Skateland and brick laying

Goodness this week has been tiring! I'm sitting in a quiet house with no events on the calendar today which means we have a bit of a chance to regroup after all the fun things.

Thursday was Paige's 5th grade class party at Skateland which I organized for the two classes. Funny enough, the school has not been since Anna's class went three years ago and I also arranged that. Ha! Paige and her buddies were so excited to attend. Of course, I showed them how it was done! Most of the grown-ups there did skating as kids so we knew what we were doing. A lot of the kids had never been before. But they quickly learned and fell down a lot. Paige commented at the end that it was the most fun she's had in a long time.

Friday, I was over at the school for most of the day laying a brick pathway. There are bricks at the school with kids names on them that have been there for four years and needed to be added to the current bricked area. We got a start on it on our workday, but it didn't get finished, so me and my partner in crime these days, Jenna, said we would use our muscle to help the brick layer. I think he was impressed with our determination. After laying gravel crush, sand, tamping and then putting in the brick side guards, we finally got to laying the bricks. It was moving along well, until we realized whoever had planned did not buy the additional 150 plain bricks for the pattern. Guess who will be picking up more bricks this coming week and then laying them? Yep, me and Jenna. This brick stuff has turned into quite the project. Also I am pretty much sore from head to toe after the skating and brick laying adventures.

Meanwhile, I've also put in my final grades and been working on a few other projects for the celebration to include a 45 foot long time line. It's coming along and will look great on a really long wall as you walk into the event. We have just two weeks to go and goodness it's a sprint to the end!

Anna has field day at school and loved it. Paige is trying out new earrings, joining in on Mr. O sing alongs and watching her pollinator garden come to life. Patrick is as busy as ever trying to get legislation passed before session is over, making cinnamon rolls for his AP students and MCing the teacher of the year banquet for the district. The end of the school year is upon us!

New PR, dog life and busy bees

May-cember is almost upon us. That's what I call the end of the school year because in a lot of ways it feels like the business of December. Fasten your seatbelts!

Anna had the Richland County meet last night. It was a beautiful evening and she ran great. I was so excited to have her orchestra teacher come out and watch her. We're good friends so it was good to catch up with her while we waited for Anna to run. Paige and I also enjoyed our sub sandwiches and Cheetos which seem to be the dinner of choice at the track. Anna finished in 3rd place in the 1600, earning a PR by a whopping 6 seconds and a new school record. She was just 3 seconds shy of 2nd place and it was cool watching the 1st place runner, Gomez, finish in almost 5 minutes. Even more exciting was seeing Anna's teammate break 6 minutes which she has been working toward all season. Anna was so thrilled for her! 

The 3200 wasn't until 9:45 so Paige and I headed home and Patrick reported that Anna ran out of steam at the 5th lap, finishing in 4th with a time of 12:30. It was late and she had crushed it during the 1600 so I'm not surprised. Funny enough, that's close to her PR from last year so it goes to show how much she's improved this year. She's in great shape this year both mentally and physically. So proud of her!

Meanwhile, Teddy is just living his best dog life and Paige might think it's pretty good too. Ha! 

We've been busy bees these days. I've been over at CFI for hours this week preparing for the event on May 15th, trying to start a mentor program and organizing the 5th grade party at Skateland tonight. It's lots of meetings and busy work getting stuff in order, but it's coming together. I'm excited! I'm also finishing up my last class for the school year and will put in final grades soon. It's nice to wrap that up and focus on some other things. This was a great group of students and I LOVED teaching a smaller class. Unfortunately, that won't happen again. Check out this sweet email I got from a student.

It's going to the birds

Paige is LOVING all of our bird friends in our yard this spring. She has found three nests so far with one more in the garage that had to be moved before the parents laid the eggs. As much as we would have loved the next in our garage, we were afraid the parents would be trapped in or out with little birdies needing to be fed. Regardless, Paige sat in my car one afternoon and just watched them going back and forth. It was very entertaining. 

She has blue birds in her blue bird box and even caught the mama in there one day. 

The cardinal eggs have hatched and they are so cute.

We'll wait to see what we have in my jasmine. 

None of them seem to be bothered by Teddy who is quite oblivious to all of the activity. The weather has been quite strange this year with a cooler stretch for some time and two freezes which I am afraid didn't do any favors to my blueberry bushes, even though I covered them. The rest of the garden seems to be popping up. My irises finally filled in a bit, but not like the last two years. I'll still take a few blooms over none at all! 

CFI Work Day

If you want to find me these days, you can look over at CFI. I'm pretty sure they've set me up a cot over there or at the very least, a work station. I spent most of last week helping to prepare for a large work day which took place on Saturday. We're getting ready for the 25th anniversary celebration on May 15th which will take place outside. Because of Covid we haven't had a grounds day in over two years. While CFI is a small school, there are significant garden spaces outside each classroom. Many of those had become over grown and in need of repair, weeding, pruning and mulching.

So this past week we fine tuned an organized plan for volunteers, bought materials, moved materials, sent communication, got snacks, taped off things and generally got everything together to have a successful day. All we needed were volunteers and I just wasn't sure how that would turn out. 

Anna and Patrick headed off to Cane Bay for an elite meet which her 4x800 team qualified for. That left Paige and I to go over to CFI bright and early and unload my car full of tools as well as set up. We were there for 6 hours! Fortunately, people started showing up and things got checked off our to-do list. We had to move a HUGE pile of mulch which was dumped on Friday. Other tasks included weeding, clipping, pruning, trash pick up, cleaning up beds, planting, fixing fountains, laying bricks and pavers, power washing, blowing....you name it, we did it. 

I was in charge of a large zone in the back of the school where most of the event would take place and really wanted to make sure we got our tasks done. I'm proud to say the kids and parents worked hard and we ablet to complete everything except for the brick laying which I will help with this coming Friday. Paige was a HUGE help with her "mulch girls" and she even finished up her pollinator garden with Zoe. I know that's a big relief for her to be done with that part of her project. 

In the end we were all dirty, tired and hungry. It was a great day with a lot of accomplishment. Paige and I returned home to take showers and just veg. Sweet Patrick and Anna even grabbed dinner for us on their way home from the track meet. By the way, Anna and her team all PRed in their race! Anna ran a 2:35 and Patrick says he thinks she has some more in the tank to give. We're hopeful they can qualify for state. The rest of the girls did great and they have a chance at winning state this year, fingers crossed. 

This week I will wrap up my class and be over at CFI several days, getting ready for the next phase...oh and watering the plants to keep them alive!

Me, Jenna and Dr. Mueller, the principal (the people running this show)

Paige and her classmates with Ms. Myers!

Happy Birthday Teddy!

We celebrated our favorite doggo yesterday. Teddy officially turned two. He's such a nut! The girls got him a giant stuffed log that you can put 6 little stuffed squirrels inside of and then he gets to pull them out. Needless to say, he squeaked them all and loves it. They also gave him a special treat-a dog bone spread with peanut butter and then broken up Cheerios on top. Again, another hit. Patrick and I took him on a walk and fed him so that counts. 

I know years ago I said I didn't want a dog and now that we have this guy, I'm pretty smitten. He's laid back although can be very skeptical of doing what we ask him to do. Let's just say he takes his dear time deciding to put on his harness or go to his spot and he always requires motivation to do it. He loves cheese, peanut butter, cheerios and dog bones. He would eat chicken and rice every day if he could. Just 16 pounds, he thinks he's a big dog until he actually meets a big dog and then, no thank you. You'll usually find him at my feet or getting scratches and having fun in the evening with Patrick. The girls love to snuggle him and talk in voices for him, but I'm not sure he digs either. At least he tolerates it until he lets you know he's done with a grumpy grumble. We're definitely his people and he loves the routine of our house. He still likes to jump like a cricket and zoom around the yard when he gets a wild hair. 

All that to say, Teddy Schnoodle-beard Kelly, we love you!