I water the plants in the front patio of my house everyday to keep them alive. But lately, they have been attracting a lot of WASPS! EEK! I'd open the door and pour the water into the two small pots and I hear all this buzzing around me. So I squeal. I wonder if my neighbors hear me and wonder if I need help. I think those flowering plants in front is also the cause of all these wasps building their nests above my front door. EEK^10! The pest control have already knocked them down for me...TWICE. Anyway, so yesterday as I was doing my normal watering routine, a wasp freaking flew in. It was sitting there on the window in the foyer, so I couldn't swat it down. I figured it would die by today...
As I watered my plants again today, a HUGE FROG, JUMPED out of the pot and PLOPPED onto the ground, then hopped into the bushes. I squealed twice as loud and shut the door. To no avail, that darn wasp did not die and started flying toward my kitchen since I had the lights on. I decided to use my Swiffer (along w/ the dry wipe...cuz I do not want to dirty my Swiffer) to get it down from the wall. I used the Swiffer like a bat and was able to swat it down to the floor. I tried to smoosh down the Swiffer...hoping the pressure would kill it. I picked it up to see if it had died. Let me tell you, wasps are hardy insects! It was still crawling around, I screamed a little and immediately got the Raid (for ants....but apparently proved to be successful because I used it on this other wasp that I had flown in my house another time) and sprayed it. So that wasp is currently covered with Raid while the Swiffer is on top of it. I'm hoping the toxins and suffocation will do it.
Of course, we have our self-timed picture. I don't know why I didn't aim my camera more accurately....
In the car, holding up the Rascal Flatts CDs! (hehe at my stray hairs! I don't know why I find that so amusing. But yeah the A/C did it.) We listened to them along the way to the Woodlands. Sigh...it's such a far drive...but Rascal Flatts was worth it!
This our view from the seats we had! WOOHOO! It was covered so we had a SLIGHT breeze from the fans....but it was still freakin hot & humid.
So it was getting really hot and uncomfortable, Mel & I saw this woman have a cool slushie drink in her hand, so we got one too! Strawberry daiquiri swirled with lime magarita (I think)...whatever it was, it was delicious! However, at times, it was a mistake because alcohol makes you feel flushed/hot. OH WELL!
Darius Rucker (former Hootie and the Blowfish guy) was the opening act. No wonder his voice sounded SO FAMILIAR!
People could text into this system and it would show up on the screen...so that kept us entertained for a while reading everyone's crazy messages. Every text you sent in, you were entered for a chance to win a pair of tickets to meet Rascal Flatts in person! I texted twice, but didn't see either of them show up on the screen. Oh well.
Rascal Flatts came out singing "Summer Nights"!
Gary -- lead vocalist!
Joe Don -- Mel and my favorite because he is super hot
Jay (I accidentally got this picture of him because in actuality, I wanted a pic of Joe Don. HAHA!)
Another one of the hottie
I forgot what song they were singing in this picture, but the sparks were awesome!
"Here Comes Goodbye"
Group shot of the band
These are the songs they sang: (I kind of forgot the order after the 3rd or 4th song...I was too excited jumping up and down while singing along.)
Summer Nights Fast Cars and Freedom Stand Bless the Broken Road Still Feels Good
What Hurts the Most -- Gary, the lead singer, forgot the 2nd part of the lyrics! He just paused & I'm like OMG....ruining the song. Mel was pissed cuz she was like one of my favorite songs!
Here Comes Goodbye Mayberry Love You Outloud mixed with Love Who You Love My Wish Oklahoma-Texas Line Backwards Take Me There Me and My Gang Bob That Head Life is a Highway
They're leaving...
But they came back for 2 more songs!
The end.
Their truck with the logo of the "Unstoppable" tour
And of course, to end the night, Melody & I just happened to walk through this park with romantically-lit lights on the way to the parking lot. hehe.
All in all, Rascal Flatts is definitely Top 5 concerts I've been to. It was a lot of fun and they're good entertainers!
<--- that's the closest face I could find for being "pensive"
WOW, I don't even know where to start. I really want to post pictures of my students, but that would be against policy of posting pictures for non-educational reasons. I guess you'll have to trust me when I say that my students were really adorable and sweet. I think they're always like that every year! hehe~ I guess my track record is good so far!
I'll try to keep this post short and stay on topic. Even though Jen says I like to "make long stories, long". lol. Sorry I can't help it. I gotta include the details. I guess I can't reveal too much because of confidentially and such.
There was one student that just had a lot of special circumstances in his personal life and stuff, which caused a lot of problems for his learning and reading. I had been working with him all year and his dad was not very supportive. Just very aggressive and negative when I approached him about something with his son. So every school system has their own way of getting a child tested to see if they qualify for extra help / special education. This year required a lot of paperwork on the teacher's behalf. School bureaucracy sucks, btw. It was really rough for me and I had a lot of support from my mom. She gave me a lot of good advice on how to handle stuff and working hard in a smart way. Aka, documenting and asking help from administrative positions, etc. After a lot of frustrating meetings throughout the process, the student was FINALLY going to get tested this summer. HOWEVER, remember, it was only to see IF he could get into this special ed. program to get extra help and modifications for school assignments, tests, etc. I really believe if he was brought up in a different environment, he would be a lot better off. sigh...
Anyway, so it's the last week of school and that Monday, I get an email from the secretary / attendance clerk in the front. The email said that the student's dad had withdrawn him from school and she wanted to make sure that the student had turned in all his textbooks / library books. So apparently, they were going to move to Mississippi. His dad had been struggling to find a job all year, so he has to follow the job wherever it takes him. It was really really strange because they weren't planning to move until the weekend after....
My first reaction was shock. Then, I had a lot of conflicting feelings because I had worked so hard with him this whole year and we were finally getting him the help he needed, but now he couldn't because he was moving away. I think I just felt really frustrated with the dad about what he was doing to his kid...this was like his 6th school or something. They moved him around every year to a different school. Each state has different procedures, so basically all that paperwork, documenting, reading test scores, etc. would just be thrown away. In a way, I felt gypped and angry. I was also worried about the student of the type of environment he had at home because lately, he had been saying and doing a lot of weird, inappropriate things in class. I had wanted him to see the counselor that Monday, but obviously, he wasn't in school. I guess I never really felt relieved or happy that he was gone. It was the last week of school and his dad couldn't even let him enjoy it with his classmates. My students were definitely relieved, I think, not to hear me say his name a billion times a day. Some were sad that they didn't even get to say good-bye to him. I guess it was a bittersweet ending. He's not my problem anymore, but I felt there wasn't anything to show for all the hard-work through this whole year. It's a pity, really, for him.
There is no such thing as a "perfect" year, because next year, I guarantee there will be other stresses. I think this year was so tough because of all the changes. I think I had mentioned it in a previous entry. New grade level to teach, under new management (principal), new house & living on my own the first time in my life, and other personal things. I guess what made it rough was because I felt really alone at school (getting no help with that one student), even though I was constantly asking for help. I had to be alone at home too. At times it was too much to bear.
For those of you that know me super well, you know that I cry EVERY YEAR the last day of school. But to my surprise, I didn't shed one the last day of school! I will DEFINITELY miss this past year's kids. They seriously were like angels. Like Jen had said, "Maybe you didn't cry because you've already used up all your tears over ______ this whole year." I think that she is correct. He had exhausted all my emotions.
HOWEVER, now that it is the summer...I am really enjoying all the alone time I'm having and getting used to it! I didn't really mean for this reflection to be a downer...but I guess it kind of turned out that way, because that's how it was the majority of the year.
(This is the only recent picture I have of us, since I haven't seen her since January! haha! She's been studying for her Boards. A test that's just a tad important to her career in the future. )
The first night they came, I took them to Chick-Fil-A because they don't have this chain restaurant in Minnesota. HAHA!
Rebecca & me
So the Chick-Fil-A people had Astros hats on and Rebecca (2nd grader) is the inquisitive one and asked me why they had those hats. I didn't know and I told her to ask them. The workers said that they're wearing it to support the Astros since it was their opening night that day. haha! Hubert (he's now a 6th grader!) quietly whispered, "Yeah, even though they lost." LOL! I told the workers that my cousins were visiting from Minnesota and they don't have a Chick-Fli-A up there and..... They gave them Astros caps for free! Which was really nice of them to do.
The next day, they went to visit Jen at her apartment and take a quick tour of the Baylor campus. Jen showed them all the fun activities they could do at her apartment like play pool, go swimming, work out at the exercise room, foos ball, and play ping pong. Rebecca's response to all of it, "OH MY GOD! Medical school is so FUN!!!!" LOL! Here are super cute pictures of them having a good time.
Then we had a fruit tart cake to celebrate Hubert's birthday.
On Wednesday of that week, they came to visit my school. I know it was a Wednesday because I'm wearing my AWESOME blue tie-dyed spirit shirt. haha! Yes, my classroom is very colorful indeed.
From the crooked-ness and blurriness of this picture, can you guess who took the picture??? HAHA!
Friday night, Rebecca and Hubert slept over at my house. I was pretty nervous because I take care of my students at school, but this was different since they were sleeping over. LUCKILY, Jen was there too. Otherwise, sheesh, I would be dead tired. On our drive over to my house, we stopped by HEB to pick up some popcorn and cheddar powder (that's how they usually eat it, Jen & I were a little skeptical about it at first.) Movie night isn't complete w/o popcorn! hehe. So as we were on the car, Hubert was talking with Rebecca asking her if she had brought these 2 stuffed animals. Rebecca's reaction, "OH NO! I forgot them at 'da ai-yi's' (my mom) house!!! Oh well...." and she was kind of disappointed. Then, Hubert whips the 2 stuffed animals out of his backpack and gives them to Rebecca. She was like, "OH MY GOSH! HUBERT!!!!" Hubert: "I knew you would forget them, so I packed them for you." Jen and I thought it was super sweet of him to do that!!!
We popped our movie theater butter popcorn and sprinkled it generously with cheddar powder. HAHA! It was amazingly delicious!!! Nevermind how much sodium and calories we consumed with each handful. We watched "Wall-E" first and we thought Rebecca would at least fall asleep first. However, we finished the movie and Hubert wanted to watch "Kicking and Screaming" & Rebecca was still wide awake. She kept herself occupied by drawing and coloring pictures for us. They stayed up till 1:30am!!
Rebecca slept in the same bed as me That night when I turned off the light, she was like, "Ummmm, it's kind of TOO dark in here." I forgot that sometimes kids need a night-light. hahahaha! I turned on my bathroom light and closed the door a little bit, so that helped. She woke up at 9am! (that is early for the weekend) So I woke up with her and Hubert was already up! He was playing his Nintendo DS. Crazy kids! They don't need that many hours of sleep to recharge apparently. Hubert and Rebecca even helped me grade some of my students' papers! LOL. The ones that had math equations that had a clear right/wrong answer.
Then, we went to eat at Downtown Aquarium for lunch (we met up with the adults) and then Jen & I took our cousins inside the aquarium. Hubert took a billion pictures and took his time. Rebecca was really patient because she knew her brother took a long time with stuff like this. I think it was really cute because it reminded me a lot of Jen and my relationship. How I know Jen takes a while to shop and pick out certain things, so I try my best to be patient. And with Jen, she's really patient with me when explaining things, etc.
Rebecca said it was way too bright outside. And by chance, I had a 2nd pair of sunglasses for her. haha.
Rebecca really wanted to see a sea turtle at the aquarium and finally did! So I took a picture for her. Too bad the sea turtle looked so miserable in that tank...
Here are some really cool creatures I took pictures of! (Black-tipped shark, CUTE black & white striped fish that was teeny tiny, huge puffer fish, sea lion whose tips are venomous!, and white polka-dotted sting ray)
Hubert is sitting on the side waiting for Rebecca to finish riding the carousel.
Jen - round 1
me - round 2
That was the end of their trip to Texas! It was a packed visit! Jen and I had so much fun spending time with them. Read more...
I'd open the door and pour the water into the two small pots and I hear all this buzzing around me. So I squeal. I wonder if my neighbors hear me and wonder if I need help. 
I think those flowering plants in front is also the cause of all these wasps building their nests above my front door. EEK^10! The pest control have already knocked them down for me...TWICE. 
Anyway, so yesterday as I was doing my normal watering routine, a wasp freaking flew in. 
It was sitting there on the window in the foyer, so I couldn't swat it down. I figured it would die by today...
It was still crawling around, I screamed a little and immediately got the Raid (for ants....but apparently proved to be successful because I used it on this other wasp that I had flown in my house another time) and sprayed it. So that wasp is currently covered with Raid while the Swiffer is on top of it. I'm hoping the toxins and suffocation will do it. 
So apparently, they were going to move to Mississippi. His dad had been struggling to find a job all year, so he has to follow the job wherever it takes him. It was really really strange because they weren't planning to move until the weekend after....
I will DEFINITELY miss this past year's kids. They seriously were like angels. Like Jen had said, "Maybe you didn't cry because you've already used up all your tears over ______ this whole year." I think that she is correct. He had exhausted all my emotions.
