Smith Family

Audrey found a friend that lives in our neighborhood. Her name is Natalia. Her parents are from Guatemala and she's a really sweet girl. They talk on the phone a lot and were so excited to go to the orchestra party at the skating rink yesterday. She's just growing up too fast!

We caught our first bug of the school year! I was worried it was strep so I took her down to urgent care to get her tested. The doctor said it just looked red and swollen but didn't see any white puss spots so we'll just treat it as a virus. She spent the day building forts and watching movies. Her teacher called me the other day to let me know shes doing really well, and can't believe how good of a reader she is!

It was a scary and intimidated process buying a house. The kids and I were in Arizona and Elliott was in Georgia for training and wouldn't be done until the week of Thanksgiving. Which meant neither one of us was here to physically walk through houses. We wanted to be in a home before Christmas and so the timing was extremely tight. We started looking for homes, and had put in an offer on one that I fell in love with from the pictures. We had put $1,000 down, had the inspector come out and had one day left to decide whether we were moving forward with it or not. Elliott did a drive by the night he got into town and didn't have a super great feeling about it. The next day when he did the walk through he knew it wasn't our house. I remember him calling me while I was sitting at church in Arizona and telling me this house wasn't going to work out. I was devastated. I walked out of Relief Society tearing up because we were running out of time, I wanted to spend Christmas ...

Everyone survived their first day of school! Audrey said her highs for the day are that her orchestra class has only 9 kids. Her friend from last year has PE with her and they got to sit by each other for lunch and she was able to find all of her classes! Brandon said his high for the day was that he saw Tristan, a neighborhood friend, at recess and he likes that he gets to move to different classes throughout the day which makes it go fast. Melanie's high for the day was that she saw her best friend from last year and got to play with her at recess even though they are in different classes and her teacher is sooooo nice! I think the first day was a huge success! I'm excited for what this year is going to bring.

We always try and make the evening before the first day of school special for the kids. I've taken ideas from my childhood and other ideas over the years and made it our own. I picked this theme because I felt like it was one that all of us can implement in our lives. Melanie struggles with doing everything perfectly, and if it isn't perfect she will easily give up. Brandon excels in math and science but isn't interested in reading or writing and because of that he often doesn't have a good attitude about it. Audrey is being put into an entirely new environment being in middle school with new kids and experiences. I wanted this to be something that they could have in their minds when they feel like they are struggling with something and not to give up but try their best and that's enough. Before dinner we all wrote an encouraging note to everyone and then read them out loud at dinner. Brandon as a joke decided to just write hi to everyone. We all got a kick ...

In February we had to fill out what classes Audrey was going to take in middle school this year. There were 3 options for every course: regular, pre AP or accelerated. I had no idea what to do since we were so new here and didn't know what to expect so I put her in regular. Once the semester ended and she was on the A/B honor roll and after talking to some parents I felt it was important to get her switched into pre AP but it seemed impossible getting in contact with the school during summer! Over the last 2 weeks I had called the registrar multiple times never getting through, left a voice mail, left an email, went down to the school but it was locked. Ugh... My frustration level was at a 10. So during orientation I went to a counselor and she seemed extremely reluctant to help me this late in the game and all the pre AP classes were full, I expressed my frustrations and explained we had recently moved here and I didn't know any better and she FINALLY approved her to move to a...

Pete took the day off on Saturday so we could spend the last day of summer together. We decided to head to the beach and have a chill day there. We got there early enough to park right on the beach. It's so nice to back your car right in and set up camp along the water. No dragging all our stuff all over creation to find a spot, it's wonderful. I'm sure gonna miss these kiddos when they are at school next week, but am very much ready for some routine and the house to stay clean!