Back to school photos and lightning shots

My grand kids are back in school now, they all started this week.  My daughter Kristy and son Tom sent me a few "first day of school" photos of the kids.  These are of Kristy and Matt's two kids and Tom and Trish's two older kids - Graydin is still in preschool and didn't want to be in the photos.

The first three are of Kennedy and Gavin.  Kennedy is 9 and going into the 4th grade, and Gavin is 7 and going into the 2nd grade. They started school on Monday and Tom said they both had a great day and really like their teachers.

And next, we have Drew, who is 7 and going into the 2nd grade, and Lauren, 5 - yesterday was her first day of Kindergarten.  I haven't heard yet how Lauren liked her first day of school, but after they brought Drew to his classroom, Kristy e-mailed me,  "So far Drew's teacher seems great, organized and very nice.  He has all his friends in his class, and luckily they are sitting at different tables.  He has a desk for the first time.  Lauren's teacher is the wife of Drew's Kinder teacher and in the same classroom, so she is familiar with the class and routine as she volunteered with me a few times.  She doesn't seem nervous, yet." I hope Lauren did well and that she and Drew had fun and liked their first day of school.  :)

Don't you just love those four beautiful, happy, fresh faces?  They are all good kids and so far good students. I hope they all have a good year in school.

I used to take Tom and Kristy's first day of school photos on our front porch every year, and now my kids are doing the same thing - photos in front of the house.  I just noticed they both have photos in front of bougainvillea blooms.  Tom is in Southern California and Kristy is in Northern California, and they both have healthy bougainvillea plants in front of their houses.  The house I grew up in also had that same plant climbing up our fireplace chimney. 

Not to leave out Graydin, he was 3 in April and he's in preschool - this is his second year.  It's an all day, year round preschool, his sister and brother both attended the same preschool and I had the opportunity to pick up the kids and attend some events, and it's a really good school. Graydin loves it, as did his older siblings.  This is my most recent picture of Graydin, taken with Kennedy and Gavin at Lake Tahoe this summer:

I've got the best grand kids - bright, beautiful and super well behaved.  Their parents are all doing such a good job raising them, I'm so proud of them all.

I haven't seen the horses for a few days and I asked the Ranger, Kelly, where they were.  He said someone picked them up in a trailer a few days ago and took them down to Bluewater Creek - below is a photo I took of the creek, it's beautiful - and they have slowly made their way back up to the campground.  I mentioned that it's really green and lush down there with lots for the horses to eat, but he seemed to think they like to graze in the campgrounds and prefer the grasses up here.  I guess, even to horses, it might look good, but maybe the taste isn't to their liking.

He said when we were talking yesterday afternoon that he just saw the horses grazing at the entrance gate to the park, so hopefully I'll see them today.

Kelly said the horses are all branded, except the filly, and that if a filly is with it's mom, it goes with the branded mare, so these horses have owners and are not up for grabs.  Kelly said they were probably dropped off to roam free here in the park, and when the owner is ready, he will pick them up and take them away.  In the 50s when the State took over this area for a park, there was an agreement with the Native Indians that horses could roam free on these lands, which is why we have horses here.  They aren't really wild, just free ranging. 

We are supposed to get some really bad weather today, it's gray and a little windy now, but no real storms yet.  These are the clearest of the photos I took a few days ago of lightning in the skies on the other side of the lake during a good thunderstorm.

Cool, huh?  Click on the lightning photos to see larger, clearer shots of the way the lightning is traveling down the sky, especially the last one.  It's pretty interesting.  Today we should get lots more, I hope.

From me and Katie, have a great Thursday, everyone!  :)