Back to School Ward-Anderson Style

Even though Labor Day has yet to arrive on the calendar, summer has come to an abrupt end in Maryland with the start of school daze.

Posted here are pics of the kids ... Joe is a 5th grader; E is a little Freshman and Clay is a big Junior. Joe is finishing his last year of elementary school and E and Clay are both at the Mill (Watkins Mill High School - alma mater for all three big Anderson boys + Jaqui; all of whom are well known at the Mill). The other pics are of our "bus" driver (yep, that IS "little" Clay driving mom's Santa Fe) and Joe smiling big in front of his school's mosaic after just re-connecting with a host of buddies who yelled, "Hey it's Joe" with happy glee when they saw him walking toward them.

You can probably see that Clay and E possess no happiness at all. Though there was a moment of laughter on the way to school when they got a big kick out of mom's [in]ability to remember the words when singing along with the radio (some things are apparently inherited grandpa Doug). There was yet another moment of nervous laughter when the bus driver made a last minute decision to "go" on a left turn and the oncoming car suddenly seemed to be approaching REALLY fast. Leo (the car) gave his tires a rowdy squeal before succeeding in reaching warp speed just in the nick of time. Mom is now sporting yet another gray hair.

The window behind the kids is the front door of the Bawlmer house. I painted it this summer and when the light shines through it looks like stained glass. During the day the colors reflect on the exposed brick wall and at night the interior lights give our neighbors some insight into what REAL mountains look like. On the bottom panes you can see our beloved ocean (i start sailing lessons next week ... yippeee!) with one sea creature representing each one of my babies. The mural also has a beautiful, but rare, blue moon and stars that represent all the people who light my way (including and especially my family!)