Happy New Year

With 75% of the house starting school (can you hear Karen rejoicing?) it feels like a new year. Just a few pictures to quickly share.


Both X and Y are at middle school this year, and both reported a great day 1. A mini-tradition we're working on is videotaping their expectations... those are at the end. This school does an excellent job at welcoming new students, and Xavier has had a seamless transition, except for an antagonistic locker door. (Closest thing to Calvin's bicycle we've met.) Ysabela was just happy to see her buds after the summer separation.

We got to go to Mia and Grace for the first time in too long, this time with our good friend Elizabeth. She has the most fascinating English Ivy across from her - this is a picture of the ivy doing a tree imitation. It's on a white pine, so the pine branches don't start up until way above.

 

Karen also loved the cute little gnome door. She did spot the mutant ivy flowering elsewhere, but not imitating branches. The root/trunk of the ivy had to be about a foot in circumference or more.








We can't have two consecutive posts without an Audrey update. So here she is, with bubbles! I suspect she's contemplating how bubbles minimize surface tension by forming perfect spheres.

Fez are cool.

We've been enjoying this back to school advice from our favorite TV/movie writer Joss Whedon. There's other advice in the article as well, but it's a definite mixed bag.

School Days

Like many families around the northern hemisphere, we've been consumed with the start of the school year.  We got the traditional shots of off to school:












Bela left while still darkish - on the first day!  She's on her way by 7:30 am, and her back-breaking pack is heavy stuff.  She seems to think the only benefit to the early start is being home for an hour before Xavi.  Read about middle school exploits on her blog.  There should be some good stuff from her team building overnight camp experience at Camp Pendalouan, I would hope.

Xavier is seen here sporting the current superhero backpack, Iron Man, which is a little counter to the Batman phase.  But he has plenty of Marvel shirts to go with it, so no worries.  He has Bela's teacher from last year, so it's nice to know a bit of what to expect.

In other news, parents continue to get older.  The good news is that it sometimes comes with swag, like two copies of the Elspeth vs Tezzerret decks.  Nice!

So far looks like Tezzeret takes Elspeth in a fair fight, but loses to Xavi's souped up Garruk deck.

There have been requests for shots of Ysabela's purse, made under the guidance of Aunt Jill.  Shown here with her favorite complementary dress, the purse features alternating squares of day and night with a moon button clasp.  As always, click on the picture for full size.