Warming Up

Day 71 - Delray Beach - Upper 50's:

Well at least today we didn't have to wear our winter coats all day! Not too much to report on today. I woke up early to head over to Gulf Stream School where I did some classroom observations. They are a K-8 private school with approximately 250 students. Yes K-8 and only 250, I kept thinking there are 250 kids in one grade at MAMS!! It was a whole different atmosphere at GSS. First of all kids have uniforms and must wear them, they have nine class periods a day including PE and a study hall, EVERY students plays EVERY sport, and everyone has recess. From a teaching perspective the class sizes were a dream! The largest class I saw only had eight students. The seventh grade math class was very similar to ours at MAMS as they were working on unit rate, unit price, ratio and proportions while the sixth graders were working on fractions and measurement. It was nice to get back into a classroom and help students who were struggling. While I was hard at work Ben was sleeping away....not really, he got up and went for a run before he came and picked me up!

Once we got back and he showered we started getting organized to leave Mark and Becky's tomorrow. It's going to be a sad departure as we have enjoyed our stay so very much. It's nice to spend so much time with them as I usually only see them once a summer if I'm lucky! Hopefully we can make a trip to Florida an annual visit...if nothing else I know that I have a family who will be getting pajama's for Christmas from now on...they all have been wearing them...it makes me so happy!

After packing we headed back over to GSS to pick up Erin while Becky took Sean to tutoring. When we got back Ben and I took Maddy for a long walk on the beach...it was so nice outside. Once Becky and Sean got back we had dinner after which Sean and Ben went to competition mode...first it was video games....football I think (Sean won)...then onto pool (Sean won)...then Erin and I joined them for a game of Clue (Sean won)....then the boys played another game of pool (Ben won). They have set their basketball challenge for 10:30 tomorrow morning. It should be quite a sight, I'll take plenty of pics and I think Becky is going to take video so that Erin can see it since she has school!

We are now getting ready for bed...we had to say goodbye to Erin tonight because we won't see her before we leave. She is growing into such a wonderful young lady. It's hard to believe she is going to be twelve in just a few weeks. It seems like just yesterday she was a toddler wondering the halls of the Regency!

We'll say our goodbyes to everyone else tomorrow before we head on our way to Kris and Shana! GOODNIGHT!