Loving life right now

This afternoon I took two students to Opera in the Outfield along with another co-worker. The four of us took in the opera (the students' first) and ate a great picnic lunch, including dirt cake.

The best part was running into Vincent Gary on our way in. The girls spotted him almost immediately and stood there starstruck until we urged them to go introduce themselves. Gray spoke to us for a few minutes and mostly kept politics out of the discussion. He also posed for some pictures with us. You'd have thought the girls had just met Will Smith or Timbaland -- they talked about Gray ALL afternoon.

Hopefully tomorrow is just as enjoyable as this afternoon. I am really enjoying second grade. I have a wonderful group of twenty-four who are eager to learn and fun to work with. I'm constantly laughing at their antics or smiling because I'm just so happy/proud of their accomplishments.

We have a big event to look forward to on Friday. At the beginning of the year, I sent out an application for free books from First Book over the staff listserv. Several of us applied for free books and instead of a few, our school is receiving 3,000(!!!!) books because of our applications. Target is co-sponsoring the giveaway and they will be filming the entire thing! We were also told that Target is giving us several thousand dollars to purchase additional books. AMAZING!

Here's to a great week for everyone!