I smell fresh backpacks

We had kind of a bumpy start to the school year.

With a new exchange student, there are a whole new set of things to do. We picked Larissa up on Saturday afternoon.

She is a very nice girl from Germany, and her English is GREAT. I need to practice my German, but I don’t really have a need to speak German, because her English is SO much better than my rusty German. We’ll work on that, though. By Sunday afternoon, we were putting her to work making pies with the girls.

Monday morning, we were off to try to register her. There was some confusion, as the doctor who had done her TB test hadn’t given us the proper form, and we left her passport at home, but after a little bit of shuffling and a rescue from Cole, we got her done at the district office. Then we went to the high school. We were sandwiched in with all the other parents and student who were trying desperately to change their schedule to get into that one class, so there was a lot of waiting. When we got in to the first counselor, she gave us some grief about the TB test, too. Ugh. But she put her in the system and sent us over to wait for another counselor to help build her schedule. Since she is in 10th grade, he put her in to the typical sophomore schedule (SOPHOMORE–Anyone from Brighton remember Mr. McCallister’s whole speech about the “wise fool”?), which includes health, English, History, PE. She is also taking Chemistry, French 3, and dance. There was one 1/2 year class we couldn’t work out, so she ended up with Child Development 1, which didn’t thrill her, but maybe by second semester we can work that one out.

By then it was noon, and I was already worn out. But after making lunch for the family (what? The oven decided it’s done and won’t light anymore? Typical appliance behavior when Ryan is out of town —toaster’s giving us trouble, too, by the way), we headed to the bank to get her more money, since registration had taken all of her cash. That didn’t work out so well, and we aren’t sure how to actually get money with her ATM card, but we will work that out soon. She did have enough to buy the few things she needed at Walmart.

Soon after that, it was time for back to school night, time to find classes and meet teachers. Thankfully, I talked Cole into taking Megan and Larissa to the school to walk around and find all the classes. I don’t really know how to navigate that school anyway, and I was glad that he took them.

Our night before school starts dinner? At McDonald’s. We wanted to see where Cole’s been working, and he needed to pick up his check. I used the oven not working as an excuse to take the kids out.

This morning, I got everyone up early enough to get a couple of kids showered. I put Natalie’s hair up in hot rollers, but it was straight after 10 minutes. Don’t know why I bothered.

John picked his own clothes, and wanted his newly cut hair styled in a “duck butt”. Ahem. I think the proper term would be “duck tail”, but whatever, he’s cute no matter what you call it.

Jenna, who has been sick with a cold or something all weekend, was crying and upset. She said her stomach hurt and she felt like throwing up. I hope it was just anxiousness and I sent her to school. I feel so bad, but I really don’t know what’s wrong, and I don’t want to set a bad habit of staying home everytime she’s nervous or upset about something. If she really is sick, she’ll call me and I’ll go get her, but I didn’t want her to miss the first day of school! I didn’t even get a picture of her in the morning. (I checked on her during school and her teacher said she seemed fine. She also seemed happy and healthy when she came home, so I hope it was just nerves.)

Megan, who is such a procrastinator, wore sloppy clothes because, as she put it, “I don’t have a SINGLE shirt!”. In my defense, I asked her what she needed for school, and she said jeans. I did buy her jeans, new underwear, shoes, and a shirt or two. She just can’t ever find anything. This one also didn’t have a lunch made, didn’t have the parking sticker on the car, and made me late so i missed the whole breakfast at the bus stop, waving to the kids and taking pictures. But she did drive the truck to school, so hopefully she and Larissa made it to class on time.

But they are all gone, for now, at least. I expect a call from Jenna anytime now. Cole is upstairs asleep. He can move into Helaman halls at BYU tomorrow.
Cole’s BYU job, of course, is postponed again. Worried about that one. But there’s really nothing I can do about it, so I’m trying to be calm. His job today is to clean up his room. His stuff is mixed with John’s stuff, and it’s pretty much all a mess. We have got to get all his stuff together so we can move him into his dorm tomorrow. Ack! I can’t even think about that right now!

So, Happy Back to school 2012!