Catching Up!

To all of my faithful readers:

Hi! How are you? I pray this finds you all well! I apologize for being MIA for awhile. Life always catches me in a tailspin this time of the year with school ending! The past month has been a whirlwind of activities but I have enjoyed most of it!! About 3 weekends ago, I was able to participate in my first ever Relay for Life event. It was amazing! I have collected money for this great event for the past 4 years but this was my first year actually attending the event. It was such an honor spending a night with those who can inspire me!

The next week I was busy with a gospel meeting at church and then our first honor's night of the season for our 9th - 11th graders. Those were both fulfilling activities as well. This past week has been full of our senior honors night and graduation.

I received a distinct honor at our senior honors night. For the past 4 years, our principal has asked the honor graduates to choose a teacher who has made a significant impact on their education. This year, I was honored with my very first Golden Apple. The student who chose to gave it to me is one that I hadn't taught in over 2 years and I had only taught her for one year. I was quite shocked (and still am) that she thought of me! (I would have entered a picture of the two of us at this point but I'm on dial-up and it takes 24+ hours to load pictures here! Hopefully soon I can add it here!) Samantha will go far in life and I wish her well! Graduation was absolutely beautiful and Dana, the Valedictorian, left the graduated with the best words ever..."Don't Worry, Be Happy!".

Now that the kiddos are gone, I have a week to clean up the classroom, submit final grades, and attend a retreat for our Leadership team of which I'm a member. Then the summer begins...more time for reading I hope!! I do have about 3 weeks of classes to attend for various reasons before the next school year starts. I will also be taking my GRE in a few days to hopefully get into graduate school for my Specialist degree (no idea how I got by in my Master's program without having to take the GRE but they didn't require it for admission). If accepted, my program will start in August.

I say all of this to say, thank you for sticking with me when I haven't posted much and please stay tuned for more interaction through the summer. I have some of what looks like some pretty good books to read coming up (I've read 3 just this weekend!) and I hope you will enjoy all that I have to say this summer!

Happy Memorial Day weekend. I pray you will have some time to reflect on the sacrifices made and for those who still fight on a daily basis for the freedoms we enjoy. Have a great summer, read lots of great books, and DON'T FORGET THE SUNSCREEN!!! :)

With love to all my readers,

Julie