Serving in the Community

Last Thursday night Jim was honored by an organization called SELPA. The Awards Presentation was held at a beautiful golf course. The green was just so beautiful everywhere you looked. {One of the great benefits of our never ending winter. It is supposed to rain 3 days this week. Really??

The program

A poster made that depicts
Jim's students making the awards

The organization presenting the awards is a special education entity that works with the county to provide individualized services to each student that doesn't mainstream. Jim received his award for serving them by manufacturing all of their awards for the last several years with his students. So he got one of the awards he had actually made himself! Awesome! We had a lovely dinner and the awards presentation were really cool. Some were given to educators and some to the students themselves. Now I have been to my share of these types of presentations in the past and this is probably our last one. It is great to know it was the best one! Here are a few of the photos.

Ellen, Jim's instructional aid

worked over time to get
all the awards wrapped in
cellophane and ribbons.
Thanks Ellen, you saved me!

This is Jim with his boss, Diane.

She is awesome!
She was in a 15 story high rise
hotel when the earthquake hit in Santiago.
Her son was getting married that day in Chili.
All went well for them but she
was telling me it was pretty scary.

189 people attended

The Presentation of Jim's Award

The gourmet dessert buffet


The Award sitting in our library on Jim's desk.

These wooden books are individually inscribed on a very big, fancy machine and then sanded, painted and assembled by the boys. They have a different design each year but they always have a signature wooden apple on them. This one has a space on the top book for sticky notes. Jim and his kids also make a lot of the centerpieces for other awards presentations throughout the county like Teacher of the Year Awards. Lots of people told me how much they would miss him! Awww!

A picture of us that isn't that great but
as Michelle would say..."It is what it is."
I cropped it way down to put it on
the sidebar for Dorothy.
She had requested one along with all
the rest of our family photos.

Don't know why I didn't think of it
but I suspect it is that I am not that crazy about photos of myself!
Jim's cuteness neutralizes it for me though!
So this one is for you Dorothy! :-)