May can be a tough month for teachers. You are so close to the end, but all the students keep going absolutely haywire, making teaching twice as difficult. A significant upside is the change in weather – recess duty is much more bearable now than it has been for months!
Another bright spot in the midst of the chaos – teacher appreciation week! I could get on a soapbox about how as a country we should pay teachers what they’re worth instead of giving them discounts and free things periodically…but that’s for another post. Seriously though, it feels great to get acknowledged for the work that you put in all school year, and getting treats at school almost makes up for the kids driving you up the wall.
[In a related story, during morning bus duty the other day, the preschoolers were literally climbing the siding on the outside of the school. They didn’t make it very far. But they were climbing the walls.]
A few weeks ago, I got an email from the Colorado Rockies about discounted tickets for teacher appreciation week. Since moving to Colorado, I’ve become an absolute football addict. I’ve even followed the trades happening during free agency, and actually listened to the radio broadcast of the draft. It’s gotten bad, folks. But considering where I live, it’s a lot more affordable to go to a baseball game, and there was a point in time when I was much more obsessed with baseball stats, so I decided to check out the deal.
The part they sold me on?
A free Colorado Rockies tumbler that said “Teachers Rock!”
One of my only addictions worse than football – coffee mugs. I was sold. And so were the tickets after fighting with the website multiple times.
It was a Friday night game, so we rushed around after work to head downtown. We’re actually pretty comfortable driving around downtown, and even know parts of LoDo pretty well. But we weren’t totally sure about getting to Coors Field, so we listened to Google. Who betrayed us. And took us down some seriously sketchy parts of the city thanks to road construction. It was almost hilarious to watch the changes in neighborhoods – from abandoned warehouses, to warehouses that clearly were supposed to look somewhat abandoned still because that’s the chic look. There were even people doing a photo shoot outside one of them. It was the picture of gentrification.
We finally made it to the game, had better seats than we would normally get, I picked up my “free” mug, and enjoyed the whole purpose of the evening – to eat stadium food. Hot dogs, peanuts, and pretzels! Oh, and I think there was a game happening on the field too 😉 It was comical hearing a father behind us explaining the game to his kids…until I had to start asking Peter to explain to me what was/wasn’t happening. The game had an exciting close – bases loaded, all-star at bat, the possibility for the home team to come from behind and win the game at the bottom of the ninth – but they blew it and lost. Oh well!
All in all, it was a great date night, and I was grateful to have the chance to sit in seats where I could actually see what was happening on the field thanks to the teacher appreciation discount!
On a semi-regular basis, Peter will make the bed and tell stories using the stuffed animals. For the day of the game, we had a baseball game going!
Discovering Denver 