Open House & PTA

We've had a very busy week in the household.  The girls and I took my sister Staci to Springdale on Thursday to meet my parents for the "trade off" and to eat at the AQ Chicken House which was very good as usual.  I had my usual smothered chicken breast which was quite yummy.  Me and the girls then quickly headed back to Fort Smith to Meredith's school to help get ready for Open House/Meet the Teacher night.  After a brief break at home I then headed back to the school in order to sell PTA Memberships prior to the event.  

Okay, I just want to get this out in the open for those who don't already know this information.  Just because you join PTA doesn't mean you have to help with a bunch of stuff if you don't want to.  Basically, it's good to buy a membership because a portion of the fee (a whopping $3.75 at our school) goes back to the school for the school's benefit.  So, in other words, if you can afford it, buy as many memberships as you can (one for each spouse, grandparents, etc.)  You also get a full years worth of access to the "members only" PTA website, not to mention you support the PTA lobbying group in Washington that looks out for our children and getting more money for them.  I guess I already assumed most people knew this but I was so wrong.  I heard many times last night that they don't have time to join PTA (Heaven forbid you actually get involved in your child's school even a little bit) and even though I tried to explain it to them, it didn't matter.  Thank you for letting me get that off of my chest.  

Back to the night.  Meredith did get to meet her sweet new first grade teacher.  This is her third year in teaching so she's young but I've heard great things about her and Meredith is very excited.  It looked like the two first grade classes had 30 and 31 students which is over the limit.  The 4 kindergarten classes only had an average of 10 kids per class, which is way under.  So, it will be interesting to see how many kids actually show up for the first day of class and what kind of shuffling will take place.  After the kids met the teachers I ran back to the cafeteria and started serving ice cream for the ice cream social/PTA fundraiser.  After we took out expenses we believe we raised about $80 but for as many ice cream bowls I fixed it felt like we should have raised $80,000.  Oh well, I guess that can be our goal for next year.

We're looking forward to the new school year and hope you all are as well!

Oh yeah, on a side note, my friend Chairee's baby that was waiting for the thymus transplant had the transplant surgery last week and so far so good but please still keep Chairee's family and the baby in your prayers.