Teacher of the Year Festivities

Last week Jon and I headed to Orlando for 4 days of events surrounding the Teacher of the Year celebration for the whole state of Florida. Tuesday we dropped Rylee off at Grandma Frances's house and headed to Orlando to get checked in to our hotel, the Grand Bohemian Hotel in downtown Orlando. I attended the "Welcome Fair" with Jon and then hung out in the hotel room while he went to a Podcasting workshop. I was planning on some time at the pool but alas the Florida weather preferred I nap instead.

I took my nap and then headed down to the Starbucks in the lobby. . .yes, I said Starbucks in the lobby. It was a little piece of heaven right here on Earth. Did a little research on where we could walk to dinner and when Jon returned we headed to Hamburger Mary's (apparently, I didn't do enough research on dinner because Hamburger Mary's was not quite the dinner experience we were expecting-Ask Jon about it, he'll love telling that story.) We then headed back to the hotel for "Family Movie Night," we watched Nim's Island, which was really cute.

On Wednesday, I was invited to breakfast and then headed off to shop while Jon continued with his workshops and speakers. His favorite speaker on Wednesday was Coach Carter, the coach from the basketball movie. I met him at the reception later that night which was also really nice.

Thursday was more meetings for Jon, another run to Target for me, sometime by the pool and then getting all gussied up for the big event at Hard Rock Live coming up that night. It had been a long time since I really had to dress up for something and I admit it was fun, especially since I found a dress for $10.80. It was the find of the year! When we arrived we were greeted by a mini-Marching Band which followed us from the bus to Hard Rock Live.We had a really nice dinner and Jon was given his award onstage while Debra Norville talked about what a wonderful teacher he is. I have to say it was pretty cool.