May 10th

Hi it’s Christina –

Orchid in our school colors

Good Morning! Because I didn’t feel right about not leaving a blog post, I woke up at four. My reward – having a mild coronary first thing in the morning.

I got up, came out to the living room, woke my hubby up, who, as usual, fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV, and told him to go to bed. Then I went into the kitchen, flipped on the Keurig to warm up, let Colby out of his cage, and we went outside to empty the dog.

This is where I had my heart attack. We exited through the garage, and even through my sleep fogged, caffeine deprived brain, I realize my son’s motorcycle is missing. My husband fell asleep on the couch, he never closed the garage door, it was left open all night, omg someone stole my son’s bike. AHHH!! I go racing back into the house, run to my bedroom, flip on the light switch, and yell at my husband, “Someone took PJ’s bike.” To which he replies, “Yup, PJ.”

I guess sometime, after I went to bed last night, my son stopped by to pick up his motorcycle. Hopefully that means he has sold the motorcycle, and can now pay off the loan he still has outstanding, for a motorcycle he no longer rides.

Now that my heart has returned to its normal pace, I can tell you about my day yesterday and share some of the amazing photos. Sorry Facebookers, you’ll need to visit the blog to see them.

What are these things?

As you know, we had Dani’s class trip yesterday to Duke Farms. I had a group of ten kids, nine girls and one guy. These kids were phenomenal, and I even made a point of telling their teacher and the other teacher on the trip. These ten kids, two from each of Mr. Hernandez’s classes, all interacted harmoniously, all assisted each other with the project, they were all respectful, and funny. Even though it was a long day, and we did a lot of walking, and we were all tired, they didn’t get whiny or cranky. These kids were an absolute pleasure the entire day.

These smelled Heavenly

We finished up our morning scavenger hunt early, and headed back to the orientation center for lunch. Then we finished lunch, just as everyone else was arriving to start their lunches. Instead of waiting around, we started the second half of the project, and finished that in record time. This left us with two hours to spend exploring on our own, and by unanimous vote, we decided to go and check out the orchid range. Even Jimmy, our lone guy, was impressed by what he saw. For forty five minutes, we had the entire orchid gardens to ourselves. We got to explore and enjoy all the incredible flowers. We were all laughing, smelling the flowers, snapping pictures. I think it was the highlight of the day for all of us.

It’s so funny though, as soon as other people started to arrive at the orchid garden, the mood changed. I felt it immediately, and then all of the kids said it too. They didn’t want to stay there anymore. “The spell was broken.” One of the girls said, and it really did feel that way. Our magical bubble popped.

We hitched a ride back to the orientation center, and chilled for the remaining hour plus of our trip. We had so much time left over, we went through all the photos we took and matched the photo numbers to the items on the scavenger hunt and the test sheet, so uploading the project will be a breeze.

Lauren, Dani & Courtney

It was a good day, but I’ll admit, I crashed for a little while when I got home. Dani did not have the same luxury. She had to get ready for one of her best friend’s sweet sixteen. “The gang” was getting picked up at Lauren’s house, in a limo, and transported to Maggiano’s – a wonderful Italian restaurant – for dinner, and then a sleep-over at Lauren’s afterwards. Lauren, she’s the tiniest one in the photos, is the oldest of the group. Etai, he’s the tallest one in the photos, will be the next in the gang to turn sixteen.

"The Gang"

By the time I dropped Dani off, and took photos of “The Gang”, it was six thirty, and I had to be at the church by seven for a meeting. After a decade’s hiatus, we are resurrecting the holiday bazaar, and although it is going to be a ton of work, I’m really looking forward to it.

The Limo

Okay, it’s after five and I have a bunch of photos to load into this post, so I need to run if I plan on leaving by six. I hope you have an amazing day, and happy writing!