End of 1st grade, beginning of grad school, and everything else.

So, it's been a while since I've even looked at my blog. My life has been flipped upside down lately, but it has all been for the good. Here's what has been happening in my world...

*For the past month, Little Rock has been my home every Friday night and Saturday. I come up on Friday and spend the night because I have to be in class by 8 am in North Little Rock, and I'd rather drive the 2 1/2 hours in the evening rather than at 5 the next morning. (If you know me, this is not a shocker).

And before you start thinking I'm coming up here to party every Friday night, here's what my bed typically looks like all evening. Ha!

I am now only 2 classes away from being finished with my first graduate course. And I'm loving it. It is one of the classes I consider to be a rare breed, in that I can see me actually using everything I am learning and am trying to somehow mentally store it all so I can remember it when I'm standing in front of my own classroom. And here's my current grade in this class...

      Yes, that's actually BETTER than a 100 %, so I guess you could say it's going well.

*Our school got out for the summer this week, and I woke up this morning missing all my little 1st graders this morning. This class will always be special to me because they are the ones that showed me that teaching is what I want to spend the rest of my life doing. Here are a few end-of-year highlights.

These are from Austin's 1st grade field trip to Jefferson, TX. Austin got to carry the bag that held the powder that they put in the cannon to make it fire. He was super excited about that (and not overly-dramatic AT ALL about how heavy the bag was).

 

Train ride!

After the 1st grade track and field day, Robbie (with the help of our friend, Rusty) brought a grill up to the school and cooked hot dogs for the 1st grade classes. The kids thought it was so neat to get to eat a picnic lunch outside, and I was glad that Robbie got to meet some of these sweet kids that I've spent my year with.

                             I seriously miss these little faces already.

Aaron got to go to Magic Springs for his band trip last Friday. Robbie took the day off, Austin skipped school, and they loaded up and rode the bus up there with the band. They were so busy having fun that this is the only picture Robbie took...

*Our young families group at church has been working with the shelter for the homeless in Texarkana and we've had the opportunity to help them out over the past few months. Robbie has been able to be more involved in this work than I have, but here are a few pics from that effort...

Austin got to serve the salad :)

Our guys grilled all kinds of meat in a downtown parking lot.

One of my favorite people in the world, Sara.

Last Saturday while I was in class, Robbie and Austin were helping plant a garden at our homeless shelter with a few friends.

*Aaron is out of 6th grade, which means he's old enough for the youth group at church. This makes me sad and happy all at one time. I'm sad that he's almost a teenager, but happy because I have so many good memories of being in the youth group from my teenage years. He's got a great group of kids to grow up with, and an awesome youth minister as well. They met with the 3rd-6th grade group twice in the past month to say their farewells to the group...

These pics are from about a month ago at a friends house. I love times like this...just going to homes, letting the kids play and have fun, having a short devotional, and eating something. It's good stuff.

Lauren was just a little excited about catching her first fish.

Austin and his friend, Kyler.

Dylan, Aaron, and Elise.

And these are from last week. These are from another friends house and we met out by the pool.

                                   CJ, Kaden, and Aaron...ready for the youth group now!

I guess it's time for me to go over the things I'm going to do in class tomorrow, so that's it for now. Hopefully the next post won't have an entire month of events to cover.

Y'all stay safe!