I was looking at my last post and thinking about how far I've come since then. We did survive Jury Duty. It was actually a very easy process this time. They called one panel and immediately took them away, then called the probate panel and then told the rest of us that we were free to go - that was at like 11 AM.
So, because I got done early and James had taken several days off work, I called him and told him we were done and he left Paradise Park where he had taken the kiddos and we came home and packed up and left for a mini-emergency-vacation to St. Louis. In the span of about 2 hours, I found us an inexpensive hotel, a Groupon for the Magic House (the children's museum), found someone to feed the dog and got us all packed up. We were on the road by 2 and headed towards St. Louis. The kids were excited because we haven't really done the vacation thing since we went to Omaha when Jake was one. The kids watched movies on the iPad and I read books and magazines and used my iPhone for directions and stuff while James was driving. We stayed at a hotel that had a pool and free breakfast, so the first evening we just had dinner out and then swam in the pool until time for bed. The second day we went to the Magic House. That place is incredible. We were there until 1 and the kids were starving and we still hadn't seen everything. We were looking at going to the City Museum but it's a lot of climbing and James and I decided that we would wait until the kiddos were older because I worry about Ellie getting scared while climbing on all the stuff, not only that but it was one of the hottest days of the year so far and a lot of the stuff was outside. We ended up spending the afternoon at the Science center because it's free and there were a lot of things aimed at our kiddos' ages. The kids LOVED it! We got to look at their dinosaur exhibit, the kids really liked the show we saw about cryogenics, and the bridge over the highway where you can see the cars go by and see how fast they're going. SUPER COOL! We left there and went back to the hotel for a bit to rest and decide on dinner. We ended up eating at this little Mexican restaurant. It was super yummy!! Since it had cooled off a little (think 98 instead of 105) we took the kids up to the arch to see it and see the museum in there. They liked being able to touch the arch and have their picture taken with it. They also liked seeing all the stuffed buffalo and deer that they had in the Lewis and Clark museum. The next day was Wednesday, our last day in St. Louis, but before we headed home we stopped at the Butterfly House. James and I had been there before and really enjoyed it. The kids, well, they were kind of freaked out by the butterflies flying so close to them. It was SO humid in there - we were all just dripping with sweat and we were very glad we had gone in the morning before it got super miserable for the day. We saw all kinds of cool bugs and some of the most beautiful butterflies. Then began our trek home and the kids talked for a long time about how much fun they had and how they can't wait to go back. I can't wait to take them on their next vacation - which is to Disney! (part of the reason why I took the teaching job!!)
So onto teaching. Honestly, it's going very well. I have some really wonderful students. I have some that are not so wonderful, but honestly even then, they're just being kids. I do live for the weekends when I have a lot of time with James and the kiddos, I miss them terribly during the day. I've had to let go of a lot since I've been at work. I really liked taking Ellie to school and knowing for a fact that she got there safely, trusting the bus to get her there has been a major issue for me, but she gets to school every day and I get there to pick her up and she's loving it. She also started the gifted program this year. She's really loving that too. One of her teachers is a teacher that I had in the gifted program when I was a kid!! Ellie loves both her teachers, she loves riding the bus to a different school on Fridays. She does miss her friends, but that's normal. She also has to be more responsible because her spelling tests are on Thursdays instead of Fridays (when she's at impact) and she has extra work for Impact that she has to do. She's doing a great job with all of it so far and is so happy!
The question is, am I happy? Ya know, I don't know. I miss having the freedom to do whatever I want. I miss being home with Jake and having a clean house and stuff like that. I hate going to work at 6:30 in the morning and missing all the morning stuff. I hate waking up at 5:30. But I really like my students. I think I'm doing a good job of teaching them. I feel like they like me. I don't know where I stand on things yet and maybe that's a good thing. Basically I've been told that if I don't keep numbers up in the French program that there won't be one next year - so maybe it's best if I don't get too attached. *shrug*
