Monday was our last day of summer vacation!  It was a gorgeous day and Sarah and Megan only had morning tennis, so afterwards, Sarah took all her siblings to the snowy shack for slushies!  Wasn't that nice?  They all had such fun. 

Tuesday was the first day of school!!!  It rained.  See?  Even the sky was crying.  Mariah left first to hike up the hill for her first day in the new junior high building and her first day of 8th grade.

Sarah and Megan left after that.  It was Meg's first day at Springville High School in the 10th grade!  Sarah showed her the ropes as an experienced 11th grader -- yep!  She's a junior!  They're taking Honors US History together and they had it first period!  Together!  So fun!

Then we had about an hour before Cali and Chey raced out the door (they use that hour taking turns on the piano for practice.  Love that!).  They wanted to catch up with their friend from down the street.  I made them stop for a picture first.  They're 5th graders this year and are so excited to have the school-favorite, Ms. Roach, who has been teaching for 35 years and acts as though she's loved every minute of it -- and every student.  She is pretty great and so are my twins!

After that, Ben and I got in the car and drove Bethany to school at Sage Creek Elementary where she started the 1st grade and her first day of half-day Chinese immersion.  She was pretty excited.  She is a pretty confident little gal.  Of course, it helped that her friends had already saved her a seat.

Ben and I went home and cleaned the room he shares with the twins and Beth.  It took us the whole day.  He played while I organized.  Then he said, "Mom?  We are all alone."  Pause.  "It's kind of scary."  Seriously, Ben, you are kind of right!  I've never had just one child home alone with me during the school year, unless you count baby Savannah and that was YEARS ago!  It's been a strange week for Ben and I.  I was wishing for a 4 year-old boy that I could just borrow EVERY school day for the next several months.  I didn't get my wish, but on Friday, SIX little girls from the neighborhood knocked on the door en masse and asked to play with Ben.  That works, too.

Savannah didn't start school this week but she did work full-time again.  She's been doing a lot better.  Kevin ran into her boss and he told him how much he enjoys having her work for him.  Isn't that nice?  It's always good to hear your child is doing good work and is appreciated!

In addition to starting school, Sarah and Megan had tennis matches.  They had a home match Thursday and a tournament Friday-Saturday.  They even had to miss school Friday!  (Although, Megan snuck back to school to go to Chemistry.  She was very scared of getting behind!)  They both won their matches on Thursday.  Meg played in the JV tournament on Friday and played in seven matches!  Her dad was there helping with the team and he said that she played "extremely well."  Yay, Meg!  She is feeling pretty stressed about her classes.  Hopefully, this year won't turn out as bad as she is forecasting. . .

Sarah and Allyson played three matches on Friday and won every time.  They went on to the finals on Saturday and won again winning 2 out of 3.  They played that team for two hours but they came out victorious!  They played great and emerged from the tournament undefeated.  Pretty awesome, Sarah!  Sarah is liking all her classes so far and reports that she is only scared by one class -- AP Language and Composition.  I told her that she should always have at least one class that was scary.  She just laughed at me!

Mariah went to a cross-country meeting this week afterschool and will probably start running next week!  She misses not being in soccer this year and is really missing sports in general!  She is liking her classes at school, so far, and seems to have some good friends.  She has sewing and cooking this semester so I am expecting to see some pretty serious skills developing!  Her favorite class, though?  US History.  When asked to tell something about herself she would say, "I like skits about eggs."  (That's from our trip to Nauvoo!)

Cali and Chey like school.  They got to have a snowball fight on their first day with wadded-up notebook paper!  It was pretty epic, apparently.  They've got cool, new binders and have started having homework already.  They're doing just fine.

Bethany comes home from a full day of school and then is out the door again to play with more friends.  I don't think she misses me at all!  Well, I am glad that she is so confident and has so much fun.  I was expecting some trauma from the first full-days of school even if it was just some exhaustion?  Nope.  Nothing.  About the immersion program, when asked about her first day of school she said, "I have two teachers and one I don't understand AT ALL!"  It was kind of funny!

Benjamin is doing an online preschool program that we work on for 15 -30 minutes a day.  It's pretty short.  We're going to do Joy School, too, but it doesn't start until after Labor Day.  Ben is pretty frustrated that it hasn't started yet.  He doesn't understand why everyone gets to go school except for him.  Poor kid.  We will see if we can make it through another week.