Preschool

Little Miss Carly could hardly wait to begin preschool. She has been talking about it non stop since we began preparing for her older siblings to go back to school! WHERE she would attend preschool has been thrown around here and there and as of today, I am her new preschool teacher!

The school district used to have a program called Kick Start Kindergarten. It was geared for students who would be entering Kindergarten in the fall and it began in January and went until the end of the school year, but with my not so good luck, the governor of California decided to change it all up this year and the school district now offers a program called "Transitional Kindergarten". Transitional Kindergarten lasts the entire school year (beginning in fall instead of winter) and follows the SJUSD calendar which would be every day excluding holidays and teachers work days. I was relieved when I found out that they were still doing something, but then I got the news. The news that the only children that would be allowed into this program would be the ones whose birthdays fell between November 2nd and December 2nd. Since Carly's birthday isn't until January 2nd, that put us in the "sorry, you don't get the same advantage as the kids who will be in your kindergarten class will" category. Yes, you read that right! Carly will not be able to go to preschool because her birthday falls after the cut off date which is only a one month span...(STUPID) with the same kids who will be in her kindergarten class. Can someone please explain that genius idea to me? Why even spend the money on it if it only allows a small group of children in it? As of today, the class is not even full! It's so infuriating to me that they can't make something as simple as preschool for all those entering kindergarten the following year available. When I went and talked with the school district, they told me to put Carly is State Preschool, which would be awesome except for the fact that we make way too much money to even qualify for that program and soooo, here we are...homeschooling. The good news is, I have come to terms with the idiotic law that some dumb person should have never made in the first place (why change a good thing) and am excited to teach Carly what she needs to know for Kindergarten. Actually, the kid already knows everything she needs to know for kindergarten...so we will move on to first grade standards, but we need a little refresher first! Here's to Carly's homeschoolin' preschoolin' awesomeness!

School

The fact that my kids started school today made me realize that I have been a huge slacker with blogging. I have a file on my desktop that is titled "Things to Blog". This is where I put pictures of happenings that I want to share in our little Durling Days corner. Sometimes the folder is empty (a rare occasion) and other times...ok, most times, there are many items in it. Currently, I have a full file with numerous items waiting for their fantastic story to be told. One such story would be the last day of school...um, of the last school year. So, I thought that I would simply title this post "school" as it will include not only the first day of school pictures I took today, but the last day of school pictures...last school year. Jumbling posts together is just my style isn't it?

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL 2011/2012









Since Raya and Malia are "big" now...I didn't really get any pictures of them throughout the day, but here is Ethan with his two teachers





He got an awesome Achievement Award for Math and Art



And simply enjoyed his first grade of elementary school:



I did a lot of soul searching and research just before the school year ended last year and decided that I wanted to move Malia and Ethan out of their school and try and get them into a different school that has a different philosophy and a different style of learning. Ethan got in but Malia did not. We are still crossing our fingers that an opening will become available in the next couple of weeks. If not, then we will stick it out and I will continue to have 3 kids at 3 different schools. Because of that, I will be spending a great deal of time in the car waiting...I sure hope I don't get car butt!

I tried a little creative flair to this years first day of school pictures. It's always a rush trying to get out the door so we can beat traffic and be onetime, but I managed to capture these cute kids growing up...way.too.fast! I just had them hold a blank piece of paper in their pictures and then let photoshop do the magic later. Here are my big babies!

Raya:



Malia:



Ethan:





Carly didn't want to be in the pictures because she was working hard at her "school" which consisted of a workbook and a pencil while sitting in her carseat.

Malia was killin' it on the playground before school in her awesome shades and sparkly hat!



And Ethan found his classroom and his seat and got to sit next to his new teacher!





When I picked Ethan up from school. I didn't even have to pry it out of him and he said "I had a really good day at school today. I liked it." He came out with a cool hat and necklace that he let his little sister wear to the car!





Happy first day of school and I guess, last day of last school year too. Say that three times real fast.

Vacation Redemption

The last time I posted about a family vacation, it was the family vacation from hell. Here is our redemption vacation:

We left home in the beginning of August. Normally, we would be leaving 110 degree weather, but to our surprise. It was a cool 70 degrees with rain drops sprinkling down on us. Really SacTown? The week we leave?



The skies continued to be bear beautiful sights most of the way there:



The smell through Colinga...Not so much!



The drive was pretty long...so we passed the time with different electronic devices. The kids had iPads/iPods and me and my camera











Our plan was to find a hotel close to Six Flags Magic Mountain, but to our disappointment, there was NOTHING for 45 miles around it! 1am and no place to stay...we had to keep driving. We finally found a place that had one room left. 2am and everyone was tired. We decided that the hotel was centrally located and stayed there the entire vacation. It was a pretty cool chain hotel. It was in an old factory type place. Kind of interesting:



The next day we went to Magic Mountain.



It was seriously 110 degrees outside. The park is full of shade, but after the long drive the day before and the heat, I was just super exhausted and really didn't want to be there. The lines were way too long. We spent like 2 hours in line for a water ride. I was wet the rest of the night. Patrick took the girls on a ride called Ninja. It was a serious roller coaster. Carly went. She said it was so scary but so fun. Ethan didn't want to go so we just waited for the others to ride their ride. We explored a little bit around the park but for the most part, we made funny faces:







As the weather cooled and lines grew shorter, we enjoyed the park a little more...especially the roller coaster the kids went on 15 times in a row until the park closed



The next day we headed the other way down to San Diego area and met up with some friends who we met a few years ago. Malia got to hang out with her old BFF at LegoLand. She had a major blast and so did everyone else...Especially Ethan!





The park was amazing! I wonder how many total legos are in the park. I know That this Albert Einstein head had over 1 million legos in it



There were a lot of cool lego displays. Pictures never do the real thing justice, but it's better than nothing

















Ethan's favorite part was all the Star Wars stuff they had. He was able to tell us all the names of the ships, the characters, and places of Star Wars. He truly is a Star Wars fan! Patrick actually took Ethan off on their own while us girls explored the rest of the park. They spent a huge amount of time in a big creation room where they were able to build lego cars and race them. Ethan was in Lego Heaven and us girls had fun too. I actually went on a roller coaster and did not...I repeat DID NOT get sick! That was a first!











Towards the end of the day, the lines for the water rides grew short. In fact, the girls didn't even get off of one of the rides for like 6-7 times in a row. They were sopping wet! Seriously Sopping...and it was kinda cold out!



The end of LegoLand came and we had to say goodbye to our friends Elora and Dee Dee but not without buying a new BFF necklace for the girls to have to remember their special time spent together.



The next day we got up early and took the kids down to the pool at the hotel. They had been begging and begging to swim, so we let them for an hour or so. Then we packed up our stuff and started the long trek home. We got home 2 days earlier than originally planned which made for a nice couple of days to just relax and chill before the kids went back to school...yes, school...already! I will say that this family trip was definitely one of our better ones. Probably because of all the electronic devices and the fact we didn't have a colicky baby this time around...We actually all got along...for the most part anyway.