The End is Near

Sunday, July 15, 2007
Our trip to New York last weekend was an absolute blast. We stuck pretty closely around midtown and hit all the points of interest in that area. We started with the Empire State Building. Josh pointed everything out to us from the top including Yankee Stadium, Greenwich Village, the Friends apartment building, ground zero and the general location of the Ghostbusters firehouse- a personal favorite of his. After that we headed downstairs to have lunch at Heartland Brewery and sample some of the beer. We then worked off our lunch calories by traveling to Rockefeller Center, NBC studios, FAO Schwartz, and a stroll through Central Park. We finished up back in Times Square at Toys 'R Us (Josh is very at home in a toy store). There was just enough time after that to grab a slice of authentic New York pizza and a delicious smoothie from Jamba Juice for the bus trip home. Although exhausting, a day in Manhattan is never less than exciting. See our pictures!As for the rest of the week, I made it through the first of 4 weeks of summer school. My students, all four of them, are very nice and well behaved. At first I wasn't sure how all of the activities would work with only four students. Some things were planned for groups and rotating around the room, but most of that was impossible with so few people. So, being the super teacher that I am, I adapted most of the activities to suit my class. If we finished things early, we chatted and got to know each other or took water fountain breaks. And by the end of the week, every single one of my four students had raised their grade from their pre-test scores at the beginning of the week. All in all, I considered it a successful start.
I was very happy for another weekend to roll around. Getting up at 6-something in the morning came back and hit me hard. By mid-week I was barely able to hold my eyes open when 3:00 pm rolled around. We had a really fun weekend though. Friday night we had no plans so we just got to hang out and spend time together. Saturday we made a lot of effort at getting things done and seemed to be foiled in every attempt. Best Buy didn't have the right hard-drive casing Josh needed and Jo-Ann's didn't have the boxes I needed as part of the centerpieces for the wedding. After multiple trips out to multiple stores, we were finally able to track down one of the needed hard-drive casings. Then it was time to go to Nathan & Erin's "Housecooling" party where we drank, caught up with friends, and relaxed for the rest of the night. This morning we got up and headed to Perryville for our "neice" Lucy's baptism. It was lovely and she is an incredibly beautiful child. After her baptism we made a quick run to Pasadena- actually to a skating rink I used to skate at when I was a little kid- for a friend's son's birthday party. The kids were pumped about their Transformers gift cards. If you haven't seen them, go to Target and find one. It's a gift card that actually transforms. How cool, right? And now it's time to settle in and prep for week two of summer school. After this summer school will be half over, leaving me 2 more weeks of teaching and only a week and a half after that before pre-service week starts. And you know that once school starts this fall my wedding will be just around the corner! I'm pumped :o)