Teacher Appreciation Night

We held our Teacher Appreciation Night at church a couple of weeks ago. I thought I'd update those of you who had asked about it previously.

As a reminder, each of the kids, ages 3-18 that wanted to participate invited one of their favorite school teachers to be honored. It turned out better than any of us could have possibly imagined! All that worry for months and it was fine. I'm sure the worry helped to make it fine, but anyway... If we do it again, we'll know a little more about what to do and what not to do. I've kept track! I may need some kind of sedative to go through this again, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it! ;)

Judging by the amount of chairs filled, people standing, and plates and cups used ;) we had around 100 people in attendance.

We were sitting behind Brandon's teacher (he is the only one of my kids that participated) and just as it was beginning, she turned to me and said "I can't believe anyone would do this for us!" She didn't know I had anything to do with planning it. Here I'd been thinking that it was just another thing the teachers had to work into their schedules, and by the end of the evening, I realized how grateful they were that we had put the whole thing together. Most of them stayed around an hour after it was finished and thanked us over and over.

A school board member from our ward and our bishop gave short talks. Afterwards we showed the video that we made of all the kids telling why they picked the teacher they did. It was GREAT! Everyone giggled through the whole thing. The kids were so cute. Definitely a highlight of the evening!

One challenge was getting all of the kids that participated and the teachers that came together for a picture at the end.

Brandon invited a past teacher. He had this particular teacher in Kindergarten and again in 2nd grade. She is just awesome!

When I got home from running errands the day after, there was a message on the phone from a local floral shop saying to look on the front porch. I found this cute arrangement from a sweetie in our ward thanking me for putting things together for the program. SO nice!

Special Thank You Card

I've been working for a couple of months on a project that is consuming my every thought! The kids at our church are inviting their favorite teacher to a Teacher Appreciation Night. I seriously go to sleep thinking about it and wake up thinking about it. It is still two more weeks away!

Anyway, things are *finally* starting to come together. It has been kind of a struggle, but last Wednesday, we had the night set aside to video each of the kids that chose to participate. They gave a short explanation of why they chose the teacher they did. They did such a good job! After that night, I finally felt like things were going to work out. The kids are excited about everything, so I really hope we have some teachers come. That is my biggest concern at this point. We have a few RSVP's, but not a ton. I made reminders to send out tomorrow, along with an agenda for the evening, so that may help. Teachers are just busy too, so that makes it hard.

This card is for the man that did the videoing for us. He was visiting our ward a couple of weeks ago and volunteered to do it. We had originally planned to do a video, and then it got cancelled (NOT happy = ME!). I said we really needed to find a way to make it work and I'm not sure how it came up, but this man ended up volunteering. He was so patient with the kids. The Primary President asked me to make a card for all them to sign at church tomorrow, so I came up with this. It is a full sheet of paper folded in half so there would be room for everyone.

Thanks to everyone who has helped with this project!

Another Busy Day

I think I could title just about every post in the same way! This morning Brandon and I made Peanut Butter Bars before he left for school in preparation for tonight's activity (more later).

Today it was our ward's turn to do the luncheon for the missionary's zone conference over in Westlake. I always enjoy getting to help out with that. One of the ladies in our ward always plans the meal and does all or the majority of the cooking. She does such a good job at it. I hope I never lose her! She had several of us make cookies for their dessert, but she made yummy beef stew and rolls, then had applesauce for them. The missionaries are always so appreciative. It is such a fun afternoon.

After that, I fought to stay awake driving home, took a quick nap and started getting ready for Richard to have the Young Men and Young Women (ages 12-18) from church over tonight for a BBQ and bonfire. I ran Brandon to soccer practice, ran home, got a few more things ready, ran back to get him, ran home, got everything else set up, just in time for everyone to arrive. We had a fun evening with around 25 people here. The rain stopped long enough for us to enjoy the entire activity. It was just great! We can't believe our big huge pile of branches would even light with all of the rain we've been getting, but it went up just fine. It was kind of a cool evening, so the fire felt awesome. Yes - I should've taken some pictures, but of course they'd still be sitting in the camera!

We've had lots of changes in our ward presidencies lately and even our bishopric a couple of weeks ago. It is exciting to have so many new things going on at once. I've served as the Relief Society President (for the women in our ward) for a little over 2 1/2 years now. I'm so excited about my new counselors and my secretary who has stayed on. They have been just wonderful and I'm so grateful for them.

Canoeing

On Saturday, July 19, our ward (church) had an picnic to celebrate Pioneer Day. We held it at a park that has canoes, so I reluctantly agreed to go out with the kids. Zachary, one of the Hauke twins (I can never get them right!) and Cody are in the top picture; Kyle, Brandon and I are in the bottom picture. Richard put canoes in and out of the water. It was a super hot, muggy day and those life jackets were miserable to have on. Although with Brandon wanting to turn around to see everything that was going on, it was definitely necessary. I was sure we were going to tip! It turned out to be a really nice day visiting with friends. I am grateful for our ward......our home away from home!