Today was open house. We started with the middle school and met all Hannah's teachers and found all her classrooms. She was relieved to find that she had a friend in each class and her teachers seemed nice. She was greeted by many exclamations of "your hair!". I had planned to dye it back to brown before school started but with our simulated disaster this week we didn't go to the store. Anyway I think she enjoyed her day and she looks cute. Middle school is an interesting place. I saw kids wearing all kinds of crazy things like ski hats and shorts, orange hair, silly shirts. The halls were loud and the kids boisterous. It is really a season of figuring out who you are, I hate middle school. Still I hope Han has a great year, she is so disappointed because Nana ordered her a back pack that she has been wanting for her birthday and it arrived today but when she was packing it up the liner ripped so now she has to use an old one and it will probably take another week to get the new one replaced. She is worried about Algebra, didn't get the art teacher she wanted but is hopeful this one will be great too and wanted to say hi to last years language arts teacher.
Next we went to Lu's school. She was excited to see her teacher and when we got to the class she had a scavenger hunt set up for the kids. Lu quickly found everything on the list, saw some friends from last year, went and hugged Ms Myers and Mrs Knight (K teachers) and happily skipped to the car, proclaiming that she didn't like school but smiling. We shall see, I hope she'll love it.
Lastly we drove to E's school where everything was new. He had a sad time at Lu's school, saw many classmates who wished he was staying and even went to give Ms Elwell (who is awesome!) a hug. At the same time he is excited to go to STEM. We got to his school and R was waiting for us so we could all go together. We met his teacher, found his desk, he did his first assignment, met up with John who is in his class and found out that there are two other Ethans in their class as well. I guess he'd better think up a nick name tonight before the other kids do it for him. I suggested "chip" like utz brand chips but he said no. After visiting and getting busing all figured out we went out on the playground and the kids played. The weather was perfect, cool and comfortable.
While we were in the parking lot leaving one elementary to go to the next we stopped to talk to the Kosichs (our good friends and neighbors). All of a sudden the ground was swaying, it took a second to figure out what it was but then I said to Jen, is this an earthquake?? so strange. It was. We were about an hour from the epicenter but still felt a good rolling motion, it was a very unsettling. I didn't even know we had fault lines out here. Ironic since we are in the middle of a simulated disaster. When I got home from school I got the call to check on my VT families, which I did. Everyone is fine.
Hurricane Irene, right now off the coast of the DR, is heading this way too. It will be here this weekend. We have some things we need to prepare so tomorrow I will go to the store and get batteries and a few other things, we won't use them or eat anything that I buy so we can continue with our exercise, but if the real deal happens I want to make sure we have propane (currently out), milk (down to one gallon), flashlight batteries (always missing) and a few other essentials.
Great is the peace the gospel brings. I am grateful to be somewhat prepared and with the last couple of days awareness of what we are missing we will be much better able to prepare for what may come.
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