school's out...summer school's in...living for the three day weekend

tomorrow begins week 2, the final week of summer school. my mission was to help prepare our fifth graders for the THIRD re-take of the state-test...well, ironically information came out this week from our education commissioner stating that our 5th graders would not have to retake the test, due to 'vendor reporting errors.' so... i guess that means we'll have a little more fun this week week with our reading instruction-planning some socratic seminar-type discussions because they'll love it!

this three day weekend has been welcome, as i have used much of it to finalize my presentation for my interview this week. i am really, quite looking forward to it--in fact, i wish i could video it with a swivl- yes, it's going to be THAT good! 

last weekend i had the honor of attending a graduation luncheon for the twins-it was lovely! i really enjoyed spending time with solange and marisol outside work. it is really hard to believe that solange's babies are graduated! it seems like just yesterday they were in 5th grade, grappling with the language and learning...they have come so far and she has SO much to be proud of! they are both so well-rounded both academically and socially!

wonderful company!

this weekend, i did work a little on the running effort, gave my hair another treatment, and then today i had the joy of meeting with stevie, as she was traveling through on one of her road-trips to drop of furniture for built-by-stevie -she is so talented! i was hoping to go to klyde warren park and visit the food trucks, because there's such a great variety (nammi!!) but as we arrived, it began to rain! and it didn't look like it was going to stop, so we opted for kyoto sushi...only when we drove by, it was CLOSED ON SUNDAYS! so off we went to rock and roll sushi...and guess what? CLOSED ON SUNDAYS! strike 2 (technically 3, but only 2 for sushi...) so we went to mockingbird station to check out reikyu...and we were the ONLY ones there! is there an unwritten rule that i don't know about concerning sushi on sundays? it was delicious and we had great conversation, so i have no complaints about driving around! and by the time we finished, it was sunny out again, and we very well could have gone to KWP. another day!

hollywood roll! edamae! stevie!

on the way home, i found myself driving through a deluge..thanks, tx! good thing i have such amazing windshield wipers! anyhoo, i got home and was literally here for about 5 minutes before the power went out! ugh. and it started to get dark...so i pulled out some candles and looked for the flashlight...looked for a small lightbulb to hook up to my battery, but alas, all i had were the 60 and 100...boo.

teaching 4th grade science came in handy...if only i'd invested in the tiny flashlight bulbs!

the worst part was that i was almost out of coffee, so i may or may not have pulled out the camping gear-to light up the kerosene and make some camp-coffee. no lie. fortunately it didn't come to that. but what i did notice is that my ceiling is spotting-which means there is a leak in the roof...which in effect means that as soon as i report it, i will probably have maintenance workers in my apartment this week. triple ugh! this means i should probably figure out what to do with all of my school mess!

in other news, i DID, in fact clean out and almost organize the laundry room! yea, me!

so i think this is where i bid you adieu, and prepare for tomorrow-
julie

out of the ordinary...if it's not challenging, why do it?

memorial day weekend-i hope everyone had a chance to take the time to show appreciation for those who have given everything in order that we may live in the country that we do, in the way we do. truly appreciative.

as the weekend began, i got a text that suggested to: do something out of the ordinary. it's so much easier to fall into the routine. but it stuck with me when i woke up saturday morning. after having no 'takers' for climbing at the silos, i decided that it would be a great day to take a daytrip to go hiking. so i looked up texas state parks to see if there was something suitable, and settled on caprock canyon state park. having been a fourth grade teacher, i learned all about the various regions of tx, and i've not been to this region. i was excited to explore this area. 

texas boasts 11 different ecological regions, and i am wondering if it might be wise to get a year pass for the state parks-there are so many, it should be on my bucket list. i didn't realize the drive was going to be so long, but i should have expected that the state patrol would be out... thank goodness i took my trusty, little friend along!

saved me from at least 5 tickets!

the one thing i forgot to do, which in hindsight was foolish, was that i didn't let anyone know where i was going...oops. and on the way there i was thinking, at least i'm wearing my heartlight ring, and i have a custom tattoo on my foot which would be an identifier...

upon arrival, i wasn't sure exactly where to go, so i stopped at the visitor center and paid my $4, and got instructions. then i took off in search of my starting point...after about 3 wrong turns, i finally located the parking spot i was looking for. 

got my map and 'do not feed the bison' sign. 

 it was about .5 miles to the entrance of the trail i was looking for. i got a late start, so i had to take a shorter trail (about 2.29 mi), but it was the only one marked 'very challenging,' and if you're going on a hike, a normal hike would never do...especially if you drove almost 5 hours to get there! it was the john hayne's trail, and it was beautiful!

getting there

the loose rocks made the jog back a little treacherous, but i'm like a mountain goat (similarity being in the sure-footedness, thank you...)

and a bit of this to get to the top

friendly monument on the way

thankful for the markers, as not all that looks like trails are necessarily trails!

and the views...

i knew my limits, drank plenty of water and did not approach the bison...i failed to tell others where i'd be, and absolutely did not wear a helmet. next time i will get 4 out of 5, but you won't catch me with a helmet on.

the red trail-i didn't have time, but i wanted to go to the fern cave

i did jog a bit of the trail on the way back, and it was invigorating...i was only able to do so, because i kept drinking my water. they asked that we carry a gallon, and all i had were h2o bottles, so by the time i'd gotten to the top end of the trail, i'd drank quite a bit of it, and it made the carrying sack a bit lighter. when i got to the bottom end of the trail, i started jogging the .5 back toward the car, and i heard a girl at the foot of the trail (resting in the shade with her bf and dog) say, "it's almost 100 degrees out here." i think she was alluding to the fact that it was ridiculous to be running in the heat-

 it was a beautiful hike, and while i enjoyed the alone time, this type of hiking is much more enjoyable with friends-i certainly would've welcomed any of my former kampers, counselors and even friends who just wanted to get out and enjoy nature, but such was not the case this time-perhaps next time a planned trip, take the tent, have a campfire...an easy getaway. but i think next up may be caddo park, and kayaking among the mangroves. a different beautiful!

 the rest of the weekend was pretty normal-except for one other thing-but that's another post.

this week has flown by like a derailed train. too much going on.

we had a retirement party for two phenomenal staff ladies. Mrs. Pleasant and Mrs. Barrett. these two ladies have been such assets at cabell! they bring joy and passion! they will certainly be missed!

thank you for your commitment and dedication! it has been an honor!

 we've also had our awards ceremonies and such; i've been busy trying to work on some summer school curriculum/materials/planning and preparing so that our teachers who have so graciously agreed to work summer school are not overwhelmed by the district's less-than-impressive summer readiness 'curriculum'. i have spent way more time on this than is acceptable...and i cannot imagine the headache it would have been if it were left to the teachers to come up with everything on their own (printing, making copies, creating classes in the different tech software, etc). it doesn't help that we cannot be on our own campus, due to remodeling, and hence we don't have all of the pieces to the puzzle yet, but we start next monday. #wingingit

fortunately, the garden has started showing some blooms, and that makes my heart light:

passion fruit

 it has been so busy this week, in fact that it seems almost unreal that tomorrow will be the last time i say goodbye to our fifth graders on the cabell lawn-i'm sure there will be another post on that later, but i haven't had time to process that. even tomorrow, i will have to arrive to school early in order to get things done that i have overlooked and things that i didn't even realize needed to be done. with that, it will be a long day, so i will now get some sleep.

 julie

procrastination just took up so much of my time today!

today i have been procrastinating. but i had a good reason. (no i didn't) (YES I DID!) (no, i guess i really didn't)....i cannot...CANNOT be trusted to go into barnes and noble to get just one item. it's true, i am the one-item-failure.

so i decided to try it at petco and once again, BIG FAT FAIL. although i did find some really cool toys and chaco hasn't ruined his yet! it's been all of an hour since i brought it home. give it time. as i was at the checkout, petco has their little snack bar for dogs, but it smelled good enough for humans...look at these! i was tempted until i saw the fly.

i mean...chocolate chip cookies? i'm IN!!!

upon checking out, the cashier girl was a chatty, and she asked what kind of dogs i have.
me: yorkies
chatty: oh, i want to get a schnauzer or schnauzer mix, they do adoptions through a rescue here. i think they're the coolest! especially the mixes because they have the coolest names, like schnitzu, schnorkie,  i could even name it whatever the mix name is if it's cool, like schnack russell...i would be like, this is schnack. and people would say, "snack?" and i'd say no! SCHNACK! 

yes, that conversation really happened. i'm sure she practiced it in the mirror at home and uses it as her go-to conversation line. thank goodness there was someone behind me and i was able to leave without incident.

before i hit up either of these stores, i had to stop at radio shack to see if they could help me with my phone. for some reason my 4g was not working (remember when i had a pager...and no clue what 4g was because it wasn't in existence...wow, i'm older than i would like to admit!) so when i walked in, i wanted to take it over to the young black guy who was stocking things, because i figured he'd be able to help me better than the elderly white gentleman at the counter, but i went up to the counter because i wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt since he does work at a technology store...the A/C was perhaps too cold because his nose was at the dripping point, and i kept worrying that it was going to fall onto my phone, but just in the nick of time, he raised his hand to wipe it off and continued to swipe across my screen. in my head i was racking my brain trying to think if there was anywhere that i had sanitizer. unfortunately i switched bags, and left the bigger little one in the other bag. and i had used the last of the vial-sized two days ago, when i was down for jury duty.

he ended up having to take it back to someone in the back and they were able to get it re-installed-apparently it was a really easy fix- i just had to pay my bill. i didn't realize that i had it connected to the card that i had to cancel, so i immediately got that taken care of-no worries, i will not have to pull the pager back out.

part of the procrastination period included some letter-writing, which is nothing out of the ordinary, i tried to make it a marathon; pulled out a bunch of addresses and got started, but i have SO many more to go! i have so many little things to do, and 3 weeks within which to do it, so i really probably ought to pull out a whiteboard and start making a list and crossing these items off! (i learned that one from Dr. Hughes; and it works!) 

tomorrow after our first day of summer school, we have our kick-off for personalized learning, so i am guessing we will have a little better idea of what we will be looking at over the next few months of exploration. feeling a little like jean luc picard going boldly where no man has gone before-star date 2020...i know, i could've use cptn kirk, but his uniform was ugly.

alrighty then, time to get back to planning..tomorrow comes too early.
jules

if it weren't for the ninja warrior, the donut would've gotten the baby

where to begin? this is what happens when i skip days.

i signed up for summer school (since i didn't get into the exclusive urban leadership program). well, this week i received an email that there was a science position available at my school, and it was a bilingual enrichment program. i immediately set about trying to apply for it b/c i really enjoyed science this year.

the problem was that once you apply, the system won't let you unapply, so it kept giving me an error. finally i was able to call the people on the tech side and they were able to switch the position around for me after an exchange of various emails. so now i am in as a science camp teacher. woo hoo! this means that i will likely receive some great resources as well.

i am a little sick to my stomach now because i just got a text yesterday from bmayes to come up and visit yellowstone for  a few days and then drive back to ok with her as she moves back from wy...the week of my training and start-up of summer school. boo. i am so disappointed that i won't be able to go. one week earlier and i wouldn't be doing summer school, i'd be enjoying nature and great company!

 i will have to take advantage of the first couple of weeks of august to get out of dallas! i need it.

then on friday i decided that i really didn't want to get up early to make breakfast....

so i went to my favorite kolache joint.

there is this great little donut place on beltline and webb chapel, and they have great fresh donuts and kolaches! inside there were some older retired folk sitting around reading newspapers, drinking coffee and just conversing back and forth, and another lady came in to join them while i was in line...that's the life!

it was really strange because as i was walking in, a man with sunglasses was walking out with a box in his hands, and he stopped and said,"hi! it's been awhile!" and i was trying to register....finally i just said, "help me out.." and he said, "AMY."  hmm..no, i am not amy, and i'm pretty sure his name was not amy....i kinda cocked my head to the side and he told me what school she was at now, and i realized he was the father of a student who used to attend our school, only she was never in my class, so i didn't really make the connection. oh...now i remember, and he said what i was thinking, that she was still a drama queen.

it wasn't too long after i got to school that the baby got into the donut, and the ninja lego warrior rescued it.

had it not been for lego ninja warrior, creepy baby might not have made it.

so anyhoo, friday was not a bad day.

the best part of friday was getting home and knowing that my friend erin was coming over to spend the night! she came up from the houston area for a photo workshop, and i was so glad that she stayed with me because we haven't had a chance to hang out since she got married!  it was so good to catch up and just chat. the best part was seeing how happy she is to be married, and how happy she is in her work!

she has a pup as well, and sage sent her love to the boys and sent them toys-which they have loved playing with!

erin shoots newborns. i mean...she doesn't shoot them, she photographs them! check out her facebook site and like it! erin is very talented, and i think what really makes her great is that she loves what she does, and she is very personable, and really gets to know the clients that she works with. she does a lot, but from our talk, i could tell that she especially enjoys newborns and doing births. also check out her website, you can see her work there! the birth book i got to see was a story of pictures-so neat!

it really made me pause for a moment. and i started thinking about what would it be that i would enjoy as much as she enjoys her job?

purposefully you cannot really tell from this picture!

after she left, i may have pulled out the scissors and cut my hair. if it looks ok, i did it, if it looks terrible, i am very upset with my stylist, and i will be firing her!

 anyhoo, not much else to tell today. i'm pretty sure tomorrow will consist of bratwurst and potato salad. summer is here, but we're still in school....i despise the people in charge of approving the calendar that we are on.

julie

not so much booing and hissing as barking and hissing..

ok, so..i'm a little frustrated because i had this post half done, but it didn't save, and it wouldn't publish. boo. i'm at my parent's home in buffalo, mo. but, before i left, guess where i went!? that's right, i had to stop by school to drop off some of my summer school supplies that i had taken with me that were crowding up my car!

i covered up the room as tastefully and colorfully as possible...actually i had asked a couple of girls to grab me 4 long strips of paper and of course they got one of each.

i was going to buy a baby shade for the back window, but i decided to try something else, and they now have a $218 shade. yes, creative as i may be, i took the mri films and wedged them in the back windows...i suppose it's legal. if not, i could always pretend to be a radiologist late for work, so i thought i'd read the films on the way to work...because impersonating someone is not a felony and all.

as i was driving up to missouri, i had mapped out my path thinking i might have to stop in tulsa (a little out of the way) to use the restroom because they have a petsmart, but fortunately there is a pet place in mcalester (which is almost the halfway point), and they allowed pets in. i have never seen it before, so i was quite amused..and so thankful that i bought knees of some kind of animal for the boys. that's right...knees. 

i did also get them yet another thinking toy-keeps the brain sharp-no time for alzheimer's...their lives are much too short!

 chaco didn't exactly work the lever as he was supposed to, but he figure out how to get the treat nonetheless, so i give him kudos for improvising-he is a survivor!

 when we got in the car to continue our journey, bruno got in chaco's seat, forcing chaco to get into bruno's. then bruno proceded to get out of his seat (i didn't buckle them in for that segment), and lay most of the way on the bean bag, then about an hour from our destination, bruno wanted back in his own seat and jumped in with chaco, who was looking at me with that 'what am i supposed to do now?' look. but they did just fine the rest of the trip.

one of the worst things about the trip is that all along the way through oklahoma, it is sprinkled with little towns, so i had to keep slowing down to go through the towns. quaint and adorable, but not so much when you're trying to qualify for a big race...right? regardless, we made it in record time. i may actually have qualified for the indy 500...no tellin'. i decided mom and dad don't need to know exactly how fast we were going...

i think the trip took everything out of bruno-he was exhausted. now that we've been here a couple of days, i am hoping that the dogs and cats start to get along, or at least tolerate each other. right now we're all in one room and the boys are laying quietly with scamper sleeping on the opposite side of the room. there has been quite a bit of hissing and barking, and a little bit of chasing. the cats are twice the size of the dogs, so it would probably be all cat.

and that's it for tonight-hopefully i can publish this thing!
julie

anagrams, target goodies and a wonderful weekend!

it's so nice to have summer school over and done with! i'll miss it. BA HAHAHA! i made a funny...i won't miss it at all! (certain people, but not the rest!) on friday, we had fun and games day, and one of the math teachers was trying to figure out an anagram, so he gave me one to try it. he ended up looking up the answer, but not me! and i wouldn't take any hints either. i was finally able to figure it out

i attribute it to the cross anagram at k wet-thank you kanakuk!

 and the kids had a chance to draw and finish books.

this is a portrait by a third grader...apparently he sees me as an amputee with scraggly hair...but he got the eye color right.

i came home and had to run over to target, where i found some really cool buys (only i didn't buy them...trying not to do impulse buys)

i absolutely fell in love with this clock-quirky like me

and since our doors do not have kick stands, i thought this would be a classy little door stop!

last, but not least, God save the queen-solar powered...she waves! it would be even funnier if she tooted once in awhile.

then i saw this little button in the parking lot. he looked very distressed about being stuck on the sweltering blacktop!

the boys and i packed up on saturday and took off for the wedding! woo hoo!

bruno just chilling out in his car seat

we got to stay with bmayes because her roommate was out of town, the boys were thrilled that they were getting to hang out with reagan and thatcher again. they did fairly well. it was good for me just to have intelligent conversation-thanks brittany!

when we got to the wedding, we were walking in about 5 minutes early, and someone in front of me was fixing her shoe; mother/daughter. she turned around and there was a look of recognition-"jrob!" it was mrs. higgins and sally! sally had just rolled in from kamp. good times! it was a beautiful ceremony for an amazing couple!

this is their save-the-date pic, they are perfect for each other!

not gonna lie, i teared up a bit when lauren walked down the aisle with her brothers on either side. wow. their mother passed away when they were young, and their father passed away just a few years ago, so it was rather emotional! her sister, katie was the maid of honor and is also a dear friend and she and lindsay(one of the other bridesmaids/k2 friend) are quite possibly two of the funniest people i know! the reception was beautiful as well, and there was dancing! in fact one of the most prominent dancers was a little 7 yr old (i am guesstimating...i did not ask her age) this little gal would get right out into the middle of any group she could and pull out her moves-all night long! non-stop. i'm certain she slept like a rock!

the sparklers to see them off were beautiful and bmayes and i wanted to keep an extra, but this older guy came by and took them away from us. rude.

when we got back to the house, the pups were all ready to come out from behind the gate! i was exhausted (because i am a little sick-the sinus stuff really hit me hard!) the bed is super high, so i had to rig up a little stepping method-bruno caught on quickly, but chaco did not. i tried not to get up to go to the bathroom too many times for toilet paper (drainage), because chaco was a mess whenever i got up. he just wanted to get out the door and play with the other pups. all. night. long. he had a quiet whine. then i would pick him up and get him to lay for a little while before he was up again. it was ridiculous. i don't think he slept at all...hence, i really didn't get much shut-eye either!

when i finally couldn't keep them still any longer, we got up. some chloraseptic and green tea and cool enough weather outside was just what i needed to start the day! it was fun to watch chaco and thatcher pouncing around! then we went for breakfast at jimmy's egg.

not my most photogenic pic, but the point is, jimmy's has their own syrup labels...i wonder if they just buy someone else's syrup and keep refilling the bottle with cheap syrup.

when we walked in, i looked around and commented that it kinda' resembled a denny's...bmayes told me later that it actually was a denny's that no one really frequented, but it had been changed into jimmy's egg. the waitress was great and she looked down and asked bmayes if those were chacos she had on and of course we were both wearing ours; she said her daughter was a counselor at a camp and had gotten some chacos and vibrams, blah, blah, blah-she has good taste. i made sure to leave her a good tip (a. because it was breakfast, and i think breakfast servers deserve bigger tips because they are busier and the prices are usually lower than other meals, so % isn't fair...and b. because if she's having to help pay for her daughter's shoes, she's gonna need it!) 


brittany had tweeted that we were there, and a friend of hers suggested two different plates after we'd finished eating, and lo and behold each of us had ordered one of them! great palates have great taste...?

then we came home, and i am so glad that i have a radar detector because there were quite a few popo out there! (i had a hard time writing that, and i'm even having a more difficult time leaving it there! not the part about driving quickly, the part about writing 'popo') anyhoo, when we slowed down and pulled into the apt complex, the boys were ready to be home. i know they had fun, but they knew where they were!

we're home! we're home!

what a weekend!
julie

don't pet your friends' arms...just don't.

ugh. i woke up this morning with that feeling in the back of your throat that says: drainage. and a headache came with it. it ALWAYS happens when school is getting out or i have a break, i get sick. i am hoping that it is just stress-decompression and it goes away by tomorrow afternoon because i am planning (like i mentioned yesterday) on going to a wedding this weekend in oklahoma, and i do NOT need to be sick while i am there! boo.

today was a mad-house. fortunately the kids were great and kept very busy working to finish their books. i was shocked by how diligent they were! it allowed me to get all of the paperwork done that i needed to finish. and i was eventually able to get everything off the walls and all of the staples de-stapled. i am definitely going to be leaving the room better than i found it!

i keep going to my mailbox looking for a book that was supposed to be mailed...

i have 7 and 9..i must get 8 so that i can read 9!! ugh.

i just got a call a few minutes ago from the insurance company that does the cancer/heart stuff, and he insisted on meeting to go over my policy. so i have to meet him tomorrow at 5 at starbucks. i am not excited about this, but hopefully i can use my negative body language (i am good at this) to let him know this needs to be short and sweet. i am not looking to make friends tomorrow.

last night when i was shaving my legs, i began to think about how much i need to get some shaving gel. everyone knows i have blonde hair, so one would think my leg hair would seem almost invisible.well, that reminded me of when we lived in costa rica. there was this girl (missionary family who went to the same church we did)...i don't remember her name, but i think her sister might have been danielle...i could be lying. but anyhoo, she had furry arms...like a kitten...and they were blonde, but she had thick arm hair-and you could most certainly see it. well, one week she showed up to church with shaved arms and i am pretty sure her little sister said that she had gotten in trouble for shaving them. not that anyone really cares, but that's what i was thinking about. oh the memories!

just for the record, my apt is a mess. much too small for summer school i have so much stuff that i brought home last summer that never got back to school...now i have more because of summer school-i cannot leave it in the car because markers go dry, glue dries up, crayons melt (into beautiful sculptures i might add-which are great for teaching figurative language on how hit it is outside...so hot i felt like a box of crayons melting in the sun..pull out sculpture)...even posters fade and begin to curl in directions they are not supposed to curl....

alright. don't shave your arms...unless people are petting them.
julie

i did not tell the students tomorrow was the last day, but i wish i had!

well, last downhill slope of summer school! almost finished with the end of ss fluency tests (which may have been due today?) and tomorrow i have more paperwork to work on...had to turn in GRADES...that's a first! i truly doubt that any teachers are going to be checking summer camp grades! fo real now....someone in a glass office has come up with cruel and unusual punishment...i would put money on it that many teachers who worked this summer will not do it again...unwarranted stress.

anyhoo, tomorrow is an amazing day because we are having a cookout! THANKS KAY!! G-O-O-D!

oh! i went in on monday to the physical therapist and he said, "hmm, it's very uncommon for the disc to bulge into the spinal canal. but it does happen more with young folks." honestly, if that were the only thing that came out of the whole visit, i would've been plenty happy. but something even better happened! he confirmed that it usually takes about 3 months to feel better and heal, and he gave me some exercises. twice a day..it takes me about a half hour to get through them each time...ugh. but i will do them if they'll make me feel better!!! baby steps. maybe it's psychological, but i am already noticing small differences.

i might have even slept through the night last night, BUT the electricity went off in our complex at exactly 10.42. and i sleep with the ceiling fan and the ocean waves cd...the boys like it because it drowns out sounds in the parking lot. it was so hard to get to sleep..and i started thinking about what i was going to have to do if i woke up in the morning and it were still off..refrigerator items to the cooler, lug to car, ice up, take to school with me..dear Jesus, if you love me, please let the electricity come back on! then it got warm and i wanted the ac to kick on...nope...then we were rudely awaken at 2:46 by jerks down in the parking lot laughing and talking very loudly-i was very close to going out and telling them to pipe down, but fortunately the electricity came back on right as i was thinking about peeking out the window to later identify them and figure out where they live so that i could walk the boys by their door at 5:30 on saturday or sometime next week and give them something to bark about....

they got lucky.

i got to make a fun collage yesterday at school, which i turned into a letter for a dear friend. we were supposed to be creating flowers like georgia o'keefe did, but i took a different route...no flowers for me, that wasn't where my mind was.

looking out over tablerock, from a cabin.

when i got home, i had a silly catalog with a bunch of 'as seen on t.v.' items addressed to the former resident. wow, some of the things in there were comical, but some of them were actually kinda' neat!

who would take the time to load the lucky horsesheoe lotto scratcher?...that just seems strange.

help your lawn breathe better...kinda funny...looks like a good way to sprain an ankle or tear an acl...

and then there's the magnetic back support...helps improve your posture...but it's really a bummer when you get too close to a moving car...

excited to get through tomorrow and eat my burger...maybe tell the kids that surprise, thursday's the last day of summer school!! take everything home, sleep in on friday! hahaha...sounds like something gigi would've done...wonder why parents always showed up late for parent conferences and stopped coming early? smile.

then saturday it's off early for another oklahoma wedding! love my friends!! love celebrating their happiness!!

goodnight!
julie

naked coffee cup-slightly embarrassing...hover around in the grand canyon, now that's daring!

at summer school on friday, i overheard one of the girls in homeroom say to a boy,"see me in my eye." i know she meant look me in the eye...but it sounded funny to hear it this way.

and in the afternoon class, one of the boys said that dogs live from 4-10 years. meaning that they don't die before they reach 4? hmm...and again phrasing. he probably heard somewhere that an average dog life is 4-10 years. (still quite a broad range)... and i didn't tell the boys about that.

the other embarrassing thing that happened on friday (embarrassing for my cup, anyway..)

when your top falls off, there's really not much you can do, besides look around and hope no one else saw...

 and as i was leaving, i noticed someone's car had a kanakuk sticker on it! that made me feel like home! wonder whose car that is. i need to find time to drop by on my way up to mom and dad's this summer.

summer school has been good-very long, very busy, it's definitely not a waste of time..the kids have been working hard and learning! i like the idea of year-round school. my niece and nephew have it that way, and david and hollie seem to like it...plus, there is just so much learning that seems undone during a long summer because so many parents let their kids sit in front of the t.v. or video games to keep them out of their hair instead of motivating them to do something like, oh, i don't know...read?!

and now we are trying to figure out exactly what to do with the rest of this week since we have to finish the rest of our week with no books-we have to pack them up and turn them in on tuesday. hmm...i think we will do what my co-teacher is doing; we will make a book to record the things that we have learned over the past four weeks.

for my teacher friends out there, check out this blog site, there is a cool giveaway- it's a reading/recording tool; great for small groups and stuff-click here to check it out!

this morning we went for a quick walk and the boys found the X and started looking around.

mama, exactly what spot does X mark??

i did make a homemade humus last night-it's not terrible, but i didn't have garbanzo beans, so i had to settle for black-eyed peas...not quite the same effect, but like i said, edible. i got the recipe out of the book that nutri bullet just sent me (an extra thing that came in the mail a couple of days ago that i didn't realize was part of my order!)

i got bored and had some colored pencils around to draw vegetables...don't ask.

last thought of the day. when i was at walmart the other day, an elderly man almost ran into me in one of those cart things. he was backing up. and of course it had a loud beeping sound, but he still should've been looking where he was backing to...and when i got home, i saw this commercial and it reminded me of him.

hover-arounds overlooking the grand canyon...i just don't know how safe that is.

those things must be incredibly versatile...but i haven't seen one traipsing through a costa rican rain forest yet...that only came to mind because i watched return of the jedi yesterday and wondered how r2d2 was able to traverse the rough terrain so smoothly when they were with the cute little ewoks...

well, may your coffee cup never lose its top,
julie