Back at it

Started work at the new school this week!
Monday was mostly paperwork and getting things sorted.
Tuesday the students went on a Study Trip to Oxford, there wasn't room on the bus, so I took the beginning of the day to bring in a few items from my closet and teaching things. Some more paperwork and got a login.
Wednesday and Thursday morning, I was able to do some observing in the 4/5/6 classroom, as well as the 2/3 classroom.
Friday the students only had a half day, After they all left, teachers were required to stay for some computer based training. Woo that was challenging.
Finally got it all done, and that felt good.

Friday evening we had a cookout, kind of as a going away for Aaron. Everyone had a good time, was fun to host again.

Yesterday was a craft lock in at the community center, took the Cricut and did some classroom crafts, and watched others sew. I think sewing will be the next hobby, can make some curtains for the house and various other things.

Laundry and some organizing today. Maybe catch up on some Grey's Anatomy.

imPATIENTLY waiting for tomorrow morning!

I am very eager to start work in the morning, could it hurry up and get here already?!
I have my schedule for the week, I am not sure if this will be the usual schedule, or just to get things started.... Hopefully an answer for that tomorrow.
I hope to do a lot of observing this week, get to know the teachers, staff, and students. Learn about them, the teachers style.
Another AWESOME thing: I get to walk to work! It's so close! Walking to and from work, and one of my goals while Aaron is deployed is to take the dogs on a walk every single day. For most of you with dogs, this might be no big deal, but usually we just play with the pups and they are good to go. But with Aaron gone, their play companion, they honestly don't enjoy playing with me, I'm not rough enough or something; I want to get them walking. Plus it is good for me.
Not really much to say, just wanted to let you guys know I AM PUMPED for tomorrow. I hope I can sleep tonight and not the usual night before jitters of excitement. Ha, even if I don't get to sleep I can take a nap when I get home after lunch.

Anyone know any good shops in England that sell yarn? I am out, and can't seem to find anything good around the area.

Back at it!

A'HOY!
So I am all settled in England with the pups and the hubster. We just got done celebrating my birthday and then our first anniversary! It was WONDERFUL!
The Mr. is going on a 6 month deployment soon.
I got a part time all grades teaching position at the elementary school on base and start on MONDAY! EEK! I am pumped. It's a position to help where need be.
The school is very similar to my school last year, small, combined classes, close knit community. So now I have fuel for the fire of blogging! (I know, I've been bad, but REALLY with this job being part time, I cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, that I will be more consistent, I HAVE TOO!)
I got a sweet Cricut Expression 2 Anniversary Edition for my birthday, it's still not here yet... (grr to boxes getting lost between the states and here!) but it will DEF get tons of use. My mom was a rock star and somehow got a Cricut personal, and sent it my way, I got it a few days ago and am in love, can't imagine how great the big guy will be. So I will try and post Cricut creations here upon occasion.ALL THE THINGS! CRICUT ALL THE THINGS! (all the things, is an internet meme, and accurately captures my actions at the moment) Meme
AND
I got a new, AWESOME, camera for our Anniversary, above is an example of its handywork. This was from Oxford, at the Christ Church Garden.
So hopefully more pictures too.
I know I am making a lot of promises here folks, but stick with me.

Oh, I want to get a sewing machine, so if you have any recommendations as what I should get, please share!

Have a Great weekend!
I am looking forward to Monday! (although I am unsure if I can get used to a full 5 day work week, after having a 3 day weekend all last year.)

RMM10K May 13th

I colleague and I have been planning, for what seems like forever, a huge walking/running event in honor of an influential member of the community. Ray Meyers served on the school board and was very active in education throughout his life. Unfortunately he lost his battle to cancer this school year. We began planning our event prior to his loss, just to honor him and in conjunction with our Healthy Schools program in the elementary schools. We decided on a 10k because we had a beautiful path from one of the elementary schools to the JR/SR High School. Although slightly more than 6.2 miles we figured it out with a warm up walk option and bus transportation to the 10K and 5K starting lines. This event took up TONS of my time. I don't regret it at all, minus the delay it put on grading papers and inputting grades. That I mostly consider as a figuring out timing, and working on procrastination. (which if the blog posts don't tell you that, I don't know what would)
 All the planning and worrying and everything completely paid off though! Our event was a HUGE success!

My planning partner in the front followed by the SEA of orange at the 10k starting point

The support for Mrs. Meyers who wanted to complete the 10k for her husband Ray, the inspiration for the event. She did GREAT!

Winners from the 10K and 5K for most enthusiastic to most money raised and everything in between! Way to go kiddos!

After the run/walk we had lunch and a health fair. Here are some nice and healthy PIG lungs

and some not so healthy, smoked out lungs.

And even after the health fair the district held its annual "Field Day" although just an afternoon since the morning was serious work :)
Everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves, we even had some people who found our event online and joined us from out of state! An absolutely amazing turn out for a first year event. I think this will become and annual event for the district, and I plan on helping in anyway that I can from where ever I am.
ONE THING- SUNSCREEN!!!!!!!!!!!! and A LOT of it. I applied sunscreen when I got to school that day, at like 6:00 am and then forgot about it COMPLETELY until it was far too late and I was the most burnt I have ever been in my life and WILL NEVER EVER EVER be that burnt again. High altitude sun on a windy beautiful day on a 4 wheeler does not fair well for my fair Midwesterner skin. It was insane. I ended up blistering that night and boy was I in pain for the weekend.

Seattle Trip; See you later Husband

 So it might be a few months later...
The school year is now over- but lets just get caught up :)
For those of you who didn't know already my husband and I got orders, to the UK!
He needed to be there by mid April, which meant we would be seperated for some time while I finished up my first year teaching. Although I love my husband from the moon and back a gazillion times there was NO WAY I was going to leave my first year teaching. NO WAY!!!
So the time came for Aaron to leave. I did take a day off work so I could go to Seattle with him for the weekend to drove off our car for shipping and then to say good-bye as he flew out.
So we drop off the Hyundai at the SeaTac port- took a crazy long, expensive taxi back to our hotel. By the way we LOVE Hampton Inns. I think they magically became our hotel of choice. We decided to then rent a car and be tourists in town. Aaron had been to Seattle before but this was my first time. And I have no problem at ALL being all touristy! So we ended up buying some "tourist pack" with tickets to all the local attractions. We had a great time, didn't make it to all of the locations but definitely enjoyed ourselves and got our monies worth. It was a great mini-vacation and wonderful time together before our separation.

I might have a SLIGHT obsession with dinosaurs... We tried, and failed at a picture that looked like I was giving this beaut a nice pet.

Aaron and I at the Science Center, at a larger than CLARK sized table. So that is what it is like to sit in a chair and your feet don't touch the floor :)

The weekend was wonderful. It was tough to say good-bye to the Husband but I am thankful for the next chapter.
I flew back home and went into school to prep for a few hours. I swear this was the year of not enough time. Someone tell me that teaching gets, not easier, but smoother, less time consuming maybe... don't get me wrong I absolutely love it but yikes.

Whoops

Looks like almost an entire Quarter has gone by without a single blog post. I attribute this to the following: In-services, Professional Development, Staff Meetings, Data Team Meetings, Moving, organizing a HUGE event for our school at the end of the year, etc.
No excuse I know I know. I HAVE learned a TON in these past weeks though!
Bad news bears! I will be loosing one of my 3rd grade girls in just two weeks. Her family is moving out of town, this girl that started the year in a really rough spot and tried to give me heck through all that to now we are close and have an amazing understanding and she has achieved SO much! Of course I will be sad to see her go, however happy I have made arrangements with her folks to keep in touch via snail mail until I move overseas and then emails after that! This girl and I have made huge impacts on one anothers lives, of this I am sure, and thankful!
Also I have my second student out who will be gone for 2 weeks! TWO WEEKS?! Does anyone out there know how much goes on in 2 weeks? Not to mention we will have spring break right after that, OH and he was sick this whole last week, then I had a professional development day on Friday, when he was there, IT WILL BE AN ENTIRE MONTH that passes without seeing this kid. SAD FACE. I am super sad because he had made major growth lately, I just hope he really works hard on his "vacation" so he maintains that work :)
So our lease on our rental was up the end of February, and Hubby doesn't leave until April, and I will be staying til summer to finish teaching, we didn't really want to sign a new lease anywhere and our original plans fell through. Originally, we had planned to stay in the teacher housing right next to the school, for very cheap rent. However the district went ahead and rented it out the weekend or 2 before we needed to move in. Luckily for us we have amazing friends! So amazing in fact, they were willing to take us, and our mangey mutts in :) so while they are both still deployed we took over their abode! The Mr. Friend will be home soon and we will do our best to stay out of his way and keep the dogs chill. Its a fairly decent amount of time and I want to do my best to respect his space and such. Here's to hoping I don't wear out my welcome!
While I am sure there are a gazillion other things I will stop here as it shall be time for ice-cream and then perhaps snuggling down with a good book!
My goal: more blogging!

Patience

I seriously need more of this.
SO thankful that today was Friday, not sure if I could handle another day without a break.
I try to give a student the benefit but when it's the same problem day after day after day, I  just have a hard time.
Got report cards out today, let's see how many come back signed (by actual parents) next week. I have a few students who have gotten in the bad habit of thinking they can pull one over on me with faking parent signatures. I am so shocked by this because at their age I can't imagine even THINKING of not showing my mom something that my teacher asked me to show her. 
Thank you weekend.