Five for Friday: July 31, 2015

This week has been one of the most epic of the summer! So many great things happened and I'm so excited to share them with you via doodlebugs teaching's weekly links party Five for Friday!

First up, John is home from fish camp!!! It was the longest 6 weeks of my life. I'm so glad he's home. I don't like being without him! We didn't take our usual welcome home picture at the airport because I was a big blubbering mess! 

Second, I joined my friend Lindsey from Its Elementary, My Dear! for a milestone celebration. You have a chance to win a target gift card to help you be ready for back to school! Be sure to hop over and enter before it closes on Sunday! 

Third, I'm in Indiana on vacation! As much as I hate to admit it, this place has such a sense of home for me, even when most of the people and things that made it home are now gone. I LOVE it here!

Our first obligatory stop since knowing John is at the speedway. It's close to the airport so it just makes sense to stop there first!

The brand new Indianapolis, Indiana LDS temple is the reason we are here. LDS temples are stunning and to finally have one in Indiana is a miracle! We got to tour the temple, as all LDS temples are open for a few weeks to the general public for free tours before they are dedicated for worship. 

This is my Indiana Bestie. She is my first friend in Indiana. The best thing is, we always are able to just pick up where we left off. I adore her and it was so great to see her again and meet her little one! 

Fourth, National Cheesecake day!!! Did you celebrate this week? My favorite is the Cheesecake Factory's 30th anniversary cheesecake.

Fifth, I'm stsrting a brand new linky party myself! Every 10th of the month! Right here on my blog. I hope you'll join me by sharing one of your favorite places or spaces!

Monday Made It: My New Monthly Linky Party

Hello bloggy world!
I'm linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It

with my first ever MONTHLY linky party announcement!

I'm SUPER excited about my latest project. I love to travel and have found many favorite places and spaces around the world and around my every-day world, too. I also love hearing and seeing favorites of others!

So, this linky is meant to share a picture or two with an explanation as to why this place or space is one of your personal favorites! It is not meant to take long to participate in or to read through all the link ups.  Don't have a blog? No problem!  Link up on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or Periscope using the hashtag #RRRfavplaces!

It can be a corner of your house that is perfectly decorated, the perfect classroom library set-up you love, your favorite vacay spot, or your favorite place to work out.  I have many favorite places and spaces and plan on continuing this monthly linky forever!

There will be no set monthly theme, so snatch the button below, and get your post ready for August 10th!
(I have to make the first day back to school something to look forward to, and not dread because that means summer is over!)

On the 10th, be sure to come back to my blog and link up.
Eeeek!  I'm so excited to see some of your favorite places and spaces and show off some of my own!

Miss Johnston's Journey Bloggiversary Bash!

Good morning! I am super excited to be joining Miss Johnston for her 2nd Bloggiversary celebration!  She is a third grade teacher, like me, and also an awesome blog designer!  

She is giving away over 50 prizes and she's SPREADING the LOVE!  Each winner gets 1 prize so there will be TONS of winners!  There are lots of TPT authors participating, so be sure to enter for your grade level group! Prek-1, 2-3, 4-6, and Middle school all have products to be won!

I'm most excited about the $125 in gift cards! LOOK At all those awesome possibilities!

She's also sending someone 5 different packages!  VIA SNAIL MAIL!  I love real mail, and packages in the mail are EVEN better!

As for my contribution?  If you win, you can have your choice of planners from my TPT store!  I'm up to 7 different versions of my planner for you to choose from!  Be sure to enter the B2S Goodies Rafflecopter to have a chance at winning a planner of your choice! 

Head on over to Miss Johnston's Journey to enter! Good luck! 

100th Post and Giveaway!

Well, I've reached a small milestone on this blog.  It's my 100th post!

Now, I've been blogging for a long time, just not here on this blog.  This is actually blog #4 that I've written.  I like blogging as a journal of sorts.  I have a family blog, to keep my family up on all our adventures as we lived so far away from everyone. Like when we built our house.

Then I blogged about my dog's first year (and turned it into a book and then merged it with my family blog). I LOVE having that book with all his puppy pictures and stories in it!  Definitely the way to go! Is he not the cutest puppy ever!?!?! Many I LOVE him!

And then I blogged about our infertility issues as we spent most of 10 years of our marriage trying to overcome them before finally realizing that it just wasn't going to happen.  Thankfully, that was a freeing realization. If you want some #reallife posts... that blog contains many! But if you want to know more about those aspects of my life, you can click on those links.

Anyway, I'm happy to be sharing my teaching journey with you all, and even more importantly, learning from you all! That's why I'm here, in this space. It helps me focus on expanding my perspective and encourages me to keep learning.  Having taught at the same rural school for my entire 11 year career, I enjoy getting other perspectives and making connections. I'm forever thankful for teachers that blog and share their ideas. So, to say thank you, I'm giving away my #1 best seller in my TPT store, an editable Teacher Essentials Pack! Depending on how many entries there are, I may choose more than one winner, so share, share, share! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Vegas Baby! - Part 4 Kick Back with the Primary Pack

Friday Night was the #primarypackkickback in the Bourbon Room at the Venetian. And, just like last year, management hadn't told the employees we were coming. Ugh! I felt awful for the Primary Pack gals as the lack of communication had NOTHING to do with them and it totally wasn't their fault.  Maybe next year they can find somewhere else to kick back! ;)   I was lucky enough to see the waitresses reaction to the primary pack ladies telling her they were expecting at least 300 people.  Too bad I don't have a picture of that! Anyway, this year, the meet up lead me to meeting some of my most favorite bloggers.  There was definitely squealing involved when I realized who I was meeting! 

So without further ado, here are some of the lovelies I met. And fogive the awful lighting.  The bourbon room doesn't lend itself to great pictures! 

I don't know how/why I don't have a picture with Erica from Miss V's Kinder Kraziness she must have taken the picture but she's adorable.  And it's always fun to meet another Erica. 

Megan from I Teach. What's your super power? She is seriously a blogger I reference OVER and OVER again!  Her Blog Baby Blog series is a great place to start if you haven't discovered her yet.  And seriously, when I squealed and jumped up and down that I was getting to meet her, she didn't miss a beat.  She told me to stop and gave me a great big hug.  Not gonna lie, it made me love her even more! 

Dana from Prepping for the Primary Gridiron is someone I've wanted to meet for years. I first found her at her previous blog 3rd grade Gridiron and I use tons of her products in my third grade classroom. Last year I saw her, and even talked to her briefly, but psyched myself out of letting her know how much she helped me in my classroom due to the overwhelming nature of the meet up where I literally ran into her!

All week long I hung out with Michelle from Teaching Ideas for those who Love Teaching. She is the cutest! I just love her bubbly personality, plus she's so REAL! She also brought her mom along to Vegas and so our mommas hung out, too.  They had a blast together.  I'm fairly certain we all made some new life long friends! 

Michelle introduced me to Jenny and Heather.  We had a great time getting to know one another and posed as crayons (of course after the giveaway #procrastinatorsunite!) for the obligatory #primarypackkickback picture. It was a ton of fun meeting everyone and hanging out! 

  

This was when they gathered everyone together for the giveaways.  They wanted us all in the middle because the staff wouldn't give them a mic. But there was no getting to the middle with all these teachers in one place!  So we climbed up on the speakers and sat there!  We could hear and had a good view.  There were SO many awesome prizes given away.  Again, I didn't win. (My mom insists it was her presence because I'm always so lucky... so she says) But I did WIN.  I got to meet AWESOME people! 

 

Vegas Baby! Part 3- Go Noodle Meet Up!

Have you heard of GoNoodle? Do you use it in your classroom? GoNoodle has become a daily staple in my classroom for a variety of reasons, differing between my kinders this last year and my 3rd graders the years before.

Last year in my kinder class we maxed out at least 5 different characters. They LOVE GoNoodle and a quick brain break every day, or a lifesaving indoor recess (read MOST indoor recesses EVER in my 11 years of teaching!!) provided some much needed fun and movement into our whole day of kindergarten. Their favorites were koo koo kangaroo and watching our champs grow! My third graders loved it the previous year, too! They especially loved the kidz bop and Zumba!

And I'm thrilled to try out all their new content on my incoming third graders. Have you noticed all their new content!?!? I'm SO excited about Moose tube and all the camp songs! EEK! 6 years of camp in my teen years, I know many of these songs.  

Amidst a piña colada and yummy snacks, I got a preview of Moose Tube and BRAND NEW KooKoo Kangaroo songs during the GoNoodle Cabanna day. SO FUN! (And yes I made my mom GoNoodle with me in the expo room, but no pics of that, sorry!)

And no, GoNoodle didn't pay me to write any of this... I'm just a GoNoodle groupie! 

Vegas Baby! Part 2- Mega Blogger Meet Up!

Wednesday was the 4th annual Teacher-Blogger Meet Up hosted by the ladies over at Blog Hoppin. This was my 4th year attending and it was amazing!  There were over 1000 teachers in one huge room.  A major improvement over last year where there were so many people in the room you couldn't move!  

I'm not going to lie, year 1 where there were maybe 40-60 of us was awesome I met almost everyone and didn't leave with a headache!  Year 2 we doubled in size and I still got to meet SO many awesome teacher bloggers.  Year 3 was complete and total chaos.  The popularity of the event skyrocketed and we tripled in size from year 2 and we were still in the same sized conference room like the previous year. #teacherstakevegas 

This year I was #880 into the room and missed out on all the swag and didn't win any of the big prizes- sad panda.  Oh well, I've received plenty of swag and won big the last 3 years so I'm not worried. But I still got to meet SO many people! 

Long story but, I didn't have my phone or camera #bloggerfail! But my new friend Michelle from Teaching Ideas for those who Love Teaching was kind enough to snap some pictures for me!

Hope is my favorite. She blogs over at Elementary Shenanigans. She was one of the very first teacher blogs I ever found and have kept reading.  She's literally the sweetest person I've ever met.  So gracious and kind.  It was fun catching up with her and hearing all about her HUGE jump to teaching 5th/6th grade at RCA this last year.  I'm looking forward to reading even more about all her awesome lessons! Thanks Hope!

Michelle insisted I needed a picture with Deanna Jump who is TPT's first teacher to earn $1,000,000.  I've chatted with her a little each year and she is so down to earth and nice.  She said she recognized me from previous years, which is oh so sweet of her.  And y'all she's a grandma!  I told her that couldn't be possible, because she couldn't be any older than I am.  Love her! 

And last but not least, I got to meet my newest friend, Kristin from Teaching in a Nutshell Designs.  She's the AMAZING lady behind my new blog design. (which I LOVE, if I haven't mentioned that lately) She is just as awesome in person as she is via emails and messages.  She's expecting a little girl before the end of the year.  I'm so excited for her, and thrilled to have a new friend!! 

I'll be back tomorrow with MORE from Vegas at the Go Noodle cabana day! 

Vegas Baby! Part 1- Make A Splash Teacher Bash!

I started my Vegas time poolside at the #makeasplashteacherbash with Lindsey and Ashlyn 

 

They are both SO sweet and were amazing coordinators of this event. 

We had 3 air conditioned cabanas that included treats, a private pool area with lounge chairs and amazing company.

I was not very outgoing and didn't meet nearly all the people that were there, plus I hardly took any pictures, but I did make some awesome new friends and reconnected with some friends I made last year, too. 

There were over $800 worth of prizes! We all gathered round and lots of people won HUGE! 

I won a $25 gc to Aunties Sweet Life  Be sure to check out her shop. I can't wait to figure out what I want!! Eeeeek! 

Overall, my momma and I had a great time! 

Check back tomorrow for my post about my 4th year at the "What the Teacher Wants" blogger meet up! 

I'm linking up with the
 
for their Viva Las Vegas Linky!