Chamber Choir Retreat

Monday came early for our family as we got home around 10 pm from Utah. I had an early morning staff meeting at 8:30 am. Mr Obert gave the hourlies our schedules (contracts) to sign. He emailed me file with 4 different calendars on Wednesday, ok, awesome, but which calendar should I look at. He did not respond. I know things get busy, but gracious. The next few weeks will be very interesting with all the changes. The anticipated 24 students per class was grossly under projected for Reagan, it looks like class sizes will once again be 30+ in most grades. Called it! The contract I signed showed I needed to work 14 hours before school started, that would’ve been nice to know before I scheduled all the appointments and activities I tried to cram in before school. I was seriously peeved over the lack of information, communication, and constantly being left out. Looks like the specials calendar is crazy tight, there is no time between classes at all. Classes will be 50 minutes long this year. I am happy about the duty schedule changes, I only have to cover lunch and not recess. We finally got our upstairs carpets cleaned! The carpets look so amazing now, several shades lighter too. Amelia and Everett went to get their teeth cleaned. No cavities this time around. Everett is not going to start cross country yet, I hope he can even participate at all. He is not feeling well at all, even today he has the cough, the runs, muscle fatigue, and headaches. 

Tuesday the kids went with me to set up my class room. I was delighted Amelia took the initiative showing Phillip where his classes were and mapping out how to get to each class. I literally almost cried when I saw what they were doing. Phillip helped me move some furniture in the classroom. Amelia helped me remove the Burger Time bulletin board and replace it with “Squish Time!” I spent the drive to Utah cutting out color copies of cute squishmallows on card stock. I replaced the large shortcuts display with simpler print outs. I left around noon to get Phillip to band camp and run to the Asian Grocery for a special soy sauce. Then right back to work! I got the shelves mostly organized, the chairs set out, and everything cleaned up for Open House. The front office staff was manically working to get students assigned to classes before 4:45 pm. I hear the 5th graders did not have assignments until 4:50 pm! The little girls were running between the teachers helping where ever was needed. Evelyn was very excited to get Ms Gingerich for her teacher, sad Melody is not in her class. I requested Ms Hill for Evelyn, but she was put into Mrs Camarda’s class, my second choice. She will do well in Camarda. Justin came by to meet the teachers and hang out in my classroom. I loved seeing students stop by during Open House. 

The girls wanted to get their school supplies on Wednesday. I spent $300 just on supplies to restock my room! Yikes. It was still fun to get new crayons, markers, erasers, and etc, there is something magical about school supplies. I dropped off the items at school to work my last 45 minutes sorting supplies and putting things away. I noticed the other Paras going to a meeting in the staff lounge, I popped my head in and asked Mr Obert if I was supposed to attend the meeting. He looked at me and asked, “I don’t know, what do you do in the school? Eh, probably not!” I replied, “I teach in computers?!” Oh yeah, you might want to attend. The meeting was about emergency protocols, behavioral responses, and general information about students and the building. I recall not even knowing where to go for the first fire drill last year! The meeting was filled with critical information I had to glean by trial and error last year. I was over my allotted 14 hours, made sure to log those extra hours because admin was not communicating. 

Stephanie and I decided to change up Evelyn’s anxiety medication to Duloxetine (Cymbalta) because it comes in “sprinkle” form. Evelyn is fighting me every morning to take her medication because she chews it. Of course that is bitter is yucky. Hopefully, the sprinkles form will make it easier to swallow than the capsule of powder she opens up. 

Mrs Sene asked me to spearhead the Cat Blast choir table for CHS Open House. Yes, please! Amelia made some posters, we brought out Karaoke set up, and some table cloths. Basically, I ran the karaoke event for the evening. I even got a choir shirt! Phillip and I attended freshman orientation in the auditorium while Mia and Oscar staffed the choir table. Freshman orientation went from 5-6 and the Cat Blast went from 6-8 pm. We were all starving by 8 pm because the dinner did not get grilled in time. One of the choir Dads paid $100 to get Mrs Sene dunked in the dunk tank! I enjoyed playing with my two high schoolers! 

Thursday we wanted to do something fun…so we went to the new Scheels. It is like the IKEA of sporting stores. We did not have long to walk around with Phillip’s band camp and Everett’s robotics meeting. We did ride the ferris wheel! Josie was quite nervous but rode it like a champ. Jasmine, Jason, and Julia (from Reagan) were in line next to us with their grandma. Jasmine rode with Josie and I because she did not want to ride alone. What a fun memory. Phillip is on the hunt for a new cross body bag, his current bag is ripping and the zipper is falling out. He and I searched for a while and found the best selection in the women’s clothing. I had to convince him the bags were not just for “females” as he says. I left the girls at the store and rushed Phillip and Everett back to Nampa for this meetings. Phillip forgot his music folder for the second time in a week, grrrr. He got several lectures about being responsible for his time and items. He slept through his alarm all three days this week. Amelia finally got a Stanley! She’s craved one for a year, so when a blush pink one caught her eye it was love at first sight. She also found a sturdy cross body bag to replace her $5 Shein mistake. I had my eye on the fancy electric bikes, so pretty. That was a very fun outing for only $6 to ride the Ferris Wheel. After dinner I went to the RS swim party at Rebecca Bledsoe’s home. It actually felt a little cool so instead I brought my bag of melty string and made 5 bracelets. A couple of Sisters joined me making bracelets while chatting. 

Choir Retreat! I volunteered to chaperone the Chamber Choir retreat two months ago. Monday Mrs Sene decided to move the retreat from a cabin in Cascade to the Skeen’s home because fires are still raging in Idaho. My van was used to tote the student’s bags and chairs. We started off with breakfast at LeBaron’s Honker Cafe. Yum. The students then had “family time” sharing responses to questions Mrs Sene handed out before breakfast. They jumped right in learning a new song. Chamber only has 16 singers this year, quite small compared to previous years. I loved how the questions Mrs Sene listed were thoughtful and gave responsibility to the students to create their own culture. I worked on a first days of computer lab orientation, updating it with emergency procedures and adding in rules. My best idea was creating squishies, I have 4 squishmallow keychains, exemplary students will get a keychain to designate them as helpers for the class period. Squishy time is divided into Yeti (typing), Beaver (learning a new skill), or Monkey (stem games). Should be fun. I went home to get the little girls for an afternoon of swimming with the choir kids. The Skeens have a huge lovely home with a salt water pool. We had quite a fun time swimming! Dinner was a delicious baked potato bar, eaten while chatting about more questions. I joined in the games: frosting face decorating and baby food feeding. Annie got decorated like a Van Gogh flower field with all the sprinkles. I was elected by my group to get fed bananas, which I happen to enjoy. The trick? Feeding was done with a 4 foot gap between spoon and mouth. My group won both challenges! Yeh, yeh! Justin held down the fort most of the day, except when I had the girls for 5 hours. The last activity was making bracelets. Mrs Sene had us write our names on an index card, those were passed around and everyone wrote one word to describe the person. The cards were passed until the person to your left had your card. That person picked one word from the list and made a bracelet with the word spelled out in beads. So fun. Then we went around and explained why we chose the word and presented our creation to the person. I stayed until 11:30 comfortably hanging out by the fire with Mrs Sene and Sister Skeens. The teens had another round of night swimming or watching Mulan. I went home and slept in my own bed, lovely. 

Next morning I was back at the Skeens by 7:45 for clean up, pack up, and breakfast. Retreat was over by 9:15 am! I love that it was short, yet still memory packed. We talked about simplifying things the previous night. I definitely feel the need to simplify, it’s easy to get so many things packed in. 

Justin and Phillip, and some Everett, worked on replacing the truck’s brake pads. It was so bad we dared not drive it! By the end of the day Justin had a grease unibrow. He sweated out 4 liters of sweat too in the hot garage. I am so proud of the men for working most of the day. The boys got much needed hair cuts. I did a mini grocery trip to last us until Friday next week. Evelyn and I dropped books off a the library, gassed up the van, and cleaned it up a bit. After dinner I took Phillip and Everett out for birthday photos, decided to get those done before piles of work begin stacking up.  

Jeremy and Yulia welcomed a gorgeous baby boy named Misha Ivan at 10:30 am. He is adorable. I am glad Yulia delivered, she looked extremely uncomfortable at the reunion.