I am so looking forward to this week! We are finally back in a normal schedule. The kids are all here their normal days, my in office schedule is the normal one, and we have no special obligations any night this week. We haven't had this since school let out and I am ready for some boring routine around here.
In very Monday morning vibes, I am currently battling the bus coordinator for the district, yet again. She acts like we're the only family in the world who has two different households that the kids go to. Last year I had to send her a copy of our divorce decree to get her to agree to allowing the girls to take two different buses, depending on which house they were going to. She kept trying to tell me it wasn't possible. This year she's back at it again with her crazy strict request forms for special circumstances. She claims that if we have a week where the schedule changes, we have to email her in advance and she has to approve it and grant the girls permission to go to the other parent's house that day. Guess what lady, that will not be happening. My kids will go home to whichever house they need to that day. Our schedule is pretty well set, but stuff happens. Both bus drivers know the kids and the buses are not over-crowded at all so I don't understand what the big deal is. On the bus to my house, it's barely half full some days!
We spent the weekend crisscrossing the Midwest for sleepaway camps. No power Monday- Thursday. Hotel Wednesday night locally. Hotel half way to sleep away camp Thursday. 6 hours of driving and pick up on Friday. This camp is 4.5 hours away, so a 8-9 hour drive. We can do it in one day for drop off, but not pick up since pick up is 10:30 am and an hour the wrong direction time zone wise.
Saturday camp laundry, women's soccer team game, and Taylor Swift tribute concert (not the actual T.S. concert). Sunday sleep in, and then drop DD off at her second sleepaway camp. This one is 2.5 hours away so 5 hours round trip. Hung out with friends at the concert and after camp drop off which is nice because I go long stretches without seeing friends and then I see them all at once lol.
I'm about done emotionally and physically with camps and driving for camps. Luckily this is the last one. We pick her up on Saturday, and then they molder for 2.5 weeks at home until school starts. Which is fine because I am tired. DH will complain that the kids are home, but he complains, or maybe the right word is comments, either way, so I don't care.
Post by librarychica on Jul 22, 2024 9:14:39 GMT -5
twinmomma, that blows my mind! Here school busses just … exist. You just get on one. Any changes just need to be sent to the teacher. Kids ride home with friends all the time, let alone to their other parent’s house. This is the first year we’ve even had to register our intent to take a bus.
I had a nice weekend. Did a family wide deep clean of the house, had some couple friends over for board game night Saturday, caught up on laundry, watched movies with the kids. All good things.
This week is suspenseful at work? But not busy. I am waiting on a lot of information but don’t have a crazy number of tasks or anything. Thursday night I’m going to pick up three of our nieces and they’ll stay through Sunday, so DD1 and DD2 are counting down.
It was a weird and frustrating and awesome weekend. Friday just about broke me for work... none of the systems work, people submitted "practice" expense reports and didn't tell me that they weren't real, so I paid them, figured out that I wasn't empowered to do a lot of what my job entails... just super frustrating. I told DH that if this was happening anywhere else, I would have already quit. Giving it another chance and hoping this week is better.
DD1 came home on Saturday after 4 weeks away at camp. She is struggling. A lot of her friends - campers and counselors - have said that they're not coming back next year, after many summers together. She's been so sad since she came home. A lot of tears, a lot of time in bed. We have been encouraging her to make plans with friends, or we even just tried to have a family day out at the pool. She only spent a short time out there before going back to bed... but at least she came out for a little while. DH is taking her camping in 2 weeks, so I'm going to get her to start prepping the camper for their trip, and then we'll go to the beach house later this week. Hopefully some activity and a change of scenery will cheer her up.
Our week is a bit up in the air. We'll head to the beach house at some point, and come back early next week to prep for DH and DD1's camping trip. I managed to get through all of the gross camp laundry over the weekend, which was no small feat. Hoping the kids will make plans and see friends this week. We also waited for DD1 to go see the new Despicable Me movie, so not sure we will do that here, or go to the drive-in near our beach house (none of us have ever been to a drive-in, so that would be really fun).
waverly, DD has a tooth extraction with an oral surgeon on Thursday. It’s oral surgery week here at WPs! lol.
The weekend was crazy. DD had a birthday party on Sunday and got last minute invited to go hang with a few friends Saturday afternoon and evening. DS had an open house Saturday for a new Esports team that he’s super excited about. I had a haircut and color Saturday. I really needed a restful weekend after traveling last week with DD, and that was not it.
I’m taking Wednesday off this week because a friend is visiting from England. She’s having a rough go, so instead of going to a restaurant, she and another friend are coming to our house. They are my two oldest and dearest friends, so that will be an awesome visit.
twinmomma , that blows my mind! Here school busses just … exist. You just get on one. Any changes just need to be sent to the teacher. Kids ride home with friends all the time, let alone to their other parent’s house. This is the first year we’ve even had to register our intent to take a bus.
I had a nice weekend. Did a family wide deep clean of the house, had some couple friends over for board game night Saturday, caught up on laundry, watched movies with the kids. All good things.
This week is suspenseful at work? But not busy. I am waiting on a lot of information but don’t have a crazy number of tasks or anything. Thursday night I’m going to pick up three of our nieces and they’ll stay through Sunday, so DD1 and DD2 are counting down.
This was how it was growing up, but not here. You get 1 pick up and 1 drop off location and that's it. I don't believe they make any accommodations for divorce.
twinmomma, I'm so sorry for the bus debacle. we live in a small community and I know the transportation manager for the school district personally. She's been tremendously helpful. I submitted like four different drop off locations for my girls in the afternoons and they all got approved.
mae0111, I hope your daughter starts to feel better soon. There's always a element of letdown after a great Camp experience. It's so sad that so many of her friends and favorite counselors are moving on.
Our weekend was really nice. We're fostering not one but two puppies. There are Siberian husky mixes. They've been a really big hit in the neighborhood. It's gotten DD1 out of her shell a bit. We spent more time outside and with friends than usual, which was good for all of us including the pups.
This week will be full. Next Saturday, our family leaves for the Pacific Northwest. The girls have camps there next week and the following week. H and DD2 fly out from Seattle the day after their second camp. They're spending 2 weeks in Fiji! Needless to say, we have some extensive packing to do this week.
Starting today, DD2 is going to a day camp each day. She is also starting voice lessons this week. Just trials to see how they go.
DD1 has no camps, which I think is perfectly fine. Her volleyball club rather abruptly shut down. She's going to practices at a new club starting tomorrow. So now we're away, so we are going to the practices this week to see if it's a good fit.
I'm hoping she does like this club and we can resume playing when we return from our trip. Not sure if she's just getting less interested in volleyball or more selective as her skills are building, but clubs and clinics seem to be a harder sell they used to be.
twinmomma that is frustrating and pretty funny that the bus lady is on a power trip - sorry you have to deal with that We have zero school buses at any level where we live! Everyone is on their own. Luckily we can walk to elementary and middle.
I am on vacation this week on Martha’s Vineyard (though of course still doing some work as usual) - this island is really lovely. My parents have never paid for a vacation before but are paying for this one because they wanted to do something big for their 50th wedding anniversary.
It was rough getting here with the boys from San Diego but we narrowly made the car ferry Saturday after sitting in hours of standstill traffic. DH and DD fly in today after staying home a couple extra days for her sports, and their flights seem to be on time as of now (they’re in the air). The kids are in half day camps with their cousins so I just finished my book on the beach and am now catching up a little on work before going to pick up kids.
My parents are both in their mid-70s and I know we won’t have all that many week long vacations with the whole family in our future given the 7 grandkids’ crazy schedules and us all living on opposite coasts. So I’m trying to really soak it up.
Other than field trips, I've never ridden a bus to school. Or sent my children on one. I'm clueless as to how they work. (Same thing with lockers, which DD will have to figure out... soon!)
I've had a great trip with my sister.. went to a wine festival, took her friends boat out, and finally took care of my dad's ashes and buried him at sea. It was amusing because everyone who knew we were doing it kept thinking it was a somber occasion... we've held on to that urn for 35 years! We are not sad and had some good laughs about it.
I stopped in to see my mom, she's doing fabulously wonderful, her boyfriend Tom was more social than we've ever seen him, and kept referring to her as sweetheart, very gentlemanly. I'm glad she found someone who makes her smile and that memory care is working out for her. (She can't remember anything else, but somehow, she remembers Tom!)
I'm just killing time now before heading to the airport. I miss my kids and the real world. And my shower. Mostly my shower the most. Shhh.
When we went to the middle school open house at the end of 5th grade, all the staff warned us that it's very different in middle school and kids can just hop on any bus. There's no formal tool like Pick Up Patrol to track where the kids go after dismissal. So I was fully prepared for this to not be an issue at all. Then over the summer last year, this new lady started and apparently she loves the power of her bus planning job! I have heard of SO many issues and drama among the families we know with two households. Last year bus drivers were refusing to let kids on because it wasn't the recorded day for that bus, even when they knew the kids and the two household situations. It was nuts! I had hoped it would be better this year, but we're right back where we started last summer. I can tell this lady truly doesn't get it because the form she requires doesn't even make sense. It makes you fill it out as if it's a special request for a single day, not a set schedule of any kind.
twinmomma, that is ridiculous. Now if the girls were in kindergarten or 1st grade, I could see needing to give the teachers a heads up to help them get on the right but not middle schoolers. Can you school admin help at all?
Weekend was fine. Saturday, we had a lazy movie day. DH had to drive to Bend to pick up his fixed paintball gun. I told him to take the day and hike, kayak, commune with nature instead of driving over and back just to pick something up. Nope he left at 6am and was home by 2. It is a 3-hour drive to and from. Sunday the weather was cool, so I did a ton of yard work and am paying for it today with a sore body.
My week is short as I'm taking half day off Wednesday and all-day Thursday. Our friend is moving so DD and I are going to do something with her Thursday morning. I actually told my clients that have payrolls this week that I was out of town both Wednesday and Thursday and needed stuff by 9am on Tuesday so fingers crossed they actually follow directions. The 3 clients this week are born procrastinators.
Post by supertrooper1 on Jul 22, 2024 13:28:20 GMT -5
I'm back to work today for the first time since the 4th of July. It's kind of nice being back to normal even though I had a great vacation. It was a lot of running around but worth it. It's strange that Beau is off the next two days and I'm not. Usually I'm the one that has days off when he doesn't.
We had a good weekend. Friday we went out to dinner with my parents and Beau's mom and brother. Saturday Beau and I went to a concert. It was outdoors and we thought we were going to fry in the sun, but the breeze from the water kept us cool. The concert was great. It was a double act and we had seen the 2nd singer last summer. He put on a different show from last year but it was still great. I'd never seen the first act but I'd go back to see her again.
Yesterday Beau and I went riding with his son and brother. They wanted to go up a hard trail that I've been on before and knew I wouldn't be able to get my bike up some rock step ups without help and they agreed to help me. But it still sucked and it kind of put a damper on my riding trip.
I mean, the school is responsible for getting them home so they can’t just hop on whatever bus they want, but it seems like there’s a really easy solution here. They’re going to be on one bus or the other. How ridiculous.
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”