Backpack check

This is what I found when I was emptying Kate's backpack after her first day of preschool.



It's a dead fly in a baggie. She put it in there without me knowing to bring to school to show everyone. That wasn't quite the first impression I wanted to make with her teacher. I guess she might as well get to know Kate right away.
The funny thing is that Kate denied it at first and said that Allie put it in there! Hilarious!

Here's part of our conversation:
Me: Please don't bring dead stuff to preschool anymore.
Kate: Why?
Me: Why do you think?
Kate: Because it might freak people out
Me: Yes, that's right
Kate: Why do "them" freak people out?
Me: Some people just don't like bugs that are dead or alive.
Kate: But I like them. I like spiders and dead flys and alive flys. They are all over.
Me: Well, they should not be at school. So are you going to bring anymore dead things to school?
Kate:...(pause) No.....(pause) maybe

I will be checking her backpack before we get out of the car from now on.

First Day of Preschool

Kate had her first day of preschool this morning!

First Day of School

If you can't tell by their faces, Allie and Luke were super excited to start school this year. This year, Luke is in 3rd grade and Allie is in 6th grade--middle school! I don't have a picture of them together because Luke's school start 1 hour before Allie's and she was still finishing her morning chores. We are lucky to live close enough that we can walk to Luke's school and ride bikes to Allie's school.

Maps & Oregon Love

Kate misses Oregon the most. She tells me often that she wants to go back to Oregon. She tells new people we meet that she wants to go back to Oregon. She talks about her friends that she misses. Today she slipped me this drawing, said, "That's Oregon" and walked away.

                                            (Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and a butterfly)



Kudos to the iPad for teaching her about states. I had no idea she knew this! She has been playing this stack the states game that I picked up for the older kids and loves it. She always wants to see maps and see where she is and where Oregon is. She even found a shape on my swim towel that she said was Oregon.

We're Here!

Well, we made it. We finished school, packed up and drove halfway across the United States and we are all still alive. We can't park the cars in the garage yet and there isn't a picture on the wall, but we are having fun. We think Austin suits us well.

At an Austin Symphony picnic concert. Once a week in the summer a different ensemble puts on a free concert at the park. This evening we were treated to a brass ensemble. The best!



Someday I may blog and record the bajillion things that happened between Portland and Austin, but for now we are squeezing the most out of last two weeks of summer.

Carnival

I have just a few pictures from the school carnival. Allie got to be park of the 5th grade dunk tank. A boy in her class was the first one to dunk her.  He seemed pretty pleased with himself.

Here is video leading up to the dunk: (sorry for the poor filming-I was excited!)

The dunk:

I only lost Kate once which I thought was pretty good. No pictures--he was running with his pack of friends and I only saw him once when he needed some money for dinner! 

BizTown

Allie's school got to go to BizTown. It's this really cool place where the kids learn about finances and running a business. They get to apply for jobs, work jobs, earn a paycheck, deposit money into the bank and buy things. I got to go chaperone and snapped a few shots of Allie.
Allie got to be the CEO and editor of the Portland Business Journal. Her main task for the day was to produce a newspaper, sell it and pay back their business loan. They succeeded! ( I "bought" 4 copies with the "money" they gave me for being a volunteer.) It was a super cool experience. She really liked her job. She had a lot of work to do and was busy the whole time.
Allie didn't want to pose for a picture--she was too busy working so I got some action shots.

In front of the office                                                                    On an important call
 

Working with her reporter (and friend). Yes,
they are on opposite ends of the height spectrum                  Shopping at Fred Meyer