Goodbye Teacher!

After 8 wonderful years of teaching, I am changing careers; or rather, getting rid of one of my two careers so I can focus on the most important one. 

My days will now be filled with runny noses, laundry, milk spills, grocery stores, naptimes, dirty dishes, walks to the park, snacks, doctor checkups, time outs, and bills.
And I couldn't be happier about it!

A part of me will miss teaching. But I'm so glad that I had this past year to try to teach full-time while raising two small kids . . . because I think it cured me from ever wishing that I could do both! This past year was pretty difficult. 

So I am D-O-N-E. School finished last Thursday (May 30th). I said goodbye to my students at our end-of-year school dance:

And we said goodbye to our sweet babysitter:

On Friday, I officially checked out with the principal and I got the last few things cleaned out of my classroom . . . with some help:

Brian was there helping too-- he just didn't make it into the photos. And that's not all MY stuff in that photo, by the way. Another teacher was already moving into my classroom. I was pretty proud of how much stuff I was able to give away and throw away. I have one stack of boxes in our basement (floor to ceiling!) and one well-stocked pre-school corner in Porter's room. The other 90% of my teaching stuff is gone. It felt so nice to throw so much stuff out!

And while I am so happy about moving on to the next phase of my life, I couldn't help but tear up a bit when Brian gave me this on the morning of my last day of school:

It was a great 8 years!