First day of school: Suite life edition.

Last year, when we actually had a home and all, I posted flashback photos of the kids' first day of school pictures, all taken on our old front porch. This year, we didn't have a front porch so we settled for this:

Ryan as an eighth grader, Katie as a sixth grader

We're in front of the Holiday Inn Express!

Yes, as the first day of school rolled around, we were still living in the hotel post-fire. So instead of running around our house getting ready for our first day, we ran around our room and then

headed into the elevator to go downstairs. Weird!

Strange as it was, it was awfully nice to have a hotel-prepared breakfast! And it made for my shortest commute to work in about 14 years, too!

After school Brett and the kids met me at Fuddruckers for our traditional "first day survival dinner."

We always do this so we can kick back and discuss how the first day went in a relaxed setting.

Knowing we're going out also gives us all something to look forward to if the day gets stressful.

We had a ball! In fact, we had two handfuls!