Key West (Spring 2011 trip)

Since this week has been spring break for me, Steven and I decided to take a trip down to Key West (especially since I've never gone....and I've only lived in FL all my life). It was tons of fun. We got to visit his mom on the way down and then we got 3 days of fun in the sun....we ate a ton, had tons of daiquiris , got a lot of sun (I'm burned!!), went parasailing, jet skiing, snorkeling, swimming, kayaking.....
Sun, beach, some drinks, and my best friend...it was exactly what I needed. :)





And here's on the way down there (in Miami):

inspiration thursday (online sites)

A fun little list of some cute things I've found online lately!
Enjoy.

List challenge

Paper flower DIY

Handwriting challenge

Awesome home decorating ideas

Copy cat State Print DIY

Button DIY (too cute)!

Oh...and this video:

tuesday song love (above the bones)

I love this song...and it's perfect for today (since I'm headed back from a lovely beach vacation).
PS...apparently this band was discovered by Matthew McConaughey!

xoxo
kel

we're green

Yea, I'm a bit late putting these up.....
Can you guess what holiday this is from? ha!

Life here in the cove (what we call our neighborhood) is good. Busy, tiring, but good. And spring break is almost here, yay!
We also have been trying to cook more...or maybe I should say Steven is trying to cook for us more. hahaha







homemade pizza = yum!!!

Happy Wednesday! Only one more day for me left (Friday is a teacher planning day).
xo
kel

internship

This week and last turned out to be a lot of fun with my students. While I know we are all thinking about next week (Spring Break!!!!) I've tried to make sure we have some fun in the meantime.
Today we worked on more vocabulary (they made their own words like in bananagrams):



And created wordles:

Ps....try googling wordles...it's a pretty cool idea and my 5th graders loved it!

My kids are also seriously impressive. During social studies we talked about war and religion (brought up by the kids).
They seemed so puzzled as to why wars happen, "Why can't they (meaning leaders) just talk out their problems, or play a game of chess or rock, paper, scissors to find a solution? Why do we have to go to war?"
Then they asked me how people "win" in a war, to which I responded with a not so cheery answer of "until one side gives up because they are losing too many soliders or they run out of resources to keep them going."
They gave me another puzzled look and said..."It seems silly to me to kill so many people like that." I gotta admit...they have a point. When it comes down to it, the idea of war does sound silly....why is it that we can't work out our problems without having to go to such an extreme measure?
Then today we were discussing the 13 colonies and my students had yet another puzzled look on their faces. When I asked them what was bugging them, they responded with a comment like: "I just don't get it....the colonists came to America for religious freedom, but now in the colonies they are punishing people that don't share the same religion as they do."
I of course tried to explain that the early colonists that came for "religious freedom" actually only came for their own religious freedom. They didn't like my answer very much and still couldn't imagine why the colonists would put others through what they went through in England themselves.
It's funny how 10 year olds can see things so clearly sometimes, while we adults seem to have on rose colored glasses. These conversations also have made me love my students that much more. They are so smart and have started discussing topics that I didn't even think about until I was much older.
Maybe there is something to learn from kids.....

-kel

tuesday song love (canadian rose)

Canadian Rose by Blues Traveler...this song reminds me so much of high school and driving to youth with my bff at the time. :)
Happy memories!

xoxo
kel

inspiration thursday (st. pattys day!)

So I happened to stumble upon this awesome site while looking up some things for my writing lessons for this week. I decided to check it out and here is one result list I found..... if you try it, let me know who it works for you! I love, love, love to read and sometimes have a hard time finding books that I like, so I'm super excited to have found this site. So please share your thoughts!!

-kel

Here are the results for
Searching for God Knows What
by Donald Miller:

Title	Info/Buy
Rob Bell - Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith
Erwin Raphael McManus - Soul Cravings
John Ortberg - When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box
Mike Yaconelli - Messy Spirituality: Christianity for the Rest of Us (Hodder Christian Books)
Ravi Zacharias - Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Truth of the Christian Message (Extreme Series)
Rob Bell - Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality And Spirituality
J.I. Packer - Knowing God
Philip Yancey - The Jesus I Never Knew
George Macdonald - The Princess and Curdie (Puffin Classics)
John Eldredge - Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive
Philip Yancey - What's So Amazing About Grace?
Jack Welch, Suzy Welch - Winning: The Ultimate Business How-To Book
C S Lewis - Mere Christianity
Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
Beverly Lewis - Annie's People, Vols. 1-3 (The Preacher's Daughter, The Englisher, and The Brethren)
Beverly Lewis, David Lewis - Amish Country Crossroads: The Postcard, The Crossroad, & Sanctuary
- Holy Bible
Saint, Bishop of Hippo Augustine, Saint Augustine, Henry Chadwick - The Confessions (Oxford World's Classics)
Shane Claiborne - The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
Arthur Hughes, George MacDonald - The Princess and the Goblin (Puffin Classics)
C. S. Lewis - Mere Christianity (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis)
G.K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy
John Eldredge - Wild at Heart
Martha Beck - Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Transformation and Unconditional Love
Ted Dekker - Blink
C. S. Lewis, Fritz Eichenberg - Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
C. S. Lewis - The Great Divorce
C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity
Anne Lamott - Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Stephen Crane, Pascal Covici - The Red Badge of Courage (Penguin Classics)
Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Perennial Classics)
Francine Rivers - A Voice in the Wind (Mark of the Lion S.)
George Bernard Shaw, Nicholas Grene - Pygmalion (Penguin Classics)
C. S. Lewis - The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil
C. S. Lewis - The Cosmic Trilogy: "Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra" and "That Hideous Strength"
Jim Collins - Good to Great
Ted Dekker - Black (CIRCLE 1)
Victor Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Penguin Popular Classics)
J.R. Moehringer - The Tender Bar
John Grisham - The Last Juror
Gary Paulsen - Hatchet
Willa Cather - My Antonia
Leif Enger - Peace Like a River
Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Henry David Thoreau - Walden: AND Civil Disobedience (American Library)
Augusten Burroughs - Dry
Ayn Rand - Anthem (Centennial Edition)
Robert Louis Stevenson - Treasure Island (Penguin Classics)
Jon Krakauer - Into Thin Air: Personal Account of the Everest Disaster
Dante Alighieri, Allen Mandelbaum - Inferno: the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri