A new chapter begins

These past few days we have been getting Rhiannon settled into her new school here in St. Louis, Missouri.  It is the first time Rhodri and Tryfs have seen Principia, so that has been interesting for them too.  

We had quite a complicated arrival scheme to be able to get here, but we are here now!  Rhodri and Tryfan met us at the STL airport (happy reunion!!) and we drove the hotel to drop our stuff, then headed to campus (8 min drive from the Hilton Frontenac) to see who was around.  Here we are approaching the main building from the car park.

We didn't see any of the people we needed to see in the main building, so we went to the school store and bought a top for Rhiannon, then headed down to the Girls Dorm.  Here we are in the office, with Rhodri explaining something interesting.

We got to go up and see which room Rhiannon will be in!

Her Resident Counselor (RC) has a 9 week old Australian Shepherd puppy!  Lucky Rhiannon and the other girls on her hall who get to cuddle a puppy whenever they want!

 

We were able to get Rhiannon to try on and borrow some school uniform for the week until her new ones arrive, and then we went to the Galleria shopping mall but didn't really get much.  We ended up having a pretty late dinner back near the hotel, and none of us slept that great, but the next day (Sat) was a really full one that went well.  First we had an "All Family Opening Meeting" in the auditorium where several people spoke about what is to come this year at Principia, 

and then we were able to walk around meeting some of her new teachers for the year, then we had lunch.

In fact, we were rather late to lunch because we wanted to check something in the dorm, and we happened to get our lunch trays at the same time as Mr. Lindsay! So we got to all eat together, and that was really fun.  Rhiannon had met Mr. Lindsay back in February on our visit and he was one of my cross country coaches back in the day who has always been a special person in my life.

 After lunch we all went shopping to Target! Fun!

 

Rhiannon decided to get settled into her new room on Saturday night and just stay there instead of staying with us at the hotel. She didn't want her first night to be the night before her first day of school (so sensible!) so we dropped her off and went separate ways for the evening. Sunday we collected her around midday, did some more shopping, had a little food, and then dropped her off at the dorm in the evening again.

Monday was the first day of school, and apparently it all went fine.  We collected her after dinner and went on to have another dinner at Poke Munch plus a visit to Trader Joe's.  This time we said goodbye 'for reals' and gave our girl big hugs. 

I think she was ready to get on with her new life here, because there were no tears and no negative vibes. Just a good, confident, onward movement. 

It did feel weird for Tryfan, Rhodri and I to drive away but that is what we did!  Today we will fly to Denver for about 10 days of hiking and mountain biking and other fun Colorado-y stuff that Rhiannon won't be too sad to miss out on. So we will be sort of nearby for a week or so, just in case the transition isn't so smooth...