Off to School

Today is the first day off school. I think I'm as excited as the kids are! I LOVED school when I was a kid and I think it's great fun helping the kids with their homework and volunteering in their classes. I also love having a schedule and structure to our days. During the summer I feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants! Here's some pictures of the kids before they left this morning.

Rebekah headed off at early this morning to catch the bus for the Jr. High. It's her first day of 7th grade! She was pretty nervous and not at all looking forward to school until she went to the 7th grade rally a week ago. She was able to track down all her classes, decorate her locker and see what school lunch was all about. She came home feeling more excited after that. And then after having Bryan give her a blessing last night, she seemed pretty calm this morning. She didn't want me to drive her to school...she wanted to take the bus. She didn't even want me to walk with her to the bus stop. Ah, she's growing up. Here's her schedule:
1st period: Science
2nd period: Math
3rd period: English
4th period: Choir
5th period: Spanish1
6th period: Career/Tech Ed. (I gather this is something like Home Ec)
7th period: Art
Then next semester she'll swap out Choir and Art for P.E. and Utah Studies. I'm quite anxious to hear how things went today when she gets home. I remember curling up in my dad's lap the night before school started, just a quivering ball of nerves. Being the oldest is scary...you don't have any older siblings to tell you what's what. I didn't set foot inside my Jr. High until the first day of school. I couldn't get my locker open and I got totally lost trying to find my way around. I came home that first day and cried. But it only took another day or two to settle in and then everything was fine. I think Rebekah already has a huge head start on me. That rally was fabulous! I wish they had done that when I was her age. Plus, she's a lot more confident of a girl than I was at 12. I think she'll do great. But I am, like I said, very anxious to wrap her up in a big hug when she gets home and hear all about her first day.
Julianne and Brandon headed out to the bus an hour after Rebekah left. Normally I take them to school on the first day but this year we've already had back to school night and so they already know where their classrooms are and have met their teachers. So I just walked them to the bus stop. Julianne's teacher is named Mrs. Galbraith but she's asked them to call her Mrs. G because it's easier. When, at back to school night, she mentioned that she loves math and science, Bryan immediately said, "Oh, I like you!" She thought that was funny. Brandon's teacher is Miss Allington. She is in a motorized wheelchair because she has Cerebral Palsy. We've heard great things about her and Brandon's pretty excited. I'm thinking we're in for a great year.