First Day of School!

Austin, Sarah, and Trevor started a new school year at Shakopee Area Catholic School on September 4th!

Austin started middle school (6th grade) in Mr. Trevor Geis's homeroom.  Here he is with his locker. We'll see if it stays this organized by the end of the year!  ha!

He has an earlier start than Sarah and Trevor now, with his bus coming at 7:13am and his first class starting at 7:45am.  Sarah and Trevor don't catch the bus until 8:43am and they start class at 9:05am.  Austin is done at 2:25pm and gets home on the bus by 2:45pm. Sarah and Trevor don't get home on the bus until about 4:30pm, so we'll have to pick up them up from school most days because otherwise we can't make it to their afternoon/evening activities in time. Let the craziness begin!

Sarah is in 3rd grade with Mrs. Schroers (rhymes with prayers, but I still have to practice spelling it and saying it correctly).

Trevor is in Kindergarten with Mrs. Vannurden.

He is so excited about school so far and loves riding the bus with his big sister!

That evening, we managed to get all 15 girls on Sarah's dance team together for team photos for memory book, banquet, etc. We were going to do them outside, but it poured rain all day long, so we had to change to an indoor venue. I was in charge of taking the photos, so it made me nervous taking them indoors (lighting is sooo much harder than outdoors!).  We ended up taking the photos in a cute little ice cream shop with a chalkboard wall as a background.  They turned out pretty well!

Here are a couple of Sarah's headshots and some team pics.

Before school started, we had one last weekend of fun together.  On Saturday, Jenna came over to help us make the kids bulletin boards for their rooms. We had picked out the fabric, ribbon, and frames earlier and she helped us make them absolutely adorable!

After lunch, we headed to Richardson Nature Center for Monarch Butterly Tagging.  We learned about Monarch Butterflies then went out into the fields and caught them, tagged them, and released them to track their migration to Mexico over the next month.  We did it last year, but the weather wasn't great for it (too windy), so our whole group only caught and tagged 2 butterflies. This year, our group caught 38 butterflies. I got 5 and Austin got 6!

Sarah getting to release one she caught that had been tagged.

Trevor getting to hold one of the butterflies!

Did you know they have sticky feet?

 Austin tagging the last butterfly he caught.

 After that, we stopped by Chutes and Ladders park for some fun running around and closed out Saturday watching the Irish victory over Michigan on TV.

On Monday, we finished off the long weekend with some fro yo treats at Cherry Berry.

Then back to school!

Next week, dance starts back up. Sarah is dancing 5 days per week this year and competing 5 different dances (jazz, tap, lyrical, ballet, and production)!  She also has Daddy Daughter, but that doesn't start until November.  Austin's age group didn't have enough players for a fall soccer team because some of the kids in his birth year are 7th graders this year and can play for the school team in the fall.  With no soccer, he is getting an extra season of basketball this fall, though it is a quick 4 week season only. He'll continue basketball in the winter (with winter training for soccer then too), then back to soccer for the spring/summer. Trevor is playing rec soccer this fall and continuing with swim lessons.  They're keeping us busy!  Also, with all 3 kids in school during the day, Steve's and my work schedules are shifting. We're all settling into a new norm.