Friends

It's always great to spend time with friends, and when it's your coworkers, that's a lot of time. Rachel is pregnant and due in October, so we teachers ended our summer with a surprise shower for her. Jill even came in from Indy!
I am very lucky to work with such great people who I can call Friends:)

At the Dinosaur

Greg flew into Rochester last night and was lucky enough to have time to visit with Lois, Phil and Dennis (and Dennis's girlfriend Kacie). Lois is on the ball and already posted pictures on Kodak! It's a little bittersweet, being able to see Greg in photos, know that the photos are only hours old, and that I was not the one taking them. It looks like they had fun though!
We miss Greg:(

Summer Is Over

Joey is officially a second grader with 178 days of school left. Yes, he is already counting them down. He is happy to be back in school with his friends and has already helped his teacher identify some chatty boys. What? He forgot to include himself? I guess Mrs. B. will figure that one out on her own : ) The best part of his first day back? The class has a pet bunny named Eddie. Yep, it's all about the animals. Soon he will have convinced his teacher that she should really have pet day.

Race for the Cure

A much beloved teacher at CNE was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Although we can't help her fight her battle, we at CNE Elementary would like to support her by helping to fund cancer research. If you are interested in joining our team on September 14 or would like to contribute to our fundraising efforts, please click here.

Dead Cow Walking

When I bought tickets for the "major raffle" at our parish festival, I did it thinking it would be a nice donation to the church. I certainly never win anything big and didn't expect to this time-especially not the $7000 or whatever the major prize was. What a surprise when Mom called to tell me that I did win something in the major raffle-a side of beef! I called my sister to ask what the heck I was supposed to do with a half of a steer. Her answer, "Duh, eat it/put it in a freezer." Okay, I know some people own deep freezers, but we have the one on our refrigerator and I'm pretty sure that will not hold 400 pounds of beef. I thought maybe I could ask the farmer to set the animal free, but no such luck-someone else won the other side of beef, so you can see how that might be awkward. Where's the beef now? My side of beef is on the hoof until at least Sept. 1 when Mr. Boehm (farmer/beef provider) is trying to make an appointment to have him "processed". We expect we'll meet our beef sometime in October.

Joey is now seven years old! He had a great party and received lots of nice gifts. He tried to be a good host, but his presents kept calling to him, "Play with me, put me together..." We were very lucky with the beautiful weather that the kids were able to play outside keeping the inside mess to a minimum:)
Alyson and Rachel spent the night with us after the party. They are actually still asleep right now (9:05) while Joey is building legos. He can't wait for them to wake up, but we agreed last night not to wake each other up this morning.
Greg made it home Saturday and luckily, was able to be here for Joey's party. Hopefully we have another day or two before he has to fly off to his next post. He is officially finished with his training and ready to take his place as an airline pilot.

Michele is moving to Vegas-how exciting and what a brilliant opportunity for her! Making such huge changes in life is so difficult, but she is hoping for an even better future!

This is our last free week until school starts:( Our schedule is full so we'll be pretty busy, but we plan to enjoy this last week of summer. Hopefully Greg will be around for some of it:)

Where were you in the 80s?

I was the sidekick-I can hear myself laughing a la Ed McMahon right now-"That's right, Johnny!" Clermont Northeastern High School is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year in style. On Friday night each decade was invited to a different local bar to meet other alumni. Saturday night is the dinner/dance at the county fairgrounds[i]. After much consideration (Do I, don't I, do I, nah, okay), I decided after much discussion with my friends[ii] to attend...alone. Even if Greg had been in town, he wouldn't have gone-Reunion #5 in 1994 decided that-so if I was going, it was stag. Leaping way outside my comfort zone because a friend[iii] made an offer I couldn't refuse (to watch Joey), I drove the 30 minutes to a local watering hole. Walking through the parking lot, I noticed a lack of empty spaces. Yikes, lots of people did show up.[iv] I did enter Greenie’s though, and headed for the first person I knew-Hey Jeni! Now I have seen Jennifer[v] around since her children attend the school in which I teach, but she was very kind and didn’t send me away when I approached her table. Her tablemate Monica even recognized me-nice, since I hadn’t seen her since 8^th grade. We had a nice, even playful, conversation until I felt able to mingle on my own. On my way to the bar (duh), I spotted my high school best friend! Shooweee![vi] I also ran into my longtime, growing up best friend[vii] and her brother. Since Jeni, Terra, Missy and I were (along with Christy) the sum total of our class-5 out of 203=2%, I’m not sure what I was worried about. Hopefully other classmates showed up later.

Although I don’t miss high school and would not willingly revisit those years, I am glad that I attended this reunion for several reasons.

1. License to stare until you identify someone-definitely cool.
2. Being able to stare and then use the excuse that it didn’t count as staring because I forgot my glasses-also cool.
3. Being identified as my sister by the crazy party hound-could work in my favor in the long run.
4. The long and the short of a high school reunion-long: people really don’t change-nice people stay nice; others don’t. Short: It only lasts until I leave.

[1] If you’re bored or don’t have tickets, try the St. Louis Festival down the street!

[1] Thanks Cindy and Terra!

[1] Thanks Jen!

[1] With over 1000 people graduating in the 80s from CNE, the percentage of attendees isn’t really that high, but it is a small place.

[1] Jeni is strictly her 80s moniker.

[1] Shout out to Terra!

[1] And one to Missy