Summer--Here With a Bang!

Today is only the second day of summer break and it's already busy!! It's been great so far though!! Thursday was our last official day for DISD. After finishing up there I headed straight to our teacher meeting and parent open house for the Circle of Support Girl S.M.A.R.T. Summer Learning Program where I work every summer. I have grown to really throughly enjoy working at this camp. It is Monday-Friday for eight weeks each summer, located in South Dallas. I work with the girls program, although there is also a boys' program. I teach 5th and 6th grade Reading every day in the mornings. In the afternoons, the kids have all kinds of enrichment activities and programs. On Fridays we take field trips. I really look forward to the program every year...this year no exception. However, this year I will also be teaching a writing enrichment class in the afternoons. After the meeting I was a little overwhelmed because I have sooooo much preparation to do this weekend! After not teaching reading or writing during the school year this year, I'm a little rusty and need to go back through all my stuff and pull some things together. So that is pretty much what the rest of my weekend will consist of.

Friday morning was wonderful because my good college friend, Crystal Holm, came into town, along with her fiance, Kyle. Crystal now lives in Oregon and I have not seen her in two years!!! I was really excited to see her and also meet Kyle who I have heard so much about. I kind of drug them around all day, because I had to go back up to Pearl C. to check on some things with the summer school equipment check-out. Then I had promised Jazmine (Wyshina's daughter) that I would take her to lunch for her thirteenth birthday this week. Jazmine will be leaving next week to go live with her dad in Guam for at least a year (he's in the Air Force) so I've been trying to spend time with her before she leaves. So we went to eat at Razoo's where she and I loaded up on fried food (fried gator tails, fried pickles, and fries...yuck, I'm grossing myself out just reading that!). Then Crystal, Kyle, and I went to Wal-mart to get some things to cook out later that evening. We played a little Wii, made brownies, and then set up for our cook-out by the pool. Holly, Aaron, and Maddy also joined us. Holly brought three things that were just awesome...deviled eggs (yumm!!), fresh cherries (yumm yumm yumm!!!) and then a vase of some beautiful fresh tulips for my apartment. They look so pretty on my dining table...I sure wish I had a camera to take a picture of them!! :-( T.A. brought his little girl to swim in the pool and she insisted on me doing that with her most of the time, so I'm glad that Crystal, Kyle, Holly, and Aaron were able to entertain themselves quite well. (Sorry guys!). Even though I didn't get to do as much visiting as I would have liked, I am so glad that all of these people were able to come over. Crystal and Kyle had to get up really early for their flight back to California today so it was a short visit, but I'll take it!

So the rest of today and tomorrow will consist of class and lesson planning. Camp will start Monday, and my Summer I class will start on Tuesday. For Summer I, I will have class Tuesday and Thursday night from 5:00-9:00. On three, everyone say ugh...one, two, three, UGHHHHH!!!! Then in Summer II I will have class at the same times, but on Mondays and Wednesdays. So it's going to be a long summer. Next Thursday and Friday, I will go to KIPP for two days of "KIPPnotizing" (more about this in my next post!) and next weekend we will have a bake sale for Trek. So...the summer busy-ness begins...but for the most part it's busy-ness that I really enjoy (not the night classes, but everything else!) So with that said...got to go down to the garage, dig through the teaching stuff and get these plans together!!! Happy summer everyone!! :-)