happy week

Hooray, I can report that the Larson gang has had a really happy week.

Moi - finally connected to the real world.  Emerging from ancient history, in my hands I hold my very own UK mobile phone.  Finally. 

Dave - a positive week at work!

Jonah - spent the week in Wales, his first school trip.  Although he says they did a lot of work, we can tell he had fun.

Ally - learned she was granted her first choice band instrument.  She'll be learning to play the flute.  Along with that fantastic news, visiting the school this week was one of her favorite authors,Tony DiTerlizzi, best known for The Spiderwick Chronicles, who started his presentation by sharing a photo of himself from Grade 5.

Josh - okay, so his week wasn't as stellar.  He had a Terrible Canker Sore in his mouth - really a monster - he could hardly open his mouth.  Speaking and eating, two of his favorite activities, were not particularly comfortable.  However, he continues to love school, friends, and scootering down the sidewalks.

Hooray for a great week.

Launching into a new school

What a life change we've all undergone as school started this past week.

For me it has been a long-awaited moment to breathe a bit... and actually organize this mess of stuff that came with us to London.

For the kids, it has been an easy and happy start to re-connecting with kids their age.

We love to walk to school.  Well, to be honest, I love to walk to school.  Completely foreign to our experience, I find it renewing to get out there for a bit of exercise first thing - I swear it is also helpful for the kids to get their motors running!   We also get time to chat; and unlike car time, there is no radio, ipod, etc that distracts us.  Not all students at ASL walk to school; kids come from all over London actually, but about 60% live nearby.

Josh's teacher is very sweet.  He seems to really love school, especially lunch time and playground time.  Two 1st grade boys live within a block of us - one is Indian and one is Japanese.  They're already great friends.

Ally's homeroom teacher is from Australia.  She seems to be searching for a good friend & I'm praying that will happen.   She's so friendly and easy going and has met lots of classmates who she really likes.  We need to find some who actually live nearby as well.  She is excited about the possibility to participate with the Middle School Newspaper, she loves the art program and is taking Spanish.

Jonah's teacher is from - are you ready? - St. Cloud, MN.  Hilarious to find those connections.  We're so grateful that he's got this fantastic teacher.  Mr. Anderson & his wife & their two children have lived in Brazil & Austria over the past 15 yrs, teaching at the American Schools there.  He's also the swim coach.  Jonah has a beautiful new laptop, some kind of Mac Notebook, upon which he will be doing a great deal of his work.  Apparently, in class they use it up to 50% of the time.  He seems SO happy with the school, he's got a renewed interest and energy for learning (his teachers are so much better than last year! =)).  I'm grateful that I took the past year to work with him and I think he's matured immensely, however he does seem to be spending an awful lot of time on his hair these days.  He is excited about Robotics (apparently a very popular program at ASL) - note to cousins: maybe he'll finally learn that legos are cool....  Jonah's best friend so far is French Canadian - they met the week before school started at soccer camp.

A bit about our impressions of the school.  It's a super happy, everyone smiling & greeting you, kind of place.  The kids all seem very friendly also.  Although greatly American, as you can see by the kids' friends so far - it's also very international!  I'm most thrilled to learn that parents can use the library - SO MUCH better than the local libraries, I can't even begin to tell you.  Also we're thrilled that essentially everything is included with the tuition (which thank the Lord we don't pay, holy buckets!) - right down to the notebooks, pencils, field trips, gym uniform, ETC.  There is no uniform for daily use, I wish that there were.  Athletics & after school programs start in the next couple of weeks.  Jonah will try out for 7th gr. soccer.
  

For me - I joined a health club (but woe is me, I miss LTF and YMCA, nothing like it).  I've done two pilates classes.  Lonesome for my running pals in Minnesota (Janna and Heather...I miss your companionship on our a.m. runs!), and feeling a bit awkward asking random people, "So do you run?", I actually posted an ad on the school website bulletin board entitled "Thursday morning running partner wanted".  And low and behold, I found my sweet pal Monica.  I feel much more comfortable chatting & getting to know other moms when we're running & sweaty compared to after school pick up when I see so much Prada, Gucci, Fendi, Louis Vuitton vs. me in my ratty t-shirt and jeans.  But frankly, there are many families like us and a great deal of the staff at ASL have children at the school, so there are plenty of typical families we can relate to. For the moment, we just feel so intensely GRATEFUL that the kids are ALL TOGETHER, and that they are at this highly regarded school, we're just praising God that this worked out.  Since January, when we learned about this move, our lives have been in a bit of a state of constant change and now we've got some sort of routine started-  it has been a tricky past 8 months.  Especially with regard to schooling - from what was supposed to be a calm year with me spending time with Jonah, to pulling everyone out of school, to homeschooling everyone, to Ally at the little British school around the corner... we've experienced Public School, Private School and Homeschooling all in ONE YEAR.  Now we're feeling a sense of calm & routine.  Hooray!

The calm won't last long as the homework kicks into full gear soon....