Grace is officially a Nebraska student!

Grace and I went to her new school on Monday and she got to take a tour of the school. She is in Bel Air Elementary. I believe there are 8 elementary schools in Norfolk and elementary is K-5th grade. There is one middle school which is 6th-7th grades, one junior high which is 8th-9th grades, and one high school, 10th-12th. There are approximately 400 students per grade. Grace's school has 2 classrooms of 1st graders and she has 25 students in her class. As we were touring the school Grace got to meet her new teacher, Mrs. Schindler. She was pretty excited and was ready to start, but we had to wait on some paperwork. Her official first day was Tuesday Dec. 4th. She was so excited to start and I got to take her to her classroom but then she didn't want me to leave. There was a classmate who was to be Grace's "buddie" for the day and her name was Skylar. She greeted Grace with a huge smile and helped her put her coat away and find her desk. Then she was ok with me leaving. Grace had a great first day and met 3 new friends. She did come home and look at her book that her teacher in St. James, Mrs. Romsdahl, had made for her. It has pictures of her classmates, helpers, and Mrs. Romsdahl. She misses her friends from St. James but was happy to meet some new ones too. Grace also noted things that were the same between her 2 schools and things that were different. Her favorite things that are different, she sits at desks, not tables, and she gets straws at lunch! Brandon also went Monday to register and tour his school. When we were finished registering the secretary showed us the lunchroom and the doors Brandon needed to use in the morning. She didn't just show us, she walked us through, and of course it is lunch time, so every student got to see Brandon walking through with his Mom and little sister. That didn't excite Brandon too much but he did find out that he wouldn't start school until Wednesday, the person in charge of setting his schedule up was gone on Monday. That excited him! While Grace was in school, Brandon and I worked on organizing and getting things put away. Brandon also discovered vanilla cokes at Sonic, which is a new favorite now, and the drive-in even has "happy hour" from to 2-4pm everyday on their drinks....1/2 price...gotta love that. That's it for now, time to get back to organizing and loading up the van with "stuff" for the goodwill. More later, Linette