Tuesday, March 12, 2013

DECA State Competition

The weekend of March 1-3 in Virginia Beach my students competed at the state DECA conference. This is always one of the highlights of our year, but it is also one of the most stressful and exhausting weeks/weekends for me. This year we had a state officer so I went on Wednesday with her to prepare. My 21 other students came on Friday and the events began. I also had a few former students come visit. It is always rewarding to hear about their successes since high school and find out that I have had an impact on their life. Competition ended Sunday with Grand Awards and we had quite a few finalists. We ended up having 4 students qualified for the international competition, which will be April 23-29 in Anaheim, CA. What do you do after you win at states? You go to Disneyland!!!

Seriously though, as hard as I work and as exhausted as I am after this event, it always reminds me of what I do this for when I see my students accomplish such amazing things and be so proud of themselves. It's such a wonderful feeling and I'm such a proud teacher/advisor/sort of parent of all of my amazing students!

With my state officer Lexy
The 2012-2013 VA State Officer Team - Love these kids!
My chapter - and that is the DECA Diamond we are making
Two of my chapter officers after we received our first award


One of our written event competitors
A few of our winners and my Outstanding Advisor Award
Kiara (on the left) won 1st place and Emily won 3rd place!
Our chapter President and I have been through a lot and she has done a wonderful job

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Disney Trip 2013

Below are links to all the postings for our trip so you don't miss anything :)








Magic Kingdom Take Two

We spent the day in Fantasyland. I decided to be perfectly fine with taking our time and seeing whatever we could see. The new parts of Fantasyland are pretty fantastic but I can't wait to go back and see the finished product. While waiting in line to ride Dumbo (a requirement as far as I'm concerned) the kids got to play in a huge circus play area. We saw a show and rode the Winnie the Pooh and Little Mermaid rides. 

We met Ariel and then waited in a long line for Enchanted Tails with Belle (there is no fast pass for this). Beauty and The Beast is the kid's favorite Disney movie especially since this was their Halloween costume so we felt that this line was something we had to wait in. It started out as story time and then we moved into another room where the magic wardrobe told us we were going to put on a play for Belle. Noah was picked to be a guard and Tanner was picked to play the Beast! He had to roar and surprised us all with a nice big one. During the play we thought he would be super shy but he roared and then at the end he got to dance with Belle!! My shy boy made it all the way through and it was so exciting. Then we got pictures with Belle and Izabel was on cloud nine. 


These kids asked if they could take a picture with our beautiful Princess!


 



Video of Tanner dancing with Belle

For dinner we went to Cinderella's castle and ate at the Royal Table. We got to meet Cinderella and Izzy got her picture taken while she was all dressed up. We met Ariel again, Aurora (sleeping beauty), Jasmine, and Snow White and had some amazing food. All-in-all it was an amazing magical day and a great way to end our wonderful trip!






Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique

Friday we all felt so much better. Grandma, me and Izzy headed over to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for Izabel's Princess makeover. I was probably more excited about this than anyone else, but my little princess loved it too. Izabel got to dress up just like Cinderella complete with glass slippers. Then her fairy godmother in training did her hair, makeup, nails, and accessories to complete her transformation. They did a great job and I was super impressed.









 


Magic Kingdom Take One

On Thursday our plan was to head to Magic Kingdom super early to see the pre-opening show and do as much of the park as we could. Unfortunately Izzy had a high fever and couldn't really get out of bed. Noah and I took her to urgent care and got some antibiotics. Her fever was gone and she perked right up so we figured we could get a few hours in at the park (don't judge). We started off by watching the parade on Main Street, which ended up being Izabel's favorite part. Then we went to Tomorrowland and watched the Monsters Inc show and rode the Toy Story ride. We got smoothies because it was a particularly hot day and Tanner got to drive on the race track. We started heading for another part of the park, but we were all feeling pretty crummy so we decided to head to Downtown Disney for an early dinner and call it a night so we could all feel better for our big day on Friday. We ate at a dinosaur themed restaurant and got some candy from Goofy's candy shop (the best one in our opinion). Candy makes everything better!