First Day of School 2025!

This is our first time ever starting in July.  It was Thursday, July 31st, but I still hope we never start in July again- the summers already go by way too fast!

First Day of School Pictures!

Charlotte-11th grade & driving her siblings to high school Abby-10th Oliver-10th, Miles 7th!

We moved breakfast back 15 minutes to 6:45 because of the switch to a block schedule the older 3 high school kids don't have an A-hour- so 8:15 is the latest they've ever started school.  Since most of the school starts at the same time now and Charlotte is still a nervous driver they're leaving at 7:30 AM for now to avoid the craziest traffic.  They also wait 15 minutes to leave after.  So far so good.

Charlotte has a very challenging schedule this year. Everyone says Junior year is the hardest. She was stressed before school started, but so far seems to be liking the challenge and competition of it, especially Academic Decathlon (AcDec).  She has mentioned she likes AP Language and AP US History (they shorten everything to ApLang and APUSH- which cracks me up).  She also has AP Chemistry, Seminary, Symphony orchestra again (she didn't want to try chamber this year with everything else gong on) and she's a TA for AP Spanish (Olly's class;-). She's having to stay after school several days a week for AcDec, so I am still picking up the twins in the after-school craziness sometimes.

Oliver has a lot of friends in his classes, which is fun.  He thinks AP Spanish will be his hardest class.  He's also in PreCalc, Honors English, Honors Chemistry, Seminary, and welding, which should be fun!

Abby had some friends come to the school, and some friends moved or transferred away. Her group and Olly's group still eat lunch together.  She also thinks AP Spanish will be her hardest class.  She's in, Honors English, Honors Chemistry, Algebra 2, Seminary, Symphony orchestra with Charlotte, and sports, which should be her fun one!  She's loved badminton in the past.  Both Abby & Olly are trying out the first year of the Academies at Mt. View where they choose a focus class- they are in the Engineering and Design Academy so they have a class for that.  Hopefully, the change to Academies and block schedule is a good one, it's hard to be the first transition year for so many changes- there has been a lot of pushback from parents.

Miles is still at Mesa Academy in 7th grade.  It was considered junior high last year, the way Mesa Academy lets them choose their electives and stay an extra hour but it feels more official this year.  He's taking two high school classes- Algebra 1 and Spanish 1 so that's more pressure to get a good grade.  He chose Art and Spanish for his electives this semester.  He'll have Music Theory next semester.  He doesn't have a ton of friends in his classes, but he's got a good group he eats lunch with, and they get together after school to play games online or nerf wars and birthdays.  The first week has been a hard transition.  We leave the house at 7am to meet his 7:15 bus (the Mesa Academy stop moved a bit down the street- to Jensen & Harris instead of at the church at Harris & Hope where it's been for all the 7 years I've had kids going there).  Then he doesn't get home until just after 4pm to start homework.  It's a long day, poor kid, not a lot of downtime. He's gone an hour longer than the other kids.

Miles is getting on at the new bus route.


I made sure to have peanut butter cookies after school the first day!  The kids love our cookie tradition while they tell us about their day.  We're proud of how hard they work in their challenging classes and that they're all learning to be a good friend and have good friends too. We hope it's a good year of learning and friends for each of them.