House of Lloyd

We woke to find a beautiful day awaiting us. We ate breakfast and headed down to the beach. Madilyn did not like the beach very much. It was high tide and the waters were rough. She did play in the sand with her bucket and sholvel. We cut our beach trip short and headed to the pool. Madilyn did much better in the pool and loved playing in the water.

After pool time we cleaned up and headed over to spend some time with the grandparents.

We got up early and had breakfast at Cracker Barrell prior to hitting the road for another long day of driving.

We arrived in Sebastain around noon. We first stopped in to visit with Gran and Pappa Judah prior to going to David’s parents house. We had a nice visit with them. We then went to Diane and Aubrey’s for a family lunch. Geremy and Jan also came over. It was very nice to see everyone.

We left around 4:00 to go and check into the hotel. We stayed at the Disney Vero Beach Resort. It was a very comfortable resort. We decided on a 2 bedroom villa, so that we could have space. The villia also had a living room and kitchen area.

We had, had a long day so we decided to stay in for dinner and had room service delivered to our room. The food did not disappoint. We had a nice quiet night with just the four of us.

We spent the morning getting ready for our family beach resort vacation. We left home around noon and arrived in Savannah, GA around 5:30. We decided to have dinner at The Crab Shack. We had eaten there while on Spring Break and loved it so we decided that while we were in the area we would enjoy the place once again. We were not disappointed. The food and atmosphere were just as we remembered. Caleb really loved the seafood platter that we ordered.

The day was long with the drive but the night was very enjoyable.

A few weeks ago my school Principal rec commended for admittance into the Cherokee County 2009-2010 Superintendent’s Leadership Academy 1. I have received notification of acceptance into the academy today. This academy is sponsored by the school board and is used as a “growing” ground for the future leaders of Cherokee County Schools. The school board will usually hire people from this academy for leadership positions throughout the county. This will be a great venue for me to be seen and possibly may lead to my receiving a job as an AP.

One of the best aspects of this program is that it is during the regular school day. My participation in the program will not cut into my family time or conflict with my going to KSU in the spring.

I decided that I want to go back to school. Yes I am that crazy, 6 years of college has not been enough. I have applied to KSU to work on my Specialist in Education Degree (Ed.S). This degree is NOT required in order to become an Assistant Principal or Principal but is recommended. I researched several programs and decided on KSU. Other schools had the program, but some of them are coming into question about the quality of the degree and some counties are not wanting to issue pay raises upon completion.

I had to take the GRE to apply to KSU. It was rushed since the deadline for the application was September 1. I had no time to prepare for the exam. I did alright, but not as well as I would have liked. The test had a lot of math on it. And face it anyone who knows me know that I am not good at math. I actually only graduated college the first time because I met a cute blond hair, blue eyed boy who was a math major, and he helped me out and he has been helping me with math and life since then.

I will not know if I have been accepted into the program until late October or early November. So we will just have to wait and see if I am going back to school, again.

I thought August was busy. September has been even busier.

• David spent the first week of September in business meetings with his client from London and his contracts from Michigan. So he stayed in a small town outside of Detroit for about a week.
• I spent the first week of September miserable and sick as a dog. Of course I was sick when David was out of town, so it made things seem much worse than they actually were.
• Labor Day was a nice quiet event at our house. David grilled some ribs (which were yummy) and we just watched movies all day.
• Caleb has had several Scouting Events, including Water Mania and the Great Allatoona Lake Clean Up. Both of these events started with a Friday night camp out. During Water Mania Caleb was able to participate in a variety of water sports. He had a great time. The Great Allatoona Lake Clean Up, was all work. Scouts from all over the area gathered and picked up about 24 tons of trash from the lake shore line. Caleb has participated in this community service event for the past several years.
• I have had to attend 2 Open Houses and 2 different schools and have been working like a mad woman to get all of my student records entered into the state C-Net Data Base. This is a very time consuming task. The website is not very user friendly, but I am required to use it to record the activities of all of my Work Study students.
• This coming weekend we leave for our Fall Vacation. We are looking forward to having some down time.
• Our church is still looking and praying for a Senior Pastor. We have had a variety of guest speakers since June. It will be good to have a full time pastor again. We are just praying for the right one to come along.

Maybe this time I will keep this blog up to date.

My last post was in August just prior to the school year starting. Since then we have been going almost non-stop.

Here are a few highlights from the month of August

• August 3, was the first day of school. Caleb started public school this year. He is at Creekland Middle school and is adjusting well. He is currently in all Advanced classes. I wonder who he gets his smarts from me or David. It must be a combination of both since David and I both have our strengths and weaknesses.
• I am still at two schools this year. Creekview High School and Sequoyah High School. It is hard but keeps me pretty busy. I am hoping to get enrollment up high enough that next year they will have to hire another Career Pathways Facilitator.
• Caleb has earned the rank of Star Scout and is now working on his Life Rank.
• Madilyn is a joy. She is into everything, but I would not change that for the world. She is always so happy and I love to hear her laugh.
• David took a much need vacation, or should I say “staycation“. He was off work, but Caleb was in school. David used this time to work on a few of his own projects and try to unwind prior to having to take a week long trip to Detroit.
• David picked up a new hobby– Beer Brewing. He went to a brewing event with a friend and then decided that he would like to try it. His first batch will be ready in September.
• For the first time since Caleb has been in school he and I have the same schedule. We are looking forward to Fall Break. We will be going to Vero Beach to see family. However, we will be staying at the Vero Beach Disney Resort. So we will be spending time at the beach and pool as well as spending time with family.

Due to the budget crisis in the state of Georgia, I have been given 2 extra days of summer and will also have election day off in November. I was suppose to return to work on Monday, and now that return date has been pushed back to Wednesday. While I will enjoy the extra few days of summer I will not enjoy yet another pay cut. I also do not like that I will not have time to get everything ready to go for my students come next Monday, but there is really nothing that I can do about the situation.

Today is my last official Friday of summer. Monday I have to start back to work by attending the annual GACTE conference. Unfortunately this year I am going to this conference on my own time and not being paid to go. Last year the dates of the conference were tied to my school contract dates which was nice. However, this year since my contact days have been cut, this conference is cutting into my summer and I am not happy about that. The kicker is that we also no longer earn Professional Development Units for attending this conference. So I wonder what is the point of attending is other than going to small group sessions that may or may not be related to what I need to know for my job.

Caleb went to Indiana with his grandparents and cousin on Tuesday, July 7. So on Thursday afternoon David, Madilyn and I headed to IN to pick Caleb up so that he could leave for Scout Camp on Sunday (today).