look out, fourth grade, here we come

so i'm taking a quick break from the hawaii recaps to report on this most momentous occasion:

man, already? you're thinking.  well, yeah, me too.  it seemed like just yesterday that we were looking at the broad expanse of all those lazy summer days ahead of us, making a list of things we wanted to do and places to go, thinking about scheduling fun playdates with all sorts of friends.  and here we are at the beginning of the new school year already and more than half of those things remain unchecked.  d-oh!  guess it'll have to wait till next year.  in the meantime, here's the annual "first day with the chalkboard" photo:

yeah, she's still wearing those dang glasses.  i did ask her to take them off for another shot, though:

and then we gathered up all of the supplies we'd bought from the list we'd been given, packed them into the car and headed off.  the first day of school is always such a pain in the ass, with people having forgotten all of the parking lot rules in two short months and losing their damn minds in car lines and whatnot.  i decided to skip the parking lot altogether for drop-off and found a spot on a nearby side street and then we made our way to school.

the chaos once we got onto campus was crazy overwhelming.

mostly because starting with this year, she and her friends are now on the other side of campus.  the side where the big kids go, where they hang out in the gym and the cool outdoor lunch plaza without the little kid playground areas.  so crazy.  neither of us knew where we were supposed to go.  it was all brand new for both of us, but luckily it wasn't hard to find her classroom.

we'd arrived somewhat early, because i knew she'd want time to squeal with her friends over who was in which class and swap stories about their summer.  i got to catch up with a bunch of my mom friends too, which is always fun.  pictures were taken with friends, and they enjoyed a brief reunion with last year's teacher.  it was so sweet to watch them.

i managed to get this before it was time for them to line up, meet their new teacher and head on into class.

the moms took advantage of the photo op too:

a handful of us reassembled at a local restaurant to celebrate the first drop-off of the year.  and what's a celebration without at least one mimosa?

during the first week of school, the kids are dismissed an hour early.  over the rest of the school year, they get out early like this every wednesday along with a few other special occasion days.  it seemed like i'd just left by the time i returned to pick up the bean and two of her BFFs to grab a quick after school snack and then take them to their math tutoring program.  and since i hadn't gotten them together that morning, we took advantage of that backdrop one more time:

and another group selfie in the car:

it wouldn't be the first day of school without this collage.  as the years go by i'm going to run out of layout options for this thing:

hello, fourth grade!  it definitely promises to be a fun year with all sorts of memories waiting to be made.