Back to School 2017

As much as I love summer, it eventually must come to an end.

And it was time.

Time to buy new backpacks and folders and pencils.

Time to start setting alarms and catching buses.

Time to say good-bye to my kiddos for the majority of the day.

It's always bittersweet.

Caroline is starting 4th grade.

Her teacher is Ms. Dzugan,

who also taught Brandon.

One of her friends from her AG (gifted) class

is with her and C is EXCITED about that. 

Andrew walks her to the bus stop in the mornings,

since I'm teaching seminary at that time. 

 She gets to ride the bus with KK and Kylee,

her friends from around the corner.

She had a GREAT first day,

loves Ms. D and is looking forward to a wonderful year.

Miss Whitney started 8th grade,

her last year of middle school!

It could be an interesting year.

She changed her major to chorus this year.

I'm so happy about that. She has a beautiful

voice and I'm happy she can spend time working on it every day.

The downside to the change is that she can't take guitar class anymore.

Booooo! That makes me so sad. 

She is also really good at guitar and that's one of the perks of 

going to a school for the arts, is getting to take cool classes like Guitar!

But, alas, it is a small school and they only have one section of guitar

for non-majors and it doesn't fit in with her schedule. :(

She's taking Spanish instead,

which she doesn't love, but is doing well in.

The other interesting thing about this year is that

almost all of her teachers switched grades, so she

only has two new teachers out of her seven classes.

That's mostly good.

At least she knows what to expect from those teachers.

But not all of them were her favorites. :/

Also, she has had the same group of kids in her core classes

since they started middle school. They have gotten to know

each other really well and Whit has her close group of four friends.

But they used the end-of-grade test results from 7th grade to 

make some changes to the class enrollment.

And one of Whit's four friends got moved to a different group.

It was devastating for them. My heart was broken to see them

in tears when I pulled up in the car line at the end of the day.

Luckily, they still have lunch at the same time, so

have been able to see each other regularly. 

Brandon is a big Junior this year!

Whoa! It's an important year!

His schedule is crazy.

He got put in both AP Stats and AP Calculus this semester.

Yikes.

And he doesn't have any science classes this year.

He tried talk to the counselor about changing things up,

but in the ended up staying with what he has for now.

It is a TOUGH semester.

Luckily, his other two classes are easy:

Microsoft Word and Band.

He's hanging in there.

We decided to let Whit start riding the bus to school in the mornings.

It saves me 45 minutes of driving every day. Woo hoo! I love that!

Our neighbor, Katie, started school at PGSA, so they ride together.

Brandon is riding the bus for now, while we car hunt for a third family car. 

 Back to school also means that we go back to Seminary.

This is my second year teaching and I'm so excited to study the Book of Mormon this year.

 My class has grown!

We have eight students enrolled this year.

Excited to learn and grow together as we study

the scriptures each morning.

We're still holding class here at our house.

We get to start at 7 am this year, which is AMAZING.