Five for Friday-July 4th Edition

                                      

I am linking up today with Doodlebugs Teaching for her Five on Friday linky party.  Please forgive the awkward layout of my post.  I have been trying to use the Blogger app on my iPhone for adding photos to my posts because it is so much easier, but sometimes the layout gets wonky and I don't know how to fix it.  Let's just say this post took me WAY longer to put together than it should have.  If you make it all the way to #5 you will find something school related.  Enjoy!

                                                           

We started our week in IL for a baseball tournament our youngest was in.  We stayed at Key Lime Cove Waterpark in Gurnee and played two games on Saturday and two games on Sunday.  We were knocked out of the tournament by the team we beat last weekend to win the championship.  We had a great time at the waterpark.  Only Ben, Cooper, and I went down Friday because my other son Drew had his own baseball tournament in Waukesha, so he and my husband (his coach) had a game at 8 PM on Friday night and another at 10 AM Saturday morning.  

Greg and Drew came down Sat afternoon in time to see most of Cooper's 2 PM game.  The plan was for Greg and Drew to stay Sat night and then head back early Sunday morning for Drew's game, but it ended up being cancelled due to rain.  We were bummed that Drew's team didn't get to finish our their tournament, but happy that we were finally able to all be together!

Ballon glove and ball

Big and little together

                                                         

This week Greg and I squeezed in a date night at this amazing restaurant Parkside 23 that comes highly recommended by a couple of my friends.  They try to locally source as much food as possible and they also have their own garden.  The food is amazing.

My husband had salmon and I had a chicken pot pie with sauteed kale

Between my son's 2 PM and 6 PM game we had an hour to find somewhere to eat. After driving around in the middle of nowhere for 15 min trying to find somewhere to grab a bite to eat we came upon The Shanty Restaurant.  Unbeknownst to us, it was featured on  Food Network's DDD.  The food was great and it was a happy surprise for us.

Last night was the opening night of our local 4th of July Civic Celebration.  My middle son went with his friend Brett and apparently they won this oversized Jamaican banana playing some sort of game and they have decided to share custody of said banana.  Hopefully Brett will just keep it.  LOL  Greg took my youngest to the park where they road rides and played games (and I'm sure my husband had a beer or three).  I gave them very specific instructions that under no circumstance could anyone bring home goldfish this year.  Last year we ended up with a bunch of scary carney fish.  There is nothing more disgusting than a grey goldfish.  Eww.  Seriously they all creeped me out big time.

Don't worry, be happy  

Last night my oldest and I were just not in the mood to hit the celebration so we ended up having dinner at Panera and then getting some FroYo.  I can't believe it's July and it's the first time we are getting froyo,  Shhhh don't tell his brothers we went without them. ;)

I think I love you Yo Fresh

And just to add something school related.  These are two books I got this week.  The first was a book recommended to me by someone on #sunchat.  My principal was nice enough to order it for me and have is sent to my house.  I wanted to read it because I will be doing Tier 2 Math RTI this year for the first time.

The second book is on conferring with students.  Improving how I do this is one of my main goals for this coming year.  Funny story, this book has been sold out on Amazon for weeks, I went to Barnes & Noble online the other day and it was sold out.  When I checked I found out my local store had a copy so I put one on hold.  I had until the end of business the night we went out to dinner to pick up the book.  After our date night I made my husband stop at Barnes & Noble so I could get it.  He had no idea what book I was picking up, but thought it was something for fun.  When he asked what book I got, I told him Guided Math Conferences.  I explained to him how it was not available on Amazon and he was like, Yeah that's because they probably only made a few copies, who would want to read that?!  I was totally cracking up.  Only a math teacher would get excited about this book, right?! He just does not get my hoarding problem healthy obsession with professional books.  I will be joining this summer Guided Math Conferences Book Study.  This will be my third summer of doing a book study.  In summer 2012, I participated in the Guided Math Book Study and last year I hosted the Minds on Math Book Study.  I do love a summer book study, it keeps me focused and I love to share ideas with other teachers and see how they implement math workshop.

Our plans for the fourth are to head to a pool party this afternoon.  I'm not sure that we are even going to see the parade this morning.  As a general rule, I am not a fan of parades, but if I can hang out in a tent having a bloody mary then parade I will watch.  Our friends we usually go to the parade with and watch from the elaborate bloody mary tent are not going this year.  Not sure if any of the boys will want to go.  

This weekend is the first weekend since mid May that we do not have a LAX or BB tournament so my husband and I have big plans for getting the house clean/organized and doing some yardwork.  I would like to get the house in order because we have another waterpark/bb tourney coming up, as well as, another weekend bb tourney and then it's time for our summer vacation. Can't wait! 

Hope you all have a wonderful fourth of July!  The weather today looks beautiful so I am excited to soak up some sun somewhere other than a baseball field!