Day 21 LAST POST

(Blogged by Stacey)

Like they say...."All good things must come to an end."  Today is the day that our journey out West must come to an end.  However, even though our vacation is coming to an end, the memories that we made over the past three weeks will last a lifetime!  We have experienced an adventure of a lifetime!  We have seen so much beauty and have learned so much about the Western part of the United States.  This trip has brought us together, as a family.  We have laughed together, learned together and created memories that will forever be with us.  Now, Ben and I have the challenge to go back home and take what we've learned and pay it forward.  We will be co-authoring some children's emergent readers about our adventures in the West, and will give these books to Kindergarten-2nd grade classrooms in Marshall County.  I will also be developing some units/lessons to use in my classroom based on our travels and concepts learned.  I would personally like to thank Lilly Endowment for the opportunity of a lifetime.  Your generous Teacher Creativity grant made this Western adventure possible.  Thank you for not only the opportunity for personal renewal but for investing in me, as a professional, to learn as well.  I have always lived by the philosophy that learning never stops, it's a lifelong process.  This grant has afforded my son and I the luxury of enriching our own schema, renewing my passion for learning, providing meaningful and authentic time spent reading and writing together, and then passing what we have learned and experienced on to the young students of Marshall County.  Thank you for investing in me, as a teacher with 20 years of teaching experience in Indiana, the renewal it has provided has been a huge blessing in my life!

http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=411200008


                                 Our view from the sky....in the airplane flying home