Smile and just keep swimming...: It's Friday - no wait, it's only Tuesday.

The morning was a huge success. Every student had someone show up. One child had grandparents, parents and siblings join us unexpectedly. No problem, the more the merrier. The program was cute, of course it wasn't perfect or anywhere near good, but all the families LOVED it. We had more than enough food. It's hard for most people to eat a large meal at 10:45 a.m. No one left without a smile on their face. Am I saying it wasn't a hard morning? No. It was wild and crazy and unpredictable as usual but better than I expected and it went lightning fast. :-D Yeah! Now to enjoy 5 whole days off with my family. Double yeah!

Jake and Annie both had plans with friends after school. I got a call from Annie asking if she could stay longer. Then Jake called and asked if he could spend the night. Since Jake wasn't going to be home and I had plans to go out with Mary and Katie, Jack decided to take Annie out to dinner. It made me smile when I got this picture from him.

Annie ice skating.

Unplanned Dad/Daughter date night!

Love it!

Aww, Daddy/Daughter date night! Dinner, ice skating and Blue Chip Cookies, which is "their place!" :-)

Mary, Katie and I met for dinner. Mary had commented during the morning that I could just swing by and get her. Of course, she was filled with guilt into forcing herself on me. My reply text informed her to throw her guilt out the window immediately. She's so fun to tease. We all got carded. Of course Katie would get carded, kids at school think she's a tall 5th grader. But me? I didn't believe it at first, then laughed and appreciated it. I am truly grateful to work with them both. Katie did share that she may be leaving us in December. She is so level headed and told us about her pro/con list. She cried when she said the only con was leaving us because we make such an incredible team. We were all in tears. We hugged it out. She said last year gave her a false sense of what a team should look like. Since doing her student teaching she has seen that there is WAY more drama than she ever expected. Even with our tough class we all compliment each other so well - bring out the best in each other and truly respect each other. I broke the tension by saying if Mary bails and finds a different job and Katie has a need I would be honored to work with her. After Mary's shock wore off she joined in our laughter. Our waitress had to leave so we paid our bill. She gave each of us a card for a free dessert. As soon as she left, Mary decided she needed to have her dessert immediately. :-) We shared a hot fudge brown a la mode. We closed the restaurant and weren't ready for the night to end, so we relocated. Katie and Mary got carded, again. The waitress said I could show her my id if I wanted to. I replied, "I don't need your pitty request." She laughed. :-| "Not funny, Missy!" was my reply, in my head. (Our friend Marena told me this morning that at least the waitress didn't say, "it's so nice of you to take your daughters out for a drink." I have no idea how I would have replied to that!) My phone died so I wasn't able to take many pictures. But here are a few.