Photo A Day Week of Jan 6-12, 2014

What a weather week this has been for our little family.  We started out with a beautiful sunny day and ended our week digging ourselves out of a foot of snow.  And, of course, because we live in Oregon we had a bunch of rain in between.  

Here they are...

jan 6, 2014
spin art...and enjoying the sunny day

jan 7, 2014
nothing sunny about this day.  it is days like that make it hard to travel between schools

jan 8, 2014
hanging out with some 5th graders during a class meeting.  you can't tell, but there
 are 33 of them.  that's right, 33.  two carpets have to be shoved together to fit them all.

jan 9, 2014
we have changed dance studios and the new one has a dress code...so I had
to figure out really quick how to make a bun.  turns out it was way easier that I had thought

jan 10, 2014
cabin in the mountains. complete with fireplace.
(you can't tell, but I was holding a glass of wine in my other hand)

jan 11, 2014
there wasn't much snow to start our weekend, but we made the best of it.
 run, Joe, run!

jan 12, 2014
after 24 hours of straight snow.  amazing!

A to Z: Summer 2012 (and I figured out how to do a Shutterfly book!)

I have been working on a little project all summer long as a way to chronicle all of our wonderful adventures.  I didn't go anywhere without some kind of camera, my goal being to make an alphabet book for Taelin (since she is getting to that age where that will be useful) and be able to check off  #95 on my list which is was an A-Z theme photography challenge.

In addition to finally sorting through and organizing all of the photos from the summer, I ended up using Shutterfly to make the book.  I have been playing with the idea of doing more of my scrapbooking in a digital way, not that I don't still love all of my paper, ribbon and other beautiful supplies, but right now it just makes sense because of time and space.  I won't get rid of my scrapbooking things, they will just be saved for other smaller projects (like December Daily albums), card making, and gift tags.

I am really happy with how the A to Z photo challenge turned out and am SO excited to get the printed book to give to Taelin.  Below you can take a look at how it turned out!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Start your own Shutterfly Photo Book today.

Photo-A-Day June 29-July 5, 2012

I must have been feeling a little guilty about all of my Taelin photos last week, because aren't any of her this week.  This week's photos have a pretty good mix of what was going on in our lives as well as capturing some of the favorite parts of my home...one of my bookshelves and the laundry room doors that act as Taelin's art gallery.

june 29, 2012
Had a wonderful trip...but glad to be back in Oregon.
Only had a few more hours on the road at this point.

june 30, 2012

july 1, 2012
He had on his swimsuit and a bow tie.
Adorable.

july 2, 2012
The jungle that is my tomato plants.

july 3, 2012
Mexican chocolate

july 4, 2012 

july 5, 2012

San Jose...a place to check things off!

I just got back from a work trip to San Jose.  It was a "symposium" that was hosted by New Teacher Center which is a non-profit organization whose work focuses on improving student achievement in schools through accelerating the effectiveness of classroom teachers.  Most of their work centers around mentoring beginning teachers and mentor programs that support those teachers and mentors.  I have been so fortunate to find a place in the mentor program in my district. The symposium was the annual conference for people that have done work with New Teacher Center to come learn from others that have done like work.

Through the funding of our state mentor grant, we were lucky enough to take our whole team.  The conference ran from Sunday morning through Tuesday afternoon.  After our last session on Tuesday afternoon, we pretty much went straight the airport to catch our flight home.  Even though we were really busy though, we did get some time Saturday afternoon since our flight got their early afternoon and we didn't have anything we had to do until 8 am Sunday.

Here are some of the things that I hope I will blog more about later...but wanted to at least list here so I could check them off...

New Restaurants...
There was breakfast and lunch provided at the conference, but we were on our own for dinner. Saturday night we ate at P.F. Changs and Monday night we ate at Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant. Both places were really good.  I do want to write more about these at a later time.

Books...
I started and finished The Help.  I read all the way to San Jose and every down minute after snuggling into my pj's for the next.  I LOVED the story...didn't like the ending.  Hopefully more on that another day.

Documentaries...
On Monday evening we watching the documentary American Teacher.  If you want to find more information out you can go here.  If you want to watch the trailer, you can go here.  I will for sure be saying more about this on a later date.

Art Exhibit...
On Saturday afternoon, two of my co-workers were walking around trying to figure out what we wanted to do.  Our hotel was right next to the San Jose Museum of Art who just happen to be having a free community day.  We were able to see quite a few exhibits from different artists, as well as some bonus dance/music performances since it was a free community day.  There will be more on that later too!


That does check one thing completely off also adds to some of my sub-lists.  I will admit though because of this my weigh in didn't happen this week, nor have I been up on my word of the week.  I guess I have a few things to blog about...but until then I am going to wrap this up and go to bed.  Four days and three nights was a long time to be away from home and even though it was all great stuff, I missed Taelin horribly.  So, instead of going into more detail than I have in me, I am going to go down the hall and go to bed.  That way, I will have a lot of energy to hang out with my little girl (or at least more than I have right now).  So until that time....check, check, and CHECK!