Summerness....:)

So the summer of '09 is in full swing and it's flying by! :( I can't believe that tomorrow is JULY 1st!

**Today was the last day of the first round of summer school for me. I taught upcoming 4th grade kiddos. It was a blast....I loved it as always! I had a lot of kids but they were super fun but I must admit that today when it was time to go I realized how much they needed a break because they haven't had a break at all from school yet! We accomplished a lot in the past several weeks and I saw awesome awesome growth in all of them. I taught with an awesome team this year, which also made every day a lot of fun because we could just laugh at the craziness around us!

**I have a small amount of time off, which I'm super grateful for because I need a little bit of a break. I am one who still loves routine and structure, which is why I love still having summer school but I'll be glad for a few days to catch up! Tomorrow I have to go to Valley to plan out the summer school curriculum there so the 'catching up' will start in a few days. :)

**I am done with one grad class that I loved! It was my intro to educational administration class and I loved it. My other class will end at the end of July and let's just say I don't love it... It's one of the toughest courses in the whole program and it's just plain hard. Nothing about it is easy. I'll be throwing a party when it's over I'm pretty sure! I plan on focusing on it hard core next week to get ahead because I haven't been able to get ahead on it all summer because there is so much to do for it.

**In other news this summer has been awesome! I went to the Rascal Flatts concert at Verizon with Ash at the beginning of June and it was wonderful! And got to visit other college friends that weekend as well!

**The following weekend I sporadically went to Chicago to a concert with my friend Jill...it was so awesome! She had participated in the Avon Breast Cancer walk (39.3 miles!) the prior weekend and received two free Kenny Chesney concert tickets to Soldier Field. Little did we know that there were 7 bands that played until we got there! We got there at 3:00 and left at 1:00 in the morning! And they were all awesome.....Lady Antebellum, Sugarland, Kenny, and tons others....it was so much fun!

**I'm trying to get my act together and get running again consistently. I signed up for the Fort Wayne half marathon last week! It has been so hot and let's face it I haven't been getting up early before summer school. During the normal school year I get up really early and run/workout before school. There is so much social stuff going on in the summer and it always seems like the alarm clock loses and my pillow wins because I'm out and about later. I'm going to try to start getting up earlier again and getting the run over with because I like when I do that anyways.

**My school officially has a new principal for next year...he's awesome. I'm excited about next year in a lot of different ways...it's going to be good!!

**I can't believe that this weekend is 4th of July! I have a ton of parties/cookouts! I need to make a plan of how to make them all actually! And I have a yearly tradition of running the 5K in Akron...at my alma mater! :) I grew up in one very small town but they throw awesome 4th of July celebrations....in fact people come from all over to participate. It's pretty cool. I have a weird tradition of running the 5K at my old elementary school and it's fun to see people and then go to my parent's cookout followed by a ton of other parties. I guarantee that I will do better in this year's 5K than I did in last year's. Last year I had just done the triathlon and my body was not recovered at all! I finished it.....barely.

**My sister, Ash, Jill, and I go skydiving in a week....ah!!! :) Followed the next day by a trip across the country with Laura to visit Rachelle in Texas! Both Laura and I also have friends from college who live in Austin so we are all going to have dinner together with them one night, which will be a lot of fun! :)

The End of Another Year!

This week we wrapped up the end of another school year! It was a crazy few days mostly because the weather wasn't very cooperative but we finished it out and now all my kiddos are 6th graders! They have grown up a lot this year...I will definitely miss them but I'm excited for them to move onto 6th grade. I am excited about next year's class....I have had them once. I saw my initial class list a few days ago and they did a good job of giving me a new mixture of kids from what I had previously. There were some parent requests that were honored so I'll have some of the kiddos again but the rest are new faces so that's fun. Next year my team is going to pilot doing some new things to see how it works so I'll pretty much have all the 5th graders at some point in the day. I like that though!

The way calendars fell I pretty much had to switch gears right away. It's been crazy. I tore down my room on Wednesday during our staff work day and packed 1/3 of my room into suitcases to move over to Edgewood for round one of summer school. I am teaching 4th grade summer school for the ESL department and have over 30 kiddos. I'm excited about it--summer school is going to be really different this year than in prior year for a multitude of reasons but it's always good.

Overall, it's going to be a way busy/but way fun summer. I'm taking two classes through Ball State right now. One of which is ridiculously difficult....I have lost a lot of sleep over it. I'll probably be glad when that particular class is over! Next week I have a lot due in it but fortunately I'll have part of my afternoons to just work on it.

Here's a glimpse of what I'm doing this summer:

Moving my sister and her roomie to a new apartment--check!
Going to a Tin Caps baseball game in Fort Wayne--check!--Did that last night!
Going to a Rascal Flatts concert--today!
Going to various other concerts!
Teaching summer school at Warsaw
Teaching middle school summer school at Valley
Writing curriculum for my school corporation for one week in July
Judging some 4-H fairs
Visiting people--a friend from Kentucky came to visit me yesterday--it was glorious!
Running several 5K's and 10K's
Possibly doing a team triathlon--TBD
Start training for the Fort Wayne Half Marathon
Fun Weddings!
Hanging out on the lakes with friends and family
Spending as much time as I can with my Grandma
Skydiving!
Finishing my Ball State classes
Traveling to Texas with my friend Laura for a few days to visit Rachelle
Going bridesmaid dress shopping
Playing cornhole--I am currently having Purdue cornhole boards made for me--exciting! :)
Possibly going to Florida for a few days in August...like an extended weekend