8 Days

Eight school days left with the students. Every year it's hard to believe that we have just about come to the end of another cycle. All of the hopes, dreams, planning, tears, frustrations, and joys with this year's class are almost done. For some kids it's too soon, and for others -- way too late!

A week ago Saturday I spent five hours with two of my 5th grade students, Madisen & TR. Their moms had bought the woodworking project at the school auction back in March. They were wonderful, did a good job on their duck marionette, and learned a few things in the process about wood grain, sanding, cutting, staining, drilling. No cut fingers either!

Yesterday we had a full day...In the morning I went with 14 men and boys from church and we canoed the Wekiva River, swam in the 72 degree spring, had lunch, and then came home. We had a great time of fun and fellowship. The water was refreshing and clear, the day not too warm, and I saw a pair of green herons and a swallow tailed kite, among the usual river birds. Saw 2 gators basking in the sun and a soft shelled turtle the size of a garbage can cover. Lots of large yellow eared turtles also.

In the evening we went to a dinner with my disbanding Search Committee from TCS. It was nice to know that our job was finished and that we were the instrument that God used to bring His special choice to TCS. We had dinner at one of the committee members' houses and then went to our new school head's house for dessert. It was fun to reminisce about the events of the past 15 months. I became good friends with all eight of the committee members -- had to! We spent 2 to 3 hours together each week for months!

It's started to rain again once in a while. We had several showers Thursday, which gave us about 1.6 inches of rain. The down side is that we had a small water leak in our kitchen. I got some rubberized roof caulk and hit every likely spot on that corner of the roof. Hopefully, that will take care of things.