This past week was a big week for us. Many things these days are new to us, but we had an especially big week of new beginnings.

On Monday, the week started with Greyson starting “school”. He is going one afternoon a week to a playgroup on his own. He’s been staying with a babysitter for about a year now, but he hasn’t been away from me to go to an actual childcare center. I was curious to see how it went. He knows that Isla goes to school so we’ve been talking a lot about him going.

He took off down the street to go inside, and once inside, he was so thrilled and didn’t even care that I was trying to say goodbye to him. Not a concern in the world that we left… and when we returned to get him, the report was that he did great. He told us that he colored, played with Thomas, and played outside.

While Greyson was at school, I took the opportunity to spend a little quality time with Isla. We went to a cafe and had hot chocolate  and a cookie. We made a stop to ride the car outside of the cafe. However, she kept saying how much she missed Greyson. I guess it was one of the only or few times that Greyson has been away from us. It also came out in the discussion that she wanted to pick him up early because she wanted to play with the toys at his school.

Also on Monday, we got to welcome Baby Rhett. Brent’s brother, Justin, and his wife, Jana, had a little boy Rhett Joseph. They are now home from the hospital and doing well.

On Tuesday, Isla started her new school. She’s attending St. Leonard’s College. No, she’s not a child prodigy; colleges are not universities here. She’s really been missing school since she stopped going in April, and she’s been asking almost daily when she will start at her new school and make new friends. Other than being pretty exhausted, she did really well. School uniforms are a big deal here, so you’ll notice she’s decked out in her St. Leonard’s uniform.

{As a side note, the school year runs from the end of January to the beginning of December. Summer and Christmas breaks are the same timeframe here. There are four terms and between each term, there are 2-3 weeks of school holidays.  A much different schedule than the US school system. So, Isla just started Term 3.}

The teacher came to me the second day and said that she found Isla’s passion which was drama/creative arts class. She said that her eyes were so big and she was so excited that the teacher had to get out her camera and take a picture. The children have tadpoles in the classroom, so in drama class, they were acting out how tadpoles grow into frogs.

The kids also started swimming lessons this week. I didn’t get any good pictures because I go in the water with Greyson and for Isla’s lesson, I was too busy trying to keep Greyson out of the water. But I could not have been prouder of Isla. She hasn’t really been around water much. For the trial lesson, she wouldn’t even go in the water for the first 10 minutes. For this lesson, she told me that she was going to go under water. The lesson started off with her being very hesitant to try things, but then, she began to try the activities, and sure enough, by the end, she ducked half of her little head under the water. Her strong determination sure did come through.

I thought that I’d get in on the learning experiences and enrolled in a photography class. For the past two Saturdays, I’ve gone into the city and taken a beginner’s photography course at the Centre for Adult Education. As some of you may know, I bought a nice camera in January and have hardly turned it on with all the chaos of moving. I figured that I better take a class to kick start my learning. Plus, we have a long weekend planned in two weeks that’s in a great place to take photos. I’m not sure if these qualify for good photos, but here are some that I think I might have captured the concept we were learning… { For the biker picture, I was trying to get it in focus while the rest was blurry- I almost caught it. The truck might be a bit better.}

I didn’t want Brent to be left out of this post, so I asked him what he had learned this week. He informed me that he learned how to open up a beer bottle using another beer bottle.

So, there you go, it was a good week for everyone.