November 1 - 9, 2014

Saturday and Sunday, November 1-2, 2014

I did not do much of anything other than clean this weekend and get ready for my mom visiting.  I took the time to get a lot of things done over the weekend and try to catch up on sleep.  I got the entire apartment deep cleaned, all laundry done and ironing.  It truly was a rest weekend where I just got a lot of little things done during the weekend.  I have to tell you that it was not extremely exciting but more relaxing.


Wednesday, November 5, 2014

After the week that I had last week I am trying to wrap my mind around how to handle all the situations that surround me at work.  It is hard for me because I really want to continue to work to build a great high school but I am having trouble working through all the pieces that require me to move forward.  I know that I will but it will just take a little time to move forward as I learn how to navigate in a new school and district.  I just have to remember to stay on the Energy Bus!

Tomorrow is Parent Teacher Conference Day.  The students will not be at school tomorrow and all of the teachers will be located in the gym for parents to come in and pick up report cards then visit with teachers.  We had originally planned this for a late Thursday morning between 11-3 and then a break and finally finish from 4-7 pm.  We had been talking with department heads for awhile about this event but when it finally did come time to put all the pieces together the teachers complained it was a change in their schedule and they needed to vote on the change.  When they voted, the teachers voted to keep their workday the same and therefore parents would only be able to see teachers from 8:00 am - 2:50 pm.  In addition, my mom flies in tomorrow evening around 7:00 pm and will be here throughout the weekend into next week.  We have a busy weekend scheduled but it will be fun.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Parent Teacher Conferences (PTC) went well and we had a lot of people there for it being the first time we have done PTC's in awhile at John W. North High School.  We had a lot of 9th grade parents attend the event and it was truly pretty consistently busy during the day.  We got everything cleaned up by 3:40 pm and I taught Zumba at 4:15 pm then went to pick up my mom at the airport.  

Saturday and Sunday, November 9 and 10, 2014
Mom and I left Saturday morning to go to Disney for the weekend.  I had used my Disney Vacation Club points to reserve a room on Saturday night so we did not have to drive back.  I am excited for her to see Disneyland for the first time.  We got to the resort and checked in.  They had our room ready and we were able to put our items in the room and go into the parks.  We started with California Adventureland.

One of the highlights of the trip was the Aladdin show which was PHENOMENAL!!!!  The show was so funny and the jokes were slightly different than the first time I saw the show a year ago.  It really is well done and a don't miss!!!!  The second highlight was dinner at Carthay Circle with my mom and Ali.  Ali Lattimer joined us around 2:00 pm at Disneyland and we were able to eat dinner together at the restaurant that is a 5/8 replica of the Carthay Circle in LA.  There are all kinds of pictures dedicated to Snow White and Walt Disney around the restaurant.  It was a fun history lesson!!!  The food was delicious as well which is an additional plus!!!

Pictures in Restaurant

Replica of Snow White wishing well that acts as base for table.

Do you see the evil queen?

The other thing we did was to look for hidden Mickeys.  Now, I do have issues with this because I don't always agree with what they term as Hidden Mickeys.  Some of them seem to be accidental and someone just called it a hidden Mickey.  I do think this one is pretty cool.  It is the tread on a tire from the "Five and Dime" musical act in the center of Hollywood Square at California Adventureland.

After dinner we went to the Confectionery and then back to the hotel room.  Its hard not to love a candy apple Olaf from Mickey's Confectionery.  I mean seriously, how cute is this?????  It tasted really great also!!!

We wanted to watch The World of Color from the Grand Californian Terrace which overlooks Paradise Pier.  While it did keep us from having to wait in line and stand for a few hours for a good spot, it was not a great idea.  The angle is just slightly bad so you don't get to see the pictures on the water.  You get to see the color, hear the music and see water moving around, but you just do not get to see the projections on the water so it loses something in the presentation.  But hey, we would not have known if we did not try it!!!

On Saturday, we spent the day at Disneyland where we walked around and saw a lot of the shows and rode the kiddie rides.  We did It's A Small World three times during the day.  Can you tell which ride is my mom's favorite?  To the point where she video taped the ride so she could watch it later.  It was really great since they have it decorated for Christmas at this time of year but three times is crazy.  We got to see The Golden Horseshoe as well and the show there was different from what it was a few weeks ago.  We had a great time and got to see the Christmas Parade as well.  We spent the day there and finally left around 7:00 pm to travel home!  It was a long day and while I know mom was tired, she truly was a trooper at walking around all over Disneyland!  My Fitbit says we did about 14 miles.