pa-jammy
Last week I went on a field trip with Oliver’s class and brought a camera. Here are some pictures I took of things besides 10-year-olds (except my own, of course.)
The program is called Earthkeepers and they teach it at the Jean Lafitte National Park (the Barataria Preserve in particular, I think) and it’s quite pretty. This all is sounding familiar. Did I blog about it already? When I went with Miles? Well, at least this time I have good pics.
Years that end in 7s have typically been pretty eventful for me. Well, at least two of them have. I spent a good chunk of 1997 in London, which was life-changing for me. And 2007 brought a trio of little clones into our lives. So I expected 2017 to be equally eventful for me personally. I mean, hey, it was also the year I was 42, so expectations were high.
But it didn’t end up being particularly noteworthy, at least not for me. In fact, generally speaking, I’d say it was not a great year overall. But for our family, it was fine. Let’s recap. Read More
Here’s how it looked:
Saturday morning:
Up bright and early(ish) to go with Stephanie to City Park. We have a mutual friend who works there, and she needed people to be in the background at the amusement park for promotional materials for a Christmas event. Let me tell you, it’s not easy to find Christmas accessories at this time of year. Normally I’d be grateful for that. But not when I really needed it.
ANYWAY, Big Lots came through for us and I picked up a few sparkly headbands and light up necklaces.
Got the school pics back. Now you know why I only buy the cheapest package. Maybe one day they’ll smile for real. Still cute, I suppose.
I haven’t posted a normal post in a while, just an update on what’s going on in the world. So let’s see…
The boys are a couple of weeks into fourth grade. So far so good. Except they’re not super fond of the bus driver, who is apparently very strict and gruff. Which is exactly how bus drivers should be, I’d say. Well, except for last Wednesday when he forgot that school got out an hour early so we waited at the bus stop for over an hour. Fortunately, the bus stop is the mall, so I dropped into Ulta and made an appointment to get my hair did. Fun colors to come!
Speaking of fun colors, last night, I put in some extra-orange color (blood orange, to be exact) into Oliver’s hair because it was getting too hard to tell him and Linus apart at a glance. Better now. Pics later.
I have a work trip coming up in a couple of weeks, to Whistler again. I’m super excited to see everyone, but the forecast for the next ten days is not making me happy. I need some autumn weather while I’m there, dammit! I’ll get there a few days after the end of the forecast, so all I can say is, a cool front better arrive before I do.
Speaking of weather, it’s very weird here, thanks to Harvey. Pouring one minute, clear blue skies the next. Can’t complain, though. Seeing what’s going on in Houston makes my heart hurt. Just sickening.
If you’re looking for something you can do to help people in Texas, this page has some great links.
I made pesto (no nuts, George is allergic to most of the ones that would go in pesto) out of the basil I grew this summer. First time it really thrived, probably due to the very wet summer we had. It was not bad, but maybe I’ll put one fewer clove of garlic in it next time (sorry person I worked out next to this morning!)
A good thing this week – Evan and Ellie are in town! I love seeing that girl (okay, both of them, really) and I can’t believe how grown up she is! (Look, we’re both bigger! Hahaha)
Ooops, I went down a rabbit hole looking for old pictures of Ellie and me, and found this…gah!
One last cute thing…Ziggy now has his https://www.instagram.com/ziggymcziggerson/ so you don’t have to look at boring pictures of my kids to see what you really want – DOG.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year!!!!
I know I use the line from my favorite Christmas song a lot (first time I see Honeycrisp apples in the store, for instance) but in this case, it is so true. Because not only was today the first day of school after a summer with very little camp and a lot of boys staying home rotting their brains while I worked, but it is also the first day of RIDING THE BUS!
YES! No more driving them to/from school! (Granted, we carpooled, so it was normally only one 90 minute round trip a day, not two, but still.) The bus stop is 10 minutes away, and because they get dropped off early and picked up late, I can now fit my entire work day in when the boys are at school! No more coming home at 8:45 and leaving at 3:15. Now I can get home at 7:30 and leave at 4:30. Amazing!
Now, you can see that my standards are falling very rapidly. Since we have to leave for the bus stop just before 7am, I didn’t have time to get my nice camera out, so cell phone photos it is.
Yes, there have been some hair changes. They all got haircuts, and Linus wanted to go blond, and Oliver wanted to go ginger. Linus’s isn’t too dramatic, and Oliver’s looks pink from the front because the purple from before isn’t going anywhere. But it looks better than I expected when he told me he wanted orange hair like Andrew from the Great British Baking Show:
So anyway, we headed to the bus stop where there was a crowd of kids from their school, with more ecstatic parents. The principal even showed up!
Of course I have (not great) photos of the boys getting on the school bus for the very first time…
(But you can see the color of Ollie’s hair better there.)
I think Mary Catherine summed our excitement about the bus best in the following photo:
Got the whole carpool crew in this one:
and of course this must be compared with a “first day of third grade” pic:
Definitely some height and hair color differences there.
And just because I can’t not, the very first day they started at their school, back in preK-3:
Oliver brought home his English writing journal today and it is FULL of gems. This is my favorite, because it’s about me. Heh.
Mom Quiz
Today Oliver had his first day back at the zoo classroom. They did it back in first grade too, each class spends a month there, learning about animals and science and all that good stuff.
He was very patient as I insisted on a photo. Of course I did.
Man, couldn’t we have any numbers lower than thirteen that start with “th”? Maybe I should save this for tomorrow so I only have to come up with four things to say. Or maybe I don’t have to have alliterative post titles. Hmm.
However, it has been a while since I’ve posted, so I shall try to come up with thirteen things.
I did it! 13 things!
Here we go again.
And in case you were wondering, they weren’t making the WordPress “w” with their fingers, but a 3 for third grade. Not sure why they didn’t want to use three fingers on one hand, but whatever. Cute.
And for funsies, the first day at their school, five years ago…
They’ve grown a teensy bit since then. (Look at the window, to compare.)
Relatedly, I wrote this post the other day for the New Orleans Moms Blog.
This year just flew by, didn’t it? I can’t believe the boys have been at their school for five years now. Seems crazy.
First day:
Last day:
Have they grown? Not noticeably. Have they changed? Uh yeah. I love seeing the pristine shoes and backpacks from the first day. And look how tan their legs are from the summer. Oh, and we have a dog now, too.
Third grade, here we come!
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