46 days until summer!!!

Well I made it through conferences! Unfortunately my cold has come back, so I've spent the weekend in my pjs in the hammock throwing the ball for Sherlock :) Anyway, conferences for the most part were pretty good. One kiddo ended up in tears, but the parents were finally waking up to how much he was slacking in class, so hopefully it will make a difference. The rest of them were also pretty supportive, hopefully we'll make it through the rest of the year on a good note! It's pretty hard for all of us to be gung-ho about school right now with the countdown on until summer break, but there is also quite a bit of fun stuff coming up (field trips, swimming party, guest speakers, etc.) so hopefully it will fly by! I also realized that I have 3 personal days to use up before the end of the year (since they don't roll over) so I'll be giving myself a few long weekends here and there too!
Some of you reading this may not know that I have a bit of a challenge coming up for next year. Two of my fellow 4th grade teachers are retiring, and the third teammate decided to move up to 5th grade, so I'll be leading the 4th grade team next year. I don't exactly feel like I know what I'm doing, but my principal is confident in me, and we'll see how it goes. The up-coming class is smaller than the current class, so there will only be three 4th grade teachers. One of them will be moving up from kindergarten, and I adore her... but as this was her very first year of teaching too... she'll still need a lot of help. The third person we will be hiring, but we both get to be in on the interview process, so hopefully we'll find an awesome person to round out the team. The three teacher-teers!! Anyway, it's certainly a lot more stress than I was hoping for in my second year of teaching, but I know I'm lucky to have this job that I love, so... we'll see!
In the meantime, spring is actually starting to peak through here in the mountains, and I just love the smell of damp earth and growing things! I'm REALLY looking forward to having nothing do to this summer but have fun :) After Africa, I hope the pooperdog and I will get to do some good backpacking trips around the state... maybe go visit camp sometime... and of course the nephews are coming in July!! If anyone wants to come visit, Fat Kitty said he might give up his room for a couple nights if someone is willing to love on him :)
For now it's off to school to get ready for another week! I hope your week is a good one :)