This past week crawled by. I spent Monday and Tuesday evening in Nampa for Piper's dance rehearsal and recital, which made for a couple of long days. She did a great job. She really loves to dance, but not enough for it to take over her life. She was considering trying out for the competitive team, but that level of intensity is more than Piper wants. I don't think it would be a good fit for her, as she gets overwhelmed and stressed with too many things. I'm glad she's still been able to take dance at a less intense level.

School is painful, everyone is burned out, but we need to keep working. We are so close! Corbin had his last day on Friday, crazy! Gabby's last day is this Thursday, my last day is this Friday, and Piper and Ryan finish next Thursday. 

We had a special grad breakfast. Piper was still sleeping.

Cutest little kindergartner!

Cutest grown senior!

Piper's dance recital.

Cute dancer!

Piper is in the middle on the left side.

My dogs love me! Haha. They are like having a weighted blanket. My emotional support pups!

To my relief, our catering gig is done, and it worked out. It takes a lot of planning and figuring out to pull off. The most stressful part is heating up the food and having it ready on time. It's pretty chaotic and intense. My students handled it well and did a really good job making all of the food. I had too much of everything, but we almost ran out of the pork. I used the other leftovers in my Adult Living classes. We made chicken tacos and used all of our catering fixings to go along with it. It worked out great, and those were the best homemade tacos I've had. The only big blunder, and it was pretty big, was that I forgot I use chicken broth to make the rice, and I had two vegetarians go through the line and I totally spaced it! Yikes!!!! I emailed them and apologized, and I never heard back from one, totally fair, whoops! 

John and I spent Saturday setting up our garden box. John had to make several different watering systems to find one that worked. It was a bit of a learning curve to set up. We just bought plants this year. We will see if we can keep any alive and get any produce. In time, if I continue to like it, I will try starting things from seed, which will be a lot cheaper. This might be a failed experiment. Time will tell.

Happy Mother's Day to my mom. I'm super grateful for her and for all the ways she's shaped me into who I am today. I'm grateful to be the mom to the cutest, smartest kids around, not that I'm biased at all, oh, and also a dog mom to some pretty cute dogs as well. Only 2 more weeks of work. Woot! 

John built the garden box and installed the watering system.

I added soil pep to my flowerbed. My mom has been telling me to do it for years. It was cheap and easy, and she's right, it looks a lot better! 

It was Teacher Appreciation Week. I got some nice cards.

It really was so good! Homemade tortillas, pork, beans, rice, pico, cilantro ranch dressing. I got lots of compliments. My students did great, and my planning made it happen. LOL.

My class is small but mighty. We are missing one, she forgot. Oy!

This past week was good. Piper missed school on Friday because her mouth hurt really badly. It was one week post op, and the orthodontist hooked wires to the hidden tooth at her surgical site to slowly work the tooth down, and it hurt a lot. She has been having to put in extra work every day to try to make up for her slacking off. I'm wondering if Gem Prep will be a good fit after all, since it has a lot of forced online classes, which is a pretty bad fit for an ADD perfectionist. I think we will see how she does next year and then possibly reassess. I think she should just come to Borah with me in her 10th grade year. We will see how things shake out. 

Corbin and Gabby finished out their track seasons. They were both right on the Varsity cut-off, but both ended up at the JV district meet. Gabby's 4X200 relay got 3rd place, and she also placed 3rd in the 100, so she earned two medals yesterday. Corbin didn't PR on Saturday, but he still felt pretty good about his races. 

We are going to try a garden box in our side yard this year. We are just starting with one since we don't know how successful we will be. I did not get my mom's green thumb for sure. We will get some dirt and plants next weekend for it. John spent several hours building it on Friday. 

Three more weeks. I am tired. I'm super ready for a break. My culinary class is feeding the staff on Tuesday. I can't wait until that's done. I hope it all works out!

Corbin took Zion to the prom.

4X200

This past week was good. My FCCLA club donates freezer meals to the Ronald McDonald House every year and we got that project done this past week. I also have my Child Development classes hold a class baby shower just for fun and I have my students bring diapers to donate to the community. I dropped off a few hundred diapers to a diaper ministry. It was nice to cross that off my list. 

Piper had her long awaited oral surgery. She's been pretty stressed about it for a few months. I told her she didn't have a choice and she gave in but she did milk me for extra bribes like trips to Subway and Boboa. She opted to not be put under. She's never even had a cavity before so it was the first time she's ever had a shot in her mouth. They let me go back with her while she got numbed and then I had to leave. She did great and the surgery wasn't as bad as she thought it would be. She's handling the recovery really well. Her tooth wasn't coming down so the oral surgeon cut into her gums and attached a bracket and a chain so her orthodontist can help pull her tooth down. I'm glad it's done. Piper's been freaking out about it for awhile. 

Gabby got to go to Washington for a track meet. They took the bus and stayed in a hotel as a team. I'm glad she got to have that experience. That's fun for her! Corbin just missed the cut off by .2 seconds so he wasn't able to go.

I found out I do not have to teach Fashion and Textiles next year and I'm so happy about that! We have 4 more weeks of school. We can do it!

 

I ordered picture frames and printed pictures from the wedding and put them on the wall. The pictures printed a little dark, but other than that, I'm happy with them. I have 5 weeks left of school, and I'm excited to be done, although I'm already a little worried about getting bored over the summer. We went to the track meet at Centennial on Friday. It was Senior Night, the last home meet. They highlighted all of the runners. I took a video, but the announcer kind of messed up Corbin's recap, so I'm not going to bother posting it. Corbin is planning to live with me, attend the College of Western Idaho, and study Biology. He plans on being a PA. We will see how it all shakes out. I think being a PA would be a great job, but I also think going to trade school and being an electrician is a brilliant plan, with little debt, high demand, and high pay. 

Piper has been a naughty bumpkin. She has been slacking off on her online classes, and she hasn't been honest about it. I can't see her online classes' grades; she has an F in both. She has just not been doing her work for months. It's only her online classes that she's struggling with. I don't blame her, honestly. Online classes are brutal, but she has to get her work done! We have been working on getting caught up. She is staying with me an extra week so I can keep after her and make her get her crap together! Girl!

Corbin on Senior night, there were a lot more seniors, but I didn't get a good picture of them.

If I'm sitting, both dogs are usually with me.

I tried making homemade croissants. They are an endeavor. It takes many hours and several days. They didn't turn out quite right, but they still tasted amazing, like really, really amazing. 

Hutch is so funny, he always has a sad face, and he was just staring out the window. I took him on a walk straight away.

Ryan all mummied up!

My three barnacles: Piper, Charly, and Hutch.

My favorite childhood cereal that my grandma used to buy was called Corn Bran. I loved them! They stopped making them. I was telling John about it, and he secretly did some research and found this Puffins cereal that tastes just like Corn Bran. He drove to Whole Foods just to buy me some. So cute. Really overpriced, yummy childhood, cute husband, cereal.

 

We got our wedding pictures. Yay! I'm happy. There's enough good ones. John had the idea to get married somewhere other than the beach and the eloping company had these gardens as one of the venues. Done! It was such a beautiful location. I just loved everything about our wedding and trip. Short, sweet, and memorable and really more about the vacation and trip, but I'm really happy to have the wedding itself captured. Great, great, great! I'm working on getting pictures ordered. I can't wait to hang them up. 

There's not much to say, work is same old. I'm still waiting to hear if I have to teach fashion and textiles. I'm crossing my fingers and toes. I will need to figure out lesson plans and curriculum and I won't be able to steal it from my friend Roxanne because she didn't teach it. Again, fingers and toes. 

John and I went to see Gabby at her track meet Friday night and then both Corbin and Gabby on Saturday. We were there for 6 hours on Saturday. John is a better person than me. I wanted to skip but he motivates me to be a better person. He's just naturally more supportive than me I think and I'm a little selfish or a lot more selfish. I just have to put on my patient pants. 

I did yard work for a few hours last night. I'm so glad I did, it is pouring today. I would be so mad if I wasn't able to get the yardwork done. My neighborhood has a shared driveway and it was filled with weeds. I couldn't handle it and weeded it for an hour yesterday. We have very high HOA fees in my neighborhood and they used to do lawn care for the front yards and they stopped doing that and didn't decrease our fees and my neighbors don't take care of their yards. Stupid, stupid HOA's. If I'm going to pay that much money, we should have a pool or a decent looking neighborhood ya know? Whatever. I had a great time weeding, so why am I complaining. Alright, that's all.

 

I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since Hawaii. The first week back felt a little rough, not really getting a break during spring break and dealing with the 4-hour time change. Now I'm just trying to pace myself to the end of the school year. The end of the year feels so close and so far away. Every year, we find out where student numbers are and what our schedules will be. One of the FCS teachers who was full-time at Capital now has to travel between Capital and Boise High every day. Luckily, my numbers are good enough that I will be at Borah next year. I might have to teach Fashion and Textiles next year. I really hope not. Having 3 preps in a day is enough. Fingers and toes crossed, I can teach what I've already been teaching. 

Corbin and Gabby are in track again. They are sprinters, and they are fast! They are both in team relays. Corbin's 4X100-meter team got 3rd place at the last track meet, so that was exciting. Gabby barely got 2nd in her heat in the 100. I'm glad they are enjoying that. 

Boise is so beautiful in the spring. Flowering trees and flowers everywhere. Our Easter was pretty low-key. The kids still want me to hide their Easter baskets, and I did a very poor job hiding them, but still managed to stump Corbin and Piper for a few minutes, and that felt like an eternity with how easy the baskets were to find. Haha. I just made my traditional Easter dinner of pork chops, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, and deviled eggs. Ryan is not a fan, but everyone else likes it. You can't win them all!

My culinary class had pastry week, and they made homemade biscuits and berry turnovers. I've never been a big fan of biscuits, but I had my students make them, and they were dang good. I made my first batch ever, and they were a hit with my kids. My students also made berry turnovers, which are a little challenging with laminated dough and rolling and folding over and over again to get those delicious flaky layers. My turnovers were sooo good. My kids loved them. I should really eat some food with less saturated fat this week!

Better than they look!

Hutch thinks he's a lapdog. He's like a very heavy weighed blanket.