First Day of School!!

In April, when the new catalog came out, I eagerly ordered my new school material. We home school by choice. There is an International School here in our town. We know several families whose children go there. We just thought it wasn't best for our kids. From the start, Carter said he was NOT going to that International School, he was going to be home schooled until we went back to North Carolina and he went to Madeline's school. I'm sure it is a good school. The children I have met seem intelligent and well adjusted. And secretly I guess it was my opportunity to explore something that had been lurking in the back of my mind. I mean, so many of my friends home school. It seemed so cool. You get to teach your kids all kinds of cool stuff. Teach them scripture, be there with them as they learn, get to share in the excitement. And then after the sticker shock of education in a developing country ($$$$$) we decided it was best for us. I mean, what was I going to do all day with only one kid and a full-time housekeeper?

I ordered our material in April. It arrived at my home in North Carolina a week or two later. How was I going to get it over here? It is tons of books. Madeline has 25 chapter books to read on her own plus books I read to her and books we teach from and then there are Carter's books on top of that. My good fortune I overhead LT talking to the office one night, "Bill of Laden, blah blah, blah, Duty Free, blah, blah, VAT, blah, blah" Poking my head out of the kitchen, "Are you having a container coming over?" "Uhhh, yea." "Where from???!!!" "North Carolina..." "Can we put my school books on it?!" "Uh..yea, but it is leaving tomorrow." LIGHTBULB! "Deborah can do it :)" Well, Deborah did it. She went home for lunch, grabbed the boxes that had been delivered to our house but she had been picking up the mail since Emily was in California and brought them to the office. She contacted the right guy in shipping and Voila! They were put in the container ready to set sail. (Oh, we had to exchange a few e-mails about invoices for the Bill of Laden and then...Voila!)

Great right! All of my books were coming over together. Well most, I had an order from Amazon that wasn't included and my math books. She had my math books but LT didn't want to push his luck with the shipping guy. It took two months for the books to travel across the oceans. See, because of all of the pirates (try explaining to your kids that not all pirates are nice guys like the Veggie Tales) the boats have to go around the Cape of Good Hope and back up instead of going through the Med and then down. Yea!! It arrived in port. We can have it on June 20th! Nope, sorry, it will be ready Tuesday. You do understand that keshu doesn't really mean tomorrow right? Next Tuesday. I guess next Tuesday doesn't really mean THE next Tuesday. A month of Tuesdays later and our box had cleared port. It will be transported Wednesday. And Wednesday it was transported. Right past here and to the other yard three hours from here. (Yep, it just keeps getting better doesn't it.) "I saw it Mam and it is coming your way." We met LT for lunch Friday and I just knew he would have our boxes with him. The container arrived at the office and they were unloading it. Yep. I had really stopped asking a month ago (except for stealing his Blackberry sometimes and checking for myself, not that I understood any of the codes and what-have-you that these people talk in).

Box Day!!! The boxes came in a little red wagon! We were so excited!

So excited in fact, that Madeline couldn't wait to start reading her new books. She looked at the list and grabbed one of her "extra" books and stole off to bed and read by flashlight. Saturday she started reading one of the books to a friend as their nails were drying. Genna had had enough but Madeline kept on reading. Sunday when we returned from church she was ready to label all of the books and put them on the shelf. Then about four o'clock she asked if we could start school "Tomorrow!" Well, I guess if you want to. So I rushed around and got things ready and we started school this morning.

It is hard to believe I have two kids in school. Madeline is starting 3rd grade and Carter, Kindergarten. Lizzie had to have her own school books too! (Dollar Tree workbooks are GREAT!) She is 3 and wearing the outfit Madeline wore on her first day of Pre-School at Methodist. (Where has the time went?) The day went well. Carter was slow doing his handwriting and I didn't even attempt math with Madeline (I'm not THAT crazy!!) but all-in-all it was a good day.