if it's the first day of school...

... then I must post first day of school pictures. It's a tradition!

My dawn warrior, catching the bus at 6:05 am (!!) for his junior year (!!!!!) of high school.

My super-white-shod eighth grader, whose feet grew two sizes this summer.

And my not-so-little-anymore little guy (can't help it! he always will be!), definitely the most excited for the new school year.

Yep, they all chose plaid shirts this year, though unfortunately I couldn't get them all in the same shot! It takes three hours, from start to finish, for all of them to catch their respective buses.

As for me, I should have been kicking back with a pitcher of mai tais on the hammock, apart from the fact that we don't have a hammock. Instead, I spent the day getting four sheep ready for the first national Coopworth sheep show this Saturday. I was not successful in getting the boys to do it yesterday—apparently they felt their indentured servitude contract had expired—so today it was just me trimming hooves and cleaning them up a bit.

Even though I have been up to my eyeballs in the planning of it, I am very excited about this show. It will be a card-graded show, which is quite different from the usual "sheep in a ring on halters" type of sheep show. It is a great concept for sheep with a smaller population, like Coopworth. Instead of the sheep being judged against each other, each sheep is judged against the breed standard, by two judges, to determine how closely it comes to "perfection." All I could think of as I got each one ready was, "I wonder how you'll do?"

Saturday morning, I'll know!