first day of school

Yesterday was the first day of school for Garrett and Maelie. Garrett started Kindergarten. It is an all day kindergarten. The night before Garrett was talking to Denver about Mrs. Gorf, the scary teacher in the book "Sideways stories from Wayside School" that turns little kids into apples.

The morning of his first day he acted very strangely. I thought maybe he had a fever because he wasn't bouncing off the walls like usual and he didn't eat much breakfast. He was just nervous, but he handled it well. After school he talked to me more about Mrs. Gorf and was glad his teacher wasn't like her. Maybe I shouldn't read that book to kids before they have an experience at a normal school. I asked him if he talked in class (one of my concerns with him because he's always talking) and he said he didn't because he was too scared. He had fun though and was excited to go to school this morning.
Garrett's teacher's name is Mrs. Dye. Maelie's first day of 2nd grade. Her teacher is Mrs. Vahle. She really likes her teacher and so do I. She's very outgoing and seems to really enjoy her job.

Showing off their backpacks.

The front entrance of their school.

Garrett in his classroom.

When we dropped Garrett and Maelie off at school, Sterling didn't want to walk home. He didn't want to go home without Maelie and Garrett. He cried the whole way home. But, after we got inside and started playing together, he was just fine. It's been nice to spend time with just Sterling when Colson is sleeping. I think he is such a funny boy.

All in all, the first day of school was a success!

Friday night we had our second visitors! The first were my parents who helped me move in. The second was my brother John and his wife Jolena and their 4 kids. We love company, thanks for coming and playing!

Colson is one happy boy. I get a lot of comments from people about how smiley he is. "He's so happy", "does he ever cry?", "what a happy boy", "everytime I see him he's smiling".

Yep, that's him. He is a very happy, easy baby.


Look at those eyes!

He is actually sitting right next to me and laughing at the pictures. :)

Are you serious?

We are only here for one year!?!?!?! I would love to stay longer. We are 2 miles from our stake center, which is our ward bldg, we are 500 yards from Maelie and Garrett's school, we love our ward-everyone has been so nice and welcoming, Denver drives 12 minutes to get to work and the same back (traffic, what is that?), instead of driving by rundown buildings I get to drive by miles and miles of cornfields, there is a beach (off of a manmade lake) 20 miles away, a free zoo, a city with plenty to do 15 miles away, church history surrounding us, great neighbors, a nice home that has cheaper rent than our home in Philly, a master bathroom, a 2 car garage, a temple 45 minutes away, etc and we only get to enjoy it for a year! what a bummer.

This is the view from our back patio. The kids can run free!

The view of the kids school from our back patio.

A close-up of the school. (They start on Thursday)

The kids have had a ball riding their bikes. Now that we don't live on a hill, they can actually ride without freaking out.

This could possibly be a settling place for us when done with the AirForce. We love it!

(We still terribly miss our friends and ward family in Philadelphia!)

Welcome Home Daddy!

Yeah! He's home. He was supposed to come home Friday night, but a storm rolled through Alabama, cancelling his flight until the next day! I was heartbroken. We had already all pulled off the last loop off our chains. So after 34 days of him being gone, we had to wait one more day. These pillows were souvenirs he brought home for the kids.

In uniform. The picture above are his blues. He wears those to work on Mondays and for special occasions. The picture below are his ABU's and he wears those to work Tues.-Fri. When he gets to work/school, he gets to change into scrubs.

He really likes working on base. It is a nice base. There are more Generals on this base than any other, except for the Pentagon! So far we have had a med group picnic and a dental squadron picnic. They were both really fun and had great food.

We have a resident spouse lunch coming up for all the spouses of the residents. The Colonel's wife set it up so could all get together and get to know each other. We got our will written up for free one afternoon. I haven't used the base pool yet, although I should because it is the 2nd hottest summer here in history.

So far everything has been so nice.