Sorry the blog has been so quiet. Getting back into the groove of teaching has been a little busy. Plus I haven't been around the last few weekends. Spent this weekend at a scrapbook convention in town. Once I get some pictures uploaded I will share with you.

Apple Gift for Parents

Well Tuesday is the first day of school, so I have put together a little gift for the parents. This is their child's first year of school and I thought the parent's needed a little something.

I had hoped the card would have been smaller, but by the time I made it cute it was a little bigger than anticipated. Oh well. The child can eat the apple and the parents can keep the cute little reminder that they are just as much as a teacher as I am

Ingredients:
Stamps: Apple from SU Tart & Tangy
Paper: U Real Red; green scraps; DSP (SU)
Ink: SU Real Red; SU Old Olive
Accessories: ribbon; buttons; embroidery floss; circle punch; binder clips

A little look at one of my classrooms

Welcome to my classroom: "Jump On In"

A look at my desk with my "Filed with flair" and my assessment folder, along with a pencil holder and paper trays that I continued the punched circle look.

My first theme is apples...of course. Here is my thematic table.

The bone of contention in my classroom. The play structure!!! It takes up a huge amount of the classroom, but is loved by the students in all 3 of the Kindergarten classrooms.

Well I think I am ready for next week. I start gentle entry with my JK students so I meet with 6 students and their families on Tuesday...they then come that Thursday. Then the week after I meet another 6 students and their families. That Thursday I have 12 students (both groups of 6). Then the third week I meet the last 6 students and their families, and that Thursday I will have all 18 students in my class.

As for my Core French...we are jumping right into curriculum.

Wish me luck!!!

Life is good at the Lake

Sorry the blog has been so quite. Can you believe that it is almost the end of August? I have been really busy getting my two classrooms ready and meeting with other teachers to plan our french program. Also my uncle and his family came through for the weekend, and now we are headed off for a weekend of camping. The weather has been so crappy this summer, but it looks as if this weekend Mr. Sun is suppose to come out and visit for a change. Since it is suppose to be sunny we are bringing out cat with us. Yes a cat camping. PC loves camping. We have a zipline set up for her so she can walk around on a leash, and she also uses a dinning tent, where she lies in her carry case watching the birds, squirrels, and what not. People always give us funny looks, but she loves it.



We are headed to Blue Lake Provincial Park. It has a wonderful lake where we normally go windsurfing; however this weekend we have decided not to bother with loading it up in the truck. Here is a scrapbooking page of my DH out windsurfing a couple of years ago at the park.

Here is us at the Park a couple of years ago.

Our annual Scrapbooking Convention here is town is coming up the end of September. The theme for this years Page-Layout Contest is "Life is good at the lake". Now we live on Lake of the Woods, which is Northwestern Ontario's Muskoka. Our Lake spans all the way down to Minnesota and is home to hundreds of island with thousands of "cottages" aka Mansions. If you live here you have to love fishing, boating, swimming, anything water related. Anyways, as a result, I am sure everyone is going to have a good entry this year. I haven't entered before, but since we love the lake and doing things I thought I would try this year. So camera is charged and multiple pictures will be taken this weekend. Wish me luck that I actually capture some good shots.

It's going to be quite!

Sorry my blog has been quite the last few days. I currently am in school, AHHHH, yes school, working on setting up one of my two classrooms. I am working at two different schools this year. I am teaching JK French Immersion this fall at one of the schools, and it is a brand new class, so there were no supplies in the classroom. We had some families donate some toys so I've been cleaning and organizing them, along with getting my bulletin boards done. I still have another classroom to set up along with the other Core French teachers, and I need to make my schedule around theirs. Plus, I am trying to enjoy the end of the summer...despite all our rain, and we are suppose to be going camping the end of the month. So it looks as if my scrappin is going to be pushed to the side at the moment. In the meantime you should follow along Nichole Heady's blog for this month's sneak peaks at Papertrey Ink.

Italy Scrapbook- A Work In Progress

Spent the day working on my Italy scrap book. Spent $50 printing my pictures off at Shopper's Drug Mart today. 141 4x6's and 6 8x10's. I am not scrap booking ALL the pictures...that would be insane. I purchased some 12x12 Making Memory inserts that have 6 4x6 inserts per page. (so a total of 12 to one sheet). I am using some of the 4x6 spaces to add little titles and journaling. I can't believe how many hours I have been working on it, and I am only half way finished....no wonder I have a headache.

This is a map of Rome that I cut up. I have circled all the places we went during our 9 hour walking tour the first day in Rome.

The Colosseum: I want just simple pages, nothing too overwhelming.

St. Paul's Basilica

A look at my 4x6 pages

And another.

As I said a work in progress...

This sums up our summer here in Ontario

Hello Everyone, I haven't been in the scrappin' room these last few days. Some how I got the energy to paint our basement....which has had the wall paper torn down for the last three years. Why I decided to do it the other day I have no idea. Anyways as a result I am exhausted and sore, so I have been relaxing. Also, I have a new teaching position in the fall, and I am trying to rack my head around ideas. I have been given the joyous task of teaching JK (3-4 year olds) French Immersion. YIKES!!!! And school starts in 4 weeks. Double Yikes!!! Its a new class as well so I am not sure what materials and such have been purchased for the new classroom. So as you can see my scrappin' has been put on hold. Hopefully I will have some time to get back in there next week. Until then here is a joke someone sent me that describes an Ontarian Spring/Summer......

A curious fellow died one day and found himself waiting in the long line of judgment. As he stood there he noticed that some souls were allowed to march right through the pearly gates into Heaven. Others though, were led over to Satan who threw them into the burning pit. But every so often, instead of hurling a poor soul into the fire, Satan would toss a soul off to one side into a small pile. After watching Satan do this several times, the fellow's curiosity got the best of him. He strolled over and asked Satan what he was doing. "Excuse me, Prince of Darkness," he said: "I'm waiting in line for judgment, but I couldn't help wondering, why are you tossing those people aside instead of flinging them into the Fires of Hell with the others?" "Oh those" Satan groaned: "They're all from Ontario. It's only half way through summer and they're still too cold and too wet to burn."

I'm Back

Italy was simply AMAZING!!! It was so nice to be able to get away from everything and enjoy the Italian life. The trip itself went really well and I met a lot of great people. I only ran into 2 issues and funny enough they were Canadian related. First off I left Toronto Pearson Airport via Air Transit with half a suitcase full in order to make some nice purchases. However, upon checking in the lady tried to tell me my suitcase weighed 39KG which is over the limit. Air Transit only allows 30KG. I told her that was impossible as my suitcase was empty. She proceeded to tell me, not so nicely, “Can’t you read the scale”. I opened my suitcase showed her, and said it was impossible. However, despite half a suitcase full she still made me empty it. Now at this time my brother had already left the airport. So there I was left with an arm full of my possessions that I was allowed to carry onto the aircraft but couldn’t leave in my suitcase.

My second incident was the fact that I had no money access once I got to Rome. Before leaving Canada I had called Visa, and went into my bank to let them know I was travelling in Europe. This was to ensure I would be able to access my money. Both Visa and my bank said no problem. My Scotia bank branch even gave me a second debit card to hide, so if my first one was lost or stole I would still have access to my account. Well despite the fact that Scotia bank is worldwide all the banks were telling me I wasn’t allowed to make International Withdrawals. (Side note** Just got off the phone with the Customer Service Representative of Scotia bank, as I filed a complaint against the bank, she can’t see why I couldn’t access my funds, and she is going to take further steps to rectify the situation.). So there I was in Rome, Italy without any money. Now I owe 70 Euros to a gentleman who paid for all my entry fees into the sites we visited. I felt horrible not having money. It was very uncomfortable.

Since I had no money I wasn’t able to make many purchases. I ran out of my Euros I purchased in Canada quickly. So when I left Italy my suitcase was the same as when I left. Scared Italy would make me pay for my overweight bag. I asked everyone if I could check in first, and if I had any problems would someone be willing to pay for my overweight bag and I would repay them once I got back to Canada. Anyways, I checked in…put my bag on the scale…and what did the scale say…a whole whopping 16kg. What the heck!!! I was soooooo mad. How could my bag weight 16kg in Italy…when a few more items had been added? But leaving Canada it was supposedly 39KG. To any avail I am home now safe and sound.

Onto better notes. Before I left Canada I went and stayed with my brother in Toronto for a few days. He was so kind and generous that he was willing to drive up to Markham so I could go to the Stamping Bella store. It is such a tiny store, but so much easier to look around than online. While I was there I overheard a conversation between two ladies. Apparently the other day this women they both knew had been into the store to make a few purchases. Get this….she spent $1500.00. Yes, in one sitting, going through the till. I think she must have purchased one of everything. LOL. Thank goodness I only spent 93.65.

Here is what I purchased. Some cute stamps, spellbinders, cuttlebug template, EZ mount, and sentiments.

We also made a trip to a local stamping store where I picked up a few bargains.
My brother also took me to an Oriental Paper Store. It has such amazing things. However, I wasn’t sure how to incorporate the gorgeous paper into my work that I only purchased two little squares. However, I did point out a few things that would be great for Christmas.

Cookies, Cookies, who loves cookies???


While we were searching for the local stamping store we stopped into Sweet Flour Bake Shop.
"Warm delicious cookies, your way in just minutes! At Sweet Flour Bake Shop we pay tribute to the cookie. There is nothing quite like a cookie just out of the oven -- simple goodness that makes you stop to savour the moment. It starts with the highest quality ingredients and ends with a warm, delicious, freshly baked cookie created for you in just minutes. The made-to-order cookie is just a morsel of what Sweet Flour offers. There is something to suit everyone’s taste, including customizable muffin tops, cookie sandwiches and house-made granola. Choose from a selection of gourmet dough and over 20 mix-ins, more than 15,000 cookie combinations can be created! $2.50 CDN" Click on the link to see all the possible combinations. Those of you that live in the toronto area. the address is 2352 Bloor Street W. Toronto. It is a good thing I don't live in tronto I would be at the store daily. There is nothing better than a warm, just baked cookie. And it only takes 2 mins.

Off to Italy!!

I am off to Rome, Italy for a well needed mental break, so my blog is going to be quite for the next month. I hope everyone has a wonderful summer. I'll be back the end of July!

MMMMMMmmmmmmm gelato!!!!

Busted up Suitcases

Have you ever travelled on a plane and arrived at your destination only to discover that your suitcase has been battered and is now broken? You wonder what could possibly have gone wrong. I mean the suitcase gets put onto a conveyor belt, which then sends your suitcase to a trolley, which then is driven outside to the plane where another conveyor belt sends the suitcase up into the cargo hold of the plane. Well, lets just say I now know exactly why and how our suitcases end up battered and broken. I was at Toronto Pearson International Airport yesterday waiting for my flight back into Winnipeg. The plane was late boarding and a group of us were now staring outside watching as another plane was being loaded. This one loadie was driving all the suitcases up to the conveyor belt; however he over judged and pulled too far forward. Instead of reversing a few inches this loadie decided to turn the vehicle around in a circle. Yet, thinking he was smart, he wrenched the wheel to make a tight turn, and as we were all watching out the window half a dozen suitcases literally came flying out of the trolley and ended up all over the tarmac. If you didn’t think that was enough, I notice another man picking up someone’s dainties all over the ground. It appeared as if someone’s suitcase had opened. Yet a few minutes later this one man returned with bags in his hands. He then lifted up a suitcase where the one whole side had totally blown off. I have no idea how, but the side was literally off the suitcase. He sandwiched all the personal belongings into the suitcase, added the “top”, and then put it into a plastic bag so the suitcase could continue it’s trip to Vancouver. Oh ya…..I forgot to mention that one of the loadies ended up looking under the conveyor belt, the plane, cars and other vehicles on the tarmac to ensure that everything that belonged in that suitcase were found…..UNBELIEVABLE!!!! And they didn’t even seem shocked, they never appeared to laugh, they just continued their job like nothing strange had happened.

I had a quick trip into Toronto this past weekend for a course and arrived home late last night. Today has been a long day with teaching and tutoring and I have an interview to prepare for tomorrow, so unfortunately no new ideas to share. I do have a couple of ideas in mind and I should be able to create a few things this week. Till then,