First Day of School

The kids' first days of school were this week!

Amelie went to "jump start day" on Monday, which is just for 6th graders entering middle school (& 9th graders entering high school). Sam didn't think it counted as her "real" first day, so he didn't take a picture. Jefferson Middle School posted one, though: 

First day of 6th grade and first day of middle school! Amelie's at Jefferson Middle, which is a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) public city-wide magnet school. 

Amelie's glasses broke (the pin came out) on the first day, and her band teacher fixed them with a paperclip for her. Sam was able to run her over to the eye doctor after school before I had to go into work so they'd be fixed for the next day. She was able to sit with one of her elementary school friends for lunch both days - I think due to COVID they want them to stick with their same lunch table each day. 

Here's James's first day of 3rd grade Tuesday. He has Ms. Sirna again & we were all happy about that assignment. 

He had a good first day, too. 

I was very worried there had been a SNAFU with the bus situation, since Amelie's bus assignment never came through - until noon on Monday. We didn't get James's Sunday (when his school started Tuesday.) It was a mess! Sam had to do parent pick-up for Amelie on Monday since we didn't have bus info when she left in the AM (and this is less than 1/3 of the usual students in the building!)

And then James's bus was over an hour late dropping him off at the house today. I called the school after 4pm (after not being able to get through to the bus company STA) and they let me know that one of the bus drivers had called in sick and they couldn't get a sub, so another driver had to do 2 routes. (Such a mess!) 

After being home all summer, they were VERY enthusiastic about starting school. Here's hoping!

Leah had her first day of preschool today as well! They said to send her in play clothes and sneakers (& mask) with a change of clothes in her backpack. 

Right at noon, the teachers opened the door and asked "Who's here for preschool?" Leah immediately starts jumping up and down saying "ME! I AM! I am here for preschool for the first time!!!" and she zoomed right in. Then another kid who'd been to preschool with these same teachers last year went in, and the remainder of the kiddos had to be coaxed. She's just attending in the afternoon, but this is her first structured anything, ever. 

Here's me at preschool pick-up:

When her teacher sent her out the door, she ran right to me and began telling me and Sam all about it. The teacher let us know, "She's a hoot." 

I'm not at all sure that they'll be able to be fully in person all year (Amelie's band teacher sent home a packet that included "everyone needs to be prepared to go virtual at any time"), but being able to at least start the year face-to-face was a relief. 

James Drawing Update

I think James has been improving in his drawing.  He's even added some color!

This is a youtuber he likes, called Dan TDM (stands for "the diamond miner") 

The ever-popular Dr. Eggman:

The vast majority of the drawings are still black-and-white, though. He has his fancy pens he likes and Nana Jana recently got him a sharpie. This one is Soos from Gravity Falls (one of the weird cartoons on Disney+ that they watch). 

Mario: 

Casey Jones from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 

And a different version of Casey Jones: 

He is still doing those quirky drawings similar to the last drawing update, as well: 

He practices enough! This is a stack of paper/drawings that he did over the course of about a week: 

We go through a lot of paper. 

He

also got to attend a stop motion class hosted by the Columbia STEAM alliance. We signed him up (just a one afternoon class) after he expressed some interest and did several stop motion videos at home on my phone. 

They learned about the life cycle of a butterfly and then made videos: 

James was apparently the only one in the class who made EXTRA videos after the butterfly one was done. He did a good job, I thought!

Pinnacles Youth Park

We've been in Columbia since 2008 and I didn't really know about the Pinnacles til this year - for sure we could have gone last year during our pandemic summer #1. It's a private park, but that just means that it's not inside the state parks system (and therefore has no park ranger) like you might expect. Anyway, it's really cool!

I believe Amelie took these photos: 

I like this shady place: 

Leah's got some zinc sunscreen that is colored green on her face. I said she looked like the Hulk. 

We went a different day with my friend Shauna and her bunch of kids, and she was good about doing photos! This is the spot where you cross over the creek to get to the trail up to the pinnacles & to the swimming hole, but we didn't hike with the big bunch. 
 

The kids call this "river surfing," like "body surfing," I guess, just in the creek. James had A BLAST. 

Obviously I am telling a very engrossing story here.

The kids like this place, right as you enter the park, due to the "river surfing" and the large flat rocks at the bottom -- but the rocks can be slippery!

And then these last pictures are from a different day the kids and I went with Sam. I can tell because he got one of this interesting twisted tree. 

You can see I have one outfit for playing at the creek: 

It's not a large park, but there are some very cool rock formations and loads and loads of places to explore and pitch rocks into the creek. 

Swim Lessons

The kids got to do swim lessons this year! We skipped last year due to COVID, and I thought we'd better sign up for outdoor lessons this year, still due to COVID. Every other year, I'd opted for the indoor class so we didn't have to worry about sunscreen or the weather. 

It's Leah's first year. She's in a class with 3 other 4-year-old girls and they meet on the steps. She's VERY enthusiastic about lessons, volunteers to go first at everything, and keeps trying to creep her way off the steps and out into the pool. 

James is a little ways down with his class of 6 kids, and he's also doing really well, though he thinks it's unfair that Amelie's class gets to jump off the diving board and his class doesn't. 

I like the look his classmate is giving him here, as he's very goofily showing out for the picture. 

Amelie's class also has just 4 kids in in (which is great), but they're across the pool and I haven't gotten any action photos (you can see them just barely in the background behind James). I can easily see them when they're practicing on deck, though. 

Here's Leah and her teacher, with Amelie's class in the background. She asked me afterward how tall she needed to be before she could swim on her own like Amelie and James. 

An action shot of James: 

And a series of action shots of Amelie, practicing diving again. James thinks it's very unfair that her class (which is up a level) got to do this and his did not. 

Ready

Set

Go!

They all three passed their levels and can move up one next summer! Whoohoo!

Look, there's Amelie in the background on the other side of the pool.

For half an hour on the last day, they got to play in the pool instead of the organized lessons. Amelie went down the slide many times - James didn't want to wait in line, so he jumped off the diving board a bunch. 

Video: 

 

 

And again: 

 

Of course, Leah played in the kiddie pool. 

(I feel like it wouldn't look like this during normal years!)