Be Loyal to Your Best Self

These two big girls started back to school the middle of August! With all the chaos of moving summer felt very short and super long at the same time. The week leading up to school starting they were more than ready to be done with summer. Hazel especially was looking forward to starting school so she could make new friends. 

 Hazel is in Mrs. Hamilton's class for third grade. I have wonderful memories of third grade, and I can't believe she's that big already! This year her class also begins rotating to other teachers for part of their day so she sees Mrs. Cooper for reading and writing. The first few weeks were a bit tough for her trying to fit in with kids who have know each other a while, but now she's doing great and seems to be loving school! Her only compliant is that there isn't enough time to read each day.

 Eliza is in Mrs. Gabbard's first grade class. She is loving school and feels much more challenged than in Kindergarten. When they tested her, she's reading at a third grade level so they have her going to a second grade class for an advanced reading group. Crazy girl! We are so glad she's been able to be challenged at school.

This year the bus picks the girls up at our house each day! Since there aren't any other kids too close they just made our house the "bus stop."

One neat thing they do here in Kentucky is a "non-traditional instruction" day. These days are used to make up school for things like weather cancellations. They just have a packet of work to complete for the day (yay - no more making up days at the end of the year!). The solar eclipse fell on their fourth day of school so the district made it a NTI day and the kids were able to stay home!

We experienced 95% totality from the eclipse. It was pretty neat! The sky became really dark and it was much cooler. All the cicadas even stopped buzzing. One of the coolest things was the way shadows looked!

This year Michael and I decided to pick a theme to focus on as a family: 

"Be loyal to your best self. Be loyal to the best that is in you!" 

- Gordon B. Hinckley 

Our hope is we can all remember to do our very best, to honor our best characteristics, and to have the courage to live what we believe. We're hoping it's a great school year full of growth and learning for us all!