A Farewell to Miss Day at Westside

Knowing this day would come since I was given the principal job in March, I tried my hardest to pretend I didn't have to say good bye to Westside Elementary. But the last week of school was here and I knew my replacement wouldn't want to share the office with me, so I started to pack. I tried to keep busy that whole week and not think about the fact that I would no longer see all my Westside friends everyday. It did help that a few of my good friends weren't returning either, but still the last day of school was going to be a sad day.

At noon the kids ran screaming through the halls out to the buses waiting to take them away for the summer. Then it was time for the closing faculty luncheon where we say good bye to all those not returning. We had a yummy lunch then started to give those funeral like presentations where someone says really nice things about you and then talks about how much they will miss you and everyone is crying.
We had 10 such presentations for teachers and other faculty members not returning. Each one was given a book where the staff had written their well wishes inside. Then it was my turn, the best for last. :) My friend and office next-door-neighbor, Teresa, read a poem she had written herself called, "It's About Time," that talked about time for different things in our lives and had given me a gorgeous clock to go with it. Then my dear friend and principal Sara talked about all the great things I did for her and for the school and gave me a present that would help me make critical decisions as a principal... a Magic 8 ball. The grand finale present was something they thought I would be able to use a lot in my new job. I unwrapped the gift to find a megaphone but then they wanted me to open the box to find that my new megaphone had been bedazzled and decorated Barnett Bulldog style! It was fabulous. Then I had to give my little farewell speech and of course tried to be funny so as not to shed too many tears. I just thanked them all for being supportive and for making it such a joy to come to work each and every day at Westside. I feel ready to be a principal because of my experiences at Westside and will never forget that!

So my office is all packed up, I had a yard sale and sold ALL my teacher stuff... guess the next thing I need to do is move into Barnett and figure out what the heck I do as a principal!

My good friend and awesome school psychologist, Effie and I with our good-bye books.

Super amazing teacher, Vicki and me! Vicki is going to stay home to be a mom so her good bye book is very appropriate for her. Mine is pretty cool too, Imagine A Day! Haha, get it?

Here is the creator of my bedazzled megaphone, Teresa! I know you are all jealous and want to use my super cool megaphone. She may go into business spicing up boring megaphones, watch for it!

Dear teacher friends who I will miss! You can't read it, but the sticker on my shirt says, "My principal thinks I'm great!" I'm cool like that.

More of my dear teacher friends. Aren't they just so cute?!

Sara and I with our National Geographic Bee Champion Medals. We are so awesome we won without even competing!

A final picture of the dream team, Principal Sara, Instructional Coach Eric, and Staff Developer Angela. We are showing off my cute shoes because shoes often don't make it in pictures. Don't we just look like fun?

Touring Moab Red Rock Style

Once upon a time there was a girl named Angela Day who thought it would be fun to train for a half marathon. She trained hard and the day of the race had terrible weather, terrible knee problems, and finished the race with a terrible time. Angela thought she may never run in a race again. Then there was the Red Rock Relay. The Red Rock Relay is a team race where a group of 6 people run two different times, varying lengths, to run all over Moab and surrounding areas for a total of 70 miles. Some friends had asked me a couple times to run with them and with visions of my half-marathon downfall still fresh in my head I tried to say no. Then when I was informed it was a race of fun and they didn't care if I walked the whole thing I decided to say, "Yes!" and I started to train for RRR. Our team, the Running Queens, was made up of 5 cute, seasoned race runners, and me... just cute. :) We tye-died our race shirts, decorated the van all up, and were headed to Moab to show the other teams that the Running Queens would be the Royalty of this race!

I was the first runner and was given the easier legs of the race, or so we thought. It was supposed to be around 85 degrees the day of the race so I was glad my first race was in the morning when it was actually a bit chilly. After my first run I had 5 kills! A kill is when you pass someone while running. I was feeling pretty good about my kills until Kelli and Heather ran next and got 13 kills each. Oh well, I was having a great time cheering our runner on from the van, laughing at other Team Names like Running Rockettes (we decided they were our arch enemies), Swoobs and Swass, and Aching Arches to name a few. As the afternoon crept up on us so did some clouds, which were glad about to keep the heat down. While the clouds rolled in, the hills got steeper. Cami and Alicia were the end of our first round of running and they started the climb towards the highest part of the race. Then it was time for my second run. By this time the clouds were thick and while it looked like it would rain it just dribbled a bit, but the wind was moving. My second leg was straight uphill for 2.75 miles. I tried to run it but it was just too steep so I hiked as fast as my legs would go. With the head wind pushing me back I put my head down and just kept going. I also found that with very little air at such a high elevation not being able to breathe also made this leg a little tricky. Luckily the other racers around me were having the same issues as we all ascended up this mountain walking rather than trying to attempt a run. On my final hill of the leg I did manage to run to the exchange point and collected one more kill for a total of 5 on this one too. Kills still count even if you pass people walking! Eventually the storm clouds moved on leaving the dreaded heat for our last three runners. But a little over 10 hours later we all ran to the finish line as a team in our matching tye-died Running Queens shirts! And we got the medals to prove it! Finally I had competed in a race with a medal at the end, just what I always wanted! We added the last few of our kills to the tally on our van for a total of 64 kills, got cleaned up a bit, and headed home after a long day of running, cheering, driving, and laughing all over Moab and the La Sal Mountains. It feels great to say I accomplished my goal very happily this time around and even better to say I did it with friends. A lesson well learned, goals are always easier to accomplish with friends to help you and cheer you on along the way.
Go Running Queens!

For now go to http://flo-foto.com/photos.php?RaceId=16&BibNumber=66 to see some pictures of the Running Queens. Once I get more pics I will post them on here!