Last week of school!

The last week of school finally came!  We had a ton of snow this year (yuck) and had to make up a lot of snow days...7 (I think! I lost track) and 2 days were forgiven by the state.  I thought summer would never get here!  School ended on the 20th, just in time for summer school set up on the 23rd and summer school to start on the 25th.  Oh well!  I'll take the small class size ( I think I have 5 kids this year) and the 4 hr work day anytime!  I really don't have much to share since we haven't done much other than me packing up my room for the summer and Ben bringing me dinner at school :)  But yay for summer!!!

Last weekend we all met in Christiana, DE to celebrate Father's Day with my dad!  We enjoyed dinner at Brio, an Italian restaurant that I had never been to before.

Flowers from my students! They are now second graders! *Tear* 

One asked me that when they came to school on Monday, if they would be second graders then.  I told him he had a few weeks before he had to come back to school, haha!

 

Always, always, always wear waterproof mascara on the last day of school! At my school, we do a fun farewell on the last day of school involving music, noisemakers, and bubbles.  It's so much fun but I always get so teary-eyed as my babies leave for the summer!

 

My room packed up and ready for summer!  I am so glad that I am staying in the same school, same grade, same classroom for next year!  Thank you God!

 

Another gift!  This one was from my next-door teacher's intern.  She's doing the same program I did two years ago and insisted that I was a lot of help to her.  I just enjoy answering questions because I had the same ones when I was in MCERT!  She is so sweet!

 

Now that summer's here, it's time to paint some rooms in our house!  We are focusing on the office, laundry room, and powder room.  I'll let you guess which colors are for which room...and who picked them out, haha!  More pictures to come!

 

Enjoying my second day of summer with my patriotic Toms in order to cheer on the USA team in soccer tonight!  Go USA!

Last weekend

Happy (belated) 25th birthday to Ben's brother, Kevin!  We keep telling him how he's just five little years away from being 30!  We celebrated by going out to dinner for his birthday last Friday night and combined it with celebrating Chessie's graduation.  We ate at a restaurant called Houlihan's and it was really good!  It was like an upscale pub and the food was delicious.  I would love to go there again some time.

Kevin didn't know it but his girlfriend, Lisa, was planning a surprise party for him the next night at his house in College Park.  There were about 15 people there and boy was he surprised!  We yelled surprise at him and I think he was more confused than anything.  His roommates grilled and we hung out outside on their patio by the pool.  It was a beautiful evening and I got to catch up with one of my dear friends, Jess!  She's a teacher too and teaches near me yet we never get to see each other.  Life is so busy!  We kind of excluded ourselves from the rest of the group and spent all night talking and catching up.  It was a great party and Kevin had no idea!  Happy birthday Kevin!!

Sorry my pictures are out of order but before we went to the surprise party last Saturday, I went strawberry picking with a friend and some of her friends!  I loooooove strawberries and actually really miss picking them.  It's been quite a number of years since I have done it.  I went a little crazy and picked 4.5 pounds!  Ben doesn't really eat them so it's been up to me the past week to eat them before going bad.  They are so sweet and delicious!  It's nice to eat local food!

 

My friend and Ben's officemate, Kelly.

 

My strawberry bounty.

 

And since I'm wayyy out of order, last week my school had an ice cream truck come and give ice cream or snowballs to all the staff!!!  I love snowballs and asked for a strawberry one.  Jumpin' Jeff, the ice cream guy, gave me a HUGE snowball!  It took me all afternoon to eat it and my kiddos were very jealous!  And in case you were wondering, 5 more school days left!!!

Hope y'all have a great weekend!

Another Graduate In The Family!!!

There's another Alvarez graduate in the family!!  Last night, we all gathered at Chapelgate Christian Academy to watch Chessie, the youngest Alvarez (in MD at least!) walk the stage!  She graduated from high school 9 years to the day after Ben and I graduated...yikes, now I feel really old.  She graduated in a class of sixty-some (I counted last night but now I can't remember how many there were) and between Ben and I, I think we were able to document her evening!

 

All I asked for was a nice picture...

 

Chapelgate's logo

 

There's our graduate!

 

Can we all appreciate how cute her shoes are?!

 

Some speeches and prayers by the students...I'm not sure of their names and I lost my program.  Sorry!

 

We realized that we sat on the wrong side so all of the pictures are the back of her.  Chessie is the second from the right.

 

The keynote speaker was a former teacher at the school who now is a professor.

 

Sorry for the blurriness!  She was moving so fast!

 

After they all crossed the stage, the graduates found their parents in the audience and gave them roses.

 

Congratulations to the class of 2014!!

 

(She was getting tired of all the pictures!)

 

Chessie and her favorite teacher, Mr. Apple.

 

After all of the family pictures, I volunteered to follow Chessie around so she could get pictures with her friends.

 

Me following her around like the paparazzi :)

 

Congratulations Chessie and to the class of 2014!!!!