She made it!!!!

If you recall, during Meet the Teacher Night, we found out that Nicole's new school opened up the volleyball team to 6th graders this year since there is no 8th grade in the first year. Yesterday and today, for two hours each, Nicole tried out along with 30 other girls. It was tough but her and her friend, Kayleigh made it! We are so proud of them. It will be a challenging season as the school's 6th and 7th graders will be playing against 7th and 8th graders from other schools. Go Lake Pleasant Silverhawks!!

Happy 11th Birthday Nicole!

Saturday, August 15 (1998) was Nicole's 11th Birthday at 6:15 p.m. I can still remember the 3 days of pitocin labor (Aargghh). I have loved and treasured every single stage of her growing up. I wish I had done more journaling during those years, but I'm making up for it now with blogging. I am so proud of what a fine young lady she is becoming. Happy Birthday Nicole. We love you!

Oh to be 11 again and celebrate your birthday over the course of several days. Being from Michigan, there was always something in the mail for Nicole and she enjoyed opening up presents and cards all week long from friends and family. Thank you!

Believe it or not, we kept things simple this year with a pool and pizza party for a few girls. Enjoy the video.

Birthday Video

First Day of School - Lake Pleasant

Nicole (or should I say "We") survived!!!

Last night: Clothes laid out - CHECK; Lunch made - CHECK; Nicole in bed on time - CHECK; No Tears - CHECK....WAIT was that a "Check?", better double check that "Check". Yep, this is the first time in 7 years that there were no tears before the first day of school. I knew it was too good to be true...Read on dear Reader.

Today: Everyone woke up prior to their alarms going off. We had a minor catastrophe with ants raiding the bottom of our pantry floor, but "Dan the Man" was our hero in cleaning it up and caulking the suspected crack between the tile and door molding. Nicole and I left the house 10 minutes early so we weren't in Dan's way and just hung out in front until we saw more walkers going to school. We had fun walking with all our neighbor friends and everyone was excited. Everything went better than expected.

At 3:00 p.m, Kristin and I picked up the girls and still all was well. The day was fine. The girls played afterwards since no one had homework. Then reality KICKED in for Nicole and the tears started flowing. Apparently, there was some schedule conflicts and the 6th graders had to choose between either Band OR Choir and were not allowed to pick BOTH as in last year. Consequently, this evening, I spoke with the Band Instructor who performed her magic and had the schedules juggled around to provide the students an option to have BOTH. In addition,rumor has it that the 6th graders have a longer lunch WITHOUT recess. I'm working on that rumor and hope that this is not the case, since these kids are in school 7 hours a day and need a physical outlet/break during the day. So things have settled down at The Donnelly household, Nicole is doing her required reading right now and we'll see how Day #2 goes.

Meet The Teacher Night.........

It seems like just yesterday (actually 78 days, 5 hours, 30 minutes, 20 seconds)that I was writing the entry for the last day of school. But who is counting? Tonight was the much anticipated Meet the Teacher Night. Actually, Nicole was lucky enough to meet her teacher a couple of weeks ago when she helped our teacher friends set up their classrooms. However, at that time, she didn't know Mrs. Ritz would be her teacher. Nicole and Dan had the benefit of visiting the new school, Lake Pleasant several times, but this was my first.

We were all excited and the PTO passed out red white & blue popsicles to welcome us. Everything looked shiny and new. We met the Principal, music teacher, librarian, PE teacher, Homeroom teacher and the other 6th grade teacher that Nicole will have Social Studies and Math with. We are thrilled with the new school and I think Nicole's anxieties are starting to dissipate.

The norm for the K-8 schools is to start their school volleyball leagues in 7th grade. So the two highest grades, 7th and 8th are playing. Since this is the first year of our school opening, we don't have any 8th graders. So the ABSOLUTE BEST part of this evening is we found out they are bringing the volleyball team down to the 6th and 7th graders for this year only. Which means if Nicole makes it on the team, she could potentially play for the school for 3 years! Nicole was bursting with excitement when she found out about this. Keep in mind how challenging it will be because the 6th and 7th graders will be playing against 7th and 8th grade school teams. AND there is barely any overlap or conflict with her city league that she will be playing with.

Press the Play > Button below the picture below and stay tuned next week for the First Day of School to see if we all survived.

1 More Week to Go

We're all on countdown mode over at the Donnelly household, however, I don't think Nicole is as excited about the prospect of going back to school next week as I am. I'm looking forward to consistency, schedules, and not having to hear "I'm bored!"

There are many changes in our life as the school year approaches. Nicole will be attending a new school which is only about 1-2 blocks away (within walking distance) from our house. Our community has grown so much over the past three years and the land was donated that the need for a new school, in such a short amount of time, was warranted. Nicole's class last year had 36 students by the time the school year ended. So far, her new 6th grade class has 26.

I'm very much relieved that Nicole is so close to home now. I'll be changing my work schedule from part-time to full-time. It was very difficult to pick Nicole up, on time, last year from school and I had an excellent support system (thank you Erin) when I was late numerous times.

The new school is called "Lake Pleasant" and to get Nicole more excited, we bought her school t-shirt in advance. We think it looks pretty cool! We have an excellent PTO Board and we've heard many good things about the new administration. Nicole was lucky enough to help two teacher friends of ours set up their classrooms, so now she is familiar with the new school even before it has opened. It helps too, that the layout is the exact same as her former school, Vistancia.