Books from Buckingham Palace!

If you know me, you will be shocked to hear that I did not buy ANYTHING (not even clothes) while in England...well except for a few children's books from Buckingham Palace ( The Queen's Shop)! I am linking up with Courtney from Ramona Recommends today for her Tuesday Travel Link Up!

I think that buying children's books as a souvenir when traveling is a great idea! Unlike a cutesy magnet or even t-shirt (while those are fine souvenirs), a book is the "gift that keeps on giving."  Last summer I bought the book Goodnight Hawaiian Moon while on vacation in Hawaii. This past school year, I read it most days to my littles right before their quiet rest time...it has a nice beach waves background soundtrack, that combined with turning my classroom lights off, puts me them to sleep (or at least calms them down). It's one of those great books that is short enough that every child knows the words after a couple of times reading it. It even includes a lullaby sung in Hawaiian. Many of my girls (on their own) would start hula dancing every time they would hear it. That spawned the idea that our class should have a Luau, which we did for Mother's Day. That is a separate post for a different day. But, needless to say, this book was definitely a class favorite!

Now let's get to the European goodies!I am excited to go back to school in a couple of weeks and share these gems with my new class while telling them about my adventures in England this summer!

1. Madeline in London
 I have always loved the classic Madeline books , so it was absolutely necessary to buy this one while in London! What little girl ( or even big girl) doesn't love Madeline?

2. Does The Queen Wear Her Crown in Bed?

I had to get this book because (besides the cute title) I immediately thought of the dozens of little girls that come thru my class thinking they are princesses-ha! Kindergarten is definitely the age where make believe and reality has a fine line. Everything is princess themed! Princess dress up, princess pink, and princess movies /books! It seems that when you start out in life THE DREAM is to be a princess...and it's even cute! But, do you know somebody that thinks they are a princess now in their adulthood? Not so cute anymore right?! :)
I also LOVE how this book shows what life is like INSIDE THE ROYAL PALACE! There is even a picture of William and Kate ( the royal couple) getting married! Such a fun book!
 This book really satisfied my curiosity, since when you go to visit Buckingham Palace you don't actually get to go inside any of the rooms.
 *Side note: Shortly after I left England, they opened some of the rooms and gardens for tourists to visit!


3. Paddington at the Palace

Who doesn't love our furry friend Paddington the Bear ? Another classic children's character book that I had to have! Join him as he has his own adventures at the palace! So cute!

Now, you definitely don't have to go all the way to England to buy these books. Good ol' amazon.com will get these to you in a jiffy! But, it sure is fun that I will be able to tell my students that I bought these books for them at the "Queen's House!" :)

So. Cal Blog Surf!

Happy Blog Hop Saturday! This is my first Blog Hop ever! I am SO excited to be a part of this with my AMAZING So. Cal teacher/blogger friends. I can't wait for you to "meet" all of them ( if you haven't already) as you surf on over to their blogs! Get ready to be informed, inspired, and just impressed! These ladies are the sweetest, the BEST teachers, and all around individuals!


Well, for my beach themed post I decided to do a review of my new teacher lesson planner for this upcoming school year! It is C.Jayne's "Teacher Anchor!" I just love it and I think that you will see why! I've been a loyal Erin Condren fan for years (and still am)! But, I just couldn't resist this adorable, yet extremely practical lesson plan book that C. Jayne has developed. Just look at the cover!

I have been really into the nautical theme lately! So much that I am very tempted to do my classroom theme as nautical this school year, except that I just have so much owl themed stuff that I've decided to keep the owl theme again.


I just adore anchors though! They are a meaningful symbol for me and they go along with one of my favorite Bible verses..."We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. .." - Hebrews 6:19 (NIV). I have this verse in my home as well as my classroom. It has always spoken to me in my life even before I became a teacher. Now, as a teacher, it is a truth that I cling too! I just can't imagine this life or teaching without my faith in God! He is my anchor! Everyone has something or someone that is their "anchor" in life. It gets them through the hard and challenging times in life. Who (or what) is your anchor?

On the C. Jayne website this is what it states as the meaning behind the "Teacher Anchor:"

"The anchor has long been a symbol of hope and steadfastness – two words that any teacher could use to describe her journey each school year. When an anchor is raised on a ship, it signifies that a new journey has begun."

This is so true! One of the best pieces of advice as a teacher was that, "Tomorrow is a new day!" I have tried to live by this advice. And on the really rough days, sometimes I tell myself that , " Each hour is a new hour!" I'm sure that all teachers can relate to this! We are a persevering bunch aren't we? We don't let our students give up and we certainly don't give up ourselves! :)

Love this!I am a huge proponent of parent communication in my class!

When I first received the "Teacher Anchor," my first thought was, Oh my word it is heavy! Am I really going to carry this thing around? Teachers already carry around a storage unit in their crates/tote bags/cars everyday! But, as I opened it up, I saw that it was very intentionally thought out page by page of what elements every teacher needs to have in their planner.

You will find that there are the Common Core Standards for EVERY grade level included. Yes...every grade level. At first I just thought it was just adding unnecessary bulk to the planner, but really it is a GREAT idea to have access to every grade level for differentiating our lesson plans! We all know that not every student is at "grade level" when they come to us, so this resource is great for meeting the needs of each individual student in our class! Also, this is handy for the teachers teaching more than one grade at a time. Hats off to you if you do!

Since this IS a beach themed Blog Hop, I just had to share my absolutely favorite beach with you all! I love this beach so much it is where I got married! This picture was taken at Ka'anapali Beach, Hawaii !

Check out my beach themed freebie here on Google Docs...

Beach Themed Getting to Know You


Well that was my review! Thanks for surfing on over here! It's time to catch the next wave! But before you do....what blog hop would be complete without an AMAZING raffle?

Make sure to enter! You could win a $25 gift card to TPT and enjoy some of the phenomenal products that my teacher friends have created!a Rafflecopter giveaway




Now surf on over to my sweet and talented friend Kristen from

She is one of my biggest inspirations and helped me to get started with my blog!

England Adventures Part 1!

I am back from my trip to England! Even though I'm very jet lagged, I wanted to write down all of my trip highlights while they are still freshly swirling around in my head! While we had many exciting adventures and enjoyed gorgeous landscapes, there really is no place like home!:)

I went to England with my husband and my parents. We went to a mini family reunion (whoever could make it)! My mom's side of the family literally lives across the globe ...from Canada to England to China! As you can imagine, we don't see each other very often. So, when everyone decided to get together this summer, my hubby and I switched out our annual Hawaii summer trip ( just us) for some family time.
We love our Hawaii trips and even got married in Hawaii! I think that we have gone every summer for the last four years. So, it was kind of major to not go to Hawaii this summer.I might have been a bit A LOT more excited than my hubby to go to England this summer instead, but I convinced him to go by telling him that we had to visit the place where our last name ( Preece) originates from! Plus, where else are you going to get authentic fish and chips? So off we went!

When we arrived in London after a 10 hour flight ( plus travel time by bus), we were exhausted! Plus, we arrived the morning of the next day, so it was still another full day before we got any sleep! Our first stop was my aunt and uncle's house in Oxford. I have been here a couple of times throughout my life. They live in a cute green and white English house near the center of Oxford.

We were there for a quick 24 hours before my family that was on this trip ( 12 people) packed into two cars and drove 4 hours to the countryside of Cornwall. We rented a cottage for our family to stay in for the week. Now, I know what you are thinking...cottage implies a small, cozy house and as you can see by the pictures this place was not small! In fact, it was previously a  barn that was converted into a holiday rental house next door to the owner's house. It was AMAZING! I absolutely loved it and the countryside was literally all of our backyard! I will let the pictures speak for themselves...

Loving the wooden beams and windows!

The perfect place to have a morning cup of coffee!

Gorgeously green and peaceful right? It really was the greatest get away! I never imagined that I could live in the countryside, but I really liked the simplicity and slower pace of life there. I think that I could even get used to hanging my clothes up on a clothes line outside to dry!:)

We did many things during our week in the country. One thing that I will never forget are the country roads! Navigating those roads was an adventure all on their own! They are super narrow and what you think is only enough room for one car to drive through somehow allows two cars to pass by each other (barely)! I definitely was glad that I wasn't in the driver's seat there! Whew!

My Canadian uncle (on the left) navigating while my English uncle (on the right) has all eyes on the road!

The next pictures are of some of the really pretty and quaint towns that we explored.

Anchor Cottage! I love nautical and anchors! Now this IS a cottage! 

 We went on an EPIC coastal hike in the breathtakingly beautiful town of Port Issac. It was a KILLER workout but oh so worth it for the views!

My love and the most beautiful place! So blessed!

Fish eye view of the town.

 Who says you can't keep up your fitness on vacation?

The water was gorgeous shades of blue!

Well, I hope that you enjoyed part one recap of my trip! In order to keep this from being a mega-long post,  I will share the second half of my trip in the next post. Cheerio!

A Patriotic Post!

Hi ya'll! Did you all feel that earthquake this morning? Earthquakes freak me out so I'm glad that I didn't feel this one. People always say that when the weather changes that it causes earthquakes. I don't know about that. I do know that I already miss my June gloom weather! No, I don't miss the "gloom" part of it, but I do miss the cooler weather! One (of many) nice things about living in the O.C. is the nice weather . Even when it's scorching hot in other cities, it's usually about ten degrees cooler where I live making it a pretty comfortable temperature. I was reminded of this when we were at my in-laws house yesterday for the Fourth! We left our house and it was a pleasant sunny and warm 84 degrees and as we got closer and closer to the I.E. ( Inland Empire) I could just feel the heat coming in thru the car! The I.E. will always be where I grew up, but I do not miss living there!

The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays (Christmas is my all time favorite)! I love celebrating America, eating BBQ, hanging out with family, watching fireworks and being patriotic. Dressing up in red,white, and blue isn't too much of a chore either! Ha!:) I am very big on "going all out" and decorating for holidays and having traditions with my love!


There is a craft on Pinterest  (one of many) that I had been eyeing for some time.  I figured that last week was a great time to get my crafting on since these Kindergarten teacher hands haven't had some good paint stains on them for a couple of weeks now. It's kind of giving me an identity crisis. Almost.



You can do a search for "Mason Jar Flag" on Pinterest and follow the tutorials there. I can tell you right now that they are much better than following what I did since I made my "oops" look like intentional deviations from the original project! Without further ado....

And here are some pics with my FAVORITE ( only) niece with her FAVORITE aunt!:)

This above picture is my brother-in-law trying to show my niece (his daughter) the magic of sparklers on the Fourth of July. She was NOT interested and asked for bubbles instead! I love her and the honesty of little kids. She entertains us all for sure! :P
I don't know about you, but I always feel like summer vacation goes into "fast forward" mode once the Fourth of July hits! Dear Summer...let's just agree that you don't need to go by any faster!:)
I hope that you are soaking up your holiday weekend somewhere relaxing!

Aztec Mermaids for my first fashion post!

Eeeek! I am SO excited to finally present my new teacher/fashion blog! I have been reading other blogs for years. It's so neat to get a glimpse into the other lives of people that you may have never met, but feel a connection to from reading about their lives through writing. I believe that words on a page are powerful and can really connect human beings. When you find a blogger and can relate to even one thing that they've written, suddenly there is an interest there that keeps you wanting to read more until you feel like you've "known" this person for much of your life! It's crazy and cool! Being an English major myself, with a love for writing, I've always enjoyed recording my experiences and thoughts through words.
Fashion has always been another outlet in which I really enjoy expressing myself . Styling outfits and creating fun looks is a creative outlet for me. My hubby has always encouraged me ( thank you hunny) to have a fashion blog, but I honestly always felt like that (on its own) wasn't enough substance to really have a blog dedicated to it. This is not to take away from the amazing fashion bloggers out there! I enjoy fashion, but it's not what gets me up in the morning (well ok maybe sometimes it does ).  :) Really though, I ADORE teaching children and am always wanting to be the best version of myself as a person and a teacher! The children that I have in my care every school year deserve nothing less! I have really grown as a person and an educator through the community of teacher bloggers that are out there!
 It really was after meeting some AMAZING ladies this past year, that I really was driven to start my blog and write this first humble blog entry! The passion and dedication of these teacher/blogger friends is what really inspired me to join the blogging world. So, now that I am a BLOGGER, stay tuned as this site is developed more over time. It is WILD for me to say that I am a blogger but so thrilling too! I hope that you are blessed by my ramblings and pictures! It is my hope that you  are able to take something away that brings LIGHT to your life after spending some of your time here with me!Thanks for sharing in MY experiences in this little corner of the blogging community as a teacher and fashionista! :)