Weekend Update

• Todd survived his first week of school. You can ask him sometime what he is taking on this semester...let's just say it was nice on Friday evening to finally see his face at a time other than for 5 minutes around 7 am.

• School is going really well. I almost want to pinch myself. While it's hard to tell right now if my kids are LEARNING anything...I really like this crazy bunch of kids. The girls like to play Beauty Shop at recess and they will play with our hair. FANtastic! I have one little boy that comes in every morning and gives me updates on his life while I take attendance...about his hockey games, his pets (alive ones this time), and whatever else. It's totally adorable.
  

• I finally vacuumed. Hooray!

• The post office people are starting to recognize me. I go in there once or twice a week to ship Todd's books that he sells on Ebay. It's a small sacrifice to gain back a LITTLE TEENY TINY BIT of the money we originally spent on his law books. Don't even get me started on the scam that is college books.

• This was actually last week, but we got the Ford running! Poor little Red had been sitting there all summer with no love...the Honda turned over when I first started it. However, little Red got a jumpstart before church...and then we realized it had no gas...and then it died at the gas station...and then we had to jump it again after church. So, little Red got a new battery, and we are praying that battery takes us through a few more years (and our transmission as well!)

• My parents sold their house!!! After a year long ordeal (and a mortgage PLUS a rent payment), they settled this week. They have sent me pictures of the new house they have a contract on...let's just say it IS a step up from what I grew up in (not that what I grew up in wasn't nice). They have a basement and vaulted ceilings and a fireplace...my bros have it pretty sweet! I am really excited for them and glad that they have the house off their backs. I am so glad Todd and I haven't had to sell (or buy) a house yet!

• I get my first paycheck September 3rd. I am trying NOT to get too excited since I know Uncle Sam, NEA and the insurance companies are getting a good-sized chunk of it. Still, it's nice to be CERTIFIED and SALARIED!

That's about it. We have no pictures because when do we have time to take pictures, and we have nothing interesting to take pictures of anyway.

I'll leave you with a school quote from this week:

"Mrs. Thomason, I'm sorry for being BAD earlier."

(isn't that nice?)

Wednesday Only Stats

• Criers: One (meltdown sobfest. That happens when SRS takes you away from your mother the night before).

• Vomiters: One. In class. Luckily in the trash. Its hard to teach math when a kid is throwing up. There IS a bug going around.
  

• Number of kids who needed the nurse: Who freakin knows. I heard "my throat hurts," "I can't hear anything," "my eyes are itchy," "my stomach feels funny, " "I feel kinda weird," and "my mom said I could come home if I felt sick." ALL today. I must be a really bad teacher if they all want out of it (by the way, it is just girls. At first I liked having more girls than boys, but I am second guessing that now!) Oh, and I missed our regular nurse. The nurse today didn't know these kids and it made it harder.

• Arguers: One. Who got promptly sent out. Do not argue with me or invoke my wrath.

• Owed recess: 3. I have one who can't put a book down. I guess I shouldn't complain because its READING which is better than TALKING, but kids are clueless enough as it is, and they don't get it even when I repeat myself. I have to keep telling myself "Fall 3rd graders are really just 2nd graders" and repeat again.

• Dr. Peppers: One. To aid my headache and because I wanted one, darn it.
  

Is it FRIDAY yet?

Room 303 UpdateI

I should be grading papers, but I'd rather blog about my class.

I like to think of them as the "my pet died" class. They sure are cute, and I'm really blessed to have such a good group of kids, but somehow our conversations always turn into this morbid tell-all of their pet that died. A usual conversation goes like this:

Me: What was the name of your first pet?
Kid: Gruffy, but he died.
Kid 2: I had a hamster but it died.
Kid 3: I had a fish, but it got flushed down the toilet.

or:

Me: What happened in the last chapter?
Kid: The giants played football with the BFG.
Kid 2: Hey Mrs. Thomason, I had a rabbit but it died last night.
Kid 3: My dog died too. Last year.

Many times we haven't been talking about pets or death, and the dead pets come up. WHY????

I think I have learned more about their dead pets, than about these kids, this year!

Stats

• Kids kicked out of the room: 2
• Criers: 2 (both girls, one because a parent got shot (in the leg, he's okay) and the other because a boy was "bothering" her. Isn't that what 8 year old boys do?)
• Nurse passes written: too many to count
• Times the nurse has had to call me to remind me to send a kid down for medicine: twice a day
• Vomiters: 1 (made it to the bathroom)
• Times I tell a kid to sit down and raise their hand instead of getting in my face and saying my name a million times to get my attention: 20 times a day
• Times I am in bed before 10: every weeknight!
• Times I have bought a Dr. Pepper in the evening for survival: twice
  

Resort Livin' in El Salvador

Todd and I decided to head to El Salvador for some R&R. We wanted all-inclusive and so thats (sorta) what we got. We really liked it for the most part (especially our room, the pools, and the massages!) and enjoyed our time there. It was hard to go back to Antigua after that (the plumbing still stunk though!) It was a beautiful place though, and it was fun to interact with the locals. Most people there were richer families from El Salvador and Guatemala taking a vacation. We were one of the few gringos there!






At the El Salvador border, they look at your passport and let you through. Easy as pie! They probably had the friendliest border patrol officers of any country we went through :)

Sooo. Honduras. Well, LET me tell you!

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Honduras rocked our world. For several reasons:

• We had totally insane drivers on the way. Took hour long coffee breaks, stopped to get the van washed, ya know, the whole nine yards.
• We had gross van-mates. Being stuffed in said van with 8 other people, ALL of whom smoke, for 6 hours, is not fun. Nice people, but not fun.
• We arrived in Honduras, ONLY to learn we would NOT be leaving Honduras in the same day, as we had planned. Something about a military coup and government takeovers and an exiled President.
• About that military coup...well, they closed the borders. On us. In fact, what they said was, "Actually, no more shuttles leaving today. We leave tomorrow at 6 am ONLY." My first thought was, oh crap, I have no change of clothes and NO toothbrush (Yes, I am vain. But it was hot. Wearing your sweaty clothes two days in a row is not pleasant).
• Everyone was watching live coverage of the coup. We kept asking people about it. Some people hated the president and wanted him gone. Some people hated him, but hated even more that their country wasn't acting like the democracy they wanted it to be. Some people wanted the new guy in and were happy. We got all sorts of opinions!
• We find an awesome smoothie shop. I think we bought four, all in the same day. It was hot, and they were DELISH! We kept overhearing convos of ex-pats trying to figure out if they could still fly out of the country.

• Most importantly, though, we saw COPAN!!! One of the biggest ruins in Central America. It was pretty cool. We saw stelae and temples and ball courts and the hieroglyphic staircase and tunnels. We loved it (except for the hot and sweaty part. honduras is HOT!!)
  

Coolest.Hotel.Ever (have I already done this post? I can't remember)

After our pineapple farm fiasco, Todd and I decided we put down a decent amount of quetzales for a couple nights in a hotel. We had read some decent reviews about El Tortugal, so we hopped a boat over (it was only accessible by boat...cool, eh?) We ended up here, in a nifty little bungalow. While we were there, this awesome storm blew up. It looked cool, but turned out to be quite disappointing :) We had a great time relaxing and getting out of the humidity (AND we had hot water! Woot woot!)

Discovery

(picture from here)

WHY have I never discovered Nutella before? One day in Antigua, we stopped in a crepe place named Luna de Miel, and I tried their crepe with strawberries and Nutella.

HEAVEN!!!

It was so good. So since we've been back, Todd and I have recreated this experience TWICE (both Sundays). I know it can't be good for you to go through almost a whole thing of Nutella in one week, but the combo is my new favorite. So, thanks to Martha Stewart and her crepe recipe, and our friends at Nutella, we had a great morning!

The ROOM

Today I had that moment where I thought...I am a TEACHER!! It was exciting...and then I just felt tired :)

So there it is folks. The oddest shaped room, with the oddest shaped tables (trapezoids, seriously?)...but I'm pretty sure I have the best class. For example:

• I had a little girl write me an "I love you" note. It was cute.
• Another little girl pronounced "intestines" as "contestants." As in, "Pigs have really long contestants." We all (me and the special ed teachers) all giggled over that.
• They have nicknamed The BFG from Roald Dahl's book "Big Fat Guy." It's actually Big, Friendly Giant, but they like Big Fat Guy a whole lot better :)
• One girl has told me every day I am her favorite teacher. I just thought, WOW, I wonder what she'll think on day 178!
• I had to ask a boy, "What does o-r-i-n-g spell?" Yep, he meant "orange."
• Another girl thought that "tick," like a clock tick, was an adjective. I also saw "USA" and "lower shelf." Yeah, we gotta work on the adjectives.
• I had to give my first timeout. I HATE punishing kids but I have a few talkers who don't really know how to stop. This is the same girl who decided that at the end of the day, before we dismissed, that she needed to call her mom, "and tell her I'm getting on the bus soon." I told her to give it to me, and I said to Mom that "Your daughter is still in class and I am hanging up now." I hope Mom doesn't hate me, but seriously? Cell phones to 8 year olds?

I'm sure there will be many more stories to come :)

Stats So Far:

• 24 students, one new that I found out about the day before, and one the first day of school. Fabulous. Teachers love that (sarcasmsarcasmsarcasm).
• Vomiters:1
• Criers:0 (YESSSS!!! we had a lots of criers move up into the grade)
• Bleeders: oh lots. mostly scabs they are picking (I know gross) and blisters from shoes.
• Broken pairs of flip flops: 2. DO NOT SEND YOUR KID TO SCHOOL WITH BROKEN FLIP FLOPS!!!
• Girls: 13
• Boys:11
• Number on medication: a bunch for ADHD. Two with asthma. One with lactose intolerance.

Let's hope for a good year!

Back to School!

I wouldn't mind some of THESE from my kids sometime this year :)

Hee hee.

Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!

I start school in two days!!

Todd gets home in a week!!

I have only done dishes once this week!!

My phone cord is still missing! (and my phone is dead, just for your info. so if its an emergency, call todd's phone, I am using his)

I have had at least two sodas every day for a week, and I've eaten out every day! And my Maximus membership is being neglected!! What a mess!




seriously. i am praying that in two months, my job won't still be consuming my life :)

Until I Have My Own Kids....

...I get to post pictures of my sister's baby, Ari! CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE!

Quirigua Ruins, Guatemala

The first and smallest Mayan site we visited. The only thing really left are stelae (those carved rocks) but they were incredibly detailed and HUGE!

El Pariso Finca, Rio Dulce, Guatemala

So...we checked out this finca (that's farm for you gringos!). It was way out there, and we decided to be adventurous and take public transportation. So we took a van to one stop, and transferred to this old rickety bus for the rest of our trip. The. most. bumpy. ride. ever. Wow.

The waterfall is HOT water, and the water below was cold, so when they combined...it was like having a shower :) The downside for me was that the fish liked to nibble, which felt realllly weird. On our way back, I was starving, and we ended up walking forever, and ever, and ever to find food. By the time we ate, the public transportation had stopped running and we were worried we were stuck (we were about an hour outside of the city and it was all dirt roads, we COULDN'T have walked home).

Soo...this nice church group let us ride their chicken bus home. The kindess of strangers :)

Somehow...

...I have to go from this...

to classroom "perfection" by the time the parents and kiddies arrive for sneak peek next week.

I know what I'll be doing every spare second this week :)