"Wow! You don't look that old!"
"At least you're not 50!"
"Yea, my grandma is 50 and she has lots of wrinkles, but you don't have any!"
When Mama arrived at school that morning, she found that her classroom had been invaded by some very overly excited decorators who just could not help but rub in the fact that Mama is now "Over the Hill!!" Never mind the message on the wreath that says, "Bee kind, feelings are everywhere!" 
The night before Mama's birthday, she should have realized that Papa was acting a little bit strange. But since strange is sort of normal for Papa, Mama was totally blindsided! Around 9:30 Papa declaired that he had to go out and water something in the yard. That is not so out of the ordinary for Papa, but Mama insisted on feeding him first. It was a little strange when someone honked outside, and Papa hopped right up and just HAD to get out and water right then and there! He did not even finish eating! Now THAT was weird, but Mama didn't think anything of it! Little did she know that Papa and her neighbor friend had taken her keys and escaped to the school! It was not until the next morning when she saw what they had done to her classroom that she put two and two together. She was amazed that Papa had kept his little secret for so long! He did tell Goldie, though! He just could not keep it from her!
That evening, they met up with Grammy and Grandpy at Red Lobster. What a feast! Grammy and Grampy insisted that Mama wear a black ribbon declaring her age. Once it was on, Goldie would not let her take it off! 
The nice crew at RL gave Mama a lovely roll with a candle in it for her Birthday treat. Yipee! 
While reflecting on her BIG 40 Mama thought it was interesing that MOST of the people who made such a BIG deal over all of this were actually OLDER than Mama.... hmmmm... Something to ponder.
The school with grass, trees and a finished Kindergarten playground.
The PTA made these cool name tags for the teacher's doors. What a lot of work!
The playground was not finished by the first day of school, but the principal made sure that there were things for the students to do outside. They literally have watched their playground be built before them. Another cool thing to watch was the laying of the sod for the HUGE soccer field. It came in gigantic rolls that were put onto a little tractor thing and then unrolled slowly while workers raked it in close to the last piece. Now all we have to do is wait for a few weeks, and then the kids can use the fields. Everyone has learned to adapt and soon we will have a great place to play.
s a view of one side of the room:................. Here is the window side:
This in Mama's new desk. It is huge! She thinks it is at least 5 feet long and 3 feet wide... maybe even more! There is room for Goldie to sit next to her and do her homework. The desk came about 3 weeks after school started, but it was worth the wait! 
Just this last Friday, the workers were 
