Today was another series of “lasts”:  the last time I will drive to and from the schools, which surprisingly feels very weird, but more importantly, it is the last time Catie and Ben will see the inside of their respective schools.  Catie will miss her friends more than the school, but poor Ben has been having a rough adjustment with transitioning on.  At fifth grade graduation yesterday, the principal gave a small talk about the “Rosenow Way” (Rosenow is the name of the elementary school):  the school environment is a close-knit community, where teachers treat the students as their own children, and the students are always welcome back to the school to visit.  He said, “you can always come back home”. Ben has been attending Rosenow since 2003–eight years is a long time in a young child’s life, and especially with a child who has autism:  it’s so very hard to walk away from what is familiar.

 

We reached an important milestone in the Vitek household today:  we brought up the few remaining items that were left in the basement.  It may not seem too monumental to some, but this is the first time ever that we have been living in a house that does not have piles and piles of boxes in the basement.   This is what was left in the basement:

So we have added to our Goodwill/Freecycle pile 🙂  We have been trying to pack at least a box a day, if not more.  We have started to organize our photos/videos/candles into the bags they will go in our car trunk.  With our pictures we are throwing away the duplicates and those stored on the computer.  We can always order more prints.   When we first decided to move in July, we were totally unaware that certain items could melt while in transit, notably crayons, videotapes, candles, and potentially cassette tapes and photographs.  Well, we knew about crayons, having previous experience during a family vacation trip to St. Louis, but didn’t think about the rest.  🙂  The framed pictures are being packed, but we will be bringing all the non-digital photographs with us, as they are totally irreplaceable.  Life before digital cameras:  the horror of it all!  :=)  Looking back, I don’t think we would have altered our decision, as it is important to us that the kids finish out their school year in Wisconsin, which they have.  We also wanted to make sure that we move in the summer months, as moving in the dead of winter, which we have done, is certainly not an ideal situation, and one to be avoided if at all possible due to the potential for delays and detours due to the weather conditions.

We wish everyone a magical and happy weekend!