Back to School Night

Last Thursday was the Back to School Picnic at Madeleine's school. It's the night we finally get to find out which teacher we'll have for the school year and then get to enjoy dinner and catching up with school friends.

We were so excited to find out that Madeleine will have Mrs. Lawson as her homeroom teacher this year! Matt has worked with her on the FPS Math Taskforce and we were hoping we'd have her for Madeleine's teacher this year! Yippee! When we got to the room, Madeleine found her desk and a little goodie bag Mrs. Lawson had made for each child. :) While Matt & I filled out some info (our expectations of the teacher and for our child), Madeleine dug through her goodie bag and read the letter Mrs. Lawson had written to each child. I still love watching Madeleine read! She could read the entire page-length typed letter all by herself!

The picnic that followed was great -- for the second year in a row we used Backyard Burgers and it was yum-my! After 3 days of rain and weeks of record-breaking temps we actually had a beautiful evening. Perfect for the kids to play outside.

It's amazing what a difference just 2 years can make! Two years ago, we went to the back to school picnic and knew NO ONE. Literally. Not one single person. We ate by ourselves and met a lot of people; we wound our way around the school looking for Madeleine's classroom and hoped that we'd made the right decision on a school. And, this night -- just 2 years later -- was completely opposite. I spent the evening helping to serve the meal, Madeleine was hugged over and over by kids that she knew, we helped other new parents find their child's classroom, we hugged and talked with our favorite teachers, we caught up on summer events with friends and we felt so at home. What a difference 2 years makes, huh?