Out of Inservice

According to the Great State of Idaho, Thursday Oct. 2nd and Friday Oct. 3rd are in-service days. If you are a student, that means you get two days off. If you are a teacher, it means you have to sit through two days of boring meetings with nary a kidlet in sight.


I am not a meeting type of teacher. Here are my "notes" from the Direct Writing Assessment training I went to in Twin last Friday. In my defense, all of the assorted doodles are related to the meeting content... And here my my "notes" from Thursday's first in-service meeting. They aren't as extensive as the "notes" in the photo above due to the tiny little nap I took mid-training. So after sleeping through a good portion of Thursday's in-service classes, I was really not excited about the prospect of a second full day of coma-inducing presentations.
Lucky for me, I have the worlds best principal. He worked a deal with our superintendent wherein those teachers who are taking a certain teaching class on Tuesday afternoons this semester can count those classes as in-service time, giving us Friday off.





So with a meeting-free Friday and a Sunday School-free Sunday, I was looking at three full days of freedom. That doesn't happen very often, so I decided to take advantage of these lesson-less days by driving to Utah and visiting my sister's family.



I also got to see my beautiful Idaho nieces before taking off to Utah. Their mommy (my sister-in-law Becky) is from the same town in which I now reside, so she had driven the girls over for a quick visit. Here I am with my adorable Kylie...
I'm surprised she let me hold her for so long considering our history (a history that you can read about on This Post.Lucky for me, she is a very forgiving child. Kenna even consented to sit with me long enough for a photo before she went back to exploring her grandparents house.

The next evening I tossed off the shackles of in-service and cruised on down to see my sister's kids. It was almost bedtime when I got there, but that didn't stop them from going through every step of their, "Aunt Mindy Is Here!" routine. After helping he unload my car, they all rushed to find the cool things they have made since my last visit.

Then Ruby ran and found a book that she wanted me to read to her.
She seemed a bit put-out that I chose to waste valuable story time taking pictures.
While Ruby and I were reading, Jonah decided to "hep" me unpack. He was looking for the candy and presents I always bring with me but found my new movies instead.
When Jonah was done inspecting my luggage, Bentley set things up so we could play a few rounds of super hero "Guess Who?" He is really nice to pick games that are easy enough for me to play. I really do appreciate the thought, but it honestly doesn't make me feel any better to have him beat me at "Guess Who?" than when he beats me at chess.

I didn't bother setting my alarm when I went to bed later that night. I knew that the boys wouldn't let me over sleep. Just after 7 this morning I heard some thumps on the stairs followed by a high little voice calling, "Minnnnn-Deeeeee!!!!!! Time to wake uuuuuuppppp!!!!" I still haven't found an alarm clock with a buzzer that compares to the jolt of waking up to find a squirt gun and a sword pointed at my face.
Ruby joined the wake up squad a few minutes later. Here we are showing off our matching bed-head-hair-dos.
During yet another search of my personal belongings, Jonah found my IPOD, so he and Ruby took turns DJ-ing while I tried to get ready for the day.
Getting ready at my sister's house is a slightly different process than getting ready at my house. For example, I don't usually keep ninja weapons close by when doing my hair, but after Maxwell explained that bad guys love to attack people in bathrooms, I accepted his kind offer of the ninja knife.
The knife was just an extra precaution, however, in case any of those bathroom baddies got past my sword-wielding bodyguard at the door.

Because this is Utah and not Idaho, Bentley and Maxwell still had to go to school today. Can you guess which backpack belongs to the kindergartner, the first grader, and the almost 30 year old teacher? This morning Jonah looked at me and asked, "You have an Iron Man backpack?" "Yep," I said. "And you have an Iron Man shirt?" he continued. "Uh huh," I confirmed. He paused for a second and then asked, 'How old are you?" "Let's go get some cereal," I replied. I helped walk the two boys to school...
...then came back and tried to keep Jonah and Ruby entertained while their momma got ready to go to the store. Jonah was pretty tired after spending most of the night sitting up reading his new Iron Man book. His momma caught him reading with his light on at 2 a.m. and then his dad busted him again at 4, so the poor little guy was exhausted...but still managed to fight off sleep to watch the Iron Man cartoon I brought.
My sister's shopping experience is very, very different from my own, so shopping with her and any of here little ones is always educational for me. Today I learned how to sprint across the parking lot and claim the two steering wheeled cart before a mother with a suburban load of kids could get to it.
All things considered, I think the 14 hours I have been here so far have been much more educational for me than any of today's in-service classes would have been. I'm sure my ninja lessons and cart wrestling experience will really come in handy next week at school. If nothing else, they will give me something to think about the next time I am trying to stay awake during in-service meetings.