Friday Favorites {7.17.15}

How the heck is it Friday already? NOT complaining here, but this week FLEW by!

I'm going to be THAT girl and jump on the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale Bandwagon. I am loving THESE Kate Spade beauties! I got my ears pierced for the first time at 22 years old. I HATE HATE HATE needles and the thought of sticking a sharp object through my skin still makes me squeamish. It's a long story, but basically my mom insisted I get my ears pierced for my wedding. I did NOT agree! I had to get my wisdom teeth removed and my mom took me to the appointment. About an hour later I emerged fully drugged up from the procedure and my mom somehow convinced me in my drooling, oblivious state that I needed to get my ears pierced RIGHT THEN! So she drove me to the mall in the middle of a busy Christmas shopping day and had them pierce my ears! Can you believe the child abuse going on here? HA! I had the oh so glamorous ice pack that Velcro's to your head strapped to me, and I'm pretty sure I was still drooling with gauze in my mouth! What a sight! My sister took a video of my crying at home that they were uneven. I'll spare you the video, but leave you with this one to laugh about :)

That sneaky Cindy!

Anywhoooo...I NEED these pretty little things to motivate me to actually change my earrings out from the diamond studs that I wear. (I haven't changed them since November, but that's neither here nor there). 

We are leaving for the land of beaches, Strawberry Daiquiris, and SUNSHINE tomorrow! Want to know the best part? I convinced Kyle to check a bag for our trip!!! My husband is pretty cheap frugal and didn't want to spend the $75 to check bags. YAY FOR CLOTHING OPTIONS!

For the sake of safety: DISCLAIMER: we do have family staying at our house while we are away. I might be MIA for a little, but will for sure recap the trip when we return! 

I think I've mentioned before that I LOVE classes at my gym. We started a new "season" of Body Pump and I am so excited that I am starting to see results from working so hard. I definitely feel stronger and have been able to up my weight amount for the different tracks. WOO HOO for setting and achieving goals!

If you are a reader and looking for something different, Vince Flynn is the answer! He writes CIA thriller type books. I needed a break from my typical Chick Lit Beach Reads and picked up one of his Mitch Rapp series books. They are fast paced, and I truly feel like I learn something. I'll probably post a book review soon!

Here's a link to his books on Amazon if you're interested:

Vince Flynn

Kyle and I have lived in Kansas City for three years now (I've lived here for 4!). We only had one set of relatives that live here, but they are kinda far away and have three little kiddo's that keep them very busy. We need to make more of an effort to see them more because we really enjoy them! 

That being said, we are so excited that Kyle's sister is moving here!!! She just graduated from Mizzou and will start her first teaching position in August. We started moving her in this week and I am THRILLED to have her here! Now that Adam and Abby live so close, it is nice to get to enjoy family time and the perks that come with that. I've started realizing how important family is lately and can't wait to have everyone over for BBQ's and game nights!

I will leave you with a picture of these cuties. Because HELLO, they both sat for a picture!

Happy Weekend!

Katie

Weekend Recap - Google Summit 2015

This weekend was spent at the Missouri Summit Conference #gafesummit

July 11th-12th 

KC, MO 

The conference was held at Crossroads Academy and the Kansas City Public Library. Both were beautiful! CAofKC just opened a really cool new space. I'm very intrigued by Crossroads and feel like it might be something I'd like to do at some point in my career!

Jeni, Susan, and I were selected to present three different presentations!

Educating the iStudent

PBL App Smash

Globalizing your Classroom

FRIDAY:

We spent Friday morning on a google HangOut putting the final touches on the presentations. I was pretty lazy all day with the exception of meeting my Aunt Jan for lunch in Downtown LS and browsing some of the super cute boutiques!

Friday night, Kyle and I went over to Ryan and Laura's house for dinner. We ended up at a new Pizza Place in Westport called Artego Pizza. Awesome food, not so awesome service. 

SATURDAY:

Saturday morning I was up bright and early making the drive to downtown KC for the conference. I got there at 7:30 (I'm an early bird / over-achiever). They had Panera breakfast for us while we waited for the kick off speaker, Rushton Hurley. Jeni and I picked up a great idea from him on how we can take our Changemakers PBL to the next step. He had some awesome ideas!

Click HERE to see the Schedule and access presentations.

Our first presentation on Tour Builder went really well! I left early and headed home to process everything I learned for the day. I've decided that I'm not very good at picking sessions. I am a "buy in" person and typically don't need to be convinced WHY I should do something. I need more of the HOW I can implement it in my classroom type sessions. Maybe I will get better at this eventually?

SUNDAY:

I headed back downtown bright and early again. The keynote speaker was Jay Atwood, a learning coach at the Singapore American School! He was a WOW! He was another "why" guy, but I really liked what he had to say. He re-energized me for the upcoming school year and gave me the confidence to try things without fear of failure. 

My other takeaway was Kasey Ball with Shake Up Learning. She is my new "I want to be her when I grow up idol." She's from Dallas and was super cute and fun! I loved what she had to say and picked up a few new tools from her as well. I want to add menu style stuff to our current scheduling Google Forms as well as get some kids started on Books that Grow. I wish I would have attended her Struggling Readers Presentation. Shoot.

Her Pinterest Boards HERE.

Overall themes in education I see us moving towards: Globalization, Personalized Learning, Video/Digital Storytelling. I also see a huge shift to moving away from "THAT'S HOW I'TS ALWAYS BEEN DONE" and trying to innovate and create. Praise Jesus! Spreading creativity is my passion.

We presented twice more. I've reflected on this and I think we need to do more to get people UP and TALKING. Jeni and I talk until we are blue in the face and we need more room for questions and growing together as a room of educators. 

I left after our presentations and headed home to Kyle! He had finished painting all the dressers, trimmed trees, and mowed the lawn. I watered the plants and picked up all the tree trimmings for him.

It was an exhausting weekend. 

And now...a picture dump:

These two cuties watched me leave from the window!

It's not a Teacher Tech Conference if we all aren't on our phones tweeting!

Such a beautiful venue! KC Public Library for the win!

Finalizing details for our presentations.

So. Pretty. 

My snuggle buddy on Sunday night.

Friday Favorites {7.10.15}

It's FRIDAY which means it's time for some Friday Favorites!

We have another packed weekend ahead of us. We are excited to spend a weekend at home though!

I'm linking up with Andrea, Narci and Erika and sharing my favorite things from the week!

Kansas City is hosting Google Summit this weekend and I'm presenting EEEKK!

I'm still in progress on the presentation...I may have a slight procrastination problem? I work best on a deadline!! I'm pretty excited to learn and grow alongside some of the techy teachers in KC. 

If you're a teacher, follow along with us on Twitter #gafesummit 

 I accidentally left a load of laundry in the washer for three days. Is that more of a confession? Sigh...

Luckily, another wash and some of these do the trick! 

Our neighbors Schnoodle is spending the weekend with us! Louie is nearly 120 pounds of fluff and curls. We love him and Charlie is beside himself. The pups play together so well!

My friend Steff is a work-out guru and I typically follow her advice when it comes to all things fitness. She got the Garmin Forerunner 15 waaaaaayyy back in the day and I FINALLY got one for my birthday back in April. I am OBSESSED! This thing does it all and I've worn it nearly everyday since I got it. 

Features include:

Step Counter

Calories

Distance

Heart Rate

Pace

AND SOOOOO MUCH MORE!

I'm not a huge runner anymore (I'm more of a cardio class at the gym type girl), BUT this has really upped my game in the gym and encouraged me to work even harder! I think it's super cute too!

Check it out:

 Garmin Forerunner 15

We have plans to meet our friends Ryan and Laura for dinner tonight! I. CAN'T. WAIT! Ryan was the Best Man in our Wedding and we don't get to see this awesome couple enough! 

Happy Friday Friends!

Katie

Cheers to 4th Grade Teachers

There's a new Ms. H in KC! Watch out fourth graders!!

This afternoon  my sister in law, Kelsey, was able to get into her new classroom for the first time. I'm SO happy she invited me to come help her! Unpacking a classroom can be very overwhelming, so we didn't get much done today besides bring in boxes and begin to unpack them.

We were told to go around to the back doors, and we ended up walking in through the kitchen and probably scaring some Summer Adventure Club kids!

Kelsey was fortunate enough to buy the majority of my neighbors classroom stuff. Marcy decided to stay home with her sweet girls and is moving to a new city for her husband's job. I think she just wanted to get rid of it and not deal with the hassle of trying to sell it all. Kelsey LUCKED OUT! She pretty much has all of Marcy's classroom plus half of my old classroom since I moved schools and co-teach.

Here's a few before pictures!

How awesome are those lockers???

The majority of our time was spent moving the big furniture around. I tried to convince her to get rid of the teacher desk, but no such luck ;)

We plan to spend the day there tomorrow. On the agenda: books/library, bulletin boards, supplies organized. 

I'm SO excited! Thanks for letting me help, Kels!

Fourth of July Weekend at the Lake

I absolutely LOVE the 4th of July! 

I think it might be my favorite holiday (sorry Christmas!).

The weather is amazing.

The food is amazing.

The company is great.

The scenery is beautiful.

There's nothing better than a 4th of July at the Lake!

Our 4th started last Wednesday when Kyle got off work. As soon as he got home the weather alerts started rolling in. Tornados and flash flood warnings for our county...scratch that, our CITY! So Kyle did the typical man thing and went outside to look as soon as the sirens started going off. It was sunny directly over our house, but behind us some nasty clouds were rolling in.

See the wall cloud??

A tornado touched down just a bit north of us. Fortunately, it wasn't a strong one and didn't do a ton of damage. We didn't realize that was round 1 of 3. Sirens went off again and this time the rotations were moving towards us. We headed to the basement with the Charlie man! The amount of rain was indescribable. Torrents perhaps? 

We got the all clear and came upstairs. Kyle noticed a lot of traffic through our subdivision than normal so we decided to check it out!

The road outside our subdivision was completely flooded. The intersection was underwater and cars were being redirected through our neighborhood. Crazy stuff...

Thursday morning Laura and Kyle got to our house bright and early and we loaded the car up with a crazy amount of junk. Two sets of golf clubs, two coolers, three suitcases, tote bags, etc. Who knew we could fill a Jeep Grand Cherokee to the brim for one weekend?

The weather was rainy and overcast so we dropped our stuff off and headed over to the Outlets again to do some shopping. J. Crew never disappoints!

Blazer for $20? YES, please!!!

Sperry flip flops!

I didn't buy these, but how cute would they be for Mizzou Tailgates?

A trip to the other side of the lake isn't complete without Rizzo's for dinner.

This was easily four meals for me over the weekend!

The Lake was pretty flooded from all the rain. It was up about four feet I believe. It had risen over most docks electrical boxes making it unsafe to go on the dock or be in the water at all. We were super disappointed. The Water Patrol set the entire Lake to "No Wake" meaning we couldn't make waves. We couldn't even get to our boats anyway. Friday was spent hanging out on the deck. 

See how the ramp is underwater? 

Kevin is a fisherman statue that sits on the seawall...he never gave up trying to get that big fish!

The water went down enough for us to get to the boat late Friday afternoon so we took a ride to one of our favorite bars, Coconuts! 

Saturday the Kyle's played golf that morning and didn't get back until about 1. Laura and I tanned on the dock. The rest of my family was coming over on my dad's big boat. They had 15 people with them. That's a tad overwhelming for me. Linda had a fish fry on the dock and lots of amazing frozen drinks! About 3, the Kyles, Laura and I headed two houses down for the 10th Annual Drink Contest. Kyle was a judge and it deserves a separate post. It was hilarious!! Teams earn points for taste, creativity, presentation, etc. They go ALL out. We left feeling pretty good (10 shots/drinks later!) and had a huge meal of ham and pasta for dinner. The big group left and we settled in for cards and fireworks from the deck. 

Sunday we took a boat ride and headed home.

Bye Lake! See you in a month :(

We were pretty happy to get home and see this pup.