Midweek! (Is it Friday, yet?)

My awesome Alice cape. It helped make monday not as manic!



The sky has been beautiful each night lately!






And weigh in on Tuesday was finally good news. Back at goal weight!



A Jimmy Johns celebration!



And the PE challenge for water week at school was amusing today!



Life is good. Busy, but good. I also have an amazing husband who not only grilled amazing kabobs but also did the dishes. I am a blessed girl!

Cheers!

Exhaustion and other Musings

Hello to you all from my new iPad keyboard. Who said these keyboards are any easier than the one on the touch screen of the iPad? It is like typing on a midget keyboard. Silly.

This week has been crazy busy. Work is good, just insanely busy and chaotic. We really have been flying by the seat of our pants adjusting and planning a new program and it has been stressful and frustrating at times, but it is completely worth it! The kids are actually learning a lot and they are producing some good projects. I like it and it is worth the sacrifice of sleep to get things rolling! Today, I was in charge of two things so last night I was up late trying to get things organized and ready for the teachers to be prepared. Even with all the time I spent, there was still mass confusion and frustration, but hey it's over and we survived. I guess that is progress. And the next time we do this, it will be much better, right? Right! The theme that all of their classes are working on is water and really it is pretty dang cool for me to be learning new things about water. I am very grateful for clean drinking water and the abundance that we have here in this country! So lucky and blessed are we!

Well, that is about all I can muster right now. Cheers!

Ramblings From the Couch.

Whew. This week flew by and has exhausted me completely. It has been a crazy nuts beginning to the school year.

For ten years, I have been working at an "alternative" high school. Notice the quotations surrounding alternative? Yeah, we haven't been a whole lot different than our cohorts at the other high schools in our district. Sure, we may give kids a smaller class size, may water down the curriculum and give students a little more extra work time, but we have never truly been alternative.

This year, with amazing guidance down an unknown road, with a caring and wise principal at the helm(and no, she doesn't read this blog!), we are creating a whole new school. When I talked about it with one of my classes today, I got goosebumps. We have made it possible to gain twelve credits rather than the seven of the past. We also have changed our schedule from a full five day schedule to a four day core class and a half day special Friday schedule. We really have no clue how Fridays are going to look but we are committed to making a program that helps students do better in their core classes as well as giving them an opportunity to gain more credit with more course offerings.

Change is hard and I am very impressed with how little my co-workers are complaining and how much we are getting accomplished. We have put in long hours and have been flying by the seats of our pants while creating and executing a new orientation program(which over two weeks will give students .5 elective credits). We literally have been meeting after school to plan the next day. Our administrators have probably not slept since last weekend. They are rockstars!

It has been many years since I have been this excited about the beginning of school and I am pretty sure I've never been this tired after the first week.

Here is to a sleep filled weekend and to endless possibilities for the new school year!

Cheers!

Another Wedding

This summer has been the summer of weddings. First, Reuben's niece, then ours, and today was my brother's from another mother. It was wonderful. I am so happy for Caleb and Lexi. It was well worth missing a bit of work to witness their ceremony! It was a good reminder to me of what I need to be doing as a wife!

Here is the cute couple:




This is a funny from today. Josh, Caleb's little brother, is a wedding crasher. He really does show up for random people's receptions, will eat their food and sign their guestbooks. He even will get in their pictures like he did today during a pause in our photo ops.



He's the silly kid with the serious look, white shirt and yellow tie. Josh keeps us all in laughs.

Before the reception, I met Morgan and Sarah at McDonalds. It was a nice way for the kids to play and us to visit. Here is an odd pic of Grimace. Can you see anything disturbing in it?



Those waders just aren't right.

Did you know that Morgan just had a baby a few days ago? Well, she did and Miriam is gorgeous.

This is my favorite picture:



And my second favorite(Henry, Morgan's oldest, took it. He is pretty proud of how he got both me and his sister in the pic):



She is sweet, isn't she?



So, as hard as it was to leave Wisconsin, these great things made it worth it!

This Elf in Josh's window was a birthday present I picked out for him with the help of both Reuben and Spencer. It made me real happy:



Spencer was very proud of our present's popularity! He's also in the pic. Love that kid.

Here are a few last pics from my time at home:



Mom, dad and pasties!



Friends with their candy bracelets. (Marla, Tricia, Kim @ girl's night in Rhinelaner.)



Wisconsin River @Hodag Park



Cheese curds



Vegetable car races in Eagle River Fair.



Fishing!






Favorite flowers



Silly Jenna @softball game. This is her smelly foot dance.



So fun to play softball and be surrounded by family and friends. I am truly blessed!

Wisconsin!

My mother loves me so much that she flew me to be with her for my last week of summer. She has mommy ESP and on a day I was feeling a bit homesick wrote me this text: "So do you want to fly home?"

My husband was nice enough to let me come even though he wasn't very excited for me to leave. He's very good to me! (and it's true love for me to leave him the iPad so we can video chat while I'm here!)

I was excited to surprise my softball team on Tuesday. I had to keep my coming a secret, which for this Facebook addict was hard, seeing I found a way to also take my nephews to a Milwaukee Brewers game. It was hard to not check into Miller Park on Monday night, especially because they won!

We also won our softball game on Tuesday. I wish I had pictures of the surprise on the ladies' faces as they each arrived and were shocked to see me. My friend Marla was most shocked because the day before I had texted her and said that I didn't have enough time to get back to Wisconsin. I'm so mean but a good surprise maker!

I had big plans to go to Wausau for a sleep over last night with Marla like old times, but my stomach had other plans. I was sick the past two days with some sort of stomach bug. I still feel pretty dang worn out but I'm glad I'm not spending a lot of my time in the bathroom! Last night it was nice to watch a movie with my mom. We even rigged up two TVs so we could watch the Packer preseason game at the same time!

Tonight the girls will head up here to Rhinelander for a game night. Hopefully, I will be a little more awake by then. I am not a nap taker but have been the past few days!

My seester is awesome too because she arranged for her kid to pick me up at the airport, had a henna tatoo party for me, and drove me up to Wausau so I could play softball. I am a spoiled brat!