Girls' Soccer Team Receives Trophy at Ford Field

Miss Conroy's 44th Anniversary of her 21st Birthday

Today we celebrated a milestone birthday with our Kindergarten teacher, Miss Sharon Conroy. The 8th grade students presented Miss Conroy with their memories of all they learned in kindergarten, and the preschoolers created a crown for Miss Conroy. Truly, a day to remember!

Haunted Music Room

Today, the 5th grade classes presented "The Haunted Music Room" to the second grade classes. As you can see from the photos below, the fifth graders did an outstanding job - congratulations to Miss Ring, and to the fifth graders who sang, played instruments, and recited Halloween poetry. The teachers and I were appropriately frightened by their spooky music!

Hallway Displays

I know that many families don't have the opportunity to visit the second floor of school, and yet our teachers have some marvelous hallway displays of student learning on the second floor. I thought I'd use the blog to share some of those with you today.

The first display to go up was outside of the Science Lab, and it's in the Science display case. Mrs. Morris and her students created a very clever "Lab Safety Do's and Don'ts" display. The students had a great time creating the photos for the "Safety Don'ts" portion of the display!

Miss Wojcik's 5th grade classes created two displays: one titled "Fantastic Forces" (gravity, push, pull, etc...) and one telling what they're grateful for.

Mrs. Lalich's "LEAP" students created the following display about our system of government and the electoral process on the wall outside of the library.

All of these displays are outstanding examples of student learning and engagement. Thank you, teachers, for your hard work in helping students to design and display these projects.

My Daughter's Wedding

Of course, I have to share the best of my photos with you! This first picture is Dave walking Julie down the "aisle."

Next, Julie and her new husband, Kevin Currie. I know I'm partial, but I think they're certainly a photogenic couple!

This next picture is my mom, Margie (in green) with some of her grandchildren. My younger daughter, Megan, was the maid of honor, and is standing between Julie and my mom.

Next is the entire wedding party, jumping for joy!

This last picture is just my favorite. From left to right, Kevin, Olivia (Julie's goddaughter and flower girl), Julie, Rachel (junior bridesmaid), Katie (bridesmaid), and Megan (maid of honor). Katie, Rachel, and Olivia are my nieces (my sister, Colleen's, daughters).

Click here to visit my Picasa slideshow of wedding photos.

After the Rain, God Sends a Rainbow

As many of you know, it has been a "roller coaster" month for my family. My father's sudden death was followed, just three weeks later, by my older daughter's wedding. Julie was married last week in Florida, and (like any proud mom) I have photos to share! Although the weather was (for the most part) quite lovely, it began raining (hard) about an hour before the ceremony. Just minutes before we were to walk downstairs, the sun came out, along with the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen.

As we watched, the rainbow came closer and closer to us, and it seemed to become brighter and more intense as it moved toward us.

I am comforted by the thought that my father, transformed into light, was with us at Julie's wedding. He always was a force of nature, and God truly blessed us with the gift of Dad's presence in the magnificent double rainbow, splashing through the ocean waves.

Girls' Soccer Team Undefeated

The 5th/6th grade girls soccer team finished the season undefeated and NEVER let another team score throughout the entire season. Their coaches (Ms. Biske and Mr. Bernbeck) celebrated this accomplishment by having a pizza/ice cream party for them after their last game. Here is a photo of the whole team, with their coaches, at their party. Mr. Bernbeck was thrown into the pool by the team. They all had a great time.

We Celebrate a Special Preschool Birthday at St. Paul

Today, we celebrated a very special birthday for Mrs. Diane Vance, one of our preschool teachers. Ask your children how old Mrs. Vance is - we brought gifts to her all day long to celebrate this once in a lifetime day! We brought her stickers, and batteries (to recharge) and paper clips (to keep it together) and suckers (because she's so sweet) and many more gifts! One of the classes even sang the "Birthday Macarena" to Mrs. Vance.

Brain Building Buttered Bagels are Bountiful!

Our annual "Brain-Building Buttered Bagels" Sale is off to a great start! Please stop by school any morning this week to share a delicious breakfast of bagels and juice with your student before they start their Iowa testing.

Harvest Fest

It seems like it's been a lifetime since my last post! The trees are beginning to change color, and there's a crispness to the air that tells us fall is truly here. At St. Paul, we always know that summer has past and fall is here by the arrival of our annual Harvest Fest. Thanks in abundance to all of our amazing volunteers, particularly our Harvest Fest chairs, Biz Williamson and Beth Reilly. Ladies, you truly outdid yourselves this year! I think the 2008 Harvest Fest was our best ever - it certainly seemed to be the most crowded. As you can tell from my pictures, a good time was had by all!