The end of an era

Well, it is official and so I can speak a bit more about it. My 3 older kids are all out of elementary school! Shocker, I know; but the weird thing about this process, is that Palmer Elementary has become 'home' to us. Our family has been in that school for 10 years! For ten years I have been growing and cultivating relationships with the staff, for ten years I have been in and out of that building almost daily. Those ten years have been so great to my kids and my family and I have so much respect for the staff there that it seriously brings me to tears to think that while I have a child heading to kindergarten in the fall, and could continue our years at Palmer - we are not.

Change is a good thing, but it is also one of the most fearful things there is to do in life. For the last few years I have had to make some decisions with my children's education that I didn't think I would be, and seeing different options that I didn't think I ever would have. I keep going through my life and seeing snippets of things that looking back, show me that oh - I guess I could have seen that coming, or what not. This year, we made the decision to have Willow stay at Congress for kindergarten.
We weren't going to at first, we had full intention of placing her at our neighborhood school - Palmer Elementary. But she wasn't sitting well with that. She has been in and out of that building so much in the last five years of her life, it should have been such a natural transition; but it wasn't. It wasn't sitting well with her, it made me re-think what I was doing for her. We had a few signs that were trying to guide us, but I ignored them (I tend to do that), and then a big one came at us. It seems to be those bigger signs that I pay attention to, and take heed of.  So after that big, final push, we filled out transfer forms. We don't see it being an issue at all for her to stay there at Congress, so that is good. It is weird to say good bye for now, to a school that I thought we had a few more good years at.

I always have Orion - he will be starting preschool in another 2 years, and so I can put him there if preschool is an option still. I guess for now, we will hold to that.


Here are some random pics from the last three years at Palmer :)
Hope you enjoy as much as we did.