Camping

So - we wanted to go camping. Unfortunately, our schedules are rather hectic when you figure in work at the hospital (I'm back in the lab and Brett's still on 7th) and Brett's school assignments. We never seem to have time to do all the fun things we want to do together. And so... our first camping-in-the-backyard event transpired.

First, we had to eat hot dogs cooked over a low fire.... We have highly tuned rustic skills as you can tell. Brett ate an entire avacado - which I was jealous of (they look soooo good, but I'm allergic - lame!). The Garden Salsa Sun Chips were another highlight of the meal. After our "well balanced dinner" we scooped cake batter ice cream into waffle cones and enjoyed a lovely desert.

After a tasty campish dinner - we decided to utilize the camping facility's Wi Fi to continue our Survivor viewing (if they can call that surviving being on a deserted island, then we can call this camping). We've been quite busy of late, hence the need to watch Survivor which we haven't finished yet - so don't ruin it! (We're in the middle of the Heroes vs. Villans) After getting the computer all set up and ready to go outside (this site has some awesome utility hook-ups) we discovered that CBS took off the full episodes! How lame is that! Still don't ruin it.

Since we couldn't watch Survivor (and because we wanted to anyway), we called the camp directors to come play a game of "Ladder Ball" with us. I won't say who won, that just wouldn't be sporting.

Finally we set up camp, which consisted of an inflatable mattress blown up with an electric pump on the trampoline, a few blankets under the sheets, and a few blankets over the sheets, plus some pillows. Upon finding that I kept rolling towards Brett (we like our sleeping space), we decided to take the bed off the trampoline and set up on the top-of-the-hill site next to the trampoline which luckily hadn't been claimed by any other campers. Since we're both allergic to the outdoors, we both took half a benedryl and spent the night sleeping under the stars. At about 5:30 in the morning, we opted for the indoor facility to avoid the sprinklers which were scheduled to start that morning.

I still smell like bug spray, so despite what the rest of you might say, I definitely feel like I've been out camping.

Last Day

So it's my last day at school this year. It hasn't really hit me yet...

It's been a pretty great year really. The first few weeks were absolutely crazy, and I've learned a lot about what I want to do differently next year. I'm going to be better organized and have things ready to go WAY earlier. I'm going to get desks instead of the big tables I had this year which took up too much space. I'm going to be better and getting those kids (9th graders particularly), under my thumb at the beginning of the year, and I'm going to keep on them as the year progresses. I found that either I got more lax or they got more comfortable being annoying by the end of the year. Next year I'm going to be much better at the discipline game.

I'm going to stress out about things less - if we have 5 min. of nothing at the end of the lesson it's not the end of the world. If something doesn't work out like I thought it would I'm