My Stuff May 2015

I took students on a couple field trips in May. I love college visits. I wish I had that opportunity in middle school so I'm happy to take interested, potential students.

This was at Metro State University in St. Paul.

 

 

I took another group of kids to a student forum on Social Media. I photo bombed their group selfie, but they were all excited I did.

 

See? I like a good selfie. I took this one at Moms on the Run. I don't run, but we do fitness walking. I wish I was more consistent with my attendance.

 

 

Especially since I bought myself fancy new shoes!

 

Me.

 

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Family Night

My school hosted a family night for the staff and their spouses, kids, etc to celebrate the opening of our newly constructed cafenasium (dual purpose space for cafeteria and gymnasium). I didn't take many pictures of my teacher friends and their families- only catching a few moments when Jim and James enjoyed some hoops.

 

That's the Principal in the center. Good guy.

 

 

 

It was nice to see all the kids running around and to meet friends' spouses!

 

After the family night James couldn't wait to do some math homework, just because! What a great kid!

 

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Cookie Chef

James helped me prep and then try out this idea for my GSA student group.

 

James loved the cookies, of course, and my students had fun piping frosting and rolling the Oreos in sprinkles!

 

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March work stuff

Just some random pictures, work related.

 

I have the Gay Straight Alliance student group that meets after school a few times a month. I was unprepared with an activity or discussion topic so I pulled out the game of Life. It ended up being very fun and interesting! In the game you marry and have kids. It made me so happy to see the kids so casually choose same sex marriages, like nothing. How wonderful to live in Minnesota! Love is love.

 

 

 

I was the Staff Member of the Month in March and I had my own parking spot.

 

 

I went on a scrapbooking retreat with 10 teacher friends. There were many drinks and laughs.

 

 

The scrapbooking cabin was in Mora. I passed by this restaurant, made me think of Hinckley days.

 

I keep Enrique's picture in my office. He was the first student that I've lost, way back in Minneapolis schools in 1999. This was his 6th grade graduation and he died two months later. I thought about him a lot because I had another student funeral in March. A former student, gun accident and then suicide. Sad days.

 

 

Happier note. Another former student agreed to come back to CRMS to speak to students about his achievements and path to college. He's now in the Naval Academy, studying aerospace engineering. He tells me that he always thought about being a pilot but after I found a scholarship for him to attend Space Camp in the summer after his 8th grade year, he really knew it was his future. Yay Juan!

 

 

A funny teacher saw me taking pictures with Juan and insisted, "I want a picture with Ms. Lisa too!"

 

 

Same day. Happy hour with teachers after a long Friday!

 

 

Teacher shenanigans. I swiped this Yoda head from the technology teacher. It was 3D printed in the Tech Ed (shop) classes.

 

 

I helped to organize 75 sets of two grocery bags for families, for the Spring Break. A week is a long time without school lunches. It's not much but they get something.

 

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MLK Day 2015

Every year my school district takes 120+ students to the MLK day march and program in St. Paul. It's always a great experience for the students and a fun day for me too. This year we took the entire bunch to the movie Selma after the march.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of my students were interviewed for Channel 5 news.

 

 

This kid always makes me smile!

 

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Fare for All

I was in charge of my school's holiday help program again this year. I was the point person but we were a strong team of four that contacted the 85 families to come to Anoka's Fare for All event for holiday food. We focus on food because we realize kids will be home for 2 weeks without school lunches. Hopefully, this helps to stretch those holiday dollars.

Thanks to our faith partner each family went home with boxes of frozen meat, a box of produce, a box of dairy (milk, oj, eggs, butter), and then two walmart bags of nonperishables. We headed up a team of CRMS volunteers to help families with their vouchers, through the line, and then carry all the items to their cars. It was a busy, fast paced two hours!

 

 

It feels like a lot of work but I'm always glad to start the holidays giving to these families.

 

 

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Pizza Ranch

My school organized a night to volunteer at the Andover Pizza Ranch. There was a crew of about 12 of us that bussed tables, ran out special order pizzas, and then finally cleaned the entire place after our shift. It was a pretty fast paced almost-five hours. Oh and so we volunteered to keep the tips and then to receive 10% of the sales for the night. The money went to our school food shelf, that I help run.

Our families were invited to come and enjoy the food, but also to beef up our sales!

The Tauer boys ate with the Mesna boys.

 

There's Mrs. Mesna serving up some pizza.

 

Another CRMS family, my friend Ryan with his cute kids.

 

The boys kept themselves busy after they ate. What fun to hang out with Noah again!

 

 

After the guests left we were left to help with the cleanup. Omg. So much to clean. My friend Simone was pretty handy with the Ghostbusters backpack vaccum.

 

My usually grumpy Assistant Principal Mr. Dahl was pretty cooperative, knowing it was all for the kids. All bark, no bite!

 

This is the crew of us that made it for the entire shift. Some of the others had to get home to families, etc.

 

I've already deposited that money in my food shelf account and it will be spent and appreciated!

Next time we'll invite even more people to the event- even you!

 

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Halloween 2014

Our neighbors had a Halloween party for the kids. Those fabulous, maybe crazy people invited 40+ kids and pretty much all of them accepted the invitation! The party was two weeks before Halloween, so how great that all of the kids got to wear their costumes more than once!

 

I found James' costume at TJ Maxx. I wasn't sure if he'd like it but I kept the receipt in case a return was needed. Nope, he liked it! It gave him a reason to carry Nerf and handcuffs :)

 

The friendliest SWAT officer you'll ever see!

 

The party--

They had a lot of food, several creepy stations of games set up, and just room for the kids to run around and be wild.

 

 

 

 

James with his friends Sawyer and Gunnar, both from the neighborhood summer gang.

 

On the actual Halloween day James did NOT want to wear the helmet or carry a Nerf gun. What the??!?

 

 

We started before dark because we heard kids running around already.

 

We soon found Dane and his Dad in our neighborhood travels.

 

I ended up wimping out a bit early, after a few blocks around the neighborhood, because it was so cold. The boys continued on just fine without me. Someone needed to pass out the candy at home, no?

We didn't end up with many trick or treaters. We put a bowl of candy on the steps while we were gone and it was empty when I returned. So we had many trick or treaters or just one very hungry one!

 

James always gets more candy than he know what to do with! And kinds he doesn't even like- like Snickers, Twix, Reese's cups, etc.

 

Piling up the candy- for James and then for the parents :)

 

At my work we always have a group costume. I did participate with my subtle striped shirt. There are a few people missing from this group picture.

 

Where's Waldo?

 

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