Back to School 2024-2025

This summer flew by. Before we knew it, we were back in school! And now it's Kade's senior year! Austin is a sophomore and Erik is in 7th grade. This is my 8th year teaching at Red Bell. I'm going in 15 minutes earlier this year since I have a lot of early drop-offs in my class and they're a young group. This week has been fun going back to Red Bell because Victoria is still here and she's been working many morning shifts there, so I get to see her on the playground sometimes! She's worked some afternoon shifts as well and it's fun discussing the students from my class that she works with in the afternoon. The most interesting thing we had to discuss this week was one of my students told another one about a gun his dad has. We actually reported it to my boss because of the nature of the conversation, who then got the police involved. They had to go into the family's home to make sure it is locked up properly. The next day, the kid who talked about his dad's gun, hit the same student on the face with a pan from the sandbox, during Victoria's afternoon shift. It was quite the first week! We also had plenty of sweet moments and lots of growth already!

Kade will probably start working at Red Bell after school after Victoria leaves this week. Then he and I can discuss all the preschool drama! Kade is taking fun classes from honors zoology to a sketch class. He's in his 7th year of the orchestra, my kid to last the longest there! He's hoping to join the electrical orchestra and be in the pit for the school spring play. Here are some of my favorite senior pics of him. 

Some of the seniors like to get a child's backpack for their senior year.

Austin practiced hard over the summer for cross country and it has shown! In the first meet of the season, two weeks ago, he hit a PR of 17:41 on his 5k, coming in 3rd, just behind his best friend, Owen. For today's meet, Owen and Austin were to be the fastest in the JV race. Well, Austin surprised everyone by leading the entire JV race and coming in first, 30 seconds before the second-place finisher! Owen still did really well, but he didn't beat his PR. He came in 3rd. Austin beat his PR by 29 seconds! He ran it in 17:12! Victoria and I had to sprint back and forth to make sure we saw him, especially at the big sledding hill they ran up twice! It was very exciting. Austin's got some good classes as well, including Spanish, finally!

2 weeks ago. Max, Owen, and Austin for most of the race. 

5 Salem boys are up on the screen, making up the top 7! Today's meet had 7 Salem boys in the top 10!

Here's where Austin started to break away more, at the base of the hill the first time. 

He was way ahead of everyone the rest of the time. 

The second time up the hill.

Coming in for the finish!

He soaked it all in!

Owen, Austin, Sam, and Max. All such good friends and really good runners!

Erik made the travel team for soccer for the Plymouth Reign club, so that'll keep him busy, especially since he'll be doing cross country through his school as well. He has a tournament this weekend and so far his team isn't doing great, but they're new together, and young, so they'll get better! And it's one of the best soccer clubs in our area. He's going to continue playing the trombone in the band and his science teacher is already excited about his help with the other students in their tectonics unit as the students need a basic understanding of geography for that. She told me he would be bored, since he not only knows the continents and oceans, which is all they need to know, but also every single other country in the world! (plus their flags and their surrounding countries and many of their capitals...) 

Erik's in the middle, defending those guys in red. 

He had just kicked the ball here.

We have loved having Victoria here when school started, last year she was already in Idaho by now. She's got a fun semester ahead with classes such as a kinesiology class and a choreography class. She's got great friends and roommates and is loving living in an apartment! We'll miss her when she leaves in 6 days. 

We'll post this on FB when she actually starts school.

Jason is still doing his thing with Ford and he was really helpful today for the xc meet. He went really early to set up our generator for the music and microphone since our team was hosting. Then he went on to take Erik to his two games today, an hour and a half away. Way to jump right in! 

Happy School Year!

FYI, Erik now has braces, since these were taken, but he hasn't let me take a picture of them yet....