First day of Spring!

It's been a busy pre-Spring season here at the Kroeker house, I have been subbing 2-3 days per week (usually only part days) and LaCrosse is in full swing for Nathan. Lynsey also started her horse riding at Farrell McWhirter two Sundays ago. I just came back from a girls trip to San Francisco over the weekend, but I'll do another post about that after:-). All went well with the kids while I was gone by all accounts, Brian managed just fine without me! He even had a day off work on Friday and went snowboarding with his friend Andy while the kids were in school. 

Subbing has been an interesting experience - I am enjoying the variety in going to different schools! I don't think I could do JUST Instructional Assistant work, it's a lot of recess and lunch time supervision which is a bit mind numbing. I did do it at a middle school one day and got to do some helping inside a classroom for a few periods which I did kind of enjoy! I did just get approved for my classroom subbing emergency certificate, and I actually have some training for that this afternoon. I am doing a day of job shadowing on Thursday with Kayce Gehring at Clara Barton (she was Lynsey's amazing fourth grade teacher who I saw when I subbed at Clara Barton, and she was so gracious to offer for me to shadow her!). I am pretty nervous to start classroom subbing, that seems like a different level of getting out of my comfort zone. We will see what happens!

No one under TEN in this house anymore!

Well, it's happened - our youngest is officially in the double digits! 

Brian took the kids snowboarding on Presidents Day while I hung out with Adam again (and took him to Mod Pizza for dinner, I think he's going to be looking forward to snowboarding days from now on lol! That next weekend we had Nathan's birthday party. He had 4 of his friends over and they hung out, played laser tag, had some KFC and ice cream cake, it was a good day! His actual birthday was on the following Monday (the 28th). He took some cupcakes to school to celebrate with his class and got his gifts from us. My baby is 10!

Another thing that happened last week is that I had my first subbing job! Yep, I am officially a working woman, albeit very part time. I started with a 5 hour 15 minute shift at Mark Twain Elementary as an Instructional Assistant last Tuesday. I got put in a classroom as a para to a special needs kid, and it was pretty much the definition of being thrown in the deep end:-/. It was okay but I didn't get a lot of guidance and this kid was pretty high needs, so it was definitely putting me out of my comfort zone! The day held a lot of variety - I did some recess and lunch room supervision, some photocopying, more para work with this kid, etc. It was a pretty good first day all in all. On Friday, I went to Redmond Elementary for a 4 hour shift as an IA (Instructional Assistant), and it was quite a different experience - I was outside as recess/lunch supervision almost the entire time (also crossing guard help at the end of the day). I was there again today for the same shift, and it went a bit better today because I was already a bit more familiar. The time went by a bit quicker today. Tomorrow I am going to Clara Barton for a full day shift as a para. I hope I am reasonably equipped for whatever needs this kiddo I am working with might have! 

It's been interesting to start working. So far I can still manage the household things, but this week I am taking a shift on 3 of the 5 weekdays, so I might get stretched a bit thinner this week. I'm pretty tired this evening, but I really wanted to do this blog post so I mustered up the energy to do it. I am keeping an eye on how I'm feeling and will adjust how many shifts I take week to week accordingly. I do love that I am completely in control of how often to work and how long my shifts are - there are SO many openings, I have a pretty good variety to choose from! It feels good to help out in the schools, everyone has been so appreciative that I'm there. 

Something exciting that happened last week was that Brian and I are going to Paris in July! Woohoo! Brian's parents are going to watch the kids in Calgary and we are flying out from there. Not a super long trip, we will fly out Friday July 8th (get there around noon on Saturday) and fly back to Calgary on Thursday July 14th (get back in the afternoon). I am so excited! I've never been there and we are staying in a nice hotel, it will so fun to explore Paris together with Brian - and over my birthday, too:-).

Speaking of fun trips, next weekend (18th-20th) I am going to San Francisco for the weekend with three of my friends (Kristy, Elisse and Yelena). We had a flight credit from a canceled trip back in 2020 (was supposed to be Kristy's 40th birthday trip) so we decided to stay pretty close to home and just do a quick weekend getaway. I'm looking forward to it! Always nice to have some trips to look forward to!

I suppose I should mention that ANOTHER member of our family had a birthday recently. Jasper turned 3 on Friday:-). His littermate Drew had a birthday party yesterday so we went, as you can see from the picture of me and Jasper with the "3" balloon (we are always piggy backing off of their celebrations lol!). I can't believe our little puppy is 3! He still acts like he's just a baby when he's left alone, hopefully he gets used to me working and not being around quite so much!

 

Mid Winter break, almost Spring!

Making our way through February! Watching the Olympics has helped add some excitement to an otherwise dreary month, and we've been able to have some fun outings which has of course helped as well:-). Brian and I did an escape room for a friend's birthday, and we ALMOST cracked it (it was a pretty tough one!). It was probably the best escape room I've done, pretty clever. Brian took the kids snowboarding the next day and they had a great time - sounds like Nathan is getting the hang of it which is great! They are going again on Monday. Adam and I enjoyed a quiet day at home, and then I took him to Mod Pizza for supper. He quite enjoyed that, and I think that will become a tradition for these snowboarding days! I went for a hike with Kristy and Elisse on a beautiful day, and that evening we went to see Allegria, the latest Cirque show to come to town. It was very entertaining, as I have come to expect from Cirque du Soliel! A great evening with good friends!

Last Friday, I finally had my HR interview with the school district - yet another hoop towards being ready to start subbing is complete! I am doing some online trainings right now, and have to wait for my official certificate to be approved before I can start classroom subbing, but I think I'll be able to start subbing for paras and IA's pretty soon. I'm looking forward to giving it a go! 

What else . . . Lynsey had some friends over for a sleepover last Saturday, I'm so glad they can start doing some normal teenage things again. It feels like the whole Covid climate is starting to change as talk of mask mandates being dropped even in schools are starting - I am crossing my fingers for March 21st, when the state mandate goes away. King County might extend it because, well, they are King County and despite insanely high vaccination rates, are always the last ones to the party.

We are in the middle of our mid winter break, and while we didn't go anywhere, I did take the kids on an outing yesterday. Lynsey wanted to go to the mall with her friend Maggie, so I dropped them off, and took all three of my boys (how sad that I'm calling Jasper one of my boys lol!) over to Richmond Beach park for an hour and a half or so. They had a great time! It was a beautiful afternoon, and Nathan enjoyed taking Jasper around and even had quite an adventure at one point when he got a bit further from the beach than I would have liked:-/. In his words, he "went to hell and back" lol. I'm just happy he made it back! Apparently he had to climb under a fence, which made me cringe a bit but I'm glad he had a fun adventure and lived to tell the tale:-). We went for frozen yogurt, picked up the girls and headed home. I realized that I don't often do these kinds of outings anymore, and I probably should do them more. They really enjoyed it and it was a nice change of scenery for me, too. I wasn't thrilled to be driving in traffic again, but I probably should do that once in a while anyway so I don't forget how:-D.

Next weekend we are having a small birthday party for Nathan - our baby is going to be TEN years old! Crazy!

Survived January!

What has been happening around here the last three weeks or so . . . well, we still haven't caught Covid by some miracle, at least not that we know of. Nathan submitted a drawing for the yearbook cover contest but was robbed, sigh. His idea was definitely the most interesting:-). Brian went to a hockey game with some friends, tried to take the kids snowboarding on MLK Jr. Day but there was an "incident". Nathan got a bit carsick and threw up all over all his clothes and snowboarding stuff. This sadly meant they had to turn around and come home. He was able to take them this past Saturday so that was fun for them! Adam's therapy has been going full time, not sure if I mentioned in my last post that it started back up. I hope it works out, so far so good although he is a bit more irritable these days. I think the adjustment of going back to therapy is a bit much but he will get there. 

My application to be an emergency sub got approved! I'm just waiting to get through the next set of hoops now. I should have already heard from someone to set up an HR appointment but I haven't yet, will give it a few more days before inquired about it. I'm a bit nervous to get started but I think it will be good for me - get out of my comfort zone!

We did plan our Spring Break trip, we are going to meet Brian's parents in Victoria. Looking forward to a fairly relaxing week! Also figuring out all the summer camp stuff for the kids, Lynsey aged out of Sambica so I found this overnight camp for her near Yakima that I think I will sign up for (sounds like her friend Maggie is in). Hopefully she enjoys it, I can only hope at this stage in her life:-/.

February is here - one step closer to Spring!