Since being back in the States things have been very crazy. Not only were we trying to get things for the house but I was also trying to get my classroom in shape. I had a lot of help from my Mom, Cameron, Kelly, Grace, and my friend Karen. My two new teacher friends, Tiffany and Jennifer, also helped. I would have never been ready without all hands on deck. A HUGE thank you to all of them.
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| No frogs were hurt during decorating. |
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| My room. |
So I was feeling pretty good since my classroom was ready to go. I had a week of training. Monday and Tuesday were half days. Wednesday and Thursday were full day. My brain was on some serious overload.
Monday, August 19 I had to start work. Monday and Tuesday were full days of meetings. The air shipment arrived on Monday. Thankfully Todd and Cameron had a lot of it put away. We still had boxes and boxes of clothes to put away. Luckily they were in the garage and not in the house though. But, obviously it was bothering me subconsciously.
Todd had to be at the airport at 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday, August 20. Cameron and I took him out there and said our goodbyes. Little emotional driving away. Cameron and I stopped at Walmart for things I needed for my classroom. By 5:30 a.m. we had a cart full and headed towards home.
Off to work I went and Cameron went to Scott's to hang with Griffin all day. I got off work at 3 but I stayed to work because we had back pack night at 5:30. From 5:30-6:30 I met some of my students and their parents. I was pretty excited. The kids seemed to be ok.
I picked Cameron up at 6:45. He was at my brothers for almost 12 hours and he had been up since 4:30 a.m. He was sad. I was sad. We both had hit an emotional wall. We got home and we were both bawling like babies. It is so hard to explain. Neither of us had issues we were just emotional. He gathered himself but I couldn't. I was in an almost full blown panic attack. I was shaking and I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest. I was completely overwhelmed with everything...stress of being a miracle worker at work, not having a clue what I was doing at work, not enjoying rushing to get everything done at work, my house was a mess, nothing seemed right. Cameron was so good. Talking to me like an adult, reassuring me the kids would love me and everything would be fine. Man I love that boy.
Wednesday went great. Cameron had his first day of school and it went well. He said it was kind of boring because the teacher just talked and talked but he was excited to get back to Seton. He had P.E. first thing in the morning so he didn't have to wear his uniform. He thought that was pretty cool. My class seemed good and things went smoothly. Cameron got out of school all week at 1:30 because of the heat. Not my district.
Thursday rolled around and honeymoon was over. My kids were crazy. I had to remember it was the beginning of the year and the kids would get better. It was just hard to remember that at the time. Every year has always started like this I had just forgotten. The worst thing was tennis shoes. I HATE shoe strings. All I did was tie shoes. I probably had a lot of mad parents because I tied them in tight double knots. Oh well.
Friday was better again. It will be fine. It's nice to get back into teaching. However, the emotional craziness continued even through the weekend. I checked with Ileana and Kerrie Bounds and they (and the kids) were having the same emotional problems as we were. I never thought the reverse culture shock would be an issue. It was/is. It is extremely hard for reasons unknown. I can't even explain it. But I'm hoping and praying in a few weeks Cameron and I will look back and laugh that we were so sad and emotional. The main thing for us to remember is that we are SO happy to be back home with family and friends. The rest will pass.
On Friday Cameron and I ran down to the Iwireless Center to pick up our race stuff. We were running in a 5K on Saturday. There was some cool stuff on sale to help us look funky when we ran. We got our shirts, sunglasses, socks, headbands, and color packets. We headed home. My parents came over and we decided to have a yard sale. My parents came over and we hauled everything we wanted to get rid of over to my parents house. I sat and priced everything. Cameron and I headed home around 8:00.
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| He didn't quite get the bandanna on right. |
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| Little Red Riding Hood? |
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| We were ready. |
Saturday morning we arrived at my parents at 6:15 a.m. We put everything out on the driveway or on tables. The yard salers were not out. I was worried that we weren't going to sell anything. Thank God my parents didn't mind selling our stuff for us while we went to the run. We can't thank them enough. My brother picked Cameron and I up at 8:00. We were off to the Color Me Rad run. Grace, Cameron, and I were running. We got down to the Iwireless Center (Our civic center in the Quad Cities) and people started coloring each other with their color packets. We decided to do it too. The 3 of us threw color at each other. Cameron decided to lay down on the ground to roll in the powder and Grace and I dumped more on Cameron. I then put a huge hand print on Grace's back. We couldn't believe how big my hand looked. It was creepy.
The race started. We were off. We got to the first color station and we were covered. Then we reached the liquid station and guess what? It wasn't working. Bummer. We continued running. We made it to the half way mark and then walked for about a block. The kids needed a break. Started running again and made it to another color station and a liquid station. We were looking awesome. We walked one more time for about 2 blocks and then we finished strong. We crossed the finish line and grabbed some water. Then everyone gathered by the stage. A man dressed in a rabbit suit made his way to the middle of the crowd. He started shooting color out of a fire extinguisher and people were throwing packets of color. It was one big foggy mess. When it stopped we were completely covered in color. Good times. My brother put down sheets in his van so we could get home.
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| Hanging at the yard sale waiting to go. |
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| Cameron looked awesome. |
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| Three of the coolest people. |
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| RAD! |
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| Cameron getting his color on. |
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| My giant hand print. |
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| Nice face Grace. |
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| Ouch and Ooooooo. |
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| LOVE this picture of the kids. |
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| Getting ready to run. |
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| It's go time. |
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| Color corn starch in the face. |
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| No, don't get me. |
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| Liquid station. |
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| More color. |
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| The finish line was in sight. |
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| We did it! |
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| So cute. |
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| Nice make up. |
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| I didn't get colored as bad. |
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| The color party with the rabbit. |
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| More colorful after the color party. |
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| A picture for Todd. |
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| Cool. |
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| The ride home. |
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| Grace looked like she had a purple bullet hole on her forehead. |
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| Look at that head. |
We made it back to my parents and there was still a lot of stuff. Luckily for us a couple of the right people showed up and got some really awesome deals. By the time we closed up shop we only had one little tub I dropped off at Goodwill. Cameron made $263 so he was super excited. Thank you Mom and Dad for running the sale.
We went to the pool for the rest of the afternoon.
