live... laugh... love...

Play it again, Ash!

I still have memories of my elementary school choir and band concerts at Christmas time and at the end of the school year.  Of course I thought that the choir (which I sang in) sounded fantastic, but felt sorry for my parents for having to sit through the squeaky band performance.  Well, now I am the parent sitting through the band concert, and they still sound a little squeaky, but I couldn't have been happier to be there listening.

Science Camp -Take 3!

I got to attend 5th Grade Outdoor Science Camp for the third time last week, this time with Ashley.  It's been two years since I blogged about my time there with Lauren (I didn't blog about my first time there with Emily in 2008).  I'm still impressed with the Chaparrel to Ocean program run by the Ocean Institute and the Lazy W Ranch.  And as always, it is more than entertaining to watch the way the 5th graders interact with one another, and my daughters in particular.  Ashley was certainly a queen bee in our cabin (or at least, so she thought).  I chaperoned a great group of 7 girls (we had an 8th, but she threw up at dinner the first night and got sent home).

We spent Monday in the rain and hail at the Lazy W, but that didn't stop us from trudging around looking at the local foliage in the chaparral ecosystem and checking out the different types of rocks that made up the hills around us.  We even went on our night hike, stomping through puddles as we walked with our hands on the shoulders of the person in front of us, with our eyes closed, using our other senses. 

Tuesday the weather cleared up for us to explore the oak woodland and riparian ecosystems, as well as have our bonfire and cabin skits in the evening (can you say freezing!).  

And then Wednesday, we headed down to the Ocean Institute at the Dana Point Harbor for tidepooling, a boat excursion, and fish dissection before the kids loaded back on the buses and home. (I took off after the tidepools to make it to Maren's Patriotic Performance at the school.  Not so sad to miss that boat ride after my experience in Hawaii :)

An ochre star that was marooned way up on the rocks.  Our instructor placed it back in the ocean.

It was a great time with Ashley.  Now I get 4 years off until it's time to go with Maren.  Craig will finally get a chance to go with Nathan when it's his turn in 2 years. Phewwww! 


 

preparations...

Mani/pedis... the important back to school preparations!  It's off to school tomorrow!

I really do have other children

Fourteen years ago, as I eagerly scrapbooked every picture we took and printed of baby Emily, people told me, "You won't do that for your last child!  Your last child will be lucky if she even has any pictures of herself!"  Well, thanks to the dawning of the digital age, my last child has more pictures than any of my other children!  But, they were right; I do not scrapbook them.  I blog them (along with digitally scrapbooking them into hard bound books).  Maren is still at the age where she does things like field trips and wants me to come along, with camera in hand.  So here are shots of my last kindergarten field trip, I mean Maren's kindergarten field trip to the Carlsbad Flower Fields.  What do you do at flower fields, you might ask?  Let me show you with pictures:

 

After learning about the 3 Rs - reduce, reuse, recycle...

... you play with worms.

... you make bean art.

... and  you play musical instruments while saying "Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose, Daisy, Daisy, Daisy, Daisy, Dandelion, Dandelion, Dandelion, Dandelion!"

Jane and Maren in the sweet pea maze.

And mom and Maren on the wagon ride around the ranunculus fields.

What a beautiful sight, with the colorful blossoms in the foreground and the Pacific Ocean in the distance.  I'm happy to have more pictures of Maren to "scrap" - digitally, that is.

back to school 2010-2011

Our school has both the elementary school and middle school on the same campus and for one year, this year, all five of my kids are there.  It was a big day today.  Bitter sweet as my last baby started kindergarten and my oldest baby started her final year of middle school.  We are in for a great year!

Emily - 8th grader - last year at middle school - what she liked about the first day of school: "seeing all my friends.  I liked my first two periods, social studies and spanish.  I like my new spanish teacher.  She is super young and cute."  

Lauren - 6th grader - first year at middle school - what she liked about the first day:  "Lockers.  Switching classes.  And seeing friends again too."

 

Ashley - 4th grader - what she liked the first day:  "I liked coming home from school.  I liked meeting new people.  We played a name game that was one and a half hours long."  My name is Ashley and I like antelopes... then repeat everyone's names and likes that went before you...

 Ashley and good friend Claire... This is their first year in class together.
  

 

Nathan - 2nd grader - best friend Ashton is in his class for the second year in a row - what he liked about the first day:  "Making friends with Teddy Chester.  Doing the thing where you sorted your supplies and put stuff in piles."

 

Nathan and Zeke...so far they have never been in class together!
 

 

Maren - kindergartener - just beginning her public school adventure - what she liked about the first day:  "Doing the hunt." (A scavenger hunt with Mom to find her cubby, the sink, bathroom, playground, backpack rack, etc...) "Seeing Mr. Young" (the principal).  "I love having Faith in my class!" (Best friend from her two years at preschool)

 

Maren and Faith
 

 

Today Maren and I went for an hour orientation with the kindergarten teachers.  We went over some basics and then toured the classroom and playground and played with friends.  Tomorrow Maren will have her real first day.  

 

Acting crazy while we wait for the elementary kids to get out of class.  Their teacher has already determined that she will have to separate these two in class... They are wild ones!
  

 
 

 

 

I don't know why I thought I would have so much free time with Maren in school 3 afternoons a week.  Definitely not the case!  Too many activities, too many appointments, too many half days of school or no school at all or kids home sick from school!  So my blog has fallen to the wayside and I'm tired and it's late and I can hardly formulate a sentence right now, much less some story worth journaling.  But I'm feeling guilty for not posting anything in such a long time, so here's a few pictures of Maren and friends.  Her preschool teacher is in Israel for two weeks and Maren in out of school this week and has a sub next week.  So her teacher planned their annual field-trip to the petting zoo and pumpkin patch early as well as their Halloween party so that she could be there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What?!... Already?!

How can it possibly be the first day of school again?  And so soon?  It feels like school just let out.  And with the beautiful, hot weather we enjoy for another month of so, it just doesn't seem fair for the kids to be cooped up in classrooms and sweltering on the hot playground.  We should be at the beach!  

But my kids were all excited to head off to school this morning.  We had to park half a mile away and walk in.  The school is a complete zoo the first day.  There are over 1400 students at our school as it is both a middle school and an elementary school.  I think the middle school enrollment is around 480 

(around the size of my graduating high school class!) and the elementary is over 1000.  ( I don't think my high school was as big as this school is!)  So the first day is always crazy with all the parents walking their kids in to meet the teachers and see the classrooms.  They just posted class lists last Friday at 5 pm (and then they get the heck out of there for the long weekend and avoid all the complaining that is sure to happen with disgruntled parents).  It was fun to see my big girls walk happily off to class and a little sad, since they didn't need/want us to walk them to their classes anymore.  We got Nathan settled in his line and met his teacher and then had to leave him there to walk Ashley to her class.  She insisted on both Craig and I walking her over (yes, that's our wannabe only child).  Her class was just going into their classroom, so a quick hug and picture with her teacher and we walked back to Nathan.  His line was just walking to his classroom, so we followed him in and got him settled in his desk.  He had that quiet, serious look on his face that he gets when he's not quite sure about something but is being brave.  Tugs on my heartstrings as I left him for his first day of all day school.  Maren was just bugged at this point that she wasn't going to school right then.  She is in afternoon preschool and had to go home and straighten up the house with me.  She kept asking when it was time to leave for school.

 

Emily entered 7th grade today.  When I asked her how it went, she said, "Awesome!"  When I asked why, she said, "Like, my teachers? ...So good!"  She's got a great group of friends and is set up for a great year.

 

Lauren is in 5th grade this year and got a great teacher, Mr. Horton.  She has lots of friends in her class, including one of her best friends, Cassidy.  There are 6 fifth grade classes this year with about 37 kids in each class (thanks to those budget cuts).  Lauren is especially excited about the chat feature on her class website.  With her making 41 posts already this afternoon, Craig had to have a little talk with her about better uses with her time.  That's our social butterfly!

 

The best part of starting 3rd grade for Ashley was "seeing Mrs. Johnson again".  Mrs. Johnson is Ashley's teacher this year, but last year Mrs. Johnson taught 2nd grade and Ashley grew quite fond of her because her son sat next to Ashley in Ash's 2nd grade class and Mrs. Johnson would frequently pop into their classroom.  Lauren had Mrs. Johnson for second grade 3 years ago and we are thrilled Ashley gets to be in her class this year.

 

Nathan is a first grader this year.  I was particularly concerned about the teacher he would get because he was still having trouble wanting to go to kindergarten last year.  I felt he needed a "warm and fuzzy" teacher to ease him into first grade.  His teacher isn't a warm and fuzzy type, but I've been reassured that she is great and is especially good with boys.  So we are optimistic about a great year for Nate.

 

Maren is off to her last year of preschool at Ms. Dianne's.  This year she has 3 girls and 3 boys in her class, so it will have a different flavor than the all-girl class she was in last year.  She and the 2 other girls are from the same class last year and are great little friends.  Maren knew all the names of the boys when I picked her up today but couldn't (wouldn't) tell me much else: 

"What was your favorite thing about your first day of preschool?"  

"I don't know." 

"What did you do today?"

"Nothing."

Maybe I'll get more out of her after tomorrow's class.

 

 

All in all, a great day for everyone.  I guess I need to just accept it and get back into the routine of things: packing lunches, supervising homework, piano practicing, running the kids to their activities, planning and preparing dinners.  Oh, boy!  Ready or not, here it comes!