A night just for me

Since Brian is down at the beach for the week, I thought I would dedicate this Tuesday night to all of the things I like. I spent an hour at Target, have an Amy's spinach pizza in the oven, and I'm going to watch "Say Yes to the Dress" while I eat dinner. I also have laundry going and just downloaded photos to update here and on FB. And I plan on being asleep by 10pm. I miss Brian and never like it when he is gone, but I must admit that I'm pretty excited with my night as I have planned it.

So...what have I been up to in the last month? Read on, dear readers...

The 2008-2009 school year officially ended on June 19th. Hooray! The week of June 22nd we welcomed our incoming students, including rising sixth graders for the very first time. I taught generic social studies to four groups of sixth grade girls for the week and mostly loved it. No real attitude at that age...one of my girls turned eleven during our week of classes. Eleven. On our last day together, we toured Bowie State University. Below is a picture of some of the girls as they listen to the tour guide (and I promise that I did not pose them).
That Sunday, my parents arrived for a week of vacation in the DC area. We had a great time visiting the Capital Hill area (below, the Capitol and a banner at the Library of Congress)...

...eating local specialties (my dad's platter at a crab shack on the Delaware River)
...and enjoying the great weather (no explanation needed for this photo).
We also got rained out of an Orioles game, toured the wedding location, and caught the local 4th of July fireworks. But my parents have all of those photos.

The day after my parents headed back to Chicago, I started my job teaching summer school to middle school students. From 9am until 12pm, I teach an independent reading course to eleven 7th and 8th grade boys and girls; we read The House on Mango Street for the first 90 minutes and then they read and reflect on a book of their choosing for the last 90 minutes. After lunch, I teach life sciences to two 7th grade boys. Below are the boys posing with the cell cakes we made last week (I made the cakes, they "decorated" them with the correct organelles).
Last Thursday, Brian and I celebrated the fact that there was exactly one year until our wedding. Brian took to calling it our "reverse-ary" and since it was a special occasion, I convinced him to take a photo. See below.
This past weekend we had a crazy chaotic trip to Wisconsin to visit some of my friends. It was a much more complicated journey than I anticipated, but the time with my friends made me feel a million times more like myself. And that is always great. The rest of the summer will fly by, I'm sure. There's 2.5 weeks of summer school left and then I have a weekend before heading back for leadership training and the start of 2009-2010. This coming weekend there is a very quick trip to the Outer Banks to share the end of Brian's beach time. I can hardly believe it is mid-July already.

Hope each of you is enjoying your summer as well.