Thursday, February 21, 2008

Enjoying Time Off

So, this week I have been thoroughly enjoying my time at home in California. This was a much needed break and refreshing time! I have enjoyed not having a ton of plans and just relaxing and enjoy the small things in life. I have enjoyed going shopping with Mom, going to the King's game with Dad, going out to eat with both Mom and Dad, catching up with old friends and having lunch with Grammy and Grampy.

It has been nice to get my mind off of all the stressful things that took place right before break: my boss announcing his resignation and my kiddos giving me a run for my money!

I feel refreshed and am ready to go back to work next week. It is such a great feeling to not dread going back to work!

Friday, February 15, 2008

Happy Valentine's Day (a day late!)

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I hope you had as much fun during the day that I did. I felt so loved and appreciated by my family, my students and their families, and my friends. Who needs a boyfriend when you get as spoiled as I do? :) I am not going to lie, I am ready to date and get married but am waiting as patiently as I can!

I wasn't expecting so many gifts from my students. I think I have enough chocolate and stuffed animals to last a few years! Luckily I am going home to visit Mom and Dad and can share all of my goodies with them!

My day ended with a date with Steve, Heather and Micah. It was so fun to go to PF Changs and Borders to end the day. Micah was a great date and Steve and Heather were very sweet to me. Steve even brought me flowers and chocolates and that made my day! And of course to top it all off, we watched LOST. Have I mentioned I LOVE that show?

I had such a rotten day the day before so yesterday was so needed. My boss who I got to know this year and work for has decided to leave next year and that news has been really hard on me. Finally I find a great school with a great leader and now he is gone. I am a bit fearful of the next person the school will choose to take his place as most of you know my history with working under horrible leaders. I am going to try real hard to trust God in this. I have already had some great conversations and prayers with a few teachers over this and it has been so encouraging!

Today I sent off my application for grad school to SPU and signed up for the GRE! I would appreciate your prayers with all of that and let you know when I hear anything!

Friday, February 1, 2008

More Pictures

The southern ocean...this is the ocean I was not aware even existed! :)
The inflatable crabs for Goodwill along with their sunken treasure paragraphs. They wrote about what they would find at the bottom of the ocean inside of a treasure chest.

This caption was written by one of my troublemakers...interesting that he wanted to write this.
The coral reef drawing
I am bummed the flash kind of ruined this picture. This is a phenominal picture of the continents and oceans drawn by two of my best artists.
The pacific ocean




Open House

The kids were SO proud of all their work they did to turn our classroom into an ocean. If you haven't already seen, not every wall space is blue but it still looked cute! I was very proud of them!

We made posters for each of the five oceans (I was taught there are 4 but every book says there is five...weird). We also made a poster of coral reefs and a map of the continents and oceans. The students also wrote reports on ocean animals and those are the papers you see all over the walls.

The blow up crabs and stuffed animals were also found at Goodwill for about 50 cents a piece. It was a low budget project and well worth it!





We got this puzzle at Goodwill and it was missing one piece. I had one of my students draw in the missing piece and was amazed at how well he drew it!