silly gretchie.

She makes me smile. 

fishing.

I find fish creepy and disgusting. 

My family does not. 

So in the interest of family fun... 

Biggest catch of the night! (that broke the line and swam away.)

 Why, yes... that is a child's fishing pole I'm using. I'm hardcore.

Beautiful evening.
Fun memories.
Even if it did involve creepy fish.

last day.

Today was my last day with these little crazies. Yes... there were only 9 of them at the end of the year. 

I could say that it made for an easy year... but that would not be true. 

They were small... but mighty in their needs. Good thing they were cute, huh? =) 

I did this again today... (beach balls that say "Have a BALL this summer!" that everyone signed and then went a little crazy with. Controlled chaos is the norm in first grade.)

And these are always a hit...

This has become my favorite gift, though...  (who knew cowgirls were so popular?!)

{the names aren't fuzzed out on the real one.}

Love my job. (most days) 

Love these little people. (most days) 

But oh-so-ready to spend some time at home this summer! 

bombers game.

There is an indoor arena football team about 30 minutes from us. Their general manager went to the little elementary school I teach at. He arranged with our principal to bring a few players to one of our awards assemblies to help congratulate the kids. 

The kids loved it and had so much fun with these guys!

The best was the little kindergartener who chest bumped this guy (who wasn't expecting it!) and then promptly hit the floor! The guy picked him up and carried him through the rest of the line up!

They gave all the kids a free ticket to their upcoming game and had lots of fun with our staff after school was out!

So we had a little family football night the following weekend...

All kinds of fun races and games and activities in between quarters and during time-outs...

I loved this. Both teams, huddled up, holding hands and praying together after the game. Awesome.

barn fire.

So we had a little bit of excitement here at the farm over Spring Break. 

Corey and his brother had a big ol' burn pile going back behind the old stone barn. I never saw it when the flames were rolling, but apparently it was pretty big. 

They were keeping a close eye on the chicken house (that has no chickens. Maybe someday...) but missed the ember that floated up and over and landed on the one spot on the old barn that didn't have tin on the roof. 

I had taken drinks out to them and was standing there talking to Casey when all of a sudden he says, "something not family friendly" and takes off running. Corey immediately followed him, jumping a fence (well, almost...). I was still standing there, search around frantically, trying to figure out what we were looking at! (See that little billow of smoke?) 

The barn isn't real close to the house, so we weren't worried at all about that. I went running for my camera (life needs documented!) and told the kids that fire trucks would be coming but everything was fine and to STAY ON THE DECK!

I wish I would have started timing from the moment Casey called it in until fire trucks arrived. I'm sure it wasn't as along as it seemed... and I'm sure for living in the country, the response time was pretty quick... but I couldn't help but think, "If this was our house... and a real fire... this would not be awesome." 

Corey and Casey pretty much had it all out before the fire trucks even arrived. But they sprayed everything really, really well just to make sure.

 Casey looks like he's mad here. He wasn't. He was just gesturing at the moment I took the picture.

Everything ended up fine. The hole that was already in the roof just got a little bit bigger. =)
And we got another fun farm life story to tell!