There is Never a Dull Moment in August

First Day of School

After our trip to Iowa, the kids and I had one day left of summer before school started on August 15.  They are still at New Haven, and will switch to Southern Boone when our house is done and we move.  They are very happy now, though to see their friends and get back into a routine.  I can't believe that I have a second and fourth grader!  I'm also happy that they both still love going to school.  I hope this is still the case when we make the move.

First Day!

Waiting for the bus.

And just like that....they're gone.

It seems like not too long ago that we had to force Owen, kicking and screaming, onto the bus to make him go.  Now he hardly looks back after riding his bike down to the end of the driveway, while yelling "Bye, Mom!"  Gracie also gets herself ready in the morning, only occasionally needing a reminder to brush her teeth.  And then after school...While most of the time it's a bit chaotic trying to get everything done before leaving to go somewhere else, I will eventually miss helping them with homework and listening to everything that happened at school.  Right now they are so excited about learning new things and everything they get to do at school.  I just want to hit a pause button and hold onto this time forever.  

My First Day!

Almost three weeks ago, I was offered an interim position in Mizzou Made - Academics as the Tutor/Mentor Coordinator.  Instead of working directly with students, I will oversee the tutoring program in Mizzou Athletics.  So far it has been great, but there is a pretty steep learning curve.  I have a graduate assistant who, thankfully, knows what he's doing.  I also have a co-worker who did this position at the University of Iowa until two months ago.  She has been great in helping me learn the software program and understanding what I'm supposed to be doing.  We have facilitated orientation, completed a four hour training, and scheduled almost 1000 tutoring and mentoring appointments in the past two weeks.  It has been crazy, but I'm so happy to have more responsibility!  I feel like I get to use my brain again.  The position is not full time yet, but could potentially become that at the end of the semester.  My boss is giving me a chance to try it out and see if it's a good fit.  Needless to say, I'm very thankful for the opportunity.

This is one corner of my office.

I guess it's official when they put your picture on the monitors in the academic center.

Gracie attended a volleyball clinic at Mizzou.  Following the clinic, we stayed for awhile to watch the scrimmage at the Hearnes Center.

Work on the House/Property

Two weeks ago, right after our visit to Iowa, Nick went back up to northern Missouri to pick up posts to build fence.  The past two weeks has been spent working a lot down at our land.  Nick spent all of last weekend and almost every night this week digging holes with an auger.  I think he finished with the fence posts, but will have to rent the auger again to put posts in for the barn.  I believe that it took a little bit longer than anticipated because the soil is a little different here than it was in Iowa.  

Gracie and Owen get to help

This is Nick on the Dingo putting holes in the ground.

The front of the house is all sided.  However, the back is not done yet.  It looks pretty dark in this picture, but I'm rarely out there in the morning hours when the front of the house has more sun on it.

Ready to paint!  After a bit of debate about the texture that was applied to the walls, Nick and I finally decided that it was not worth the wait to have them redo it the way we had requested.  The texture was much heavier than we had wanted and they did the same texture on both the walls and the ceiling, which was not what we asked for.  They also did the entire garage, which we specifically said not to do.  Somehow, there is a breakdown in communication.  Very frustrating, and I'm glad Nick is good at dealing with that.

This might take awhile to paint and I have nominated Nick for this part.  I can do everything else, I'm just not going up that high.

Gracie's room is done!

We started on Thursday after school.  I don't think we got down there until almost 5pm and were done by 7:30pm.  The kids really wanted to help, but it was taking longer, so I finally had to take over.

Owen, the painter.

Gracie was so excited!

One room down, the rest of the house to go!

Owen's is next on the list.

Birthday Boy!

Owen on his birthday

Waiting for everyone to get to the party.  

As he did last year, Owen sat at the end of our driveway for about and hour and a half before people were supposed to arrive to celebrate.  I kept reminding him that there were only a few people coming, also.  He was ok with that and just kept waiting.  He's so patient.

Gracie kept herself busy while she was waiting.

Presents!

Star Wars!

Whiteboard for playing school!

River and Owen got to ride Dancer

Cake!

I forgot to get a close up of Gracie's birthday cake all put together.  

She wanted and ice cream cake with a softball on it.  This is the softball part.

Owen wanted a big cookie ice cream cake with a football.

Here it is.

Rodeo!

Just like last year, we went to the Ashland Rodeo and had tons of fun.  Gracie took a friend with her and one of Owen's friends and his family came with us.  The kids had fun with their friends.

Owen is giving roping a try.

Gracie and her friend Brynn on the pretend bulls

Waiting for the rodeo to start

Owen with his friends Dean and Gibson

Brynn and Gracie

Owen, Gracie, and Brynn watching the entertainment

Gracie

It has been a busy couple of weeks and I'm sure the rest of this month and into September will be the same.  Gracie will start softball games this week and Owen should be starting flag football soon.  Gracie also signed up for Spanish Club, and will do that after school once a week, as long as we're still in Columbia.  Next weekend will be the first Mizzou football game, so I'm sure Nick will be pretty busy this week.  Oh, and we have a lot more painting and work to do down in Ashland before we can move in.  We have another important birthday to celebrate in a few days, too.