rachel's continued ramblings

really? yup. me. I signed my kid up for school. like, real school. like, in a classroom. with a teacher. that’s not me. shocking! tomorrow morning, layla starts kindergarten. I’ve gone back and forth about the homeschooling thing. and what it came down to, is that I really don’t want to do it. that paired with the fact that layla really likes classroom-type stuff, and kept asking all summer long when she could go back to her preschool, seemed like a recipe for a mediocre experience, at best. enough explaining. she’s going. end of story. (for now, at least.) so with her going to school, and shane going back to my mom’s, I’m officially, no longer, a homeschool mom. guess I have to change my profile, huh? she’s really looking forward to it. we went to the open house last night, saw the classroom and met her teacher… whom she has talked about all day today. we met a few classmates as well, including the son of some people we sorta know. mom went to trinity (before my time), but is mutual f...

this has been something of a crazy weekend! but lots of fun. it was the weekend of 4 million bbq’s. okay, how about 3. could have been 4, but we were bad neighbors and skipped one to get a lot of much needed yardwork done. bbq #1: dave’s company picnic was out at tolt macdonald. it’s always great to get together with all of dave’s co-workers who I see twice – maybe three times- a year, and their families. yup. I love making small talk with a bunch of people I don’t really know, but should because I’ve met them so many times, but really don’t because all I’ve ever done is met them and made small talk. hmmm. okay, I’m exaggerating. it wasn’t bad. the kids definitely had fun. there was a bouncy house! well, some of the kids. shane was skeptical at first. see how enthusiastic he is? but he did eventually decide to go in, and then later, he and dave played a little whiffle ball, and eventually bailed on us completely and went to start a soccer match. and then I pulled the kids out of the...

in an attempt to recover from depression over our early morning goodbyes, we picked up jordan, and drove back into sacramento one last time, to do something I’ve been wanting to do for YEARS! in connection with the california state railroad museum, which we visited on tuesday , you can take a short, scenic train ride, pulled by a working steam locomotive! supposedly… so I tried not to make too big of a stink, and enjoyed the fact that it was still a train ride, even if it was pulled by a diesel. anyone want to see the governator? there’s the capitol! yes, that is a real conductor, punching my ticket! the replacement locomotive: when you get to the ‘end of the line’ in baths, the engine unhooks, switches tracks, pulls past the waiting train, switches tracks again, and then couples to the other end of the train to pull it back to the station. and I had to take a picture of the really ugly gold bridge that is a landmark in sacramento. seriously. it’s metallic! this was our tra...