First Day of School for the Kids

Today was the first day of school for the kids!! It was both an exciting day and a little bit of a sad one as well. We left at 7:19 AM, only 4 minutes later than we had planned! Mary did a great job getting the kids running and even making sure that they had a good breakfast to start the day right (except for Nicholas who insisted on having cereal, of which he only ate half).

We dropped off Marina first at the Tomah Middle School. I’d post pictures but Marina wasn’t too crazy about the idea of us following after her with a camera. I walked her to locker, after we searched in vain for her classroom. The halls were so crowded with kids that it took awhile to get through the crowds. Eventually we found a teacher to help us and he showed us Marina’s locker. I asked Marina if she was all right now and she looked up at me with that real nervous look that she every so often shows. I smiled, told her that she would be just fine and whispered that I loved her and left.

Next we took Phillip and Nicholas to LaGrange Elementary School. As we were walking into the school we passed a mom leaving with tears in her eyes. Mary and I looked at each other knowingly, it wasn’t long ago when we were taking Marina to kindergarten and now she’s in sixth grade already. We dropped Phillip off in the gym where he joined his class with Mrs. Wolf. Afterwards we took Nicholas to Mrs. Mee’s kindergarten class where we received an extra set of hugs from Nick. On the way out, we checked on Phillip one more time. He was lining up with his class and we got the chance to say goodbye to him on his way to his class. I left feeling a little sad that my kids were growing so quickly.

When I got to work today I found out that the unit I supported, the 132nd FSB, was deploying personnel to assist with Hurricane Katrina relief. I think my weekend just went away, but I’m reminding myself that it’s for a really good cause. We were going to go to Park Rapids with Mary’s dad, but I’m not sure if that’s going to happen anymore. We’ll find out more later.