So this happened....Rappahannock Regional LOY

 I attended the VAASL Rappahannock Regional librarian's conference on March 7th in Fredericksburg.  Our region covers the counties of King George, Caroline, Spotsylvania, Fredericksburg, and Stafford.  All together almost 100 librarians attended!  My teacher friend Marianne and I had submitted a proposal to present at the conference and were accepted!  
We put together a presentation called "Too young for high school, too old for elementary school:  these YA choices are 'just right'!".  Since Marianne is an 8th grade English teacher, she and I both feel like there are books we recommend to our students over and over again.  When I attend a conference, I always hear about the newest and greatest YA books, but most YA books are exactly appropriate for middle school aged kids.  Some of my 14 year old students love books with drama, relationships, etc. and some of my 12 year old students are still asking for the horse books, you know?  So we thought our presentation would be well received by other librarians in our middle school shoes.  And we did great!  Our session was standing room only!
And the biggest surprise was being named the Rappahannock Regional School Librarian of the Year!  I knew my name was in the running--I had to get letters of recommendation from my principal and two co-workers--but I was still stunned to hear them announce my name!  Now I will be in the running for Virginia Librarian of the Year at our state conference in November in Roanoke, VA!

Catching up! NYE-Feb 2019

 I've been horrible about keeping the blog up to date for the past few months.  I could blame it on a lot of things but I think it boils down to:  (1) not enough free time, (2) working 2 jobs, and (3) lack of picture-taking on my part.  Let's be honest, if Momma doesn't take the pics, there are no pics!  So here's a little bit of catch up, starting with NYE pictured above!  The older two were out with friends, but Emily and Jay actually hung in there until the ball dropped!  I hadn't thought about the fact that we don't have "live" t.v. (we get by on Netflix, Amazon prime, and Hulu) so I quickly had to pull up a live feed on YouTube, which worked out great.  

 We've had quite a few snow days this year, so many that the kids were actually getting tired of "bad weather closings"!  On our latest one in February, Emily made a "snow baby" and stole my camera to take pictures.  Here are her attempts!

 Emily found Caroline's stash of hair rollers (the foam ones that you roll up in your damp hair, sleep on while hurting your head, then unravel in the AM).  She begged us to set up her hair that night.  I unrolled them in the morning for school and it was hilarious!  I told her that she should be little orphan Annie for Halloween this year!

 I thought we dodged the flu this year... and I was wrong!  Both younger kids came down with it within two days of each other at the end of January.  Emily ended up missing 6 days of school!  Jason was out for only 3 (but he also got Tamiflu before his symptoms got very bad).  I ended up calling out of work for 3 days and my students about lost their minds.  They can't handle it when the library isn't open, and my bosses don't get a sub for me when I'm out.  

 Our anniversary is January 31, so Tim asked if I was interested in eating dinner out to celebrate.  I said sure, then asked where.  He said "How about Kill Devil Grill?" which we both LOVE but it's in Nags Head!  He looked it up on his phone and what a surprise, they opened up for the season the next weekend!  We pawned the kids off on his mom and headed out of town for the weekend.  The weather was nice enough to walk along the beach and we hit up some bathing suit sales at the Wings stores.

The kids using their new swing from "Santa" after Tim got it hooked up on the swing set.  They LOVE this thing!

Caroline hamming it up in the Kohls!

 I finally caught up with my teacher friend Katie and her daughter Drew.  Katie took a job teaching in Spotsylvania but we both had work off on President's Day weekend.  So we met up at the mall, which my kids love for the indoor playground and Auntie Anne's pretzels!  These pics were taken in the food court while Katie and I scarfed down some pretzel bites and soda.  

Em lost a tooth!  She's down 9 teeth now!

Emily reading to Garrett and Caroline!

Em and I made bread from scratch!  We used yeast and everything!

Drop off at daycare in the morning with her Valentine's Day card box!

Selling Girl Scout cookies at the end of February!  Emily sold 188 boxes, which means I sold 188 boxes (because let's be honest, Emily doesn't really have a client base!)