Seasons change

The last 2 days have brought about 2 big changes in our household. The first life changing event here occurred early yesterday morning. Our long time companion, Romeo (the cat) died. Romeo was present for several different seasons of my life. We found him 16 years ago shortly after moving to South Carolina. He and his sister were abandoned on the train tracks so Doug and I rescued them and made them part of the family. This was before Doug and I were actually married. Romeo and Precious were the first pets I had complete responsibility for as they were the first pets I acquired after leaving the parental home. They were my first babies. The 2 cats saw us through the newlywed years and were our first "babies" as actual kids didn't grace us until our cats were 10 years old. They saw us through our college years and my career years. They moved with us living in South Carolina, Utah, and California. They were here when we started having our actual babies. Precious died 3 years ago, and now Romeo is gone. We were sad to see him go but had a lot of time with him to say goodbye before he passed.

The second big change is that Elijah started First Grade officially today! We have really buckled down and are following a very strict schedule so that my tendency to procrastinate doesn't interfere with our schooling. We got so much accomplished today! Here are a couple of pictures...

We started the day with me waking at 6am for time alone with God. I woke the rest of the family at 6:30 so we could all eat breakfast together with Doug before he left for work. I sent Doug with his lunch packed and all ready to go. We all got dressed and made our beds and started the school day with a bible study and the pledge of allegiance. I added a story book about various real life heroes. Today's Hero was a lady that went to China on a Mission and had an orphanage there. She was able to lead 100 kids to another Provence when the Provence they were in were attacked by the Japanese. Then we got into our Calvert curriculum. We did math, then language arts, followed by Science. Our school day is only supposed to take 4-5 hours but today went for about 7 hours! We had to stop a lot and get Elijah re-focused. I think our time management will improve when we all get used to the routine. I included that tray of veggies seen in the pictures for snacking throughout the day and that helped us a lot! I am so happy to see our schedule working out. I even have dinner in the crock pot! So we are all set for a great year!