First Week of School!

The kids have completed one full week of school. I don't think any of them are happy to be back. Some are more unhappy than others who are mostly indifferent. Jack is driving this year, which means an extra 30 minutes of sleep in the morning; the bus picks up at 618, so they'd have to leave the house around 605. Now, they leave at 640. That has been nice.

The new high school opened this year, so their school (the old school) has considerably less students. Last year it was close to 5000, this year it's around 3000. However, it is still over capacity because they don't have any seniors at the new high school, so the senior class is still over 1000. With all the building in our area, I strongly suspect the school will never be under capacity. But, definitely better than previous years. 

I think all three of our high schoolers have reasonably tough schedules, with multiple AP classes. Anna got some new, and hopefully fun electives this year--piano and ceramics (along with AP Art History for her third elective, which still sounds fun to me, but not as fun as the other two). Jack has band, Spanish III, and AP Seminar as his electives and Kara is in ASL 2, theater 2 and AP Euro History. Then, of course, they have the usual English, Science, Math and History classes. 

Luke is in his last year of elementary school. I don't know how that is possible. I still remember walking him to Kindergarten and it doesn't feel that long ago. He has two teachers again this year and one of them taught Kara in 5th grade! We were really surprised to see that because after Kara's 5th grade year, a new elementary school opened and they had to reduce staff. Both of Kara's teachers were forced to move (they did it by who had been there the shortest). This year, we were surprised to see she was back. She still vividly remembered Kara and recognized me when I brought Luke in for back-to-school. Kara really liked her, so we were all very happy.

The first week went reasonably well. Luke was sick all week with some sort of cold. On Monday, I just assumed he was run-down from baseball on Sunday. They had tied one game and lost one game Saturday, so they were a pretty low seed on Sunday. Then, they won their first two games and almost won the championship (lost by 1 run!). It was three games in a row and the kids were absolutely exhausted. It was in the upper 90s with a feels-like temperature of 107. Luke said it was the hottest he'd ever been. They only had 9 players, so there were no breaks and the games were played back-to-back. Luke pitched and I just assumed his body was still recovering. But, he spent the whole week a bit under the weather. I actually tested him for covid, as it is apparently going around again, but it came back negative.

Jack had either band or cross-country every day after school. He made the varsity team for cross-country, which is very exciting. But, his days are super long. On Tuesdays, he does both activities. He goes to cross country from 230-415, then to band until 7. He doesn't really like marching band, and somewhat regrets that he is still doing it. Hopefully, he will have fun when they start playing at football games.

After school Friday, I took the girls to Michael's to get charm necklace supplies, but they didn't have what they were looking for. Friday night, Kara went to a movie with a friend and it was in 4DX, which I had never heard of--the seats shake and there is wind and water. Kind of sounds like a Disney theater show. Luke and I went out for ice cream and I went to the band's friends and family night to get a preview of the halftime music. They sounded great! Saturday morning, Jack went to cross-country practice, then Jack, Kara and I went to the downtown library. Jack really wanted to go, but we are not ready for him to drive there on his own. Downtown Orlando isn't super busy like many cities, but there are a lot of one-way streets and you have to parallel park, so I want him to do it with Thomas or I a few times first. Tonight, Jack is hanging out with his friend (girlfriend?) who unfortunately got rezoned to the new school and the rest of us are going to Universal for a few hours.

That covers the first week. Hopefully the kids have the best year yet! And, now, the pictures:

Three high schoolers!

Off they go!

I 

I can't believe it's his last first day of elementary school!