THE END OF THE SUMMER OF WONDER

This has been quite a week coming back to work.  

On Monday I came in to find Diane was out on vacation and Megan from the Rodriguez Branch was there because her branch was closed.  

On Tuesday Diane was still out and Megan was still there but in the afternoon we also got Sheila, our former Children's Librarian, because the Fishtown branch was closed.  

Wednesday Bob took vacation, Diane came back for one day, and not only was Sheila there, but Cindy and Tracy came from Fishtown while Megan took off sick.  Forgot to mention that Megan is two months pregnant and very sick all the time.  But she's a trooper and tries to come in every day.  

Thursday found Bob back and Diane gone again.  Tracy and Cindy were still there.  Megan came in, but had to leave because she was so sick.  Sheila took the rest of the week off.

And today....  Diane was off and so were Megan, Cindy and Tracey.  Dana, the other librarian from Fishtown was there, but my staff was back to Doug, Bob and me and we were very happy about that.

Are your scorecards all filled out?  What a week to come back.  On the other hand, I have never supervised that many people and I was able to do it well and keep everyone happy!  Including me!  My foot was so swollen and sore and with so many people I didn't have to shelve, look for books, or be on the desk for almost the whole week.  And now my foot is better!

Yesterday was the closing party for the end of the Summer Reading Program.  The theme this year was "Summer of Wonder" and so the libraries used Alice in Wonderland as their theme.  Liz expected about 20-25 kids to show up and 75 did!  Good thing she got extra food.  There were several tables set up.  One was a Mad Hatter's tea party.  One was face painting.  One was for crafts (they made Cheshire Cat grins out of a half of a paper plate and then glued them to sticks so they could hold them in front of their faces).  And one was for a raffle she held.  Each kid also got a bag full of little prizes:  key chains, magnets, notebooks, etc.  It was very noisy, but very fun.  What a way to end the summer!

Summer of Wonder banner

Of course there had to be playing cards.

One of our summer interns who is an art major did all of the decorations.  She is very good.

We stayed a little late because the face painter wouldn't leave as long as there was one kid who wanted their face painted.  And she was very good too.  When I went out I saw the sunset and just had to take a picture of it.  It was like a blessing on the end of the summer reading program.