By Myself For 2 Hours

One week, our dryer broke down.  Early Saturday morning, I took a book and coffee from the local coffee shop, and sat at the laundromat and loved it.

Walking distance to the laundromat.

Arnie bought a new dryer that Monday.  Just a fleeting laundromat experience.

Teacher Learning Time

The Archdiocese of Seattle provides a 3 day institute for teachers at the end of every school year.  For a few years now, a team of teachers from our building attend.  This year's theme was the national Common Core Standards and alignment with best practice teaching strategies.  I could eat this stuff for breakfast.  I love to learn about effective teaching methods and reflect about how I can make mine better.  My colleagues are also excellent students, so we were all ready for the conference.

3 of us decided to stay in the dorm housing at Seattle University, the conference host.  Such a great decision.  We were in a suite which meant an open, but 2 bedroom dorm room with a nice shower and bathroom.  Nothing like the dorms I lived in at college!

The conference was great.  The presenters were knowledgeable and fun.  The activities and reading materials were inspiring.  And the food was excellent, healthy and free (for the most part).  My friend, Tifanie, and I "stole" left over lunch salads on the first day of the conference to eat for dinner.  When they said goodbye for the afternoon, the salads were still sitting on the lunch table.  They looked forlorn, as though they knew they were going to be tossed in the compost bin, so I adopted them for my stomach's sake.  Okay, and my pocketbook's sake!

Lunches at this conference are always the catered box-style fancy "brown bag".  Salads and sandwiches make up the choices.  The first day I snagged a smoked salmon ciabatta roll with fruit and a cookie.  It also had Tim's chips in it, but as they were jalapeno, I only ate a few.  The second day I hooked a Serrano pepper and chicken tortilla wrap.  Also tasty.  Regular Tim's chips with it, so I ate those.  The last day I grabbed a chipotle chicken ciabatta roll.  Mmmm.

We did have healthy fruit in the afternoons.  The granola had juicy dried blueberries in it.

At one point, they put unhealthy candy on the table.  We ate it.

We sat right up front.  Look at how busy our table is.  Cluttered with learning.

A lunch salad that I didn't take.  Looked yummy, though.

Healthy and bpa-free juice.

Fresh fruit from the cafeteria before the day gets started.

Pretty great.  One night we went to a campus BBQ and then walked Broadway.  And stared at people.  And stared at the clothing.  And stared and the interesting things in store windows.  And felt like country bumpkins.  Then, we saw the sign for the most decadent chocolate desserts in the world, "Dilettantes Chocolates".  My friend, Kristin, and I each bought a rich chocolate cake.  I tried the classic Hungarian Rigo Janczi which was a light chocolate cake with a delicious raspberry filling topped with thick buttery chocolate frosting.  Kristin had a mousse cake with a thick chocolate frosting.  Mmmmm.

My Hungarian cake.

Such a great time, hanging out with colleagues, sharing ideas, and eating too much.

Absent from the Blog

Truly absent from myself.  That is where I have been.  I have not been able to blog about the eighth grade retreat to Ocean Shores during which the kids ate more pizza than I thought humanly possible.  I have not written a stitch about eighth grade graduation and the delicious cake made by Suzy's Bakery.  I don't think I even blogged about Marine Biology Camp 2011.  Wow.  Not sure where to even begin to catch you up.

The end of the year activities are always overwhelming.  This year I really didn't get a chance to sit down at night much less organize my thoughts for the blog. 

Marine Biology Camp is where the downward spiral seems to start for me every year.  This year was really fun because I got to take along a parental couple who are friends of mine.  Tifanie teaches first grade in my building.  Her son is a seventh grader in my class.  So Wes, the dad, and Tifanie both came to Marine Biology Camp.  They cooked dinner at the campfire for us. Tifanie made this delicious dessert in the dutch oven at the campfire.  It was a chocolate turtle cake - all gooey inside and so yummy.  I asked Tifanie where she got it and she said she googled for it.  I love technology, especially when it give us Chocolate Turtle Cake.

After Marine Biology Camp, graduation and eighth grade events are in full swing.  This year the cake came from Suzy's Bakery, a local establishment.  It was delicious and beautiful.  The parents rented a limousine and after the reception, it took the kids to dinner (there are only 8 kids in the class) at Mazatlan Restaurant.

Now that school is out, and I have cleaned up my classroom, I hope to have more time to devote to the blog.