pick the girls up. So I texted them that they would find me there. And it worked perfect.
Brandon was able to get Derrick so we didn't have to worry about that. But traffic going home was still kind of a joke because of the construction on Eastland. There is a south bound traffic lane on Eastland. But it's not accessable from the neighborhoods because the construction people have dug up the real South Bound lane and it's a giant trench. You can't cross that trench to reach the temporary southbound lane. So that means the neighborhood roads are full of cars trying to make it to the two roads that do cross Eastland.
I'll be so happy when this construction is over.
When Brandon and Derrick came home Derrick told me how hard his day had been. They had his new schedule, but it had some last minute changes and guess who HATES last minute schedule changes?
Derrick had ended up having a meltdown. I was sorry that happened, but also kind of glad it happened. There were two reasons.
1. I think that some of Derrick's teachers and paras might have been looking at him and wondering, "What is this kid doing in the ERC? He seems fine." The meltdown showed them that he does need extra support in order to function well at school.
2. Derrick TOLD me about what frustrated him and how hard it was. This was a big deal. Derrick has been able to talk a for a while. But he's struggled with talking about things that happened in the past. He also struggles describing what frustrates him. So to have him talk about something that frustrated him earlier in the day was some pretty big progress.
I'd purposely kept Tuesday afternoon pretty chill too. The biggest thing was that it was the 6 year anniversary of buying our house. I made a Frosting Pie (no bake cheesecake) to celebrate.
When we had been at Emily's I'd made this and everyone got one piece. There were leftovers, but not enough for everyone to have a second so I just left the extras with Emily's family to eat after everyone else had left. My kids had been super sad so I'd told them we'd have our own pie with extras later.
Then two weeks ago when we'd celebrated our friend Tim's birthday, Brandon had made key lime pie. Again there were leftovers but not enough for everyone to have seconds so we sent the pie home with Tim's family. And again my kids were sad about that.
So this time I made two pies and told the kids it was finally our turn to keep the leftovers. They were happy about that.
Brandon had Sweeny rehearsals again that night.
Wednesday was similar to Monday and Tuesday. When I dropped Derrick off I went in and talked with his teacher. Derrick and I had come up with two things we wanted to talk about. 1. Was that he didn't want a crazy schedule. And 2 was that he wanted a calm down room. And both those things were very doable. (I found out that he had gone to the calm down room on Tuesday. He just didn't realize that's what it had been.)
I went back home and cleaned up my house real quick and at 10:00 it was time for the first scripture study group of this fall. We are reading the book Faith After Doubt. My friends Jori, Rachel, and Shaylee came.
Rachel and Jori both said they hadn't been sure about this book based on it's title. One of them was like, "Yeah I felt a little called out like this book was supposed to help me find my faith after going through a lot of doubt. But then I read the preface and introduction and realized this book is about how doubt is normal."
I told them I felt like the title is wrong. It should be called Faith WITH Doubt.
I'm really excited for this study. I read this book about 3 years ago and ever since then I've dreamed of leading a discussion group centered on this book. My ideal scenario is that I could do it as a Sunday School class. But that will never happen. So my little home based scripture study group will have to do.
After everyone went home I went back to work on Castle Therapy stuff. I had entered two payments with lots of line items and was somehow off by about $50 on one payment and $0.02 on another. So I was going over them with fresh eyes to try to find the errors. I found both of them and that felt really good.
Then I took a nap.
I went to get the girls after school and when Brandon came home he wanted some help with the bass line for Sweeny Todd. He can't read music, but I can. Specifically I can read bass clef. (Which gets really messy because I can't read treble clef and all my brain wants to do is sing the melody.)
So we sat down at the keyboard and tried to get his giant script/music book to stay balanced. Finally he went and got the big clamps from the garage.
I had a lot of fun plunking out the base line for him. I also went over some basic things about reading music. This is his third musical so a lot of things he's picked up along the way, but other things he was like, "what does this mean?" It made me feel like my 10 years as a mildly talented bass player were not for nothing.
At 5:07 the lesson was cut short when I got a phone call from Veronica's physical therapy office. I was like, "Oh shoot!" I'd completely forgot about her 5:00 appointment. I'd remembered it earlier in the day, but it had slipped my mind because I was having so much fun with Brandon.
I told them we'd be there in 10 minutes and Veronica and I rushed out the door. While we were at the appointment we ran into one of the 5th grade teachers from the elementary school. Mrs Loya had taught Lydia. She'd also been Veronica's math teacher last year. She asked about all the kids and then told me, "Veronica is incredible. I was so happy to see her today. She learned so much last year and was doing stuff completely on her own with math by the end of last year." That made me really happy to hear.
All the Youth Activities were cancelled for two reasons. One there was a ward party on Saturday. And Two, no one could access the church building. Our church building is on Eastland. For a month we've had access via a little dirt mound that lead from the road to the parking lot. But the construction guys were pouring cement this week and so there was absolutely no access.
Brandon didn't have rehearsal either. So we all stayed home and did yard stuff. The kids picked up Dog Poop, Veronica mowed the lawn, Lydia worked on paining the mural, and I pulled weeds.
That night I finished reading a book I'd been working through for a few weeks. It was Demon Copperhead. Billy recommended it to me, and if I've learned anything it's that I should read books that Billy recommends.
It's a modern retelling of David Copperfield set in Lee County Virginia. The Opioid epidemic plays a prominent role in this book. I actually had been reading this book before we went to North Idaho, but I decided to leave it home because I was entering some pretty heavy sections and didn't want to be dwelling on those while hanging out with Brandon's family. So I took a book about the musical group ABBA on the trip and had a great time with that book. (And then spent this whole week listening to ABBA music at work. I really hope we do the Momma Mia musical at the Orpheum some time.)
Anyway, that got a little side tracked, but I really liked this book and highly recommend it. And now I'm working my way through David Copperfield to see how they compare.
On Thursday Brandon got up to go to work and discovered Veronica on the couch. She'd been up sick since like 2:00. So Veronica stayed home from school that day.
I worked for Castle Therapy from home in the morning and then did a little bit of Aspen work at home too. I finally went into the office around 1:00 and stayed there until it was time to pick up the twins. Brandon was working at CSI that evening so I had to get Derrick. But we were on time this time.
Veronica was feeling better so I took her to her audition for High School Musical. This is the play the teenage group is doing this fall/winter. The little kid group does their auditions in class, but the teenage group does them ahead of time. That way when they start class everyone already knows their part and they can get to work. Auditions are optional since everyone is already signed up for the class. You are still in the play even if you don't audition - you just get an ensemble part.
We'd watched the movie a few weeks ago and Veronica wasn't really interested in playing any of the characters. But I still wanted her to have a chance at a main part. So I talked her into auditioning. She did really well.
After that I took Lydia to Lowes because she needed more green paint for the mural. While we were waiting for the paint to be mixed we went to the garden section. They had mums on sale for 2 for $8 and I've always wanted to buy mums so I grabbed two. Lydia got really into the cactus plants. Just look at this girl. She hasn't willingly smiled for a picture ALL SUMMER and here she is head over heals in love with the spiky plants.
She was so happy.
She picked one out and put it between the mums.
We came home and she went to work painting.
I took a picture of "bird paradise." In the mornings and evenings there are tons of birds all over these sunflowers. Usually it's finches and sparrows, but one day this week I saw like 8 pidgins. It's been really fun to watch them all - even if they did eat all my plums.
We were all pretty tired by Friday. I'd wished that we'd started on a Wednesday. But we'd made it to Friday. I dropped everyone off and then went to Aspen Grove and spent the morning "solving mysteries." That's what I call it when there are billing issues that prevent a claim from getting paid. It's kind of fun to get to the bottom of things and its even more fun when one of those stuck claims gets paid.
I was done with work around 1:30 and then went grocery shopping. I bought the groceries home and put away the perishable stuff. Then I picked up the twins and all the kids put away the rest of the groceries when they were all home.
When Derrick came home with Brandon I asked him how his day was. He said something like "It was incredible!" His schedule was all worked out and he was loving it. I checked his schedule online and he is in Boys Choir, a Math Class and and Language class with the resource teacher, Social Studies, and Science. I think this is going to be a really good year for him.
At 5:00 Veronica had physical therapy again. She doesn't have a lot of pain in her knee anymore and her therapist says her quad muscles have gained a lot of strength. She only has two more appointments and they are going to work on balance. (Which was basically what her last stint in physical therapy boiled down to as well. That girl really struggles to know where her body is in physical space.)
When she was done we picked up three pizzas that I'd ordered from Little Caesars. Then we went to Dierkies Lake and met up with everyone else. We had a great pizza dinner on the grass.
Veronica changed into her swimming suit and swam with Derrick and Lydia. Charlotte swam later, but she spent most of the time fishing with Brandon.
I laid on the blanket and read David Copperfield and also did nothing. I'd considered inviting friends to meet up at the lake, but I'd known I'd be pretty burned out from the week. So it was nice to just be alone and not have responsibilities.
On Saturday I spent a lot of time weeding. I'm hosting a Relief Society activity next week so I'm trying to get the yard spruced up a bit.
I also pulled up this lovely onion. This was grown from an onion set instead of a bulb. Much better results!
Brandon spent a lot of the day prepping for the ward party that night. He picked up the building key, he bought drink mixes and paper products and candy, he tested out the candy cannon, he made potato salad, he helped Veronica make cookies, and he probably did a few other things.
Around 4:00 we drove over to the church with the pavilion and started getting things set up. Brandon still needed ice for the three drink coolers so Lydia and I went to get that.
At 5:00 the party started. There was a bounce house like usual. Our friend Cort recently bought a carnival style spinning ride. He brought that. He was like, "Hey, you said bring lawn games, this is mine." That was a big hit. (I don't know why I didn't take a picture.)
The Elders Quorum President had taken care of cooking a whole bunch of pulled pork so that was the main dish. Everyone else brought side dishes and salads. There was a ton of food. People ate and talked.
This whole pavilion was packed at one point.
I knew it would be full so I brought blankets for people to sit on if there wasn't room in the pavilion.
Lots of people complemented Brandon on the party. The ward RS president was especially grateful. This party was kind of thrown together last minute-ish. Brandon didn't even know the Elders Quorum was in charge of it until two weeks ago. I'd been texting the RS president to find out which organization was in charge and she was pretty skeptical the party would turn out. I told her, "Well now that Brandon knows about it you can rest a little easier. He'd been helping with this activity for like 3 years."
He and I say that even though the church doesn't have activity committees anymore - we basically are the ward activity committee.
After about an hour Brandon got out the candy cannon. Here are the kids eagerly waiting.
And here they are running for the candy.
At lot of people left, but some stuck around for a while. I was able to talk to a few people that I don't normally talk with. Around 7:00 we started cleaning up. The bounce house was deflated and we started figuring out what to do with the left over food.
At 8:00 we were done with that and we were the last to leave. It had been a great party. We drove both cars so each of the twins drove a car home.
Brandon and the twins got up early this morning to go driving for several hours. Back when they started drivers ed we kind of had the agreement that I would take care of the paperwork and Brandon would take care of the actual driving. But he has been so busy that the twins have ended up driving with me quite a bit more than any of us expected. Still they wanted to get some long driving time and do some driving in the dark so they went driving at like 4:00 this morning and didn't come home until 10:00.
Anyway, that gets us caught up to today. I'm hoping to find time to work on the North Idaho post this week.
Thanks for reading.
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