What the He!! is a Fog Delay?

I grew up in a town where if there was a quarter inch of snow on the ground... BAM. Two hour delay.  Oh, it's 8 degrees outside? Two-hour delay.  Even where I taught last year in West Virginia... any snow was a two-hour delay or cancelled school.  Okay, it makes sense (a little).

Which is why I was surprised to wake up to a delay this morning.  Hmm... It's 46 degrees outside... probably not snowing.  What could it be?  I look outside to see this:

No, this is not a personal photo... I stole it from the internet, but it definitely captures the effect.  Apparently, in Maryland's eastern shore, fog is a very common thing.  Who knew it would be so dangerous?  They delay school until the fog has lifted.  Even then, I heard about some accidents this morning.  Kind of sucks, but guess what?  I got to sleep in!  Which was great :-)

Friday evening, my school had an auction.  It was crazy.  There were donated items for both a live and silent auction.  Everything from restaurant gift certificates to lunch with the mayor to Disney passes.  The PTA hosted a spaghetti dinner.  I can't even imagine how much money they made.  Tons of people came and they auctioned off hundreds of donated items... that's right: everything was donated!  They had to have made thousands and thousands of dollars.  It was the best PTA fundraiser I have ever seen!  The kids were all piled into classrooms and given potato chips while they watched movies so their parents could attend the auction and spend money without having to watch their kids.  It was genious.  I helped out a bit with the kids auction (mp3 players and wii games!) and with the movie.  It was a good night :-)

Yesterday, it was our intention to go to Ocean City for the day and spend some time together.  This was the plan:  Wake up early.  Make breakfast burritos (which we love!).  Do all the laundry.  Go to Ocean City and have lunch at my favorite OC restaurant, The Shark on the Harbor.  Walk the board walk.  See the ocean while the leaves are turning color and falling... which we have never done.  We promised ourselves that we would not go to the beach until all laundry was washed and folded.  Well, we share a laundry room with the other townhomes in our development.  It has 5 washers and 5 dryers, so it's not a problem if someone else is already doing laundry... we use the other ones.  Well... don't you know that every single washer is full of already washed, wet, stale clothes.  Hmmm... We say, "Well, we will come back in about 15 minutes and hopefully they will be gone."   6 hours later it was gone.  We didn't go to the beach.  Meh.

This week is American Education Week at school.  The parents get to come in during school and observe/participate in classes with their kids.  Here are the pros and cons:

Pros:

• If I was a parent, I would be excited to see what my kids do in school
• As a teacher, I am excited for parents to see what they are learning
• It puts kids on good behavior if they know mom or dad is watching.
• Good way to get parents involved.

Cons:

• Last year there was an incident with an attempted child abduction so now they are SUPER protective about who comes in the school and when and how they sign in.
• Sometimes kids show off for their parents
• I feel like my room needs to be spick and span all week
• I hate punishing kids in front of their parents, but it sometimes needs to be done.
• When the parents sit there and talk while their kids are being attentive, I want to punch them in the face.

Long week ahead... How was your weekend?