First Days of School

The boys started school on Monday and Zoe on Tuesday. The mornings are back to the frenetic pace of getting the kids off to school. It no longer feels much like a vacation.
Lucas was very excited for the first day of school... Jonah not so much. Mike and I both went to drop them off and meet their teachers. A couple of their classmates were sent to the office to meet them from each of their classes. They were quite outgoing and friendly. Lucas said, "hello there," as soon as they introduced themselves, in his typical way. Jonah just replied with a shy, "hi." They walked them to class and we left after briefly meeting their teachers. With each day, Jonah has become more and more excited about school. Today I saw him running up after school with a couple of his "mates" with a big smile on his face. Lucas continues to be his happy self.
I attended Zoe's first day of school with her yesterday. Everyone seemed to know her name and knew she was coming. They all came over and said, "hello" to her. I think she was a bit overwhelmed even though she was a trooper in saying "hi" back to everyone. She had a hard time sitting and waiting with each of the activities. It was obvious she was not used to her new surroundings and the new routine. We stayed the whole school day until 2:30 even though she started to fade around 1 pm. As soon as we got in the car, she crashed and started snoring. Today I stayed for only about 45 min. and picked her up around 1pm. Again, she quickly fell asleep in the car. She will probably have a curtailed schedule until she gets used to her new routine. It just means more driving back and forth for me.
A few phrases we are getting used to hearing everyone say: "G'day," "How ya' goin'?" and "Good on ya! (means Good job or Good for you.)" The first day of school, Jonah's teacher said "Good on ya!" to him when he did something well. He had no idea what was said or what she meant. I had to explain it to him when we got home.
Some firsts for me this week: putting gas in the car (you have to go inside to pay and it's in litres; btw, it's probably over $4/gal here); shopping at a vegetable stand/shop; buying meat at the butcher's (I asked for breakfast sausage and they thought I was from Mars. They just said, this is pork sausage and you can eat it for brekky.) I could find all kinds of diff't vegetables here but hot peppers (no jalapenos).
We finally got cable at the house, but still waiting on internet connection at home. I am on Mike's computer w/ remote connection. I am still figuring out the photo posting. I will post more later. Thanks for reading.