The first day on the school bus, the kids are so very excited!!!! They've decided to try school out for the spring, to see what it's all about and perhaps if they want to continue going next year, and so as you can well imagine, we've been going through a LOT of changes in our little household here!!!! It's been a shockingly easy transition so far - Kea in particular gushes about how much she loves it at the end of each day and seems to be having no problems keeping up with all the classwork. Tiegan already has friends calling her from her class, and she adores her teacher. And once Ry got used to the idea of going to school by himself (I went with him for the first week, as he loved school but wasn't ready to go on his own....), he's been thriving in kindergarten. Of course, at this point we hear much more about all of the social interactions they're observing all day long, rather than what they're actually learning academically, but either way it's been a steep learning curve!

As for me, once I got beyond the years of talking about all the negative things about school with my fellow homeschooling families, I've actually been very pleasantly surprised by how positive our experience has been. The teachers have all spent a lot of extra time helping the kids settle in and catching them up, everyone has been very friendly, supportive and welcoming. The kids are really happy and excited to go each day, and so now I am learning a new pace to my day. One with much more time for myself and a glimpse of future possibilites for me......we will see what time will bring.

For now, though, the kids are just thrilled to be taking a school bus!!!!!!

P.S. When the kids (and Kea in particular) started talking about wanting to try school out, Jamie and I found a great little private school outside of Perth, where the focus is on arts and the outdoors and it runs 3 days a week - sounds perfect, no?! When we mentioned it, Kea gave an exasperated sigh and declared, 'NO, I want to go to a regular school with regular kids, not one of your alternative schools.......' Okay then.....I guess this is the beginnings of rebellion:-)