Summer update

Summer has been very busy, but I managed to squeeze in some much needed time to unwind and decompress after a hectic school year.

First of all, I finally cleared my credential, so now I am a full-fledged teacher. The past two years (have I been teaching for two years already?) have been torture with BTSA and the induction program. Hours and hours of extra workshops and paperwork! Anyway... that's finally all done and I feel like I have definitely earned my summer break.

Contrary to the heat and drought conditions of the valley, my summer began with a flood. My roommate started a load of laundry but didn't check on it during the night. I woke up at 6 am the first day of summer vacation and stepped into the swimming pool that had once been our living room and kitchen. Needless to say, I moved out and found a new place to live.

I now live in a house with a fellow Smittcamper from college who is a year younger than me. Amazingly, she was losing her two roommates to graduate school and needed someone to move in to take their place. Moreover, she had an interview lined up at my school and got hired to teach in the 4th grade classroom next door! So I now have a roommate and someone to carpool with to work everyday. I know she will make an excellent addition to our school :)

Needless to say, the first few weeks of summer were filled with packing, cleaning, moving, taking down wallpaper, painting, more cleaning, lots of laundry, and unpacking. I also aggravated/hurt my knee (a tear in the center of my posterior horn of the medial meniscus.. or something like that). I can't twist my knee, or else I may cause the tear to go all the way through. The doctor encouraged me to take it easy for at least eight weeks :( For more details... see previous post.

Also, I took a trip Hawaii (Big Island) for a family reunion. It was wonderful. Here are some highlights:
-Swimming at the beach with sea turtles
-Hula-ing with my family
-Taking some "low impact" hikes to a few waterfalls
-Seeing the Kilauea volcano glow at night
-Fireworks over Hilo Bay
-The "local grindz" = ono kine food :)
-Just spending time with my family and boyfriend

Speaking of... my boyfriend and I just celebrated our 24th birthday! We were born on the same day of the same year in the same town! We met in college and now have been dating for over two years. We had a wonderful (and memorable) party with 25 friends who came to help us celebrate.... power outage and all! If you haven't played Apples to Apples via candlelight... you're totally missing out! :)

As for the rest of the summer... my neices will be visiting soon, and I will be taking a trip to Las Vegas just before school starts. School reconvenes in about two weeks, and I will be spending a lot of time in my classroom getting things ready for my new set of students. I am sad to see summer slipping away, but I will try to enjoy the last fleeting remnants of it...