Summer is Officially Over

We have checked everything off our summer list of things to do.....take Allison to horse camp-check; go to Alabama for a family reunion and to visit Daddy Hawk-check; go back to Alabama to party with friends on the lake-check; have Allison's best friend visit from Wisconsin-check; have six girlfriends visit from Texas for a girls' weekend-check. It was a very busy and fun summer. I cannot believe how many people we go to visit with over the summer!

As of Monday, though, there is nothing left to do. So......... at 7:00am Monday morning I drug two very tired little girls out of bed and sent them off to school. Allison start fifth grade. She got a teacher that is new to the school, so we really have no preconceived ideas about her. Which is nice. Leah started second grade. She got the same teacher Allison had in second grade. Allison loved her, so we are excited about that. Below are the pictures of Allison's and Leah's first day of school.

Rachel did not start school until Thursday, thank goodness, it was a long confusing path to her first day of school. In July I met with some people at the school board to discuss Rachel's kindergarten placement. I wanted to move Rachel out of the self-contained classroom she was going to be in to an inclusive classroom. They told me that in order to have Rachel in an inclusive classroom I would need to send her to a school that is different from the one she was registered to attend in April. In addition to moving Rachel, they told me I had to apply for a state scholarship to send Rachel to this other school-who knew you had to get a scholarship to attend another public school. Anyway, I filed for the scholarship and it got misfiled for some reason, so she will not qualify for the scholarship until January. We were notified of this last Friday-two days after the official day of registration. That meant that I missed the day of registration at Rachel's school, because at the time of registration, we did not know which school she would be going to. Ooops!

What all this mumbo jumbo means is that Rachel is now attending the school I initially registered her for in the spring. For now, she is in a self-contained classroom. We met with the school on Wednesday to rework Rachel's IEP, and the school promises that they are one of the best schools around for inclusion, even though, by definition they are not an inclusive school.........are you following me, here? I am not sure I understand it either. To the best of my knowledge, it means Rachel will be in a special ed classroom with five students. She will be pulled out to the regular classroom for about 1/3 of the day. In an inclusive classroom she would be in a regular classroom with 18 kids and would be pulled out for academics and therapies. I have to say I feel more comfortable having her in a small class. The school personnel say that they are really good at getting the self-contained kids out into the regular classroom whenever possible. We will see how it goes this semester and maybe for this whole year. I hate to think of changing up everything on her in the middle of the year. If things go well where she is, maybe we will just stay. If not, I will most likely move her to the inclusive school for next year. Below is a picture of Rachel on her first day of school yesterday. The teacher seems really nice and said that Rachel has had two really good days! I cannot believe that she is in kindergarten!

Below is a picture of all three girls before we left to take Rachel to her first day of kindergarten.

Friday is now here. We have made it through the first week of school. We are all dragging and I am hoping to get to bed early tonight.....even if it is not a school night!!