Tourism and Professional Development

Today is day number 17 of the July blogging challenge. The prompt for today is Classroom DIY. And I really don't know that I have anything of substance to add yet. I am one of those better-under-pressure kind of people, and it is not close enough to school starting for me to have things completed for my classroom. But I've had some much going on in just plain old life, that I will talk about today just a little bit. Link up or just head over and read about everyone else's DIY classroom projects.

Earlier in the year, my principal came to me and asked if would want to go to the CHAMPS national conference in Portland, Oregon. So here I am, ready to learn from Randy Sprick about classroom management.

 My friend Jim came and gave me a ride to the airport this morning. We are laughing at my inability to figure out the selfie camera.

Here I am on the plane ready to take off from Wichita. You can't even tell that yes, I really did do my hair this morning. Nonetheless I was excited about this trip.

This is the view from our room. I feel a little like I'm in heaven.

scenery: we are not in Kansas anymore....

Check out the trees.

What we were looking at was the sign showing a bike hitting the trolley tracks and the person falling off.

It was a balmy 70 degrees when we got here today. Back in Kansas it was 95 and humid. We walked around to go sight seeing. And caught a streetcar and found a quaint pizza place.

I thought this little coke bottle was so cute.

This is called the Pork Belly pizza. Yum!!

This one was the Cauliflower pizza. Pretty tasty.

 I was so tired. Too tired to be much fun. And too tired to really take in what a great city this is. It is beautiful, the weather is lovely, and there's so much to see. There is a giant bookstore called Powell's and it takes up an entire block. Book heaven. We were only there for a little while. I thought, "oh we can go back after we eat..." but traveling fatigue caught up with me and we had to come back to our hotel. Which is gorgeous!

The introvert in me is longing for that peace, quiet and downtime that blogging brings. When it is just me and the thoughts in my head, I feel the calm, I relax and rejuvenate. I can breathe. And get ready for a big social push again tomorrow. Ah.... I know that writing is calming. Just the sound of my fingers pounding the keyboard.

I am looking forward to tomorrow and to learning about teaching in a way that is gentle, honest, kind and effective. Look out CHAMPS conference, here I come!