First Day of Preschool

Kayla started her first day of preschool on September 9th! Kayla and I were both so excited (and nervous), we didn't sleep too well the night before. Here she is at her preschool, waiting for her class to open up. When I took her to her class, and handed her off to her teachers, I could feel my eyes start to well up. The realization that Kayla is no longer by little baby hit me. . . I wasn't really expecting this response. . . luckily, I was able to compose myself before totally losing it.

Her first day of preschool ended up being one crazy day. After dropping her off at preschool, I drove to Greensville, SC's airport to pick up the Mariluch family. As soon as we got back to our house, I got back in the car to go pick up Grammy and Papa Gickling from the Charlotte airport. Luckily, I have a wonderful friend, whose daughter attends the same preschool - and she picked up Kayla and took her back to her house. I felt bad not picking her up on her first day of school, but I felt even worse that she wouldn't be going back for another week and a half.

But she didn't mind, as nothing could be better than returning home to a house bustling with cousins! Kayla was especially excited about McKenzie as she played chase, hide-and-seek, and all the fun games Kayla loves to play.

Luke was excited to see Lexie, his girl cousin who is only 6 weeks younger than him, can you tell?. Well, I guess I should say we thought he would be excited to see her. Instead, he was overwhelmed by her - and spent much of the next week running away from her with tears running down his cheeks. We started calling Luke the "gentle giant" as the littlest confrontation started the tears.

We spent the next day touring Charlotte so the Mariluch family could get the lay of the land. Our excursions led us up to a park at Lake Norman - wow that is a beautiful area - we toured around million dollar neighborhoods, wishing we could live in such a neighborhood. We also showed them how we eat in the South, by taking them to our favorite Fish Camp, where one meal could literally feed the whole family, as well as to Flying Biscuit, where they make delicious breakfast food all day long. It was a fun couple days before leaving on our Charleston/Hilton Head trip.