Finding Balance

I always have good intentions to post more often and then life gets busy! We started work two weeks ago, and busy would be an understatement! Although I can't say that I've enjoyed waking up at 5am again and getting home at 6 or 7, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I have made it my goal to maintian a work/personal life balance this year, and it's going pretty well so far! Of course, actual content classes haven't started yet, but I remember this time of the year being MUCH more stressful last year! Everyone always says the 2nd year is SO much easier, I hope that is true even though I am doing a totally different job! :)

On that note, I am really excited to be in the Special Populations department and pursuing something I am so passionate about! It has been a little awkward explaining to all of my students that I am not teaching English anymore. I decided not to tell the kids that I was a Special Ed. teacher. Since most students at our school have such minor disabilities, I don't want to create a negative stigma around the kids that I teach the most. This week I am teaching 9th grade for SLA (student leadership academy)...which means that I have been teaching all of my 8th graders from last year! It's been great to see them again...I think I hugged about 100 kids on Monday which made it a pretty great day if I say so myself! :)

Mitchell is getting pretty excited about his classes. Since he's teaching 9th and 10th grade, he'll be teaching all of his students from last year when he taught 8th and 9th grade, which is nice. It makes the biggest difference going into the year knowing the kids! He ran this engineering camp last week with some other engineers. I think he really enjoyed doing that with the kids.

This past weekend, my brother came into town (to spend 2 weeks with our grandparents before he comes to stay with us ), we went to the beautiful wedding of a teacher that worked with us last year, and I got to spent some time with my wonderful friends-Mary Rachel and Whitney. Also, we spent a good amount of time decorating and getting ready for this week at school! Here are a few pics...


Ryan finally meets Boomer for the first time...


Oh, and if you haven't been to Gloria's, you need to go! Jessica and I went there a few weeks ago and I was dying to go again because of many reasons:

1. Good food
2. Good margaritas
3. You can sit on a big patio
4. Live music

So Mitchell and I had a little end of summer celebration a few weeks ago and went there! I think I'll have to think of more random special occasions so that we can go more often....


The rest of the week will consist of working, time with my fantastic sister-in-law and then a game night and time with three of my best friends since I was about 10 years old (plus their husbands/bfs). So excited! :)