celebrate life, celebrate lives, celebrate trees...but poodles? nope...we won't be celebrating those.

i cannot believe that the time has slipped away from me today! boo.

i woke up this morning, and i was able to be a part of celebrating a life. we had an older gentleman who has tutored and mentored students at our school over the past several years. he chose to be involved with our students and his consistency and commitment to them will leave a print on their lives forever!

THANK YOU MR. PAUL!!!

 a couple of days ago i also got another little invitation-and it will be a celebration of a different sort...still a celebration of life...in fact, a celebration of two lives becoming one! i'm so excited for miss xochitl and eric! i am so glad that i got to be a part of welcoming her to our school and helping her transition into teaching, and even more excited that i get to be there as she begins another new phase of life!

love it!

 as i mentioned before, we had STAAR testing this week...boo. then we had an early release on friday. along with early release, unimas came and shot some footage for vive verde..in fact, my good friend miguel (not really, i merely know his name) did the weather LIVE with a couple of my students, ap ms. perez, and coworker- dallas. it was really fun having to be there at 6 am...no, it really wasn't at all. AND to add to it, we filmed out in the garden, and i wasn't thinking. i walked around the backside of the tree, and it was very muddy, so i spent a good 5 minutes trying to scrape mud in strategic locations.

the students loved it and they were super excited!

 then after we had breakfast, we were able to go out and plant a tree that was donated by vive verde. it was pretty cool; all of the kids got to use shovels to put their dirt on the pile. it's a beautiful oak tree, and it will be beautiful when the colors change! it was funny to turn around and see so many classes at their windows watching-the camera man got some of them on film as well.

 after we had a special weather presentation, our kids had a reading common assessment, and then early release. so for the early release, we went to the cafeteria, and i had my last diet coke for awhile. time to pull out the excedrin again. then we went up to work on lesson plans and since we left before everyone else, we played a little game of "what can you make out of the napkin?" and we went around and came up with a chinese airplane, head band, cape, cup, etc..and we ended on this note: mr. napkin face:

lindsey as a cartoon character

maria got a funny little video of it-if i could upload it, i would...good laughs!

and back to today. after the memorial service, i went to the shooting range again with high hopes. last time i was there, the guy at the counter sold me a huge box of 350 rounds. well, at that time, the gun worked really well with certain ammunition, but then when i filled it with the new stuff that i bought from him, it didn't have enough powder to cycle the next round....i was so frustrated...i had one last "good" round, so i exchanged it with the one in the barrel and it did cycle through completely.

so today i went in and they had the good stuff, so i decided to try the same thing as before and put one good round in, and fill the magazine with the other. it worked every time! i was thrilled. the guy at the counter said they could sell me the remington ammo in bulk (like a bucket-full)...perhaps next time. i was a little less than thrilled today though because this is the second time i've been in and they have not had 9mm rounds, so i haven't been able to shoot my bigger gun.boo.

then the boys and i took a walk and bruno told a black poodle how ugly he thought she was; don't worry, we had a talk, as chaco was muttering under his breath how much he really didn't like poodles. i thought about reading to him from john steinbeck's 'travels with charley' so he could see poodles aren't all bad. i decided not to though, because i knew he wouldn't sit still for it. besides, i was reminded of my aunt beth's poodle timothy, who chewed up my grandma's dining room chairs, and decided that i really don't need to be a poodle-advocate.

and that's really all i've got to say about that!

julie