Summer!

The best part about being a teacher is summer! It's a chance to regroup, relax, and look forward to new beginnings the next school year.

This school year has been particularly challenging. We started missing a friend and with class sizes that sometimes made the seams of the classroom squeak with agony. Days of too many meetings, not getting home until after dinner, and putting in way too much time past your contract. It was a year of discouraging news, exhaustion, frustrations, and never leaving your cave of a classroom. It ended a year of hope, contracts, and sheer burnout. This year I was grateful for the people I worked with, the laughs they brought, and the shoulders they allowed me to cry on. I had successes this year, namely board certification, but this year was also wrought with sickness, despair, and remembering to be grateful for each moment that passes. This year taught me to slow down and enjoy instead of take on. The year ends with friends moving on who will be dearly missed.

Next school year will be wonderful, no excuses. Already we are excited to welcome Jonathan's 'niece' tomorrow! My nephew 'Stretch' will be here in October, but hopefully after the Iowa game and before our honeymoon that we are taking a year later.

Here's to the end of a challenge and the beginning of awesome.