The first day of school

Well, here we are...Its 8:00 and W and A are already at school!

This neighborhood is particularly nice for W...We have 5 sixth grade girls within a 1 block radius of our house!!! They made quite a parade on the way to the bus stop at 7:15 this morning. One other mom and I were the only ones who came to the bus stop...We didn't need to, but our girls kind of wanted us to. Tomorrow they do it on their own. (sniff...sniff...My baby's all grown up!!!)

Later today the real sniff sniff moment will be when K hops aboard the kindergarten bus with out much more than a smile and a wave.

**Posted later**

K waiting for the bus on our front porch.















K's first bus ride to school!















Mrs.R's class...and a few of K's new friends.














As expected, she had no problem getting off to school on the first day.
So far Kindergarten has been a great experience all around. K has made several new friends...her favorite part of the day is recess...and I get to volunteer in her class every Friday!

Heading to the Coast

Well, its Friday, and the family is headed to the coast for the last weekend of summer. We will be camping in Pacific City with our good friends.

Now, camping means different things to different folks. For us it means getting the trusty Motorhome out of storage, filling it with food, clothes, and gas. Not exactly roughing it, but honestly, way more comfortable!! Not to mention the fact that tent camping in the Pacific North West, with all its damp, cold weather potential, is totally unappealing. I much prefer to stay dry, not have to hike to the nasty campground toilets with the kids in the middle of the night, and have the option of using the heater if things get chilly.

Our motorhome has had a long and adventurous life...See...She may not be much to look at, but we love her!

Now we are not super campers. We are not out spending every weekend in the woods. We don't go out more than a handful of times a year. We love it when we go, but we are a busy family, and this is what we can manage. Anyway, there are often LONG periods where the motorhome is just hanging out all by her lonesome in the storage place...Just waiting. With her battery loosing its charge. So, we have had to develop this little routine of going to fetch the motorhome battery and charge it before we can go anywhere. Last night Craig and I took the battery back to the storage place, plopped it in and hooked it up. Nothing. Bummer! So we started the "try to jump-start the motorhome" ritual. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing. And again...For like, 10 minutes. Nothing. BUMMER!
On a normal weekend this would have been no big deal. We like to camp on to he fly. We don't usually have reservations, just the idea that 'camping this weekend would be fun'. But this weekend we are meeting our friends on the coast, and we do have reservations, so we really needed to get this motorhome going!

After much banging, fiddling, key turning, and getting nowhere, we decided that the battery was indeed dead. The elegant solution...We took the battery out of Craig's car and put it in the motorhome. Then we pushed Craig's car into the motorhome's parking place and left it there to hang out with the RVs for the weekend. We will figure out the battery mess later...After the camping trip. (I told you we were great procrastinators!)

So, we are heading out in a few more hours. I have to go pack, check our supplies and go grocery shopping for camping food like hot dogs and s'more fixens.

I'll leave you all with some pics of the kids giving the motorhome her annual shower.

Have a great weekend!!