The School and Snow Adventures

The Kids Go To School! Yesterday was a busy day running errands and taking a nap to rest up from all the unpacking, so no blogging got done. The kids started school last Wednesday, three days after we got here. That was my plan all along: get them back into a "normal" routine. Rebecca goes to Andrew Sibbald School, which is K-4. She is enjoying the school, which does a lot of team teaching, often combining two classes of grades allowing teachers to work with smaller or larger groups. In Calgary's system, Rebecca would have been in Grade 4, but working with the principal and teacher, her testing shows many areas she is a solid Grade 3 (above-grade in reading), so that is where she is staying, and she is very happy and settling in quite well; she knows many of her classmates' names, and the girls were very happy to get another girl, as they had received several new boys as of late.

Rebecca has had to ride a bus to and from school for the first time, but she has adapted quite well, especially after the regular driver came back from vacation. Grumpy substitute drivers were not much fun for her.

Jared is at Nickle Jr High School, which is Grades 5-9. A strange division, but they seem to keep the younger kids somewhat separated, and do many things similar to Floyd Light, where he was in Portland. He is still in Grade 6, and is making friends rather easily, as I expected.

Much of the way the school system operates is similar if not identical to what we were used to in Oregon, even using the same reading levels. :) We haven't gone looking for sports or music groups, although Jared is still playing trumpet at school. We decided to take it easy for the end of the school year, figuring out what the kids want to do over the summer.

SNOW!!!!!

I had read postings on blogs and message boards about late-season snow, and sure enough, we got to experience it this morning. It was lightly snowing when we went to bed Wednesday night, and by this morning there was nearly 18 centimeters on the cars, houses, streets, etc. That's about 7 inches! They had predicted up to 20 cm, so they were really close. By the time I went to the bus stop to get Rebecca (3:15), most of the road was snow-free, and other areas were melting and getting slushy. Oh, yeah, the kids had school. :) I read just the other day that Calgary basically has a no-snow-day policy. The kids were a little bummed, but I think they had fun playing in the snow at recess.

We will see what tomorrow brings if it freezes overnight. Luckily Dennis is in Europe right now, so he doesn't have to deal with the mess on the way to work.

The snow was very different than what I got used to in Portland--light and fluffy, but heavy. It took only about 10 minutes to clean off my car; glad I got that long-handled brush before the last snow in PDX! And I got to shovel/push snow off the driveway and sidewalk before dinner. That I don't miss from my childhood in Indianapolis!

All in all it was a good first snow for us--buses were on-time or just a few minutes late, kids got to school okay, and I didn't get buried un-covering the car. But I'd be more than happy if we didn't have any more and went back to the +15C it was on Sunday. :)

Hopefully spring is on its way wherever you are. Happy Thursday.