1st Blogging Award, Catholic Schools' Week, and I'm sick! (Beware: It's a long one!)

I have been so busy!! First, I want to thank Andrea over at Cheers to School for giving me the Versatile Blogger Award! This is the first blogging award I have received! I will be working on that post next! Thanks Andrea!!

Last week was so ridiculously busy that I am still exhausted from it. Or maybe it's because I came down with something... Thank you to my little darlings for coughing sneezing breathing on sharing their sickness with me!  I slept through the second half of the Super Bowl (and I normally don't go to bed until 11:30ish) but woke up enough to see the last play of the game. (Woo! I won the Super Bowl competition at work - More on that in a minute.)

Last week was Catholic Schools' Week. Basically, it's like a giant homecoming week celebration with all of the kids at school. Throughout the week we have special things planned for the kids.

Friday actually kicked off our week with Dance Marathon. College students from the University of Iowa came to help with our mini Dance Marathon. We wore different colored shirts to represent the various kinds of cancer and raised money for the University of Iowa Hospital. The kids had a blast!

On Monday we had our kickoff assembly in the gym where we honored a distinguished alumnus. We then had "Rock In Prevention" come in to talk about being in a safe and drug free community. The guys talked about bullying and performed using students from the high school as mentors. They left a cd of the songs they performed for each student. If you live in or around Iowa, I really recommend these guys! They were great! You can visit their website here!

This picture is of the high school mentors and all of the kindergarten through second grade students. They were so good!

On Tuesday we went bowling. We had planned on doing this last year but ended up with 3 snow days during the week and we were never able to reschedule. The people at the bowling alley were great! They entered all of the kids' names, allowed us to play more than one game if we had time, and provided apple juice and cookies! The kids had a great time!



Wednesday we celebrated Mass as a Catholic system at the high school. It was fun to see all of the students together in one place.

Thursday morning we watched "101 Dalmatians" (the animated one of course!) and had popcorn! Then we did a service project and created Valentines for people that may not otherwise get them. We sent them to the two hospitals in the city.

Friday was our last day of celebration and we invited all of the parents to join us for lunch. This meant our lunch was pushed back 25 minutes. My kiddos already complain that they are ready for lunch around 10:30! We weren't able to eat until 12 but they were excited to have their parents or other guests join them. However, we have recess right after lunch. Because it's too muddy to go outside to the playground and all of the guests' cars were parked where we play on the blacktop, we had to have inside recess. Most of the parents left right away, but I had a few that chose to stick around and gossip talk with each other. I only had to kick one parent out at the end of recess. After specials, we headed to the gym for the 8th grade vs. staff volleyball game! The kids were really excited since this was the last time we can play because the new middle school opens next year.

Fast forward to today. So, I went to work because I thought I was just fighting a cold and actually didn't feel too horrible this morning. Then I remembered that Mrs. Principal had called a meeting in my room at 8:20. She walked in and greeted me with "Well Kayla, we're going to taint your room again." (My room has been known as the room where the staff gather for bad news.) We received a note indicating that our school system MAY (she pointed out that this was not a definitely, just a maybe) be downsizing next year.

As everyone was leaving my room, Miss Wonderful 4th Grade Teacher came up to me to let me know that I had the closest guess as to what the final score would be in the Super Bowl, so I won a $10 gift certificate to Panera Bread and a half hour massage! (So needed!!) My guess: Giants 21 - Patriots 18. WHERE DID I COME UP WITH 18?! I know enough about football to know that 18 is not normally a score you see. Oh well, I had the closest guess! :)

Then, around 11:00, the aide walked in and told me she was going home because she had just thrown up in the 1st grade classroom. (Thanks for sharing!) So I took over her lunch duty. As I was standing in the lunch room, I had the overwhelming feeling that I was going to pass out or throw up. Luckily, I have the best coworkers ever (really though, I do!) and Mrs. Tall Second Grade Teacher told Mrs. Principal that I needed to go home for the afternoon. So, I quickly wrote out some sticky notes prepared lesson plans for the sub and headed home. I took a 4 hour nap and am starting to feel better. I just hope I feel better by tomorrow.

So, if you are still with me, thanks for sticking around! Stay healthy and have a wonderful night!