All dressed up and ready to go

The signs are over the back door and say "Step into a great school year". The blobs on the ceiling are foot prints. I traced my 4 yr old's shoe and cut them out of construction paper. Mollie was my helper and she did great considering it was about 200 degrees on the bus!

Wanna see my bus?

Here she is!!! Bus 22 all cleaned up and ready for the first day of school. That was one dirty dirty bus. Some of the windows were left open over summer and each seat was coated with dirt and dust and even sand. Each seat had to be wiped, the floor swept, each window was washed. I even wiped down the ceiling and the rails over the windows. I also tried to get alot of the grime off the window frames. Than it got a good bath in the bus wash and decorated up!

This type of bus is called a transit. The engine compartment is inside the front of the bus, and the driver is sitting in front of the wheels. I really like this kind of bus. It turns sharper than the conventional (nose in front) buses.

I recieved my route lists too and HOLY CAMOLY I have 86 middle school/high school passengers!!!! Last year, not all of them rode, so we may be okay, but if they all come, it is going to take a crow bar to get them off. The route is basically the same as it was last year with a few extra stops. My kindergarten route is really different but I was expecting that. With the cost of fuel rising up and up, routes have been condensed and consolidated to maximize fuel efficency.

So, one more free day than BACK TO SCHOOL!

What goes around comes around

One of the things that I did in my youth, and still do and still love is playing the flute. I started in the 5th grade. I remeber is was hard! Learning to put all your air into a little hole than also learning how to press down the right keys so it all came out.....it was HARD! But, I stayed with it all thru high school. I play in our church orchestra now, but I do love it. I even bought an intermediate flute for myself.

Well, now my going into 6th grade daughter is learning how to play. Plus, my freshman son is a snare drummer (but is doing base drum for marching band). Melissa had "band camp" all this past week. Basically, it was teaching them how to put their instrument together, clean it and basic music reading and learning how to make a sound. Each group of instruments came at a different time each day and on Friday they had a "concert". All the groups came together and they played "Hot Cross Buns" , "Clair de lune" and 2 other songs. For kids who have only been playing for 4 days, they really did sound great.

Every time I have had to sit thru one of Nathan or Melissa's concerts I always call my mom right afterwards and thank her profussly for the years of torture....er....band concerts that I put her thru. All the sitting on of bleachers in a gym with horrible accustics and worse air conditioning, the butchering of familiar songs. The freezing football games, watching me march or do flags, traveling to other towns to watch, getting up at 3am to pick me up from school after a way out of town competition. The getting me to school early for zero hour practice than picking me up again after 6pm. It has come full circle. I have listened to bad renditions of 80's songs, seen horrible posture and the football games will be starting next month.

I CAN'T wait!!!

The Last Days

Yes, summer vaccation is winding down. In a little over a week, school will be back in session. Back to early bedtimes, early wake up times, moutains of paper sent home from school. Lunches and field trips and life keeps going on.

I can tell my own sweet precious children are ready for a change. They have been at each other's throats! They bicker over the stupidest stuff. Needless to say, it doesn't make for a very happy mama when the young'uns are fussing!

What did you do this summer? We stayed home alot. We did take a trip to Lagoon Theme Park in Utah. That was fun. We traveled with my parents and my sister's family. The only ones missing were my brother's family who deserted us to go to Bible School in Pensacola FL. I can't be too mad at them though, Kinnereth just gave birth a precious little guy named Greyson.

We also did summer school, me driving and Mollie attending. I have no clue if it helped her or not. There were no grades, no communication from the teacher nada. Just a large stack of paper that came home at the end of the session. For all the enviromental c-rap that public schools spout, they sure use a lot of trees!

My oldest son if following in my footsteps and is now a member of the high school marching band. He is a bass drummer this year and wants to play snare next year. I am very proud of him! It seems to be something he enjoys and being a band geek is not all bad :)

So, not much humor in this post. I'm tired.

Children of the Corn

There is a large cornfield right across the street from the bus garage (I LOVE country life!!!).

My middle daughter, Megan, has been comming with me on my summer school routes.

She had decided that when she grows up she wants a cornfield.

Yes, a cornfield.

Actually, she wants us to buy on NOW!!

I asked her why she wants a cornfield

"We could play hid and seek and you can walk out into the middle of it and lay down and dad could get a tractor and it just sounds like so much fun!"

I kept my big mouth shut and did not talk about how expensive a corn field is to buy, how easy it is to get lost in one, how the corn plants are actually sharp and will cut you and how many bugs live in cornfields and how wet a dirty the ground is. I just wanted to let her have a bit of dream without me ruining it. I'm amazed that I became such an adult and such a fun sucker outer.

Maybe I should buy a cornfield. Or at least go find one to get lost in

Too Much fun on the bus

Here is my son Eric and my neice Brooklyn on the bus.

Okay, it has been awhile

but I am still here. School is over (YEAH) and I have been driving a small summer school route. I get to drive the short bus!! It is a very nice bus actually. Only a couple of years old and has a lot of bells and whistles. One of those "bells" is the "No Child Left Behind Alarm". It is designed to make the driver walk to the back of the bus to check every seat and make sure that there are no sleeping or hiding children still on the bus. After turning the bus off, the beeping starts and you have 45 seconds to get to the back of the bus or the system makes the bus horn honk and all the lights flash.Well, only the new buses have this. I don't normally drive a new bus. I drive a transit (flat nose) bus that is at least 10 yrs old. I went in to the shop the Friday before my route was to begin because I knew I wasn't familliar with the bus. So I played around with the lights than decided to pull up to the fuel station to top off. If the student loading system is activated at all, the flashing amber and reds on the top of the bus, than the alarm is armed.

I pull up to the pump, turned off the bus. The bus starts beeping. My 8 yr old starts freaking

I think I just left on the headlights. Flip them off. Nope, still beeping

Right at 42 seconds I said "Oh shoot" and made a bee line for the back of the bus.

Too late

HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK

New buses have very loud horns that are just as loud inside the bus as the outside.

After a frantic 10 seconds, I figured out how to turn off the alarm. It ment turning the bus on than off again, which takes about 15 seconds. Thankfully, the mechanic wasn't in the shop or I would still be remineded daily of my mistake.

But, I am thankfull. Another sub driver had picked done a elementry route than went over to the high school to pick up. We are suposed to turn off our engines at the schools. He did and didn't know how to disarm the alarm. So he got to sit at the high school, after school, fully loaded with a honking bus. He had to call on the radio to ask how to turn the alarm off and we all could hear the honk over the radio.

It doesn't seem quite so funny now :)