Rin's Golden Birthday

Rin's Golden Birthday was this year because she turned 7 on the 7th.  We explained what a Golden Birthday is to her and she was very excited.  I'm happy that she gets it and it was fun to experience it with her.  Other kids that are born on the 1st, 2nd, or the 3rd of the month, don't really get it.  But we had a blast.

We went to dinner the night before with the Marsh family at Lupe Tortilla.  Gram and Granddad had just arrived to town and we dropped Cooper off at the dog-sitter because we were going to San Antonio for the weekend.

Outside of Lupe Tortilla

Her Frozen Cake

 After dinner everyone came back to our house for cake and gifts.  R was very specific for the type of cake she wanted. She even drew me a picture to help me create it.  I don't think I have the drawing anymore, but she wanted a 3 layered frozen cake.  She wanted white icing with blue snowflakes all around it.  With the left over cake (from the layers) I made cake pops for the adults.  I actually liked making the cake pops and I think I'll do that again for a family get together.  We got R two dance leotards and signed her up for ballet lessons at Dance Du Couer just down the street.  She was very excited because she's been asking about dance for a while.  She was a trooper and played 2 seasons of soccer even though she didn't really want to play, so we felt like it was only fitting to sign her up for something she wanted to do. 

Friday (her actual birthday) morning we left at 7:00 to drive to San Antonio for our Sea World trip.  We had gone in June with the cousins, but this time would be different because we were eating lunch with Shamu for R's birthday celebration.  This was in a sense, her party.  The behind the scenes lunch was very interesting and trainers walked around and answered all of our questions and shared some of their personal stories with us.  Then they showed us how they trained the baby whales to do tricks.  We stayed at Sea World until 9:30 pm Friday night and then went back to our hotel.  After eating the continental breakfast we headed back to Sea World and got in line for Rio Loco.  We knew we needed to do this first because the line gets way too long.  We did just a few things in Sea World, then went over to Aquatica for a few hours before heading back to Richmond.  We only spent 1 night in San Antonio but went 2 days to Sea World.  Rin said it was so much fun and the best birthday she'd ever had.  I know she had a good time, but there are many more birthdays in her life and I hope every year she feels this way about celebrating her birthday with her family. 

First Day of School 2015

Another first day of school for our family and this time we had 2 children to get off to school.  Rin and Abe are going to Williams Elementary School in Richmond, TX.  They are Williams' Wranglers and everything I've read about the school is very positive and  encouraging.  The first day of school was August 24th and R & A were very excited. 

Abe's teacher is Mrs. Barnett and she runs the M & M classroom.  Mrs. B is the Kindergarten team leader and seems to be very with-it.  I got a good feeling from her after meet the teacher and knew that she would be good for Abe to have to keep him on task and motivated. 

Rin has two teachers in 2nd grade: Mrs. Lucky and Mrs. Martell.  Her homeroom teacher is Lucky so that's why R identifies as her main teacher.  Lucky teaches reading, writing, and language and Martell teaches math, science, and social studies.  I think it's great that teachers are team teaching and R seems like enjoy switching classes.  When B and I met with Mrs. Medlow, the principal, she explained why she team teaches in all of the grades except Kinder and in 4th grade, the students have a team of 3 teachers.  Being in education, it does my heart good when I hear administration analyzing data and placing their teachers in strength areas. 

So our kids were late their first day of school.  I felt so bad, but I couldn't do anything about it.  The traffic was horrible.  We left our house at 7:07 am and dropped them off at 8:00.  They both were the last students to arrive in their classes, but oh well.  R & A are carpool in the mornings and they ride the bus home.  They could ride the bus in the morning, but the bus comes at 6:30 am and that's just too early seeing as school starts at 7:35.  I do like them riding the bus home and they enjoy it too.  This way W & E can still get their naps in the afternoon and usually are still asleep when R & A get home, so I get some time with them.  I loved hearing about their first day of school and they were very excited and wanted to tell me every detail.  I'm soaking it all in, because I know this wont last forever. 

dropping the kids off at school

The house was so quiet on the first day of school.  I don't like to admit that I was a bit bored, with just 2 kids, but we have found our groove.  I love my time with W and E, but I miss R & A a lot.  It's hard for me to imagine life with all four kids in school, but it's coming sooner than I would like.