Your World

Zack and I found ourselves in a quandary last week. We had planned a trip to San Diego as an attachment to a business trip he was going on. He'd leave on Monday, I'd fly down on Thursday (Valentine's Day) to meet up with him, and we'd spend the weekend playing on the beach, visiting museums or zoos, and playing with my little bro and his wife. Buuuut mixing business with pleasure doesn't always work. The business trip was pushed back a week, and then it was pushed back another week. And then it was undecided. That works great if work is paying for the tickets and all the change fees. Not so great for us. When we realized that our weekend trip to San Diego was going to cost us twice as much, we started looking at other options. We could go anywhere we wanted to for a 4 day weekend (that was cheaper than San Diego.) We finally decided on a road trip to Colorado to visit Zack's dad. To make it more fun, we broke up the 11 hour drive by staying at a place in Glenwood Springs. It is home to the largest hot springs pool in North America. You know it's a fun place when there are signs on the pool deck that say "Pool deck may be icy." It was really fun to swim in hot hot water while my head was freezing freezing cold. We had a really good time. Semi-spontaneous trips can be fun... if they're planned right.

A few weeks ago I had my kids answer the following question: If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and what would you do there?

Their answers ranged from the daring....

To the not so daring...

To the imaginative...

To the interesting.

And some just wanted to make friends around the world.

A while ago Zack and I asked ourselves the same questions in the form of a challenge. The challenge was this:

We have 3 weeks to come up with 3 different places to travel to.

At the end of the 3 weeks we had to present our ideas.

We had to say where we'd stay, how we'd get there, give ideas on what to do, and have a rough estimated cost of the trip.

Our ideas ranged from caving and whale watching in Canada to Broadway shows in New York to an RV trip down the California coast. Not that we're going to do any of them anytime soon, but it never hurts to have a vacation idea rolling around in your head.

Now I'm asking you the same questions. If you could go anywhere (and I mean ANYWHERE. We're talking dream vacations here.) in the world, where would you go, why do you want to go there, and what would you do?

Small Green Rooms of Joy

Earlier this week, around 11:15 in the morning, I heard this announcement on the school intercom:

"Teachers, a pipe has broken on 700 South, just down the street from us. In order for them to fix the problem they will need to shut the water off to our school in about an hour. The water will be off for the rest of the day."

I was hoping the rest of the announcement would go something like "...and so we will be closing school early today. The buses will be here to pick the students up at 12:30...". No such luck. My principal happens to be a stickler for the edumacation of the chillins.

What did follow was news of portapotties being delivered to the school within the hour and the promise of water bottles for each student and hand santizer for the classrooms.

Hurray for the resourceful principal. The water problem is solved!

Here's what ensued in my classroom for the last 4 hours of the day:

Because the principal had announced that there were water bottles for each student, my kids knew they had water bottles coming. Now when first graders are given their very own water bottle for keeps because of a special fun situation the inevitable happens. That's right. They all drink their entire bottle within the first 15 minutes. Aaaaand what inevitably happens 20 minutes later? That's right. They ALL have to go to the bathroom. And where are the bathrooms? Oh, right, they're outside. And because they're outside they have to go with a buddy. And they have to bundle up because it's 10 degrees out there.

I think every student had to go to the bathroom at LEAST 4 times before the end of the day. Never before have portapotties been such an attraction. Everybody's got to go try the cool new green outside bathrooms that smell! And everybody's got to experience freezing your buns off, Right?!

I, for one, was determined not to be in any situation that would require using portapotties that were situated on the school playground. I have several reaons for this. (Obviously.) For one, it's cold. Two, it's a portapottie. Three, my bathroom breaks are when the kids go outside for recess...to the playground. I could just hear the knocking on each side of the portapottie now. "Teacher's in there! Teacher's using the portapottie! Mrs. Evans, are you in there!" No thanks. And the last and final reason, would YOU use a portapottie that had recently been used by 200 children multiple times in the past 4 hours?