“There is so much to do! Thank goodness we still have a month before school starts!” I heard my mom say to herself as she began unpacking the boxes in the kitchen. I came in and asked what we could have for breakfast. She pulled a box of frozen breakfast sandwiches from the freezer that she grabbed from the store. She managed to have the microwave ready and some paper plates on the counter. I made one for me and Emily and took them up to our new “loft”. “Thank you!” Emily said as she grabbed the sandwich. We sat on the mattress in her new room talking about how we would set up the loft. Since we shared a room, we had items we shared that we decided would go in our loft. We had a table and chairs, a TV, and a double Velcro folding cushion, that we decided to use as our couch in from of the TV. We couldn’t actually move this stuff, we were just kids, but we talked about our plans for the large area and were ready to tell the grown-ups when they came upstairs with it all! As for our rooms, we planned those on our own!
After breakfast, my mom took a break from unpacking to take us to Royal Village School to register for fall. I was going into 3rd grade and Emily was going into 6th grade. We would be in the same building this year! “Yay, Ems! We can see each other at school this year!” Emily said, “Great! Maybe we will have lunch together!” Royal Village Schools were small. There was one campus, and it had sidewalks that went between each of the three schools. There was a K-6 elementary school, a 7-8 Middle school, and a 9-12 high school. The campus had 1 large bus lot that was in the center of all the schools, and the high school had a football field and track, while the elementary school had their amazing playground. We went in the elementary school office and met the secretary, Miss Blatt, who led my mom to the computer lab to complete the online registration process. After we were done in the computer lab, Miss Blatt gave us a tour of the school. Every grade had pods. Each Pod was a large community room, and 3 classrooms around it that led into the community room. This was cool. I never had a school like this before. I would be in my own classroom mostly, but we would get together with the other 3rd grade classes for “pod time” each day, too. The 6th grade was the same, but with older kid stuff inside!
After we were done at the school, we went home and spent the rest of the day unpacking and making our new house “home”. John worked a half day and came home early so he could help move the big stuff. By the end of the night, the furniture was all in place, my room was finished, except the wall stuff needed hung, and we were able to sit on the couch and play games at the coffee table. We didn’t have cable on yet but had an appointment for the cable guy on the next day. We played Scrabble and ate potato chips on paper plates. “Schnot isn’t a word!” John insisted. My mom stated otherwise. When John said, “no it Schnot!” we all laughed so hard, it felt like it was for the entire night. I went to bed, in my new bedroom, in my new cozy bed. As I lied there alone, I heard the soft muffle of voices downstairs and I knew I was finally home.