day 273

Too bad I didn't have my 'good' camera. We had a fundraiser at Rubio's tonight and there was a brief rain. The kids were so excited to discover the rainbow...

day 272

One of my LdV families got us some fire bellied toads for our classroom. There are four of them and they were all so dark for the first couple of weeks we had them. I went to the pet store over the weekend to ask for some advice and they told me about a few changes I could make. The toads seem much happier and are now showing their colors! I love how they hover in the water with just their eyes showing. I'm including a second photo so you can see what a whole toad looks like too. Thank you so much Tacher family! The kids are really enjoying watching these little guys!

day 271

We had another 'family dinner' tonight while watched some Monday Night Football. Last week a few of us won prizes at Brew House and this week at EastLake Tavern + Bowl we were luck again - Pat won this jersey! As Jody said, when we are together, "we are winners!" :)

day 270

The light that comes in through the window near my dinner table makes the plants nearby look so cool.

day 269

day 268

Jody, Taylor and I went out for happy hour after work tonight at Oggi's near school. For the second time in a row, one of my students was there with his family and they bought us shots. :) We made a toast to all them and all of the other 'good apples.'
Great big thanks to you Everly family, for lifting us up at the end of a rough week.

day 267

I haven't bought myself some flowers in a while so I picked out some calla lilies at Trader Joe's the other day...

day 266

A student at Mater Dei (our host school site) passed away on Monday. After talking to my students about it yesterday, they decided to make cards for her classmates. Very sweet.

day 265

I met Carlisa tonight for some wine and cheap food at Apertivo in North Park. We don't see much of each other these days so it's always so much fun to catch up.  Thank you luv, for getting me out of the house and introducing me to another great spot for happy hour! I am so very grateful for your friendship and can't wait to get back on foreign soil with you! :)

For more photos, click here.

day 264

We had another 'family dinner' with some LdV families tonight to watch Monday Night Football.

day 263

For dinner tonight I made fettuccine with meatballs and a creamy tomato sauce. Yum!

day 262

day 261

I love books and I can be a little obsessive about collecting them. I especially love children's books so it's good that I'm a teacher because I can justify buying lots of them. Tonight I picked up a few new chapter books to share with my students. It's really fun to read to them and get them excited about new characters and authors - that's one of my favorite things about being a teacher.

day 260

I am afraid of spiders. I do not like them and generally try to step on them if I can. I know it's wrong.

Today, we saw this spider on the lockers as we were walking back to the classroom after lunch. It was really hard for me to get in close to shoot it but I did! You may be glad to know that my foot never got near him.

On a much more pleasant note, Jody and I went out for some wine, cheese and conversation at Extraordinary Desserts. Yum.

day 259

I shot a bunch of really cute photos of my kids today while we were killing time. It was school picture day and we were waiting for everyone to finish up. Of course, I can't post up any of those super cute photos so... this was part of one of them. I thought the shadows and other lines were interesting.

day 258

Funny what a photo can reveal for you... I have eaten this ice cream for years and years. It's my very favorite. I never realized that it had chocolate flavored chips in it until I looked at the lid in the photos. What does that even mean?!

day 257

I went to the new EastLake Tavern + Bowl tonight with Jody and a couple of our favorite LdV families. It's a great place to go for Monday Night Football - we watched the Chargers beat the Raiders and had great food and lots of laughs.

day 256

Guess where Arijana and I spent a couple of hours this afternoon?

day 255

Tonight, we celebrated my friend Rachael's 4oth birthday during a cocktail party at her house. I met Rachael when I started teaching at Clear View about 9 years ago - she was teaching 5th grade with Jody and Karen. It's been a long time since we were all together and had a great time catching up. Happy, happy birthday Rachael! I'm so glad I could be a part of your celebration!

day 254

It's September 11th. This day brings up so many feelings for me and always makes me feel very emotional. I can so clearly remember watching the plane crash into the second tower, seeing people throw themselves out of the windows and the eventual crash of both towers. I was in complete shock. I have never had such a difficult day being a teacher - looking into the nervous eyes of my fourth graders and not breaking down myself was so, so hard. In class today, I read my students a book called September 12th and talked to them about what happened that day, a year before they were born (crazy, huh?!)

After work, Jody, Taylor, Pam and I met up for a beer at Oggi's. There were a whole bunch of firefighters there, honoring their 343 brothers who were lost that day. For every beer they bought, they called out the name of a different firefighter - the goal being to buy a beer for each of them. We, of course, LOVED being in the presence of so many firefighters and had a chance to meet several of them. One happened to be an old friend of mine from high school named Jeff, who I hadn't seen in ages. Before we left, a bunch of them came over to give us hugs (apparently firefighters love teachers just as much as we love them!) so I asked if I could take their picture for my 'one a day.' I had the biggest smile on my face as I drove home, thinking about how much fun we had and feeling good that we could celebrate all of those brave men with our local boys.

I will never forget.

day 253

Tonight was our Back to School Night - a night when parents come to hear all about what the year has in store for their child.

I was completely overwhelmed by just how excited the parents were about what we are doing so far. They had so many nice things to say and I got choked up a number of times listening to them. One of them came up to me after my presentation and told me that her son had hated school up until this point and that I "totally changed his life." That one evening made all of the blood, sweat, tears and sleepless nights worth it.

Afterward, Jody and I went out for a late dinner and drink to celebrate. :) It was a good night.

day 252

This afternoon as I was cleaning up the room after the kids left, I noticed Seymour resting his head on top of the driftwood in his enclosure. The rest of his body was coiled inside the pot that's become his favorite new bed. I've never seen him do that before and though I know snakes aren't usually described this way - it was so darn cute! I ran over to my desk to grab the camera, thinking he'd be back in his pot before I got back. He didn't move at all. Instead, he sat there very patiently while I snapped photo after photo of him from all different angles. I wonder what he was thinking...

day 251

Kids are the cutest. I love two things about this - the fact that they wrote on the wrong side of the Post-its and the spelling of orange. :)

day 250

day 249

day 248

We participated in our second Saturday at the Fleet today. The children worked with pre-service teachers, creating parachutes and altering them to create a different effect (fall more slowly or quickly in most cases.) It was really fun to watch their excitement!

day 247

This is a kindergartner, by the way.

day 246

day 245

As a kid, your full-time job is to attend school so my students get paid for coming to school and for doing their homework as well as a few other things. They don't get paid for everything they do (we all work for free at times!) but the money is a very powerful tool in our classroom. Kids learn to count large amounts of cash, make trades and we even hold swap meets so that they can get rid of stuff they don't want and buy some new things. I have been so busy lately that I just haven't had time to create the money - my old money had the name of my former school all over it - so today, the kids designed their own bills. So cute!

day 244

San Diego has come really cool little neighborhoods and Mission Hills in one of my favorites. I was there this afternoon, on a visit to my hairdresser, and was thinking that I'd like to wander around and take more photos...