~School~
The 2011-2012 school year has officially come to an end. I had my last day of school with the students on Friday, and my last day of in-service yesterday. I'm happy that my first year of teaching is officially over, and pleased to have survived it relatively unscathed. I mean, sure, there were days where I was beyond frustrated and needed to remember to breathe, but there were days where I felt I really got through to my students... or at least some of them.
Some of my students were so sweet and friendly, and I'm really going to miss those kids. I'm excited to see where the next year takes me! As of right now, I'll be back in sixth grade for the 2012-2013 year, but as Benjamin Franklin wrote, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
(Not much detail given in this section, is there? I mean, how do I better summarize--into one blog post--all that has happened in an entire school year?! For now, this minimal amount of detail is all I'll offer. C'est la vie.)
~Life~
We're nearly to the mid-point of 2012, and it's been quite a year. There's been some real family drama, along with some real family tragedies. I don't want to re-hash any of it, but I'm definitely looking forward to a more positive remainder of the year. Definitely.
In happier news, my dad turned FIFTY on Saturday. FIFTY! Half a century! Wow. We spent the day at Main Event--on his company's dime. :) What? Oh, you don't understand. Allow me to explain: my dad's company has a picnic or event every year. This year, the event happened to be on his birthday, it happened to be a family event, and it happened to be at Main Event. Super coincidence! Mom, Dad, Jay, me, Katie, and Jeff were all able to hang out, bowl, and play laser tag for the afternoon, and then went out for dinner afterwards. I think it was a pretty good day all around. :)
That's my dad, there on the left. He'd be thrilled to know his picture is on here. (Hopefully you can tell that statement is dripping with sarcasm.) Thankfully, though, he doesn't read this blog... at least not to my knowledge.
Oh, and to further celebrate, and really make memories, we're going to Alaska pretty soon! We'll be cruising around and taking adventures and making memories as a family--parents, husband, sibling, sibling-in-law, grandparents, great-aunt, great-uncle, aunt, and uncle included. Yup--there will be twelve of us! It's going to be so fun!
~House~
If you didn't know we bought a house, then you probably don't know us very well, and/or you don't Facebook stalk very well. ;)
Our house is pretty much awesome:
We've painted pretty much everything inside. We need to paint our bathroom, and the laundry hasn't been painted, but I'm not sure we'll ever paint that--it's already painted with the previous homeowner's color choice, and it's not very important to me, and I really don't think Jay would care, and I really want to extend this sentence with more commas, but I'm afraid it's becoming a run-on, and no one likes to read run-on sentences, right? ;)
Some day--and I've been saying this since March--I'll take and post pictures and/or a video tour. But not now. The house isn't clean enough, and I don't much feel like cleaning it at this time. But I am in the midst of laundry. So I'm not completely loafing. Also, I have other plans today. Which brings me to...
~Lucy~
During the school year, we I found a dog outside the school and we I decided to take her home. I asked around and looked for signs and whatnot, and no one claimed her, so we've gotten to keep her! Jay's come around, and he's pretty happy to have her around. Lucy definitely prefers him to me. Isn't that how it always works? Animals must sense who they need to suck up to, but focus too much on sucking up to that person and ignore the person who wants the dog in the house. What? That doesn't actually happen? Just to me? Oh. Okay.
Anyway, Lucy was about four months old when we brought her home, and she's about eight months old now (math!). She's gotten so much bigger! Look at her:
I know this picture doesn't actually show her size, but she smiled for it! So I had to share it with you. She's so cute!!
Here's a picture that better shows her size. If you'll notice, this picture is on the same rug as when we first brought her home:
She didn't smile for that one, but she's still adorable! She can sit, and shake, and high five on command (if she feels like it). If I ask her to go get her ball, she runs around and looks for it, usually getting the ball, but sometimes getting her bone. Lucy also likes to play tug of war, but she gets too wound up and ends up jumping up and scratching me with her razor-sharp claws.
Anyway, I need to get back to errands and chores. First up, give Lucy a bath. :)
Thanks for reading. Happy summer!
