Throwback Thursday

Hello all! I am loving Teaching Tribune's Summer Bloggin' link ups! Today we are "throwing it back" (I'm so hood, I know) to the grade we teach.

So after a little digging and calculating (where's Mom when you need her??), here is me in the fourth grade!

I am on the left in the hideous gorgeous pink jacket with the cold sore (plagued for life, anybody feel me?) and my little sister Sarah is turning four and being adorable on the right. I am exactly five years older than her, which is how I figured out I was in fourth grade at the time. Apparently those were not very well photographed years. Which is surprising, since I am clearly model material. Duh.

But anyway. I love this picture because it was so obviously posed by my Mom. My older sister and I were such bullies to Sarah when we were  younger (we were 7 and 5 years older than her, respectively). Which sucks because now we are all best friends. She just graduated high school and is coming to college at my Alma mater here in town and I couldn't be more excited! She is also coming to stay with me this weekend, which is good because my conversations with the dog are getting longer and longer the more I am home alone... 

So we are also supposed to say how/when we knew we were destined to be a teacher. Honestly, I didn't figure it out until I was a senior in high school. Both of my parents are teachers, so I grew up my whole life in classrooms, playing school, and bossing people around (although that might be because I was the middle child...different story). But I spent many years dedicated to becoming first an artist and then an architect. I bought houseplan magazines and everything for years. Then I figured out that I can't draw. Or do math. Whoops. 

So when it came time for graduating/college/blah blah blah I started looking at what I could actually do. At the time I was teaching a kids' Sunday School class and "Cubbies" at Awana each night (kids Bible clubs, for those of you not cool enough to have them...jk). I had also worked many years of VBS, been a kids camp counselor, and was signed up to work at a preschool before college. I spent my days off from school in my mother's kindergarten classroom. What 17-year-old could say that? I did all of these things- not because I knew I wanted to be a teacher- but because I liked working with kids. That's when I knew. And I've never looked back!

So, blogging friends, when did you know? Link up your Throwback Thursday over at the Tribune with me!