Merry & Bright

Merry Christmas from Mackinac Island.

This picture is from a few days ago.

No snow today, instead it was

foggy, rainy and 34 degrees (about 1 C.)

Camilla

I don't have an Elf on the Shelf in my classroom, instead I have Camilla the Christmas Chicken. My students love her. They even love her awful "dad" jokes.

I love that they make sure to include her in our classroom activities.

She loves bringing the kids new books, curling up by the fire and reading to the class.  This year she brought Cinders, Once There was a Christmas Tree and Sonya's Chickens.

Now that we're heading home for vacation, she is packing up and heading back to the coop. Little do my students know that they'll be able to check in on her using the "coop cam" my husband is setting up in our backyard chicken coop

A Rare Occurance

"Snow Days" never happen on Mackinac Island. OK, almost never happen. But occasionally we do close due to other issues. Today we get the day off due to high winds.  And it isn't just MIPS that's closed; the Public Library is closed, the Service Company has rescheduled trash pick-up, the boats aren't running and the Mackinac Bridge is closed to "high profile" traffic. ("High profile traffic" is defined by the Mackinac Bridge Authority as semi trucks, pick-up trucks with enclosed beds, cars with bike carriers or luggage on the roof, cars pulling boats or trailers [with sides over two feet] and U-Haul type trucks.)

And no wonder it's windy. It's 58 degrees (about 14C) this morning - which is really weird for December in Northern Michigan.  

The only bad thing about today was, I got the text about school being cancelled about 15 minutes after I'd gotten to school. No complaints though, an unexpected day off is always a good thing...

It's Beginning...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

everywhere you go...