First day of school

Yesterday Rebekah started 2nd grade.

(Hence the 2.)

She's in Mrs. Comish's class. Mrs. Comish inherited Mrs. O'Donnell's blue-tongued skink when the 5th grade teacher retired at the end of last year, so Bekah is really excited to have it in her class.

She's pretending to feed the skink, which apparently eats lettuce and hamburger.

Analee started kindergarten with Mrs. Schuster the same afternoon.

 

(Hence the K.)

Holding her Olivia backpack (which is funny, because her best friend in kindergarten is named Olivia) and wearing the Tinkerbell shoes (they light up!) and shirt she picked out. She specifically wanted her hair done that way because Bekah had worn it the same way to church the day before. Ana's hair was BARELY long enough to get the two braids together.

Seth took Bekah to the bus stop in the morning, but since Ana doesn't go to school until later and since parents are in charge of getting their kindergarteners to and from school the first week, Miriam and I dropped her off after lunch.

It reminds me so much of this picture of Bekah on her first day of kindergarten.

Miriam is at a bit of a loss with her big sisters gone. After Bekah left on the first day, she kept asking, "Where's Bekah?" And then after we dropped Ana off, it turned into, "Where's Ana?"

After I took the picture of Ana outside the school, I heard Miriam saying, "Cheese!" So I had to get a shot of her too.

Analee and her classmates outside the school. The teacher handed out name tag necklaces and led them in after they had all gathered. Miriam tried getting one as well--she's been telling everyone she's in kindergarten too--but strangely the teacher didn't have one with her name on it.

Both girls came home über-excited about their classes, friends and teachers. Miriam was excited too. I don't think she quite gets the whole, "You get to go to kindergarten when you're a big 5-year-old. How old are you now? That's right, 2. You've got three more years to go" thing. Give her another week of not getting on the bus, and I think she'll catch on.

Lone Star Geyser

As mentioned, I had a 5-miler in Yellowstone planned for last month (July 25). This would be Rebekah's second "real" hike (the first one is chronicled here), and although she dragged her feet on the way there ("It's hot!" "How much farther, Grandpa?" "I'm tired!"), she found a sudden burst of energy when she realized that she had made it to the geyser and lasted all the way back to the van.

We (meaning Grandma Scott, Grandpa Scott, Rebekah and I) drove to Yellowstone that morning, made it through the construction-congested drive to the parking lot and set off for Lone Star Geyser. It's 2.5 miles in on a flat road (it was actually paved a while ago, so they allow bikes as well as hikers on it), so my hips didn't cry as much on this hike as on the last one.

 Andrea (at 29.5 weeks, hence the beer gut) and Rebekah on the way to the geyser. 

The geyser erupts every 3ish hours, so we had to wait around for a while before it would go off again. We took time to eat lunch, and Rebekah did plenty of exploring.

Rebekah performing "experiments" with the geyser run-off. She borrowed empty Ziploc bags from us, gathered the water in them, and dumped them on various plants to see if the water would kill them. 

When it finally went off, we got to enjoy 15 minutes of eruption and a fair amount of chilly geyser rain when the wind changed directions and blew it on us.

Rebekah playing in the mist.

Bekah booked it on the way out (she says the root beer in her hand gave her the energy she needed), but we stopped a few places along the way to identify some wildflowers (fireweed, aster) and learn some new ones (Lewis monkey flower, harebells).

Andrea pointing out wildflowers to Rebekah.

After a quick visit to Old Faithful to see it and Beehive geyser erupt, to buy a Lone Star Geyser patch at the gift shop and to get some ice cream, we drove back out and headed home.

We saw this guy between Madison Junction and West Yellowstone. At first, I thought it was a wolf. Turns out it was just a really big coyote.

 Ana can't wait until she gets to join the annual Yellowstone hike (apparently 6 years old is the magical age for hiking in our family) next year. To see more pictures, click here and scroll down.