Happy Retirement Mom!

Yeah, can you believe my mom is retiring after 27 years of service from Davis County School District?

15 years of Teaching 6th grade and 12 years of being an Elementary School Principal

She is an amazing example, a great teacher, mentor and educator.

So we decided to throw her a party!!

That just happened to be on the 4th of July!

 Here is mom next to her table of treats. Recipes found Here. There were fun Cake Bites, Red White and Blue Strawberries, at Red White and Blue Beverage and lots of treats that family brought too!  We had Curried Chicken over Rice, and Corn on the Cob and Red White and Blue Jell-o, salad Etc....

She got new business cards that she got to pass out to everyone.....

I can't get these darn photos to turn sometimes!

 After dinner the family gave her gifts.  Each one of us kids read her a poem we wrote, my uncle wrote one too but I dont have that one:

Retirement haikus for Mom

Shaping multitudes

Correcting bad attitudes

Enough is enough.

Were crying children

Or the students the worst part?

Personal zen earned

Hyper active youth.

He peed where? She bullied who?

Never EVER more

 

Suns set on careers

But never on adventure

Go and find your path

 -Jon (Jeff)

An Incorrect Haiku for Mom

By David Parkin

My mom teaches school

She was my sixth grade teacher

She taught me Haiku

Five syllables first

Seven for the second line

Five for the third line

For an assignment

We had to write five poems

It wasn’t that hard

It is incorrect

To write out a bunch of them

To form a story

Just thought I’d say that

So my mom would understand

I learned my Haiku

Who’s the Boss??

No more pencils, No more books, no more Teacher’s dirty looks……

Cause You’re the Boss.

No more 4pm clock watch or 6am commutes,

Cause You’re the Boss.

No more faculty meetings or annual reviews….

Cause You’re the Boss…..

No more clueless parents or entitled kids…..

Cause You’re the Boss….

No more PTA Carnivals or silly fundraisers…..

Cause You’re the Boss…..

More time for you

More time to create

More time for peace

More time to dream

More time with us

More time to wander

More time to be whatever or wherever you want to be

Cause You’re the Boss!

Love,  Kelley

I also made her a "Retirement Suggestion Jar" stuffed full of ideas for when she gets bored, everyone got to add their ideas too.  I have tons of stuff in there, websites to visit like "Watch Paint Dry.com" and "99 most viral Videos" and "TED.com" Etc. Plus ideas of places to go, people to see etc.
 
It was a fun day! She had a great time and we were happy that Rachel could come too! We missed Dave but he was there in spirit.
 
Happy Retirement Mom!!

Week of Staycation

I love a good staycation.  I was able to spend tons of time with my boys; I made SURE Nathan had something awesome to do with friends every day to make his summer more fun.  He usually watches Cameron all day for me when I'm at work so I wanted him to have a vacation too!

He got to:

See a movie with me

Go to Raging Waters with a buddy from Trek

Spend the entire day with said buddy till 10pm - complete with pizza and snacks and sodas.

He also took the train to another buddy's house from school to sleep over , then the next day he took the train further north to Syracuse to spend the next 3 days and 2 nights with another buddy; then we picked him up and we went to our amazing friends' Matt and Teri's house for a get-together: Where I made Nathan's favorite dessert (Chocolate Chip Cookie pie) and he slept in their basement for the most part while we played.....

Here he is not at all awake at 5pm after 3 "sleep overs" you can see the problem

On the other hand Cameron had a great time and he's wide awake at 10pm

We also did some home decor projects during the week- I got like 6 of my closets re-organized and now I have a lovely Pantry, Hallway,  Scrapbook, Game, Master and Laundry Closet. They are AMAZING now. It's like a huge relief to open them and see organization and fabulous synergy staring back at me. It's peaceful, it really is. If I need a little Zen, I open one of these closets, take a look and let the peace and tranquility wash over me. 

Well, with home improvement projects you usually start with a HUGE mess; Which we did.....

Here are a few projects we did....

TOKEN FAMILY PHOTO WALL

It took a while (a few months for me anyway) to get mostly black photo frames (couponer skills inserted here)I got most of these 8 1/2 X 11 photo frames for $3 and the bigger ones for 75% off or more on clearances or with coupons.

Then I organized, chose and printed my favorite photos, went through archived school pics and put them all together on my couch....

 and on my ping pong table.....and on the floor.....

When they were all in frames and I was happy; it was time to organize the wall. 

I got a big roll of paper, and cut to size all the photo frames. then I labeled them; and stuck the papers on the wall with painters tape so I could space them out and have them work in chronological order.

Now my friend -  who shall not be named  - called me a way meaner name for "Overly Organized" (Anal) when I told her what I was doing..... and the process involved; but in my defense you CANNOT start hanging pictures up randomly with NAILS! If you don't like where they are you have to move them and then you have NAIL holes in your beautiful PLUM wall!!  (The HORROR) so I had to get it right the first time.....this template and hanging process took like 8 hours total AFTER all the pics were in frames.  I have NO idea how long it took to get them all chosen, printed, bought and in the frames.

Here's the paper wall all organized......

 
And here's the picture wall ALMOST done!

Honorable mention goes to Kevin and his awesomeness; he did all the hard labor whilst I did all the directing.  Oh and added bonus is that he used these handy little templates to draw leveled lines on for the pics and he measured the hanger; centering and nail holes vs the top of the frame; and he marked the nail hole spots and hammered through the paper without marking my wall up with pencil YEA!!

(I still think that I am NOT anal)

Now on to the.....

Great wall of Awesome Redness Project

This baby is in my basement; I have an Americana Theme down there and it was BORING in white, so Kevin and I chose a lovely shade of awesomeness and he painted up my wall in one evening - after 4 coats (two primer and two paint including trim) and a midnight/1am quit time this is the result!

Here it is all done with my stuff.....
 
Awesome, No?
Well, here is that mess I told you about.....I took this picture after I did dishes BTW.

The next project was to make our main floor bathroom look fun and not boring.  It is a bathroom with 10 foot ceilings and it was a boring white and now it is a:

Lovely shade of sea blue and sea green striped

Bathroom Project

Kevin did the striping and everything - he is awesome!!

Cute!!

Here it is finished with some seaside pics.

Love Love Love!!

Nice bunch of things done here; then we had a party at our place for my mom; I'll tell you about that coming up soon....here's the food link though.

Peace!