Weekend plus

 Thursday and Friday I went to the leadership retreat in Heber City.  We stayed at the Best Western Plus.  I don't know what the plus stood for.

Maybe tweens having a birthday party which was crazy unruly (thankfully not on the floor where I was staying) and the police coming make it a plus....

(Who has a tween birthday party at a hotel?!?)

We spent two days in a conference room at the hotel.  It was not nearly as painful as the previous days of PD.  We got up and moved around and met in different combinations of people to discuss things.

It was very productive and I left brimming with ideas and motivations.  There are SO MANY ways I can improve as a teacher.  It is a little overwhelming and a little exhilarating.

After being together all day, we had a tiny break before our "you are expected to participate" evening activities.  I did not pass go, did not collect $200 and went straight to my room to enjoy the silence.

I sent this to fam-a-lam:

I rallied and we went to dinner together and I sat by my friends and we had a nice time.  We stopped at Walmart on the way back to the hotel because we all confirmed that you can never go on a trip without stopping at a Walmart for the things you neglected to bring.

I bought a fashionable Heber City sweatshirt because the room where we were meeting was freezing cold.

We had a paint activity that I enjoyed.  

We only had red, yellow, blue, white and brown so mixing colors was part of the fun (for me).  We laughed a lot and admired or (lovingly) criticized each other's paintings.

Our new assistant principal, Jeff, is completely bald.  He was wearing a Bob Ross wig to great effect during the painting.  He went out into the hall to refill his water cup in the water fountain outside the room and I think he probably dazzled the tween birthday party rabble rousers as well as a graduation party  revelers that were also at the hotel that night.

In other words, I think we'll like Jeff.

After that it was after 9:00 PM and I was so ready to be done and go to bed.

But there were games!

Everyone scooted tables together and pulled games out.  Adam knows me and when it was nearing 10:00, he called me, thinking I was probably done for the night.  Sadly, I wasn't.

I'm the one who leaves before midnight on New Year's Eve.  It's not a phase; it's who I am.

After the first game (it was about 10:30 by then), I said I was done.

We had more meetings on Friday and I was happy to go home and nap late that afternoon.

On Saturday I had another of my friend gatherings.  It was s'mores.

I took my little tray over to the fire pit and felt glad that it is summer.  I love summer nights around the fire pit.  Janelle had just been to girls camp and texted me that she underestimated the toll it would take on her body so she wasn't coming.  Emily and Maren were sick (I think school is out so their bodies just said no ma'am, we need to recover).  

So it was just me and Jamie.

And that is not terrible.  We ate s'mores and visited for hours.  Adam joined us after a while.  Later I saw a text from Mark.  He was wondering if I wanted him to come outside.

He told me that he had looked out the window and saw that I only had one friend there and he felt bad for me.  I would have rather had everyone come (particularly the friends I no longer work with), but I'll always be OK with one person too.  I loved that Mark was concerned about my feelings.

He's a sweet boy.

Yesterday, Emma went on her first business trip!  It should stop surprising me that she is a grown up girl, but it still kind of does.  Further proof?  She bought her own suitcase rather than borrow one.  She'll be gone for a week.

We missed her on Sunday.  

We comforted ourselves with finalizing our Disney movie bracket.  

This is getting long, but I'll share it another day.