Miracle Pennies

One of the things that I love about my school and school in general, is that students who get inspired can do anything. We have one particular young lady who loves to get involved in fund raisers. Her most recent being "Miracle Pennies" through the Children's Miracle Network. One thing that I have learned in my three years teaching is that if you the teacher put yourself up and challenge the students, they will generally rise to the occasion. For instance I challenged my kids that if they did well on the TAKS test they could shave my head. They met my expectations so I got my head shaved. This fundraiser however was whichever teacher received the most money in their jar would have to kiss a pig(in this case it was actually a lamb) or get a pie in the face. The money came solely from student donations, and I am proud to say that our students gave $190.82 to help others! That is awesome in my book. These are students in high school who are giving their money to help people they don't know. Well onto the good stuff. Mrs. Martin kissed the lamb and received a pie, however, I do not have a picture at this time. Mr. Felix and myself both received pies and it went something like this.

What an amazing job that we have. We get to watch young people grow up and realize that there are other people in this world besides themselves. If taking a pie in the face or shaving my head helps them realize that then sign me up for more.

Relaxing in the Wild

What could be better than sitting outside with friends by a lake? I can't think of many things off the top of my head. We had a lot of friends out on the camping trip who were able to get to know our girls and show them a good time. Most of the people that came are involved in education in some form or another. One of the benefits of the girls getting to see these people, including myself, at a camping trip is that they get to see how we are out of school. The girls had such a great time getting to know everyone in a new way. We all laughed until we hurt both from laughing and how much food we ate.

The next morning we were planning on doing a scavenger hunt with the girls. We awoke that morning with the wind still blowing as it had done all night and then suddenly the wind stopped. We were so excited because it was going to be good weather for the hike. Then as quickly as it stopped a Northern blew in and dropped the temperature about 15 degrees. The girls were looking for blankets, coats, or anything that would keep them warm. I must admit it was very chilly. We were able to get breakfast cooked while the girls huddled in the van. After breakfast we were all in the van talking when one of the girls told us to look on the picnic table.

If you can't tell that is a blue jay eating part of our breakfast. The girls got a big kick out of seeing this. The weather that morning would not cooperate with us so the scavenger hunt will be on a later date.

"The Food alone is worth the trip"

Well it has been a few days since I have sent out more pictures from the camping trip so here goes. One of the things that Dent and I wanted the kids to experience was good camp food. This did not mean a ham sandwich or cereal. We wanted them to have good home cooked meals so that they could really experience the great outdoors. The first trip that we took, we cooked Fajitas, and they were awesome. This time we decided to have BBQ Chicken and Sausage with all the fixins.

That is a good amount of chicken right there.

We're getting close here.

Let the Feast begin.

That's some serious eating.

Forget about the fork

Even Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Page are getting down to business.

Everyone ate until they were stuffed and then we broke out the smores. Some of our girls had never had a smore before. It did not take long for them to see why Dent and I had made a big deal about having smores. We also did campfire biscuits, but I will have to talk about that later.