Another School Year Bites the Dust

Yesterday was my last day teaching at the school my heart will forever be with.

I spent my last two years teaching retained 8th graders. They came to us SUPER low. Our job is to get them up to grade level so they are ready for high school.

That wasn't the toughest part of the job, though. Loving on these kids and trying to get them where they need to be socially was.

Most of them threw out language like a sailor and didn't know how to be socially appropriate for their age.

Those kids are who my heart is with. Those are the kids I long to work with. Those are the kids who need help the most, and those are the ones who NEED it and DESERVE it the most.

I will be hard-pressed to find another school that fits me better, but maybe one day I will.

Because I am leaving to move to Ohio with my soon-to-be hubby, I wanted to make something special for my co-workers. They are amazing, and I will miss them a lot!

I had our awesome students come up with as many adjectives as they could think of to describe each staff member a few weeks ago. They knew it was a big secret for a gift for the staff members, so they kept their mouths shut for TWO FULL WEEKS. I was so impressed, and the adjectives they came up with were pretty stellar as well.

I blurred out the school name, but you get the idea.

That one is mine. My name changed ONE WEEK from today! Ahh!

• What was your favorite job ever?
• Do you hate leaving a job when you move too?

My Life Five Years From Now (52 Weeks of Blogging With a Purpose)

I am continuing to participate in the 52 Weeks of Blogging With a Purpose, a link up that From Mrs. to Mama is hosting in the blog-world. Like I've previously mentioned, I won't be able to write about each week's topic because some simply do not pertain to me, but this week's does! I will tell all about how I picture my life to be five years from now.

If you'd like to check out my first two posts from this link up, you can see them HERE (Who I Am) and HERE (Ten Things I Live For).

My Life Five Years From Now

Age: In five years, I will be *gasp* 30, and Dan will be 29.

Where We'll Be: We could be living anywhere in the world by then. Dan will be graduated from USAFA, finished with pilot training, and flying an airplane (who knows which one?) by then. He will be a Captain in the US Air Force by then, and we will have lived in a few different places at that point. It's hard to predict where we'll be, but let's keep our fingers crossed for Germany. ;)

Family Life: We'll have our two cats, Gilligan and Stormy (though they will be aging by then, which breaks my heart to think about) and at least one dog that we plan on adopting next summer after our wedding. Hopefully by then we won't have just four legged children, as we'll be getting old as well. Hopefully we'll have a Baby Cookie or two by then! (Last name Cook... funny? No? I like it.)

Relationship: Dan and I will be celebrating FOUR years of marriage at that point and NINE years of being a couple! That is SO crazy to think about, but it makes me happy.

Career: If we are living somewhere for a long time, I may be teaching. However, if we have those Baby Cookies by then, I likely will not be working outside the home any longer. We'll see, though. This is something I go back and forth on ALL THE TIME. I think we'll just have to see what is best for our family at the time. I do love my job, though, so we'll just see.

Health: I hope to still be running and eating well at 30! That's a goal for the longterm, actually. I want to be that old lady you see running 5Ks! I will have completed a full marathon by then (hopefully while I'm 26, actually), and I hope we will live somewhere that has fun races all the time like Colorado Springs does. Dan and I love being active together, and I don't see that changing.

Travel: As a military spouse (not yet but next May!), I hope I will have the opportunity to see much of the world. I can't wait for our honeymoon next year, though part of that is top secret information (aka Dan is surprising me) because I'm sure I'll get to see a lot of things I have never experienced living in the USA my whole life. Our goal is to travel abroad every even year, and we have a savings plan to make that happen!