The Elementary Library (and more!): August 2022

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Mindset shifting

Today, I received recognition of my 15 years with the district. WOW - I wish that I would have gotten a picture of the moment...but it seems surreal. 15 years ago, I started my job as a recent mom of 2, newly married, and finishing up my master's degree. It was a crazy leap of fair to move from part time to full time while 9 months pregnant. I interview at 9 months, delivered the baby a week later, then started the new job 5 weeks later during Halloween week. It was a wild ride.

After all of the awards was time for the kick off motivational speaker Niki Spears. Niki Spears link
Her main book is

I love this title! It was all about being grateful, being aware, and more! One theme is changing our frame of mind. I really need to be more positive. It got me thinking about my end of summer camping trip.

I had 48 hours to be present and grateful with 5 of my 6 children. My 12 year old requested a real campout this summer so I made it happen. On Sunday afternoon in a pouring down rainstorm, we loaded up the mini van with a tent, cooler of food, clothes, and anything else. We forgot pillows, fire starter (lighter), and a hot pad/oven mitt. Luckily I thought of two of them on the way up and stopped at Dollar General.

We traveled 2.5 hours north to Letchworth State Park. We checked into the campground and got to our campsite with sunny clear skies but scary looking radar.

Quickly, our team assembled a tent, unloaded sleeping bags and clothes, and put up the canopy and shelter. Plus a few of the littles were looking for sticks and pine cones and small fire wood pieces.

1 hour later (just as we finished) a crack of thunder told us the nice weather was ending.

Dinner got started over the fire but dry wood was limited as well as kindling. We pre-packed foil pouches with ham steak, potatoes, corn, carrots, onions, and peppers! YUM!!!

After dinner it was getting late so we walked to the camp store and got some firewood pieces and checked out the goodies. We met our neighbor! A cool lady from Florida...my children adored talking to her, touring her skoolie, and more!

It rained off and on all night...the tent worked pretty well with an extra tarp on top (thanks to our friend Bud for this tip!)

Monday brought a relaxing morning...Ben taught us how to make eggs in a plastic bag. Some chose to add ham and cheese. Overall, the worked except our grate over the fire shifted and nearly spilt all of the HOT water and we did not have a hot pad/pot holder. I also brought oatmeal. Lucas declared that he preferred mushy oatmeal not crunchy oatmeal as we were packing up food. He did not understand that we would be adding water or milk to them at camp.

Then we did figure out that we had to reserve tickets for the tour of the Mount Morris Dam in person (or ahead of time online). So I dashed off to reserve tickets as they cleaned up breakfast and the tent. It worked better than at home!!!
I got to see some cool sites on my adventure for tickets like a turkey vultures up close.

Upon my return, we learned that the pool was closed - BIG BUMMER. The park is LONG and skinny so everything is NORTH like the dam and pool or SOUTH like the falls, overlook, museums, nature center and more. So we did not want to head south for a few hours to only head north but we decided to explore the ANT (Autism Nature Trail) trail and visitor center. These were close together and part of Ben's research for a possible Eagle Scout project idea.

Afterwards we did stop in the nature center as the rain returned and caught them feeding the black rat snake a mouse. Yuck and interesting simultaneously. Ben took a 4 minute video if you care to watch.

Then we dashed off to the Mount Morris Dam in hopes of a tour. This was so cool...we walked out onto the dam then went inside of the dam. It is a restricted area only open for 1-2 tours a day. Plus there is a video and small museum there.

We got to walk out to the dam, enter the tower, and take an elevator DOWN into the dam and explore the tunnels.

We returned for dinner - walking tacos - which turned out so good! After dinner was clean up and then lights on the middle falls. The neighbor, @conchtownbus on Instagram joined us on this adventure. It was breath-taking and again a random down pour.

BREATH TAKING MIDDLE FALLS

The begging for an extended stay was in high gear, but I had to return to reality on Tuesday for a back to school event, a scout activity, and my 15 year award mentioned above.

Tuesday was camp pack up and seeing the Letchworth Museum, the Council grounds, a playground, and a trip to one more waterfall! Again the pool was closed :(

Fun at the upper falls!

Family selfie

Breakfast of champions

It was an amazing trip proving that I could do a crazy trip like this. I got to re-connect with my kids, talk, laugh, dance in the rain (Ben played lots of fun music on his phone!), and see their strengths shine!

This experience came full circle during our motivational speaker today. I still want to be camping but know that I have this core memory and can create more of these moments.

Now to make memories with my students this school year. I am excited to beef up my cyber security curriculum, incorporate new lessons, continue to re-use pre-covid activities and robots.

Thank you for letting me share my thoughts and adventures!

Saturday, August 20, 2022

Summer Recap

As summer wanes and back to school emails and meetings pop up, I am faced with the same reality every year. Time to regroup mentally, celebrate the good days, and realize that I had an amazing summer.

But summer isn't over...so let us celebrate some of the good days.

Library trips - so many awesome programs. We did 5 official programs including graphic novel bingo, Tamarack animals, making sand art, glow forge ocean tiles, and even a beach in a jar. There might have been more trips but these were the big ones.

Pool visiting - two trips our local pool, one to another across town, and one visit to our cousin's pool

Lake visiting - two trips to Lake Erie so far...one with school friends and one with family!

Science Museums - One day to see the Carnegie Science Center and one night to the Buffalo Science Center. Both included visits with family!!

Family reunions - That was one busy weekend of seeing family from Minnesota, Florida, Ohio, and more places. I love re-connecting and making memories with family :)

Cape Cod - We kicked off summer with a huge trip to Cape Cod for 5.5 days in June - so much fun seeing Boston, Salem, Plymouth, Providence Town and so much more. Plus this was with FAMILY!!!

Fruit Picking - our property has the cutest strawberries in late June...then raspberries...then blackberries and cloud berries...and now ELDERBERRIES! Okay some of the elderberries grow more on our neighbors side of the "woods" but they let us pick them and make jelly with them! YUM
Plus we got to visit a co-workers peach orchard and another visit to pick blueberries.

Celebrate the 814 - Art Museum, zoo trips, children's museum (with good friends), Bicentennial Tower (with family), Land Lighthouse (with family), LOTS of playground trips, National Night Out, hikes at Headwaters, mini-golf, local theater, pirate cruise with grandma, and more!!!

I wonder why summer flew by then I think of all the fun that we packed into the summer. Here are a few pictures...I wish that I could have created a collage but I like the option of captions.

Thank you for everyone that I saw and still have a list of people that I wish that I could have seen or spent time with.

PLUS we are squeezing in a 48 hour camping trip before my first day back!!!