Weekend!

What a fun weekend! Tubing, 4.5 mile race, friends, food, and beautiful weather. Here's the details:

Sarah and I watched the movie Akeelah and the Bee on Thursday night. (which was great since she didn't have any studies to do!!! her rotations have been doing orientation for a few days; the real deal starts later this week...dum dum dum....). It was a neat movie on its own, but what made me enjoy it even more was that it directly related with the current coursework in my online grad school classes at Walden University! I had been struggling with being interested in the course this week since it seemed to all be about teaching kindergarteners to read without a whole lot of application for me. The movie, however, had elements of phonics, etymologies, spelling games, and other activities that I associated with my latest lectures and readings, and I even wrote a paper this week using one of the games in the movie! It was a well-needed shot in the arm to help me finish up the week's assignments.

Saturday morning was an early: 6:30AM in West Philly to meet the bus. My students and I ran in a 4.5 mile race sponsored by Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church. This was the first race with me being the main leader, so I was a little nervous. Unfortunately, the bus was over an hour late, causing us to arrive JUST as the race started (thankfully for us, the church started the race 15 minutes late...gotta love the African American culture!). The kids had a good run despite the hilly course. Two of our runners were flat out lazy and finished BEHIND the ambulance. Finding intrinsic motivation on a warm day isn't always easy for everyone.

This week we start city-wide Students Run clinics. Our first one is in the graveyard behind our school! I'm interested in seeing how the students respond to having a bunch of kids from all over Philly come run in our backyard. They were pretty excited about it before, so let's hope it continues.

Sarah's new apartment is taking shape. It's been great fun for me to help her move in and figure out how she and her new roommate's place is going to look. (okay, so maybe I'm not too thrilled with all the designing part of it, but I can move beds and dressures and run wires through desks with the best of 'em!). It really is a beautiful place, and we've talked about its potential for hosting friends. She's lacking a TV, but what's more exciting...a TV or a roof deck?!? C'mon.

Yesterday about 25 of us went out tubing down the Brandywine River in Deleware after church. The 90+ degree heat made for a PERFECT day on the tubes. Traffic held our group up over an hour past our start time, and the tubing company wasn't too happy and dropped us farther down the river than expected. Still, we had a good hour in the water. Families were splashing in it all over the place.

After our ride, we went back to Libby's house for John's smoothies, pizza and fondu. John and Libby sure know how to host a party! What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday in the summer.

The latest forecast calls for temperatures to be over 100 today here. Yikes!