Halliday Family Blog

Today was the boy’s first day of school at the new Aspen View Academy!  We dressed them all up in their formal uniforms and they looked so cute!  🙂

All of the uniforms have to be purchased through Lands End and they ran out of the gray pants in Ben’s size, so for now, we have to send him in his blue pants on formal days (which are only a couple times a month).

They both are so excited to be going to the new school!  The only drawback now is that Ben is half-day every day, so we have to go to the school to pick up twice a day now (but it’s good for exercise and is only a 7 minute walk).  Both loved the day and we are happy that they are at the new school.  They’ll be there all the way up through middle school which is great too (AVA is a K-8 school).

Well, it’s hard to believe that August is almost over!  We’ve already been here in Castle Rock for 4 months!  Time has been going fast!

Today the boy’s Aspen View Academy (AVA) uniforms arrived and we just had to dress up the boys and get their pictures!  They are so cute in their new uniforms!  We LOVE it because now we don’t have to really think about what they’ll wear every day!  🙂

We’re still waiting for a couple more pieces to ship.  They have both formal and informal uniforms which they wear on certain days.  It will be fun to see the first day of school with all the little kids dressed up in their formal uniforms.  🙂

Tonight the girls had their first marching band performance at the first home football game.  The band is small (kind-of reminded me of Metea’s second year) when they got out on the field, but they have  a big sound.  They actually mic-up the pit for the drums and out here, they use keyboards and such as well.  It was cool!  Their show is coming along and in a couple of weeks they’ll have all three movements ready to play.

For tonight, they played and marched the first two movements.  Also, here at Castle View, the director is big on the competitions (like the director at Waubonsie was), so our Saturdays will all be filled up coming up pretty soon.  It will be fun to watch them perform a lot and we know the kids will have a blast doing it as well!  🙂  The other strange thing is that the director made Marching Band a class during the day this year (they didn’t have MB last year due to lack of participation), so everyone in Wind Ensemble is required to be in MB and any others that want to.  That makes it nice for no after school activities, but it sure creates havoc with schedules.  We hope he doesn’t do that again next year or Kirstyn will have to make some hard choices.

Great playing girls!  Keep up the great work!

Tonight the girls had their first Marching Band Parent Preview night at CVHS!  The title of their marching show is Tribal Effects and they performed some of the music from the show for us in the auditorium.  We can’t wait to hear it outside.

They had the drum line and pit on the stage, and the rest of the band lined up along the side walls and played.  It was cool to hear the music coming from all around.  One thing we did notice is how small the auditorium is.  They can’t even fit the entire student body into it.  Because of that, they have to split up concerts and such due to seating restrictions.  You could fit almost 3 of these auditoriums into Metea’s auditorium.  🙂  That’s OK though.  It’s nice and well kept and we love it here!  🙂  GREAT JOB girls!

Today we got a phone call and found out that Ben and Zach got into the new Aspen View Academy!  We are really excited as this is what we really wanted, but torn because they have such great teachers right now and they have already been in school for a couple of weeks.  After thinking hard and praying about it, we fell that Aspen View is where they need to be, so we accepted the invitation to attend, and will be pulling the boys out of Clear Sky.

They are bummed about not being with their new friends they made, but they also know a bunch of kids that are going to Aspen View so they are excited about that!   The cool thing is that they have to wear uniforms which is a wonderful thing, but it will be crazy to try and get everything ordered and delivered before school starts!  The school is just being finished and so classes won’t start this year until the first part of September.

Tonight we also had back to school night for Brittany and Kirstyn.  It was fun to meet their teachers and introduce ourselves so they know us!

Today was Brittany’s first day back to school as a SENIOR!  Where has the time gone?  Before you know it, Angela and I will be empty nesters!  🙁

I think that Brittany is excited for her senior year, but I also think she’s just as excited to have her senior year over, graduate, and go to college.  😐  Best of luck this year Britt!  🙂  We love you!