Just a moment . . .

It is the night before the last day of school for the 2010-2011 school year and I am sitting here surrounded by papers. I just spent a few hours at Starbucks grading, grading, grading, till I closed the place down. I still have a ton to do, but I thought I'd reflect on the week, month, school year for just a moment or two.

I'll be honest: it was a really hard, frustrating year. I thought I had a few tough kids last year, but it was a cake walk compared to some of my class from this year. Instead of focusing on that mess (which I had to for most of the year) I need to focus on the really good stuff. You know, the stuff that reminds you why you do what you do.

1. All of the last week of school is spent on dressing up for different themes. (much like high school "spirit week.") Today was "Idol Day" - to which we laughed about dressing up like a "golden calf." Har de har har. I dressed up as Ramona Quimby. She is pretty rad.

One of my 3rd grade girls dressed up as President Barack Obama. In a sea of Hannah Montanas and Taylor Swifts and little girls in booty shorts, my little one was dressed up as the president with a tie and her dad's old cell phone. I couldn't have been more proud. I don't want to forget about the good kids that often were not focused on as much as my discipline and academic issue students.

One of my 3rd grade girls dressed up as . . . me. Yeah, I got pretty teary there. Really all it came down to was sticking a big ol' flower in her hair and calling herself "Mrs. Bickel." But everyone got it and I just hugged the living daylights out of her. I really needed that. I needed to see that I'm not just the "mean" teacher, but I am appreciated. Just a little bit. What a sweetie pie.

Field Day (Wednesday) can be quite a blessing - I get to see my old students that have moved on to the older grades, which so much fun. But really, my class from last year, when they came to my station, all started running and just about knocked me over with hugs. I was so glad to see them - they were such an awesome, talented, sweet class - even my "tough" ones were happy to see me! Talking to one of the 4th grade moms, she said her son came home so excited to get "lots of hugs from Mrs. Bickel." Hey, if I can get a 4th grade boy to give me hugs, I think I'm a winner.

So I'll keep slugging through this mess of grading. I will laugh at the statement that "Mercury is actually bigger than it appears from Earth" on a research report. I will take a deep breath and move on. I will finish my grading, go to school and be ready for my final day of the school year. I will hug all my kids and tell them how proud I am of them, because in reality, they have improved and they're better leavin' than they were comin' in. I'll give "I'll miss you" hugs to the ones that I had fun with and I'll give "I'm glad you're going into 4th grade" hugs to the ones that made my days tough.

And just like every year, after they're all gone and they've taken every last art project and writing assignment and workbook we almost finished, I will sit quietly in my chair that I didn't get to sit quietly in all year and I'll take 5 minutes just to think about me having an end, with a new beginning waiting for me in September.

And I will start praying to the Great Enrollment Gods that I can dodge a few of those 2nd grade students that I know are tough and pray pray pray that I won't have them.

I did not pray enough last summer. It was a rough rough year.

**Next time, I have pictures. I swear.**

Pizza Port Hoppiness!

Always a joyous part of our vacation in San Diego is stopping at Pizza Port in Solano Beach. In addition to their freaking incredible pizza, they also have most delicioso craft beer. Last winter when we were in SD, they were . . . (wait for it) out of beer. It’s true. Apparently, they were remodeling their brew area so they didn’t have beer. Tragic.

Therefore, we were really looking forward our visit to Pizza Port.

But what do you know . . . they did not have Sharkbite Red (my fav) on tap. At all! Argh!

Instead of drinking my calories, I more than made up with it by eating a lot of pizza and a lot of beer buddies. (fyi: beer buddies are really just bites of crust covered in garlic and other deliciousness.)

Luke played with dinosaurs. Imagine that.

Flashback

Ever have those moments, where you're sitting in the salon chair and those words come out . . .

"Let's do something new."

*sigh*

I know it's not new . . . its old. It my haircut from when I was 6. Bangs? What was I thinking??

I know I just have to adjust to it . . . get used to my new look.

The second I saw the scissors snip, I swear, I think my heart actually stopped beating.

So this is what I look like:



Well, this is what I looked like at 6. But it's pretty much the idea. My bangs are shorter *yikes* and the bob is shorter and angled, but its the idea.

Back at Nana's . . .

Before leaving SJ for SD, I found a box of Easter cookies to decorate and thought it would be fun to bring them down. While these kits are found anywhere, I had to get that box because the company's name was "Granny B" which is what we also call Nana.

So while Todd and I were out and about eating our fill of tacos, Nana and Luke decorated cookies. And ate cookies, of course.

Nana told us that Luke was incredibly focused when spreadin' and sprinklin' - and was kind enough to take pictures, too! Thanks Nana :)

Date Night: SD style

Thanks to Nana Bickel, we were able to get away for a date night.

It was time for . . . TACO TUESDAY at Stone Brewery!

But it's not your normal Taco Tuesday - these were super shui shui fancy fancy tacos. So fancy in fact, I had to document. (Thanks Todd for playing along!)




My fancy fancy tacos were:
1. Carne Asada with some sort of shui shui salsa thing
2. Deep Fried Avocado with . . . it doesn't matter, I was all about the deep fried avocado.

We also got pretzels! With some sort of crazy mustard dip and a crazy cheese dip.

I was able to find new delicioso beer, which was very exciting!

At Stone, we sat next to a guy who wanted to *ahem* "school" us on the San Diego craft beer scene. We politely listened and shared our knowledge, he was pleasantly surprised, but we actually learned about a new place to go! Hooray! So being social/friendly does occasionally pay off!

So we headed off to Churchills, which was surprisingly family friendly, and we enjoyed more tasty vittles - ie: beer, cheese and bacon soup, Irish nachos (fries with nacho stuff loaded up) and bottle caps (deep friend jalapeno slices).


Delicious.

And the company was pretty good, too. :)

Blessed

Happy Mother’s Day to some truly wonderful moms!

Me and my mom

Linda and Todd

I have been incredibly blessed to have two wonderful mothers.  My mother is such a wonderful inspiration – I am in constant awe of her patience, humor, creativity and exorbitant amount of love.

My mother-in-law is a constant reminder that you don’t have to be blood related to love someone like they are. 

Both of these spectacular women help me keep perspective and remind me that motherhood is a growth process.  I won’t know it all and do it all right out of the gate. Some things work, some things won’t, but finding the humor in all of it and making choices based on what is best for me and my family is going to make me a great mom, too.

I love my moms!

San Diego Model Train Museum

After having such a lackluster Winter Break in San Diego due to potty training and consistent rain, we really wanted to use Spring Break to look for some fun new things for Luke to do.

We ended up at the Model Train Museum in Balboa Park. It was awesome – the model trains were so detailed and Luke was in love. We have really been in a train mood lately, between only wanting to watch Dinosaur Train and Thomas. Luke had an absolutely amazing time and the next morning stated, very plainly, that we would be returning to the train museum that day.