Snail Mail

I love snail mail! I love checking the mailbox and finding something there besides just advertisements and junk. I also love paper, especially beautiful writing paper and envelopes (and, of course, scrapbooking paper, but we'll save that subject for another time). The other day I saw some envelopes made with old maps. I knew I had an old road atlas somewhere in the attic, so I dug it out of a box, and my daughter and I spent an afternoon making the envelopes and stationery pictured above. They were quick and fun to make and I wanted to make a LOT more, but I thought maybe I should use these first and write some letters. So, if I have your snail mail address, don't be surprised if someday soon (or...not so soon) you get a little something in the mail from me! And if I don't have your address and you like mail as much as I do, give me your info and I'll be glad to write to you. I've been writing a lot more letters in the past few months. I've been inspired by my new pen-friend Julie, and her blog The Letter Writing Revolution "Revitalizing a lost art one letter at a time". I am also intrigued by the idea of "mailart". Elle at Art of a Letter sent me some of her "stampart" in the mail. It's so intricate, and very beautiful. My daughters and I also recently joined Postcrossing. We send and receive postcards all around the world. Here are some of the postcards I have received so far:

It's so much fun to get a brightly colored card from a person in some random place around the world! Does mail make you happy, too? Write a letter or send a card to brighten someone's day, and maybe you'll get one back!
P.S. If you send one to me, you will definitely get one back!

More Fun With Central Elementary Superstars

This last week I again had the opportunity to teach an intersession class at Central Elementary. Yay! I taught all four sessions, Monday through Thursday. My class was called "Puppets and Play". On the first day of class, my students each made a sock puppet. Then they wrote their own puppet script, learned about puppeteering, and on the last day they performed their puppet play for another class. Their puppets and puppet plays were very creative! It was fun to watch them working together to write their scripts to include all of the different puppets. One group's puppets included an alien, a mad scientist, a "beavcoon" (part beaver, part racoon), and a pink girl! They were all a little nervous about performing for another class, but they did a great job, and everyone had a lot of fun!

New York, New York

While watching the New Year's Eve coverage on TV last night, waiting for the "ball" to drop, I was looking at all the people in Times Square and thinking how glad I was to be home. Just a few days before, we had been snowed in, in New York City! We left on the morning of the 25th, intending to stay two nights in the city. We bravely drove all the way into the city. My husband did the driving, and I did the navigating after "Lola" (our GPS) got a little confused with all of the tall buildings around. We found our hotel, which was less than a block away from Times Square, entrusted our minivan to the valet, and checked in to our room on the 12th floor. We spent the rest of the day and evening walking around and getting to know NYC again, eating some great pizza, etc. Here's the view from our window when we first got there.

The next morning we walked to Central Park, and it started to snow. It was so cold, we had to stop and buy hats to keep our heads warm. We slowly made our way back to the hotel, making stops along the way at some of our favorite stores, and by the time we got back to the hotel, it was a full fledged blizzard outside!



Snow, wind, and we were even getting "thundersnow"! I had never heard of this before...didn't even know it could happen...but we were in the middle of a thunderstorm, only with snow! We had tickets for a Broadway show, so we braved the storm and walked a couple of blocks in our nice clothes to see "Billy Elliot".


I always thought it would be fun to see a Broadway show, and it was, BUT I would NOT recommend this show to anyone. The music, dancing, acting, and effects were all great, however the language was horrible, and parts of the storyline very distasteful. There were children using terrible language, and the audience was laughing and enjoying it. This was very disturbing to my family and I, and we wish we would have been able to see some other show. Equally as disturbing to me was the fact that every review I read about this show was wonderful, and it was deemed "appropriate for all audiences". We were very disappointed, but we did enjoy all the aspects of the Broadway show in general.

By the time the show was over, the snow was really piling up. The next morning, we were officially snowed in, with no safe way to get out. So we had to stay another night. We tried to make the best of it, but it was miserable trying to walk anywhere, with snow and slush everywhere and very cold strong winds. So we mostly stayed inside. We were very thankful for the deli just a few steps away from our hotel!




The next morning we checked out and spent most of the day in traffic trying to get home.
It was an adventure we will never forget, but we were SO glad to finally get home!