Beth's big month

Why is this little girl so happy? Cause she's going to her dance lessons! Beth has started taking some big steps in her young life. We wanted to get her more involved with activities earlier than Kenny because Beth seemed noticeably more shy as a toddler (surprising to some of you, I'm sure!). We also wanted to ease her transition to school, and help with her academic and social development, so this month she started a two-day per week preschool at the local Methodist church (no, we're not converting--they just had the best program in town).

So, not quite reminiscent of Lisa's recent blog posting on her first day of school, we dropped Beth off at her preschool a rainy morning last week.

I joined Hope and Stephen (Kenny had already been dropped off at his school) in the effort. Beth's classroom is small (only 12 kids in her class) but full of neat things, and this seemed to help her transition. Our fears that she'd have a meltdown when she realized we were leaving her there alone quickly evaporated as she easily blended into her new setting. Beth was far more comfortable than many of her classmates, for whom separation anxiety was a major issue. Beside an incident at snack time when she didn't give up her partially finished drink on time, she seemed to do very well, and we were all very proud of her. Kenny's been doing well at school, too, adapting to the rigors of first grade nicely.

We ended up getting between 7 and 10 inches of rain in the Monticello area from Tropical Storm Gustav (depending on what weather station you looked at). We fared well at our home--power outages were brief, and tree damage was limited. Around town, though, a number of large old trees fell, and some people were without power for most of the week. There are still quite a few people in the state without power, although this shouldn't last much longer. Most Louisiana evacuees have returned home.

This weekend had lovely weather, so we took in a picnic supper yesterday:

and then I took the kids to a Boll Weevil football game:

where we joined our friends the Kuttenkuler's (here are Kenny and Beth pictured with Beau K.):

We only stayed for part of the game, as I was tired from working on the church yard in the morning, but we had a lot of fun, and the Fightin' Weevils won handily to go 2-0 on the year. Thus, it was a good day: