Surprising Friends is So Much Fun!

"Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold."

Last weekend I had the great, great pleasure of hopping on a plane and flying up to Rochester, NY to surprise one of my very best friends in the world, Karen, at her surprise baby shower. One of her great friends there was kind enough to pick me up late Friday night when I arrived and let me stay at her house that evening. I even got to enjoy a lovely 7 mile run around their river/canal trailways on Saturday morning. I wish I could run in that cool, nice weather here in TX! Anyhow, I digress. Karen's husband, Chad, had done a fabulous job of keeping everything secret. On Saturday morning, the two of them and Karen's parents headed over to Kirsten's house for "brunch". Little did Karen know that a group of us were gathered to shower her with love and fun things for her new little one. I was so, so excited on Saturday morning I could hardly stand it! I had not seen Karen since our wedding, which was almost 4.5 years ago. That is way, way, way too long to go without seeing such a dear friend! When Karen walked in I could see her scan the faces and could tell it was taking her a minute to process what was going on and that I was there (because, really, who would expect their friend from 1/2 way across the country to be standing in their friend's back yard at a surprise baby shower??). The shower was a great success and it was fun to be a part of that special time in Karen and Chad's life. Then, I got to spend the rest of Saturday and almost all of Sunday with Karen, Chad and Karen's parents (who are super great people that I was so glad to see!). Chad gave me the "tour ala Rochester" and it was fun to see all the neat places they have there. I had no idea Rochester was so big! All in all, it was just fun to spend some good quality time hanging out with a friend that I miss terribly and wish could somehow live closer to me! It was hard to leave on Sunday evening, but I have high hopes that they will make their way back to the midwest someday and I will have a better chance of seeing them more regularly. In the meantime, video chat is a beautiful, beautiful thing!

The Baby Shower Crew

My journey home from Rochester was definitely an eventful one. A co-worker had warned me that I might have flight delays if I flew through Newark, because apparently they have lots of thunderstorms. Well, unfortunately she was right. My plane was delayed by almost 3 hours and I barely made my connecting flight to Austin (thankfully that flight was also delayed by almost 3 hours!). Needless to say, arriving in Austin at 1:15 a.m. on the first day of school was not ideal, but it was so completely worth it to be able to spend the weekend with Karen!

As for this first week of school, well, it was the first week of school (all you teacher friends out there will get my drift). It's kind of a hectic and yet at times boring week with code of conduct meetings, reviewing expectations, passing out textbooks, etc, etc. Finally by Thursday I felt like things were getting rolling. I have some pretty chatty freshman this year, so it will be a fun challenge to reign them in and keep them engaged and focused. The best part of this year is I only have to teach four classes and I get time to mentor teachers and write curriculum. It's still kind of weird to only teach 2 classes a day, rather than 3 or 4 like I've been used to, but I think I'm going to like it a lot!! Here are some pictures of my classroom...yes there is an elementary teacher deep down inside of me :)


My new, "Go Green" bulletin board






My 3rd floor bulletin board picture for this year...that's me with "House" (my awesome seniors last year named him)