Although these are really bad quality pictures. I took them the other night on my cell phone while my school had back to school night. I only had 4 parents show up, so needless to say I was bored. haha. I know it could be prettier, but with special education, we try and keep the wall distractions to a minimum and since its middle school, we try not to make it to babyish.

Amazing week!

It has been an amazing week! Although I only had three days of school, it went beautifully. My new 6th graders are adorable and so good! I ended up only getting 4 new 6th graders instead of the original 6 that were planned, but they are each so perfect I wish I could clone them all! My 7th graders and 8th graders were all here last year, but they have all grown 5 feet over summer, I swear. They all seemed to have grown up so much! and gotten so much more mature it's amazing. I am down to only 15 students, with a new one on Monday. It really is so beneficial the less students I have. They get so much more individual attention when there are less of them, and it so great. I have readers ranging from kindergarten reading level, to no reading, all the way to 8th grade levels. We are a wide range, but the kids are so helpful and nice to each other. I never want the kindness to end :) (pictures will come soon.. i promise)

In other news, Levi has registered for his first class! going back to school after such a long break is really hard, and I am so proud of him! I am excited for him to take this next step in his life, and he's going to do great!!

Oregon

I know I know, every time we start a post it begins with how sorry we are we don't post more. Its hard to fill up a blog with working on a website, and preparing for school to start. One exciting thing we did was drive up to Government Camp, Oregon. It was really exciting. Levi has never been to Oregon. I used to spend every summer there. I have cousins that live in Washington, and so each summer we would meet them in Sunriver, Oregon, which really is the best place ever. Anyways, we left friday morning veryy early (around 3 AM)

Soon after the Oregon/California boarder, we stopped at a camp ground to let the dogs out, and change drivers.

We made it to Mt. Hood around 2. We stayed in a house that sierra has been renting for the summer. Saturday, we went snowboarding in the morning. It is pretty amazing the set up they have up there. In order to get on the first chair lift, you have to strap into your snowboard, without any snow. You are in this building with carpet on the floors, and you just scoot along. There was a surprising amount of snow still. It was very slushy, but what Californian doesn't love slushy snow? That afternoon we went to lake trillium, which is about 5 mins from government camp. Its so crazy to be snowboarding in the morning and then swimming at a lake in the afternoon

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Levi went snowboarding again Sunday. We ended up leaving a day early, so we could drive half way home and spend the night in Mt. Shasta. While driving home we got stuck in this huge storm. (it's funny, because my parents were camping this same weekend and the storm hit them on Saturday night). There was so much hail people were pulling over to the side of the road because you couldn't see anything. We swore the windshield was going to crack.

We stayed at a Best Western in Mount Shasta, and it really was the most fun thing ever. Levi and I determined that we have never gone somewhere, and stayed in a hotel just the two of us since Hawaii. It was an experience, and it was fun to have the dogs there. It was nice to also just watch some T.V. and relax after being in a house with about 14 people, (when we were in Hood).

We made it home Monday, safety. It was a really good time, and we do want to go back next year.

Other than that, nothing really exciting happened this summer. We still have the kitten, Figaro, who loves the dogs more than the cats. They love to chase him around, and he loves to sneak attack them.

I have two in service days Monday and Tuesday and then my students come back on Wednesday. I am up to 20 students, 6-8th grade, with 3 aides. So, hopefully I will survive my first year teaching. Levi is looking into going back to school for architecture, and has really been interested in drawing and I am applying to a masters program for my masters in Special Education.

I will post pictures of my classroom soon enough :)