It's farmers market season!

Farmers market., a photo by jessikajessika on Flickr.

Since before Griffin was born, we've frequented our local farmers market. It's literally blossomed over the years, which has been really phenomenal to see. The first year, there was just a handful of booths and parking was plentiful; today, on the first day of the 2013 market season, the parking lot overflowed and there were over a dozen different booths.

The summer Griffin was born, he came to the market with us in my ring sling, snuggling up despite the heat. Now, he runs over to the kettle corn vendor and tries to convince us to buy the bag almost as tall as him; he enjoys the old farm games (today there were small tractors to ride, right up his alley!) and watching the live music. When watermelon season hits he will INSIST we buy at least one (they last about 2 days around here) and trying to carry it.

Maybe one day he'll be farmer Griffin...

Mother's Day 2013.

Teacher Appreciation Week 2013

This has, by far, been the best teacher appreciation week I have had in my eight years of teaching. I felt some serious love and appreciation! I'm pretty sure it even surpasses the years of teacher appreciation I saw as a student and as the daughter of a teacher, too.

On Monday, we received these gift baskets from our administrators. The apple was gigantic and amazing. My favorite part, though, was that the basket was filled with pretty healthy and useful things like mints, nut mix, and a magnetic clip with the school logo. Right up my alley. And the basket was nice to keep as a sweet reminder - it has already doubled as a fruit basket for conferences yesterday.

Then yesterday, I asked my students to write about a teacher they appreciated over the years. When I taught English, this was a process that took almost a whole hour - I made stationary and let them write as many letters as they wanted. Then, I'd put them in mailboxes early in the morning and spend as much time making copies as I could so I could see people's faces without them knowing the letters came from my classroom. It bought me such joy to share appreciation with them. As a Spanish teacher, I couldn't totally justify that but I dedicated our daily exit ticket (boleto) space to it and got some really awesome responses. I used my document camera to take photos of all the comments and emailed them to the teachers. I sent a few to the elementary and middle schools. I got so many appreciative emails back...and it felt so great that I could help people feel appreciated. I also felt amazement that I work with such inspiring educators who are really changing lives. I didn't email myself the ones I got, but I did snap a shot of this one because it really made my heart happy.

At conferences, I got a huge hug from a former student and this cupcake/handwritten note from one of the seniors who I've known since she was a tiny seventh grader. (Side note: her cupcakes are AMAZING, and they always have been.) The note was so sweet and again, I just felt really appreciated. It was such a nice gesture for her to do that on her last night of parent teacher conferences.

Today, there was a giant basket of apples in the main office from the board office, and then later on I got a knock at my door. It was the principal with a cart full of goodies for us teachers! They really out did themselves this year. When times are toughest, we were actually appreciated the most. That says a lot, doesn't it?

A gift of motherhood.

The flowers given to me at #TraderJoes for "raising such a sweet boy"., a photo by jessikajessika on Flickr.

Last weekend, Griffin went with me on my early Sunday morning trip to Trader Joe's. I love getting there as they are open - the shelves are fully stocked with the latest delivery, the bananas are stacked ornately, and, most importantly, almost empty.

Griffin declined pushing a shopping cart because he wanted to much on cantalope, and quickly he made friends with Rob, an employee who was cleaning the floors with one of those large floor dodads that little kids adore. Each time Rob passed, he greeted Griffin who happily greeted him right back.

After several passes, Rob stopped to give Griffin some stickers. They continued to wave to each other throughout the store, Griffin giggling with delight each time he saw his new friend. And as we were checking out, Rob gave us these - "for raising such a sweet boy".

Chicago Highlights #2: Starved Rock National Park

For whatever reason, once we had decided on our trip to Chicago I started to search for local parks. That lead to a search on waterfalls and I saw a few stunning photographs of a beautiful park not too far outside of Chicago.

Starved Rock National Park has something like 11 waterfalls. It was about an hour out of our way, but totally worth it. I threw Griffin on my back and off for a hike we went. We were there in early April, which is supposedly the tail end of many of the smaller falls. I lost track of how many we actually saw on our three mile hike, though.

Just a few short minutes into our hike (but MANY stairs!) we found this. I love how the footsteps of people in the past were carved into the rock. I thought about trying to navigate it, but with Griffin on my back the prospect of wet shoes on rock scared me a bit. It was a breathtaking view regardless. I encountered a few families who were on their way back from the hidden waterfall who seemed to really enjoy the slight challenge of the hike.

As we kept walking, we saw lots of neat things - moss, eagles, birds, woodpeckers, and even frozen waterfalls! I was pretty impressed with these even though I was jonesing for some extra greenery on our hike. We saw several of these, all of different sizes and lengths. In my google search somewhere along the way I saw an advertisement for people actually climbing up these frozen waterfalls, which looked pretty fun but perhaps not so doable at this particular park.

The park is known for it's eagle population, too, and it was pretty fantastic to see them flying overhead as we were leaving.  My pictures of them more or less failed to do them justice, sadly.

It is worth noting at this point that if you take a toddler on a hike for an hour or two, you should be sure to bring a snack because they will have a meltdown (although ours eventually led to a nap, too). I had thought about the peeing thing, because I figured we'd just pee on a tree if he had to go, but I failed at thinking about the snack thing. HUGE fail, for future reference. It's also worth noting that I totally fell in love with our new toddler carrier, the preschool kinderpack. I hardly even felt the 30+lbs of Griffin on my back, and he seemed happy as a clam.

While we both enjoyed the hike, it lulled Griffin to sleep and he ended up napping just like this for the last 30 minutes or so. (The kinderpack has a headrest/hood, but I didn't know enough about it to use it and I suspect I would have had to instruct someone else to do it, actually, which would have been virtually impossible since I didn't know how to do it myself). He had no problem sleeping like that though, and clearly enjoyed the sunshine.

ME TOO! It was the first time we'd felt the sun in a long long time.