Approaching Summer Holidays!

Is it really already June 19th?  I read a lot of American blogs, and I know that many people are already on summer holidays.  Here, we start school the day after Labour Day and generally finish on the last Friday in June.  Our students will be done on June 27th this year...I will have that afternoon and the next day to finish tidying/packing up at my old school, and then will have a planning day at my new school.

I am getting very anxious for this year to be over and for holidays to start.  My husband and I are going on a road trip, which will include visits to California (relatives and Disneyland!), South Dakota (Laura Ingalls Wilder sites and Mount Rushmore) and Minnesota (more Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Betsy-Tacy Convention!).  Our kids will fly down to California for a few days to join us, but we will get some experience as to what it's like to be travelling as a couple again (last road trip together of any length was in 1990, when I was pregnant with our first daughter).

And then, once, home, it will be a working summer.  I'm not sure when we can get started setting up our classrooms in the new school, but I hope that it's as soon as early August!  I can't wait to start arranging my calendar board and putting my various supplies away.  Our basement rec room is currently a depository of teaching "stuff" and I know my husband is also very anxious to see it moved to the school!  I haven't kept things at my current school because there wasn't really any storage room - I was sharing a class/classroom with a teacher who has been teaching for many years and the cupboards were pretty full...and open shelf space very limited.  I would bring in the items I wanted to use for the week or month, then take them home.  I've also been acquiring various new items for next year.

I was at the new school again this last weekend - I was able to take my sister, who was visiting from Toronto, to see where I'll be next year.  She's glad that she can picture me there now!

Next week will be bittersweet, knowing that it's the last time I'll see some of the kids, but I also know that I'll continue to see many of them at church each week.  Similarly, it will be emotional saying good-bye to my colleagues, but again I know that I will keep in touch with those to whom I'm the closest.

10 days to holidays!