Sunday

 We had really good talks in church. Spencer Mackey spoke and he’s funny and poised for a 14 year old. He spoke about prayer and did really well. Then Marissa spoke and then a new man that recently moved into the ward. His talk was the best of all. Although all 3 were excellent. He spoke about prayer. Lilly came to church with us and she and Lettie sat with us since Lettie’s family wasn’t there. All three girls liked the talks. 

We had YW today. Sister Elliot is a wonderful teacher. We are very lucky to have her. Really everyone who serves in YW is amazing, I love it!

We had a linger longer after church. Mexican food themed. It went great. We had plenty for everyone to eat and those who stayed enjoyed time to visit. 

Saturday

We slept in. 

Then tidied up.

Grace hurt her foot last week playing human foosball. After a week of it hurting I agreed to take her for an x ray. 

It took 3 stops.

(The first urgent care had an X-ray machine but was struck by lightening so it was down. 

The second urgent care had X-ray machine but their tech doesn’t work on Saturday. 

The third had a machine and a tech. )

$620.09 (that was our co pay?!)

And 4 hours to learn that Grace’s foot is not broken. 

 Tonight was BBQ club. It is well attended and very fun but this evening we met at the park and it was windy and cold. Many Floridians only own summer clothes and hoodies. So there we were. Wind blowing, children and adults shivering, visiting and eating. It was still fun but sheesh!

When we got in the car Rob and I quickly turned on the seat heaters and sighed happy contented sighs, both of us glad that the fun time had ended.

Teacher work day

 I’m at work without kids today, which is nice because  I’m getting copies made, the room cleaned, plans made. It’s also a little lame because we are required to come here yet I honestly don’t know a single teacher who doesn’t come in 30 minutes to an hour early every day, and who doesn’t stay late every day, and we all work on weekends and evenings. So, by my math, they owe us time…not the other way around. 

I switched dentists. I have an appointment next week that will hopefully end my dental woes once and for all.

Lily came to bracelet making! Yay!

Zakia apologized earlier in the week. I think I forgot to mention. 

Grace and her friends have an all day Star Wars marathon today. They plan to watch for 24 hours straight and get thru them all!

My spring break plans❤️

testing day

 I love testing day at school. It is so quiet.  Our procedure is the students come in and I take roll and then they start.  I am lucky because my accommodated students all get pulled out for testing and that means literally all I have to do is monitor them.  I sit and grade papers, blog, lesson plan, browse the web and they test.  The tests are online so the grading is done for me.  All I have to do is retrieve the grades after and put them into skyward.  I also look at the data after to see what we need to work on.  

Today's testing day is particularly convenient because tomorrow I have a formal observation so I can prepare.

On the way to work I listened to a devotional that I loved.  Megan Jones from the BYU drama department spoke and she was inspiring, interesting, and relevant.  I am going to adapt some of her presentation for a writing assignment here in 6th grade ELA.  

World news: (just in case Ruby and Cora's grandchildren care one day)

Gas is over $4 a gallon now :( Super sad about that. 

The war between Russia and the Ukraine continues.  The world (mostly) is rooting for the Ukraine and I personally love their good president and am so impressed with the scrappy fortitude of their people.  Go Ukraine!  We (the US) are helping in indirect ways, which I am glad about.  I get, and agree, that we want to avoid WW3 at all costs therefore maybe we can't really go in to help directly.  Fingers crossed and prayers being said that the Ukraine continues to fight hard, and that they win.  Also on a side note I hope in our next presidential election, which is not for a few long years, we take a note from our neighbors to the east and  put up some candidates that are not embarrassing.

Back to personal news:

Spring break count down is on.  3 more working days for me!! 2 for the students. (counting today).  We have a couple Disney park reservations, Grace has a clarinet beach day planned, I have 3 books I want to read, and we have the missionaries coming over for St Patrick's day dinner. We have BBQ club, a date night, Netflix, and free time to talk on the phone to look forward to.   I also have a dentist appointment. Sadly Rob has a trip to CA but he will be here for most of the days so that'll be fun.  Also he gets to see Ez and Hannah and Sawyer on his trip, which is even more fun than Netflix & Disney.

We have a  little over a month left until Sierra and Chris' wedding.  I am looking forward to that happy day, to seeing all our family, to celebrating the fact that they are alive and in love. Their wedding is a year to the day of their accident.  I often reflect on the events of that day and the tremendous, tangible, miracles we witnessed.

Tonight for YW we are making wish bracelets.  Lily, who is a good friend of Grace and Lettie and Madison, has been coming to our activities recently and she loves to come.  She is sad because Grace, Lettie and Madison have band leadership camp this week after school and she doesn't want to come by herself (she's not a member). I told Grace to tell her to come, that she was welcome and we want her to. Hopefully she will. 

Also tonight we are planning our fundraiser for camp.  Fundraising is my least favorite activity in the world.  This year girls camp is on the ward level and that always costs more.  

Cute little Darcy is almost 2 months old!!

Rain

 It’s pouring rain outside and I love to listen to it. Our outside ferns will be quite happy. Our neighbor behind our backyard fence has a plethora of ferns which she regularly prunes. Once  she asked if we’d like her to throw them over the fence. Apparently we (Rob) said yes and now we have a whole fence line of happy green ferns. I read (yesterday or the day before I don’t remember which) that ferns need a lot of water. So I think that was the cause of Jack’s wilty leaves and he’s perking up now that I’m watering him each time I brush my teeth. 

We have block schedules today and tomorrow so I am doing a fun literary “who dun it?” escape room with the kids (spoiler it was Juliet Capulet!) Louise and I are delighted because tomorrow we have our planning during a long block! 

Seminary went well this morning. Teaching it on zoom was weird but the kids were helpful. 

Ethan’s letter today was fun to read. 

Tonight we had our adult book club. We read “Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine” and everyone liked it. I’m looking forward to our next book. I actually read it a while ago (a year or two maybe) and didn’t have time to re read but as we discussed I remembered and I enjoyed the conversation even though I didn’t add a lot. 

And we ended the day with a chat with our favorites!

Church

 Today felt like church lite. We decided to only have ward council twice a month so I got to go to church with the family. Then I had a quick presidency meeting after but I was home by 4 and didn’t have to go anywhere else. We got a lot done and organized and I was happy with our productivity. Our organization is awesome and really any one of the women I a blessed to serve with could step in and be the president and would do a fabulous job! That makes my job very easy. 

We have some fun things coming up and we have some really awesome girls to work with too! If we are needing to improve in any areas they are: communication with parents. I know things sometimes sneak up on them and that it frustrating for some parents. We try. And reaching out to our never coming to church girls. Again we do reach out but not as well or as skillfully as we could. 

We made these cute stitch art pictures at our mother daughter day out. As we were making them I thought they would make a perfect activity for our younger girls to do with the activity day girls in our ward. I think they are going to do that in April. 

Rob did have choir practice this evening. I’m subbing for seminary so I had to prepare a lesson after church and I had to set my alarm for extra early. 

Lastly my fern isn’t doing well. Maybe I am over watering? I haven’t really been a plant person but I have kept our two plants 🪴 alive for a long time now and I recently added Jack but he’s not doing as well. 

Little beach town with a big shark problem

 

Yesterday I had a fight in my class. Gentle reader I will spare you the details of the middle school drama that is my life on the daily. I will say when I emerged from my class with the principal and an AP to join my coworkers at the bus loop I was met with many concerned hugs & sympathetic noises and inquiring minds want to know smiles.

Rob spent his day volunteering at the Arnold Palmer invitational, all proceeds went to the band. Grace and some of her friends volunteered the day before. It’s a week long fundraiser for the band, which is awesome!

My plan for today, before I woke up this morning, was to find an emergency dentist. My mouth is still hurting. When I woke up I had no pain and decided it could wait until a week day when our own dentist is open. (My mouth does hurt but it wasn’t killer) So we had a quick pow wow and decided beach season is upon us!

It was a beautiful day at the beach. So pretty. So relaxing. So calm. I read, Rob fished, we sat, when the sun was starting to sink we headed over to Crabby’s where I enjoyed shrimp with key lime honey mustard dip. ❤️

I finished our Mimi book club book. I’m excited to chat about it with the kids.  The book this time is  “Ways to Live Forever”, it’s about two boys who are friends because they are both dying. They decide to make a list of things they want to do before they die and set off on sometimes funny, sometimes sad, adventures trying to cross everything off their list.