combining my love of education with my love of planning...

another thing that keeps me pretty busy in life is my work in the public school system...it's been a long and bumpy road with LOTS of changes and since I never know what's going to be around the next corner, I take every opportunity that presents itself to me...that opportunity (last summer) was teaching summer school...at the middle school...most of you who know me know that i am much better suited to young ones...but i was up for the challenge...and i was delightfully surprised...i was scheduled to help with the summer reading program called Read 180 and got to work with some very special middle schoolers...part of the plan for their summer schooling included a few planned events and well, you know that was right up my alley...about midway through we created what we like to call The Bayou Book Bistro...

There is nothing better than seeing excitement for learning in the eyes of a junior high kid and we pulled out all the stops from the minute they walked into the door.

This is all done with plastic tablecloths and Mardi Gras decor off the clearance rack at Party City.  One of the teachers had also happened upon a garage sale where they had a box full of Mardi Gras party stuff for a couple bucks.

We placed "menus" at each set of tables which gave the kids a set of "appetizer" questions, "main course" questions, and "dessert" questions to discuss about their particular book.  Then they would rotate to the next set of tables and discuss some more.

We also fed them, which didn't hurt any :)

The other two teachers (Tesha & Charmika) had some down-home experience with cajun cooking...

A good time was had by all!!