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

Yay!

So the Indy mini was a success! :) It was a ton of fun and I felt great about it. I never stopped, which was one of my goals and kept a great pace the whole time. I saw a ton of people that I knew while running...some of whom were from Warsaw, some from my hometown, others from Purdue, etc. It was so funny! I really liked the 13 mile distance a lot. I want to do another half marathon this fall--not sure which one yet though. There are a ton to pick from--I'll definitely see what other people are thinking and go from there. I'm doing several 5K's and 10K's the next few weeks so that will be good to keep me a little bit into that pace of running. I have enjoyed this week not needing to think about the training schedule--it felt great to take it off the fridge! :) I would like to eventually run a marathon--definitely not this year but maybe next. I want to run one more half and then decide if I'm up for the challenge of training for a full marathon!

Ready or Not--The Mini Is Here!

I can't believe it but the mini is finally here! When I started training for the mini it seemed forever away but it's in two days! I have tomorrow off work as we are leaving in the early afternoon hours to get to Indy, register for the race, check into our hotel, and dine at Bravo. Regardless of what time I get I'm excited to be doing it and have definitely trained a ridiculous amount for this race! I'm just hoping for really great weather--we haven't had any of that this week!

This week has been nutty--holy cow. I'm exhausted but I'm so tired that I can't sleep--I hate that feeling! I just returned from South Bend. I went up after work tonight and took my sister shopping for a dress, shoes, etc. for her graduation! We were extremely successful (not that there were any doubts!) and conquered the whole look within one store! Of course it was at our favorite store...Maurices! One thing that I appreciate greatly about that store is that the sales people there are awesome and so helpful. It didn't take long and they had put together the whole thing for Heather--dress, sweater, necklace, earrings, bracelet, and shoes. I was just glad that we didn't have to go to fifty five stores to find a dress!

This was our last week of ISTEP--it was the third time that the kids have tested ISTEP this year and we are DONE! Praise God! I can't believe how close we are getting to the end of the school year too!

We finally had our first track meet this week (since last week's was rained out!) and WON! Both boys and girls won, which is awesome. This track season is flying by usually they seem to take a while but not this one!

I got my Ipod back today and just in time for the weekend of the mini! It was a huge/frustrating fiasco of me getting it back but it's here now! I was not a huge fan of Fed Ex after it was all said and done!

I started the process of refinancing my house tonight. The rates are almost two percent lower than when I purchased my home--that's a huge amount! So that process should be over by the end of May. I'm grateful to have an awesome mortgage officer--she's amazing and makes it really easy.

I have a huge weekend ahead--obviously the mini, then I'm headed to Indiana Wesleyan in Marion to watch my sister run for a while (no rush on getting there though because she doesn't run till 6 p.m.!), spending the night at my parents, then we are all headed to South Bend along with my Grandma on Sunday morning for my sister's college graduation! We will then all go out to dinner afterwards with a few of her closest friends and her boyfriend. I'm sure I will shed a few tears at this event--I can't believe that my 'little' sister is officially done with school!

Random Updates...

**The past two weeks have been crazy crazy. This time of year is always like this--everything is going on all at once and you feel like you are always spinning out of control! We are gearing up for ISTEP again at school for next week--I can't believe this will be the third time this year that we have taken that test! This week we are just trying to stay as sane as possible with a field trip on Friday to Kids Healthworks and every afternoon the kids are presenting their state projects that they have been working on for months. They are all on the computers and they turned out so good--I'm proud of those kids! I can't believe that it's almost May and that soon the school year will be winding down! Where does the time go??

**Check out this You Tube video. I had my kids watch it in class today--we were doing a little lesson on how to treat other people. Some of us needed reminded of how to do that well. The kids of course thought it was hilarious but then had a lot of really insightful comments after it about how we judge people in our society. The rest of the day they were a lot more careful about what they were saying and how they were saying things--I was so grateful.

**I've had a Grace College student in my class for the past few months. She's a freshman and when she started she was uncertain as to if she wanted to be a teacher. She was so so so great--we couldn't have asked for a better fit! Today was her last day and the kids adored her--she did make a decision through this process to become an elementary teacher and I'm super excited for her.

**Tonight was supposed to be our first track meet but unfortunately the rain won and we didn't get to run. :( That was frustrating because the kids were so excited and as coaches we had put so much prep and work into getting ready for tonight....oh well. Hopefully next week the weather is better for a meet....in the meantime we'll practice a lot....:)

**I am seriously contemplating getting a treadmill for here at my house and getting rid of my Y membership. I love the Y but the money adds up and I could easily have a treadmill for what I pay per year. It would be really convenient to be able to get up in the morning and just work out here...we'll see. I've been looking online and then a friend encouraged me to just post something on facebook and it looks like that might be the ticket. With grad school starting I'm trying my best to free up a few dollars or cents.

**The mini is next weekend--can't believe it!!!! I just can't believe that it's here already! I feel like I'm as ready as I will ever be...I could probably train for another month and still wouldn't be satisfied. I did the 12 mile run last Friday and it was good so I think I'm set. The next two weeks are a lot easier training wise with tapering. I'm also trying to do some other things as well because I pulled a crazy muscle in my side last week and hadn't been in that much pain for some time......I just overdid it. I've been going to lots of spinning classes and am going to a Hip Hop class at a new fitness studio tomorrow after work. If all goes well with this mini I think that I might want to do the mini in Fort Wayne in September--one thing at a time though. :)

**My ipod died an unfortunate death....I've only had it since January--how frustrating. On the 12 mile run it just quit. It's dead! I'm waiting on the box from Apple to come so that I can send it in. Fortunately, I stil have my old trusty MP3 player......

**My sister, Heather, graduates from college next weekend too! I can't believe it at all!!! She still has 3 weeks of track after that so she isn't all the way done but done with classes! She qualified for Nationals for track in the A Standard Division, which is amazing. So she will be traveling to St. Louis the week before Memorial Day. I'm super excited for her--what a great way to end your senior year of college!

**I'm officially scraping some things off my plate in terms of commitments....it's way past time. I felt like all last week I kept saying to myself, "Something's gotta give." Two commitments I know of for sure that I'll finish them up (they end in like a month) then I'm done. I just have too much going on and want to make sure that I keep everything in balance.

Whew!

The first day back after break always is exhausting and I always forget just how exhausting it is! This one proved no differently....after a little over 12 hours at work today I'm completely spent! It's always entertaining to me though what kiddos 'forget' or conveniently forget over vacation. I just had to laugh at nearly half the questions I answered today. One of my favorite moments of today (was not sitting in a 2 hour long PTO budget meeting) but this morning the kids were having a spanish lesson. They have spanish names on cute little passports for them during these times. We did a spelling test afterwards and over half of them wrote their spanish names on their papers but I don't have their spanish names memorized so I didn't know whose spelling test was whose. When I asked them about it one said, "We are just trying to express our pesronalities in a new way." Oh my.....:)

Hopefully tomorrow it won't be so dreary, cold, and rainy that will help too and then we can actually have track practice since we have a meet in a week--yikes!

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