We had a faculty meeting today after school. Beforehand, the Immanuelites from church made us "supper." They cooked pizza in the ancient oven at school, served up fruit and vegetable trays, and poured us juice and lemonade. A little before lunch, I got a phone call from this sweet old lady who belongs to the Immanuelites. She wondered if she could perhaps borrow one of the white tables that was in my room to set up for our teacher appreciation meal. Of course I let her use it. She brought it into Miss H's room and put a fancy valentine tablecloth on it and some fake flowers and pretty valentine paper with special apple and heart shapes stamped out of it. Whoo! It was pretty spectacular. There was also a collection of delicious chocolates in dishes on the table, plus a bowl of snack mix. When all the kids were loaded on the buses, we gathered round the kitchen and the two ladies serving us gave a little speech about how grateful and blessed they are to have such a wonderful staff at Immanuel, etc. Our cook was there too, and she got a little teary thinking about how much she loves her job (especially that so many students say thank-you). Anyway, we prayed and then dug into the food. Pretty soon the ladies followed us into Miss H's room with the food so we could get seconds. And then! They brought in a smores dessert pizza. IT WAS DELICIOUS! Gooey marshmallows, melted chocolate, flaky crust. YUM. It was dangerously delicious. They left us each a plate of leftovers to take home (I don't think the dessert pizza made it on the plate).
The other exciting event of the day was mailing our surprise package to our Slovakian pen pals. We finally finished our valentines and Friday was the deadline for the 5th graders to bring in extra stuff they wanted to send along. The two girls remembered to bring in stuff; they brought candy. One girl brought in a huge bag of really heavy red candy (like gumdrops, but in the shape of hearts). She plunked it on my desk. Unfortunately, it was super heavy. We ended up putting a dozen pieces in a zip lock bag and stuck it in.
The last time we mailed something, I used the stamp printer thing we have at school. Well, since then it's been disconnected. So I had to go to the post office. Problem. The post office opens at 11 and closes at 1. Solution. Mr. E would watch everyone at recess and I would make the trek to Courtland. After lunch I zoomed to the post office and... ran into problems. First the lady couldn't figure out which country code goes with Slovakia. The closest she could find was the Slovak Republic, but the stamp meter machine wouldn't accept that code. So she tried calling other post offices to get their input. And every line was busy (or no one was there). In the meantime, two other people came into the office. I felt bad holding up the line. Then she asked if I needed to fill out a customs form. Uh-oh. I didn't do that last time. We just shipped it off in the mail through our mailbox. Did I need to do it this time? Well, I did it regardless. The postal worker gave me extra forms so I can have them filled out the next time I have to mail something internationally. Finally she got ahold of someone and then she found a new list of country codes. Slovakia was easy to find and soon I was on my way back to school. I made it back just in time for 7th and 8th grade Mystery Class. But that's a story for another time.
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