Thursday, June 23, 2011

Part 1

Sights around Andy and Laura's last Friday night.













Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Quick Preview

of our weekend home.

There was a big birthday party at my mom and dad's for my dad, Dave (husband), Jason, and Michelle's two-year-olds.


Andy and Laura invited us over for supper and sauna/swimming on Friday night. I took out my new camera for about an hour and snapped some photos of some of the things the kids were doing. That included this - some kind of game they were getting ready to start.


I tried uploading a lot more photos but the Internet here is really slow right now so it timed out. Maybe tomorrow I'll have a chance to go somewhere that has better Internet so I can share some more photos.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Wrap-up

I just looked back at what I was talking about the last few times I blogged and realized there were some cool things that happened at the end of the school year that I haven't mentioned.

The seniors finished :) Well, most of them. They had a big service learning project to do before they were done and after lots of hard work and many extra hours, it turned out pretty good. I learned a lot for next year (the biggest thing is to start it as soon as the term begins and finish as early as possible) so hopefully next year's project will be even better.

We had ZERO snow days the whole year, but to make up for it in the end, we had a power outage day in May (on a beautiful day, no less) and one again in June. It was like a dream having two beautiful spring days off! I got lots of yard work and painting done on my two extra days off.

My students tested well in March so it was fun to get the results back. I told the 11th graders that if the average ACT score for the whole class was higher than last year's average, I'd give them a pizza party. They did it! and collected on the pizza party one afternoon.
I coached a team at a Local History competition and we placed 2nd! I was so proud of my students! The best we had done before that was 7th or 8th so we were really pumped.

Year Three was definitely better than my first and second years so we will see what Year Four brings. If the tenure laws don't change in Michigan, I should have tenure after next year, and I also have to renew my certification to become a Professional teacher (rather than the Provisional teacher I am right now). The tenure thing doesn't mean too much but the re-certification means that I'll have paid thousands of dollars to a university while spending (way too much) lots of time working on higher learning.

Back!

I've tried to post a few times from my phone but that hasn't worked for me. I guess that's my only excuse for taking three months off. Wow, three months.

Happy first day of Summer! Hopefully you're somewhere that is getting summer today. I am - it's 90 degrees here.

It should be a wonderful summer being off for three months, but right in the middle of it I have to take three courses for my Master's Degree. :( I've been looking at the syllabus for each class and all the work I have to do for just one class is looking overwhelming. Not to mention adding the other two. Shoot. The fun starts on June 27 and lasts until August 5th. It doesn't sound right (looking toward the end of the summer), but I might start to really look forward to August 5th.

Aside from that, it's almost our first anniversary. In some ways it feels like we've been married longer than a year because some of those stretches when we were apart went by r e a l l y
s l o w l y. At the same time, a YEAR already?!

We're going to New York for a couple of nights this weekend before we head home for a two week vacation (full of getting stuff done like home repairs, making wood, and tons of homework). We're hoping to camp for four nights in the middle of all that but we'll see. I just may bring my school books with me for some "leisurely," entertaining reading material.

I hope you're all enjoying "summer!"