Close Call

Almost two years ago, my school moved into a beautiful new building. We had been working in these little old trailers, so we were ecstatic to move. It's a great building that we still love. The neighborhood is shady, but I have almost twice the square footage for my classroom, so I can't complain.

Even before we moved in to the building, we had a major concern. All the teachers and administrators were concerned that one day there would be an accident on the highway that goes by our school and that a car would roll down the hill into our playground. The school district and city assured us that this could not happen and that the playground was safe.

Well, as predicted, it happened. Last Friday I was sitting on the floor of my classroom working on a poster with my partner teacher. I heard a crunching sound outside and just figured that the grounds department was working on clearing out some of the ice that is completely covering our playground. A few moments later, our custodian came running into my classroom and said, "Did you see the accident?" We said no and looked out the window. Sure enough, there was an SUV right there in our playground, smashed in one of the pieces of equipment. A pickup truck hit the SUV as it was going through the intersection and it went flying down the hill, over/through the fence, and right into the playground.

By God's grace, we don't have students at school on Fridays, so no children were there to get hurt. Furthermore, I think I should write a thank you letter to our PTA for buying that piece of playground equipment last spring; because had it not been there, the car would have hit my classroom wall or been in my classroom. Plus, the two drivers involved were shook up, but not hurt. It was quite an adventure, to say the least. Of course, it was on the news and on the front page of the local section of the paper, so it will be interesting to see what parents have to say when we are back to school tomorrow.

42-20

The Packers have done it again!  Needless to say, I was very excited to see my favorite team beat the Seahawks for a chance at the NFC championship.  It was a great game (if you are a Packers fan, that is) with tons of snow.  The grounds crew was extremely busy trying to keep the lines cleaned off so that the players could see where they were going.  I'm definitely hoping to be wearing my cheesehead while watching the Super Bowl this year!   

Snow, glorious snow

We have had an unusually snowy December and now January here in Western Colorado.  Although it can cause a few disruptions to normal life like a longer drive to work, lots of time spent cleaning off cars, and trying to walk extremely carefully so as not to slip or get in in your shoes, I LOVE IT!  I love the equalizing and beautifying qualities of a blanket of fresh snow.  I love the quiet and calm that it brings.  I love watching my students playing in it.  I love seeing Jale run through it and Habe trudge through it.  It's so wonderful.

Yesterday was probably our biggest snow yet, resulting in about 4 inches of it at our house.  It had started snowing during the night, which is totally normal.  When I got up at 6:00am, it was still snowing.  By the time I got to work just after 7:00, still snowing... 8:00 when my students walked through the door, still snowing... recess time at 9:45, still snowing.  By then, I was in the office area of our school assessing students and could hear our principal in her office talking with our district's transportation director and both of them making calls to higher-ups to see if we could send students home early to make sure that they got home safely.  Sure enough, the announcement came shortly thereafter that we would be sending students home at 1:00.  Unfortunately, we had students all the way until 4:00, and we didn't get to leave early, but it sure was an adventure!  I'm just thankful that I wasn't in the office with the five other people making phone calls to the parents of all our students.

A last glimpse of Christmas

The tree is bare, the trimmings are packed up, and I head back to work tomorrow.  

Christmas is officially gone.    

Someone said to me today, "Aren't you glad that the holidays are over?"

No, not really.

Doggie bunk bed

Our dogs constantly provide us with great entertainment. They absolutely love to sleep on the couch. Anytime someone gets up, one of them quickly jumps up and takes advantage of the preheated spot. Since there is not always room for both of them to sleep on the couch at the same time, Habe (hobby) has invented the doggie bunk bed. He climbs over a sleeping Jale (holly) and squishes down the back cushion to make a nice bunk for himself. As you can see, it works out quite nicely for both of them.