It’s been a while since we posted any new pictures—largely because we’ve been busy with other projects—but the new school year has arrived, which means that it’s time for our annual back-to-school pictures.

Julia is starting high school this year, which is scary on any number of levels (though it will actually be more of a shock to me when she starts her sophomore year, for reasons that are specific to my situation). She’s found a nice group of friends and is going into the year with a great deal of enthusiasm that has yet to be damped by the workload, which one of her school administrators promised at the eighth grade promotion ceremony last spring would be heavier than what the kids would encounter in college. I have my doubts about that particular assertion, but nevertheless, the specter of testy late-night study sessions hangs over us.

Joe is moving to UPA for seventh grade this year, which makes this the first time since 2014 that he and Julia have started the year at the same school. He’s a little bit nervous about changing schools after having spent a single year at Willow Glen Middle, but we are hopeful that the change in context will give him a fresh start socially; as our old friend Michael Kimmitt has pointed out, middle school boys are generally awful (though he typically uses more colorful language in his description).

He’s especially nervous about his placement in Advanced Band, where he is the only seventh grader and one of only two middle school kids. He’ll be fine once he gets the music and starts playing—the intermediate band at Willow Glen does a great job of pushing kids’ abilities—but his trepidation reminds me of how an age difference of just a couple years can feel like a yawning chasm in seventh grade.

Lastly, William is starting TK, or transitional kindergarten, this year. It’s a relatively new program at Booksin that provides a bridge to kindergarten for four-year-olds who were born between September 2 and December 2, and thus just missed the cutoff. They start off slowly, with half days for the first couple weeks of the year, but after that, he’ll be at school all day, just like his brother and sister. As you can imagine, this is all very exciting for William—and also for us, even if it means we have to make three lunches every morning instead of two.