More first day photos

Preston, Cameron and Lauren all had their first days back today!  Cameron sent me his picture early to insure he beat Preston.  It wasn’t hard to beat Preston - I had to nag him half the day!  Cameron and Lauren should both be done with their Master’s in May.  At least I hope so.  I miss them like crazy!  Lauren is really good about keeping me in the loop - even on occasion telling me what’s going on with children who live here!   Cameron is awesome about texting me random facts, weird stories, trivia and strange ideas he has.  

Preston reports that his first day went well, and he is most excited because his chemistry book is offered online for free!   Wahoo!  He says so far, he really likes his roommate, has met a few people in his hall, and is trying to make sure he eats $7.44 worth of food at every meal because that is the breakdown of what dorm food costs.  

I love this photo.  Preston “helping” his friend Liv move into her dorm at KU.  Make ya self at home boy!  

I believe Spencer also started back to school today.  I’ll have to ask her for a first day photo too!   

I love  all my big kids!  I miss them, but know they are out there kicking a$$!   Keep sending the pics and telling me the stories kids!   

Wrapping it

Cameron and Lauren have been heading up all the back to school bashes, carnivals, welcome back kid junk.  Cameron texted me to show me the skunk tattoo he got at the back to school carnival. He said the lady was not very good at skunks. He makes me laugh. .  

My aunt posted this photo on Facebook.  My grandpa passed away 17 years ago today.  It still hurts.  This man taught me all I ever needed to know about family, loved all of us like crazy, and said some of the funniest stuff you’d ever hear.   I will forever miss him.  

Mallory and Madison came out for Sunday dinner.  This little one is so big already.   She was full of funny faces and starving all evening!  Girl likes to eat!  

These 2 cannot be trusted to frost a cake with cool whip. They ate half!  Crazy girls.  Evelyn asked me if I could trim up her hair.  I did.  She then cried because she thought she was getting a haircut like her dad’s!   Honey your dad is bald?  She said yea I not going to have to fix it!   So funny.  I think the fishing excursion last night, where her dad and her poppy got her home at 1:00 am might be the reason she had to leave here and go straight to bed!  

I wish this week was going to be pleasant but with excessive heat warnings, buses with no air conditioning, and plenty of stuff going on, I think the opposite will be true.  

EMAW Preston!

 

We had a small family party for Preston last night.  We wanted everyone to be able to wish him well before he moved to Manhattan today, but also - I needed distractions.  I was so excited that Colin was able to come home for the night!  I have been dreading this weekend for weeks.  I know I have talked about it multiple times on here, and to anyone who wanted to talk about it.  I already know the heart ache that comes from dropping  your kid off at their first step toward adulthood.  Preston is ready.  Mom is not.  My heart will always long for the 4 year old version of Preston who gave the best hugs, and accidentally told on his brothers.   My brain knows that I will adapt and will love the adult version of my son as well.   Change is hard, but not always bad.  

He wiped this off.  Apparently he didn’t think it would help him find Ms. Right.  

I cannot count how many times I have heard “me, Chayt, John and Liv are going….” So it was fitting that Chayt and John accompanied us to the unloading.   It was also awesome - one trip.  No lifting for me.  And it was record breaking high today in Manhattan, so I am thankful we didn’t have to make hundreds of trips to the car and back.  Unfortunately, Liv was busy at KU marching band camp and couldn’t get away.  

We managed to get him unloaded, met his roommate and then took the boys out for dinner.  His roommate seems really nice, and although the room is tiny, Preston didn’t take too much stuff so he will be fine.  

After dinner, I forced an excursion to Walmart because someone did not have any hangers.  I was scrambling to find one more thing to help with, one more place to run.  Jim pointed out that the bandaid rip off was coming no matter how many fake errands I came up with.  We had a tear filled goodbye (for me anyway) in the Walmart parking lot.   

I seriously couldn’t be prouder of Preston. He’s going to do great things. We all love KSU, and we are happy to have a new reason to hang out in Manhattan. Love you Preston!  Have a great year!   

First day 2023-24

Well, it turns out I was right.  Everything was fine tomorrow!  I am a day late posting about it, but yesterday was the first day of school here.  Evelyn started back to preschool.  She has the same teacher as last year, Ms. Dana.  She was over the top excited, and was about to explode all morning long!  She is in the afternoon class this year.  Since Madison is driving vo-tech kids around when she needs to get on the bus, she is coming to my office with me, eats lunch here, and then we walk over and she catches the bus at my sister's daycare.  She is most excited about this set up because she loves bringing her lunch!  Yesterday, she started off the morning asking if she should eat her lunch yet.  I kept telling her she had to wait every 15 minutes until finally, at 10:45 I caved.  LOL!  That ham sandwich was sooo tempting I guess!  Uncle Preston (Uncle PP) took her to school.  I think he was excited to get to see her off!  

Madison seems to be liking her new job, and I know she loves being with the baby all day.  Interestingly, the woman who took over her old job met me at the bus to complain about stuff today....I had a good laugh about it.  (always makes me happy because I am that person who likes to see Karma at work).  I should have snapped a picture of Madison on her first full day!  Maybe I will try next week!

Mallory is teaching 1st grade this year.  She is always good about sending me a 1st day photo!  She is excited to be back and was thrilled to meet all her new kids and has all sorts of big plans for the year.  I am sure they are lucky kids to have her as their teacher.  

It is weird to think about only having 3 kids at home.  It is also weird to think about how fast this arrived.  Anyway.

Harper is an 8th grader this year.  She was not ready to go, but she rocked it anyway!

Saige is a 6th grader - she is excited about changing classes, and having a locker, but was not to thrilled with how the rest of the day went.  It will get better, but will take some time to get back into the swing of things.  Prayers for a better year this time!

Quincy is a senior.  Yes, I cried as I typed that.  I am so proud of this kid - she changed her mind about vo-tech, but took the imitative to go see the school counselor, got enrolled in all the classes she needs to graduate, signed up to take some college classes, and managed to get a scholarship to cover most of the cost associated with that.  She has some new ideas, new plans and I am excited to see her shine!  

I love first day photos....I am a weirdo according to these 3.

Today was also my first day back, beginning my 8th year of being a bus driver.  I like the kids, enjoyed seeing some new faces, and catching up with some of my regulars.  I will admit, I think if I could start driving on about day 4 or 5 it would be better.  I hate the first days when everyone is trying to decide how to best do things, changing policies and procedures every 2 seconds, and nobody quite knows why we needed to change what we found worked last year?  Anyway, it will settle in and I will be fine.  Patience is not my strongest virtue.  After I took this photo, I realized I am really looking more like the bus driver on the Simpson's (Otto Mann).  I guess all bus drivers look alike - it must be the wind in our hair?

When I walked Evie to the bus, she asked me if I wanted a 2nd day of school photo.  Of course I do!  I wonder how many days this will go on?  

Here is to a fantastic year!  I pray everyone will stay safe, be kind and do the right things.  

Locusts

Welp- the sun is setting on our summer vacation.  As usual, time has been a thief and robbed us of more time.  No more schedule-less days, filled with doing anything we wanted.  No more lazy afternoons spent aimlessly floating in a pool, no more staying up late just visiting in the living room.  No more experimental dinners made from weird ingredients after late evenings at the ballpark.  No more 9 pm ice cream runs without a worry about the 5-6 am wake up calls. It’s been a good one, and My God I hate for it to end.  

It has always been this way for me.   I was in the pool this evening, scooping leaves and wishing we had just a few more days.  The locusts were screaming all around me and I found myself suddenly transported backwards.  Back to 10 year old me, sitting on the retaining wall in my parent’s yard- locusts above my head screaming, feeling sad that summer was over.    Worrying about whether I was smart enough to pass the 5th grade and wondering if my friends would still like me, and worrying about whether I was going to be the only one wearing shorts and I’m sure more things that are important when you’re 10.  I flashed forward a little bit to 18 year old me - sitting on a porch swing in Manhattan- locusts screaming around me. I was freshly dropped off by my parents, trying not to cry because after all, moving to KSU was my idea.  Wondering if I was smart enough to pass classes there.  Worrying about whether I would be able to pay all my bills being out on my own for the first time, not wanting to disappoint my parents. Worrying about whether I would be able to make new friends after having had the same ones for literally my entire childhood.  And today listening to the godforsaken locusts like a taunt - reminding me that life is ever changing.  That I cannot slow time down, nor should I want to.  But always worrying nonetheless.  Did the kids have as good of a summer as they deserved?  Did we do all the things we wanted to?   Do they feel ok about the new year?   Did we spend enough time as a family?  Did we teach Preston enough so that he will be ok on his own?  Does he know how much he is loved and how proud we are?  And I yelled (internally- because I’m not totally insane) at myself and said that is enough.  Everything always works out. You can’t fix what has already happened.  You have to set a good example for the kids and go into this new school year with a positive attitude.   Get it together woman.   So that’s where I am at today.  If you’re even still with me - In my place of melancholy.   I will be completely fine tomorrow.  This will be a good school year.  Life will keep moving and keep us busy, keeping our minds and hearts full.   It will all be ok tomorrow.  

Plus, who can stay in a depressing, sad mood when you have so many sweet little people around.  Today, I sat in a bus meeting with 4 generations of women from my family.  My mom, me, Madison and her girls.  All of us are mighty busing women.  Evelyn is the bus boss.  We were given all of the things we need, and we pray for safety, intelligent decisions, and well behaved children.  Time to roll out.  

After the meeting, I wanted to get into my perfectly crystal clear pool, but instead we took Saige to her school open house.  It is Harper’s school as well, but she has been having a stay home summer, and wasn’t about to break her streak of staying home every chance she gets. Saige picked up her schedule, met her teachers, is excited about switching classes this year, and we were able to find her locker and navigate learning to operate a combination lock.  She is ready.  

I guess we all are ready, tomorrow is happening regardless.  

Parade weekend

Friday was the annual band booster picnic and parade performance preview night.  I am on the band booster board, and as such, I went out there to help cook the food.  I was expecting to be hot and tired!  What I was not expecting was to be so sad that I didn't have a kid performing!  There has been at least one of our kids in the band at the high school for the last 14 years!  Quincy is in high school but is not in band.  Harper and Saige are in band, but not in high school.  I think some of the sadness came from cooking food with a couple of other moms who are dropping kids off at colleges.  We were all visiting about it, comparing the gathering of their stuff, what dorms kids were in etc.  I will say that I have been on this board for at least 13 years now, and at this point, I feel like we have the strongest, most amazing people serving.  Not that we haven't had good people in the past, but currently I love them all.  The band director was hurt in a rollover tractor accident a few weeks ago.  If you frequent this blog, you know that I love Mr. Q - he is amazing, and I am so thankful for him being ok.  Truly, I have been around farmers my entire life and this is the first time I have ever heard of anyone surviving the kind of accident he had.  Tractors flipping onto people generally is no bueno.  I am also thankful for his assistant who picked up all the pieces and ran the band camp, got the kids ready for the parade performance, and helped us with the dinner.  It is so much work to run a successful program, and those 2 people are truly amazing.  

When I got home from the dinner, I was so hot that I just put on a swimsuit and got into the pool.  As I was floating around, I noticed my husband was out burning stumps, burning a few piles of brush, and working really hard in the yard.  I got out and "helped" him by stoking up his fire a little bit!  The girls then decided that it was a perfect fire for roasting marshmallows!  I don't know if the stump got burned or not, but the fire really was a nice one!  Although it may be a month or a little longer before I think about standing around roasting things!  

Madison sent me this sweet photo of Evie trying to eat with chopsticks.  I heard she did a pretty good job of it too!  She is amazing!

Also, after the band dinner, since I was at the high school anyway, I brought home my bus for the year.  This is a brand spanking new bus!  It has 1147 miles on it!  It has zero pieces of gum stuck anywhere!  It has zero trash on the floor, zero holes in seats, zero tiny rocks stuck anywhere on the floor.  I give it til next Friday for that to be changed!  I like the new buses, but I will tell you that there is something about driving something new that makes me a nervous wreck.  We got all new buses this year - like 20 brand new vehicles.  I don't want to be the first one to scratch one, or ding one.  I am praying for a safe year for all bus drivers everywhere!  Every single one of us is under a kind of stress that unless you have been trusted with the safety of other people's children you cannot understand.  I like the job a lot, but I pray daily that I can keep everyone safe.  When I say everyone, that includes people on the roads with me, children on the bus with me, children walking around the bus at the schools, children crossing streets and highways, and people who complain about bus drivers and bus service.  :)  

A little pumpkin/watermelon update.  You may recall that I decided watching the water that I backflush out of our pool filter just flow onto the ground, made me think I should plant something in that area to utilize the water.  I planted pumpkin seeds and watermelon seeds.  They have grown a lot!  I have lots of blooms, a few tiny little watermelons, and a bunch of really huge plants!  I am wondering how long the watermelon will take to ripen up, because the fruit is very, very tiny right now.  I noticed that the Amish people who live outside of town are selling watermelon currently (I even bought one from them this weekend), so I am hoping there is enough summer left to get them to maturity!  Since I planted these at the same time as the Shaake's planted the pumpkins for the pumpkin patch they run, I have more confidence in the pumpkins being ready for Halloween! 

After all of the events of the day, I stepped outside on our deck for a few minutes as the sun was setting.  There were these 2 little clouds on the horizon.  I noticed how cute they looked being all fluffy out there by themselves, but then I noticed they were filled with lightening.  It was sort of a cool sight.  

Saturday night was the Overbrook Fair Parade.  Our club voted to have a float in the parade, and we decided to have riding the float count as attendance toward the August meeting.  Let me just say that attendance at the August meeting was pretty pathetic.  This club has 50 + kids in it.  I think there were 8 who showed up to ride, and 2 or 3 who showed up to help decorate.  I was a little disappointed, but such is life.  The kids still won 1st place in the 4-H division of the parade.  (We are NOT talking about the fact that they were the only float in the 4-H division of the parade).  The parade theme this year was "One Hit Wonders."  Jim had plenty of ideas, but like I always tell him, if you have to explain it, it probably isn't funny.  I thought maybe having the kids wear boxing gloves and holding baseball bats would be funny, but we decided that was an absolutely terrible idea considering some of the children in the club.  So we just went simple.  Harper and Saige rode the float, Quincy was planning to as well, but got called into work.  To be absolutely honest, none of them wanted to ride it, but when mom is the leader, sometimes you get volunTOLD.  I did enjoy watching the parade, although it was not one of the finer nights we have had in our marriage.  All is well now, but once in a while, we have to have a little marital strife, right?  Jim and I are both incredibly stubborn people.  We both have work to do on things, and I acknowledge that I am not the easiest person to pull out of my own head.  Despite our bad moments, what we have is pretty dang good.  I give us a 98%.  The float?  A solid 75% - but C's get degrees am I right?  

Jim went fishing, the girls and I met up with Madison and her family.  Saige and Evie enjoyed the inflatables, and we had dinner at the fair board's concession stand.  Mallory's school was fundraising for Rock Your School Day, and she said they had a lot of great support!  Saige was happy to have help with Evie from her friend Nevaeh, they played ball together this summer, and have become pretty good friends.  I enjoyed visiting with my nephew Josh and his crew for a few minutes!  

Wrenley survived her first parade night!  She is seriously the easiest going baby!  She just eats and hangs out!  That is a real blessing!  Madison started her new job driving a van to vo-tech yesterday.  She reported that both girls did amazing, and she is happy to have a job where she can take them along!  

I enjoyed the band's performance and was so happy to see the band director (walking with a cane) afterwards!  I was also happy to see Gary and Shirley.  She hired me to take over for her at the Watershed district when she retired.  He got me my job at the township.  I think of them as an extra set of grandparents.  They have helped me immensely, watch out for my family, and I am sure would do anything for us if we but asked them.  Good people.  

And now the weekend is over.  Preston's last weekend as a "kid" at our house.  (He had a good time on his senior trip, although I didn't' see many photos or hear that much about it).  The new week will bring changes to our house, being down to 3 kids living at home, learning to keep up with yet another adult child, trying to navigate the new school year, getting back into a routine.  I wish I could say I am embracing it with grace, but I am not, really.  I have been a little moody, a little sad, and a lot of smacked into the reality that time is a thief.  We'll all just do the best we can though.  

Finallllyyyy Friday!

When I started this week out, I was just relieved to be finished with the fair stuff, have less animals to feed, and maybe get to enjoy some down time with the kids before school starts.  I had planned to get everything done at home, make lists for school shopping excursions, maybe do some actual cooking since we were all sandwiched to death last week, and squeeze in our annual lake day.  I was a delusional idiot.  This week took on a life of its own, and I still don't even know what happened!

I did get to spend an entire day with my sweet granddaughters.  I can't say I didn't enjoy it!  Madison had to take a defensive driving class for her new job.  Evie was happy to hang with me.  The jury is still out on if Wrenley is a fan of mine or not.  Ha!  She gave me a lot of looks like this!  She did not cry at all -- not even once...she fusses a little to be fed, but no crying or sadness from her.  I think we will be besties in no time!  Her facial expressions sort of send the message that she thinks I am a weirdo though!  I loved spending a day snuggling with her.  She is an absolute joy!  Madison got there to pick the girls up at the same time as Jim came home from work.  He was happy to get to see them for a little bit, but I had to distract him from the fact that I did absolutely nothing the entire day except play with the girls by taking him to get groceries and out for dinner!  I did manage to get a lot done at work, since Saige went along and took Evelyn to the city park for a while, and then entertained her for me!  She was a ton of help!  After work, we just played, snuggled, and Quincy and Harper took Evie out to the pool  I appreciate all of their help.  I am definitely out of practice with little ones - when I got in bed, I crashed!  :)  

Other things kept cropping up this week that I didn't plan.  The bus boss called and asked me if I could drive the new district teachers around to tour all the district's buildings.  He thought it would take about an hour, or maybe a little bit longer.  I like to help when I can, so I agreed.  Mallory - don't read this part.  I forgot that when teachers are involved, nothing will go like you plan.  They are seriously on their own little time schedule.  I was told to be there at 8:30 - they didn't come out until 9.  I was told at each stop it would be 15 minutes.  It was at least 1/2 an hour.  I spent the whole morning doing what could have been done in a little over an hour.  I also spent the whole morning being thankful that I drive around kids and not teachers/administrators because I would be leaving them.  I also had a recollection of my father-in-law telling me that if you want to see the most insane display of accomplishing nothing to attend a school board meeting.  haha!  Added to the fact that when I got back, my boss catches me and asks me to please make him a list of kids who ride my bus, with their addresses and phone numbers because they cannot extract the data they collected during enrollment off of their system, and I am seriously wondering how these people function. Sorry Mallory, I know you aren't all to blame!  :)   Today, I will be picking up my bus for school starting next week, maybe I am just extra grouchy that summer is ending and there is nothing I can do to slow down time.  

Preston took off for Oklahoma with his friends on a "senior trip."  I gave him a couple of talks about it, including the "tattoos are forever - so choose wisely" one that I failed to give Colin before his senior trip.  Love you Colin, but it is a good example of what not to do!  :)  Speaking of Preston, I am still trying to prepare for him moving. I have been stock piling stuff for him to take, we got his laptop (graduation gift) ordered.  I wanted to take care of it a while back, but he is a procrastinator who loses track of time, like his momma.  We dodged a bullet when we ordered it, they said it would be shipped from the manufacturer, and then we got an email saying they were back ordered, and it would be a couple of weeks.  The problem is that we had a pretty specific set of parameters we were looking at.  Spencer gave us some great advice about running the software for engineering and made some recommendations about what to buy.  I am thankful for her guidance.  It was easy to select one, since we had pretty specific things we were looking for, but the back order was not in the plan.  I was pleasantly surprised when it arrived the next day.  I am not sure what happened there, but happy about it nonetheless.  My happiness was short lived when I went grocery shopping with Jim last night and was picking up a few things that I know Preston likes having around, then it sort of hit me that he won't really be around to shop for.  Choking up in the dairy aisle anyone?  Luckily, my sadness was short lived, as I married a giant dork who was excited by the grocery store music selection and likes to sing all the wrong words.  I may be missing one child, but the giant one will never grow up!  

Coco got his feet trimmed this morning.  An appointment I made weeks ago and forgot about.  Since we were out and playing, he also got brushed down good and got his wormer!  He seemed happy about it!  I love this little pony.  He is a sweet boy!  Notice how his diet is going?  He looks very svelte and fit now!  :)  

This weekend is looking like a bit of a train wreck, but we are going to try hard!  I hope next week to accomplish the things I didn't get to do this week!  I will probably be disappointed, but all I can do is keep trying!