Back to School

 School days, school daze... We are experiencing a healthy dose of being dazed these days.

The past week has been spent getting ready for school to begin. All three Smithlings are hittin' the books this month. Millie's school began on August 22nd. Our son's classes at Univ. of Texas at Arlington begin on August 25th. Liesey's two college level classes (at Tarrant County College) begin on the 30th of the month, and she will also be taking a few of her senior year classes on-line at home. I feel like I need to enroll in a class, or two, too!

For the first time in her life, Millie Girl is heading off to "real" school. What an adventure this has been! The school supply list was long, but we all worked together and even had fun helping the school girl locate every single thing, plus a few extras. Hooray for Staples!

Schedule day was overwhelming; even for Mom and Dad. Millie's new school has 850+ students in 7th and 8th grade, so there were LOTS of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen-year-olds everywhere. And there were just as many parents as students, if not more. It's a good thing it's a big campus.

Our youngest daughter is now a Keller Middle School Comanche.

The middle school that Millie goes to used to be the high school in Keller, so it is a large-ish campus. Everything is bigger in Texas? Uh-huh. I told Millie that she has more students in her 7th grade class than I had in my entire high school. And my high school was made up of four grades!

 Do you think this student has enough pencils?

As an end-of-summer-last-hurrah-kind-of thing, our family went out to eat on Sunday afternoon. The restaurant we chose was in Addison, which is north of Dallas. Eating at the Magic Time Machine was interesting, indeed. Paul Bunyan was our waiter, and Superman breezed by our table a few times. There were other characters there, too. The waitstaff is made up of various fictional characters, and I think it is a requirement for each waiter to be a stand-up comedian, as well. The food was good (not knock-your-socks-off-great), but the entertainment value was exceptional. We laughed the entire time we were there.

Strawberry shortcake is the cure for calming the back-to-school jitters.

Our family posed for a photo, but when the "photo ninja" brought the finished product, we could tell that something went horribly wrong in the developing process.

YIKES!!!!! Mr. Smith is pretty scary looking.
We all agreed that Millie looks like she could be Gregg Allman's brother or cousin.


Lord, I was born a ramblin' man...

The first day of school brought smiles and a few nerves, but no tears.

I'm sure Bart and Jemima are going to miss Millie while she's away all day long.
Don't they look sad?

And she's off...