Little coder

Lucias class recently took part in the national event called "Hour of Code" and was given this cool diploma.
However, the coding on kindergarten level looks nothing like this:

if (InputRegAddr8 == MaX1385::rd_FIFO)
my.device.ReadWord_HiLo(InputRegAddr8, &DeviceDataBuf16); 

But actually looks like this:

The "coding" is done by clicking and dragging the little arrows into the squares on the right in the right order for the little hair ball to reach its target.

The new school

Heres a picture of the front of the new school. Its very nice except theres only like 9 parking spots for "visitors" and no street parking on the street in front of the school because it is too narrow and too busy so we have to park on the surrounding streets and walk 2 minutes. But I dont think thats too bad I think.

Click on image to enlarge it:

The school sits on this hill in a nice residential neighborhood with lots of trees surrounding it and has a huge open paved lot and a couple of play structures behind the buildings where the kids can run around. Not nearly as nice as the old school but a lot easier on the clothes and shoes! Unfortunately, theres another larger school directly next to it with several hundred more kids so the traffic can be completely insane at critical times of day (drop off and pick up times). Its best to be early.

First Day of School

Welp, it was definitely memorable. Short story is Lucia was 75 minutes late for her first day. Long story is we got a heap of forms on Wednesday night, i.e. not enough time to have them all signed and turned around by our HMO, and welp, they didn't get signed. We figured we could plead ignorance and have them turned in right after we dropped her off this morning, but they refused to admit her. Good thing is Lucia didn't seem to mind and was totally down with driving all over town, in and out of the car with everyone, up the elevator, in this office, out of that office, now go get the car, everyone piles in, lather, rinse, repeat. I asked Pete if he got any good pictures today before things went sideways. "Yes," he said. "Did you make sure you got one of Mommy having a nervous breakdown??" Kidding/not kidding. It was that bad, people.

"Pretend you're excited!"

8:14AM On her way! (little did we know what was about to happen)

Lot of activity and nervous kids and parents.

Very happy to see a familiar face in the crowd, here's RJ who lives on our floor.  I think he was happy to see Lucia too because it was his first day at this school also. 

The little reading area outside her classroom

That's her teacher through the window and at the far right corner of the window you can see our Blondie. 

Classes only go to 1:30 this week, so we arrived at 1:15 to eagerly get the full report on her day. She said she had a great time, and gave her teacher a hug on the way out. Awwww. Later when we got home she said she was bored, so we're thankful for the after care program that she will start tomorrow. Hilariously, she protested a LOT at bedtime tonight and as a last-ditch effort tried crying and insisting, but I'm just nervous for tomorrow! To which we talked with her and tried to assess what she was nervous about. Then out came the truth: I don't like it that I can't do whatever I want there! Hahahaha. Guess things got a little too real at Kindergarten. So funny. It's a step towards growing up, and while this morning was a total nightmare, I will say I was grateful we didn't get to have that teary goodbye moment. We were all running on sheer adrenaline at that point, so the parting was brief. Maybe that was for the best today. At any rate, we're looking forward to a much smoother Day 2. Phew. 

New shoes

For school. Tough call as to who's more nervous. I'll be so relieved when tomorrow is over.