Flooded with Memories

Today was a very special day to me. I took a few hours out of my day to make a trip to the elementary school that I went to for Kindergarten - 5th grade, and visit with a past teacher. This wasn't just any ordinary kindergarten teacher, she was blessed to have both my sister and I for our first year of school. In addition, my grandmother was asked to come into the class now and then to read to us! I loved being able to share my grandma with the class.

Anyway, I drove up to the school today and saw the place where I used to wai

t for the bus and play "Bo-Bo-see-otten-totten" with friends. I walked into the main office to check in and to my left I saw the nurse's office where I went on many occasions (I'm slightly accident-prone).

Being able to chat with Mrs. Ruhle after not seeing her for many years was fantastic. We talked and talked and talked, about what had changed on our lives and in the history of the school. She told me I was more than welcome to walk around the school too. So I did.

Honestly, it looked like the school had been stopped in tim

e from when I left in 2001. Everything was exactly the same except they did away with the portables and added another classroom building. Don't worry, I took pictures, not that they will mean a whole lot to you. :) But as I walked around, memories literally flooded my brain...

I remembered making origami figures in art class

I remembered my two friends Becca and Jessi singing phenomenally in front of my 5th grade class

I remembered numerous book fairs as I walked past the media center

I remembered running laps around the kickball field

I remembered watching some puppet show in one of the buildings.

I remembered playing "guard the pin" on the basketball courts

I remembered eating those plastic wraped popsicle, long, thin, freeze things in the wooden pavilion (show below).

I remembered sitting in the halls reading to kindergardeners when I was in 5th grade.

I remembered hearing about 9/11 and watching the twin towers fall in 2001 in my 5th grade class.

Like I've mentioned before, I have the worst memory ever, so when these small moments of my life came back to me I was thrilled. Haha. Only one other teacher that I had was still at the school, my 5th grade teacher Ms. Kabat. I went to her classroom but unfortunately she wasn't there. I walked around a little and checked out some of the books she had on her book cart. To my surprise, most of the books I picked up where from when I was there. To name a few, The Beverly Clearly series, Mr. Popper's Penguins, and The Boxcar Kids series.

It was a fabulous down memory lane and really reminded me how time goes by so fast. It makes me look forward, at least a little, to my high school reunion! :]

The basketball courts

The wooden pavilion

The jungle gym

An Even Harder Goodbye

So in t minus 2 days I will be back in my Orlando home. All summer, it seems like I've just been anxiously counting down the days till I'm reunited with "o-town". Now that the time is so near, I'm actually feeling a little nostalgic about leaving this town, my family, and my jobs. It seems that only recently I've grown closer to the people and it's made me feel sad about leaving. Honestly, when I first left my home and embarked on a new chapter of my life in my first year of college last summer, I was itching to speed out of town and start fresh. You would think that with every year of college, it would be easier to say goodbye; boy was I wrong.

See, growing up, my sister and I were 6 years apart so it was hard for us to ever relate until about a year ago. She realized I wasn't the annoying little 6 yr. old always tagging along. And I

finally saw that she had more knowledge than I gave her credit for. We learned that we had more similarities than we thought! It was a great thing, and our relationship is stronger than ever now. We talk more often and we laugh more than fight. I'm going to miss her so much more now. As for my parents, this summer was fantastic. Through the years I've learned, more recently, that they were pretty much always right. S

o now, we have more fun and I love it. I'm going to miss them even more this time leaving.

Also, I have fought my mother SO HARD to resist learning to cook. It never interested me, and I never had a desire to learn. I figured when I needed to cook, I could look up a recipe online and make it (talk about growing up in a technologically advanced era!). But this summer I gave in and told my mom I would love for her to pass on her recipes and tips for me to use in the apartment this year. She was thrilled. :) In learning, I decided that with my memory, (very much unlike an elephant's) I would write it down and make a "college cookbook" out of them! I don't have a huge amount of meals to put in it, but I figured I would add to it as I learned. I've already started making the pages for it and I can't wait to show you guys the finished product. Catch you on the next post!