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Sunday, May 13, 2012

Charleston 2012

I returned on Sunday from a 4 day trip to Myrtle Beach/Charleston trip. This is the annual gifted trip that I help chaperone. We had such a great time!

I do not post pictures of students, but here are a very few of the hundreds of pictures that I took.

We started out with a tour of  Murrell’s Inlet. The kids really got into this. They loved the boat ride, beach walk, and eco tour. Fun, Fun!

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Next stop: Ripley’s Aquarium- Myrtle Beach. It’s an aquarium. Seen one, seen em all. (That’s just my opinion; I feel sure the kids liked it.)

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Good Vibrations show: Myrtle Beach. Excellent show!! I highly recommend this show. Our students loved every minute, and I did, too!

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The next day we toured the beautiful city of Charleston. I love Charleston. Jeff and I spent a long weekend in the city once, and we loved it so much!

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I always enjoy the tour of The Citadel. I was amazed at the number of students who did not know what The Citadel is. We must add that to our research before the next trip we take.

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Since the last time I visited The Citadel, they have added this huge ring. I took a picture of it because the first time I ever learned of The Citadel was at AC’s house one 4th of July. They had a friend was a graduate of The Citadel, and he lost his ring in the lake at the 4th party. I remember it being a huge loss.

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That night we took them on a guided ghost tour of the city. We broke into small groups with several different guides. Our guide was such a great story teller. I am not into ghost stories myself, but I realize that ghosts are part of Charleston folklore, so I respect it as just that. The tour guides have keys to all of the cemeteries, so we went in to a few of them, but he would have to lock the gate behind us. Smile I had a group of all girls, and that creeped them out. At one point, they were all hugging me so tight, I could barely breathe. One TINY little girl squeezed me so tight that she literally lifted me OFF THE GROUND! The guide did a great job of ending the tour with a lighter story of a puppy ghost at a restaurant, and then walked us back through some well lit areas so that they girls ended on a less scared note. Everyone slept fine, I am pleased to report.

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The next day was spent at Patriot’s Point aboard the USS Yorktown, and then we went out to Ft. Sumter. That night we headed out to the waterfront for a professional picture and some playtime in the park.

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These women were the chaperones on our bus. We had 2 busses, and our bus also had 2 dads. I was blessed with AWESOME helpers.

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The last day was spent at Boone Hall. It’s quite a lovely place today, but it has a sad history full of slavery.

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By this point in the trip I was about delirious, so when one of the kids asked to use my camera, this is what she got when she asked me to pose:

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That’s what happens when you spend 4 days with 79 middle schoolers.

By the way: I got my test scores back for this year. 100% passed reading and 98.9% Language Arts. (only 1 kid failed) That’s my highest percentages ever!

Thanks to Janice and Jenna Marae- we made a team this year!

Further, nearly 30% exceeded in reading and 50% exceeded in Language Arts!

It’s been a heck of a year, but gains were made. We aren’t where we want to be, but we aren’t where we were.

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