have others help my class Garfield travel around the United States and the world!

and I was soooooo excited to find what arrived in his box with him ~ an awesome album absolutely filled with wonderful things all tucked away in his very own album to share with the class!! It started with a letter from Mary telling the class a little about herself and what Garfield did while staying with her over the Easter weekend. Next, was information about New York and its history, including maps which had places marked that Garfield had visited. It had tons of pictures ~ and they were pretty awesome, too I must say! Pictures of 2nd Avenue; 12th Street; a library in East Village; schools, churches, cathedrals, and mosques; a NYC firetruck, which was one of my favorites; parks and gardens; the Flatiron Building and the Empire State Building; Times Square (love it!); Grand Central Station; Wall Street and the headquarters of the New York Stock Exchange; Ground Zero; the harbor and the Statue of Liberty! Whew! I must say that I’m a little envious of my Garfield right now ~ he has been to all of the places in New York that I hope and dream of one day visiting…who would have ever guessed that this stuffed cat that I got when I was eight years old would travel all over the United States?!

I really love New York ~ it’s just awesome. You’re an awesome person, too Mary, for all the work you did by carrying Garfield around and hosting him for me. For taking all of these wonderful pictures. By putting all of it together with information and a personal touch for my students ~ they’re going to love it as much as I do!! Your kindness is great and I extremely appreciate it ~ if there are any goals you ever need my help on, then I am up for it!

I’m going to try to post a picture or two of Garfield with his album if my computer doesn’t give me problems :-)

First thing tomorrow morning, I will get to show my students Garfield’s adventures in New York ~ I will post their reactions!

One of my “flat” Garfields is still traveling around the world ~ literally ~ with a very awesome host/couple that have had him with them for quite some time. If you’ve been keeping up with my Garfields, this particular one has been to Greece, Turkey, and South Africa to name a few!

I just received a postcard from Africa picturing Mt. Kilimanjaro ~ I love this postcard because it has a graph on the side showing the different levels of the mountain and what range each level is on (cultivation, rain forest, heather and moorland, alpine desert, and summit).

He has spent the last two months criss-crossing southern Africa. He visited Moshi, Tanzania, at the bottom of Mt. Kilimanjaro, which is the tallest mountain on the continent of Africa. It is 5,896 meters (19,653 feet) tall.

Wow!

Have fun Garfield ~ wish I was there!

:-)

Garfield just arrived back from his latest journey and adventure in Washington with Denise! He had an awesome time with her and her family. He really loved spending time with her son, especially while he was sick. They watched t.v. and hung out on the couch together while he recuperated ~ Garfield’s favorite hobbies! :-)

Garfield attended a medieval event where everyone dresses up in medieval clothing and there’s a sword fight, singing, and a court with a King and a Queen. At this event, Garfield was given a tunic by the Queen and sat with her through the event! He is proudly wearing it now at school and showing it to everyone he meets! The next day, they visited the Queen at home and she embroidered a design on Garfield’s tunic to finish it off.

Garfield even went to the history museum in their town of Auburn, WA. They looked at the various exhibits and learned a lot about the town. They also visited the Auburn’s mayor, Pete Lewis, and shook his hand! Wow! He sent along some goodies for Garfield to share with the class.

Along with Garfield was a lot of wonderful things sent by Denise from her hometown

the tunic given to him by the Queen of their medieval group during the event
~five beautiful postcards
~an Auburn history DVD
~brochures from the Auburn History Museum
~sassafrass candy ~ which the kids loved!
~Auburn visitor’s guide
~museum exhibit guide
~the local paper
~a map marked where they’ve been
~brochure with some of Auburn’s public art
~a 2008 community calendar
~flash drive filled with wonderful photos and notes ~ wow! ~ thanks so very much!
~stickers for the kids
~an Auburn mug and small thank you for myself ~ thanks so much!
~a note for the class

I love all that you did for our class project, and the children truly enjoyed receiving everything that you sent to them! It is awesome! Thanks so much for your time and hard work ~ cheers!

:-)

Thanks so very much to Dianna here on 43things who hosted Garfield in Ontario, Canada…

Yesterday, I received an awesome box chock-full of goodies! I will get to present these to the class tomorrow when I return, and they are going to be so excited! Here are some of the neat stuff that we received from his trip:

~Thunder Bay Border Cats stuffed mascot “Slugger”
~a huge baggie full of Thunder Bay Border Cats pinbacks (love these!)
~two stuffed Royal Canadian Mounted Police mascot bears
~three boxes of tea that can be found in the Canadian North
~three boxes of Canadian pencils with their flag (yeah!)
~three packages of Canadian tatoos (they are going to go wild for these, because kids love tatoos!)
~“Tales of the Tom-Tom” book
~two beautiful postcards from Thunder Bay
~pictures of Garfied at the Thunder Bay Border Cats baseball game (he even got a picture with Slugger, their mascot!)
~a wonderful letter that includes tons of information about Canada to share with the class!

Wow! Thanks Dianna for all that you’ve done to help us with our class project ~ I know that it was a lot of work! I appreciate it so much, and the kids are going to love the things that you sent to them as well as hearing about his adventures with you! They are also going to like plotting and measuring his journey to Ontario on our class map!

:-)

Just received an awesome postcard from Kruger National Park, South Africa from Allison and Jon picturing a giraffe. They are friends of TinyDancer here on 43things. She sent him on to them after he stayed with her in Turkey and Greece. As of now, Garfield has been with them for three months and is joining them on their around-the-world-trip ~ Amazing!

In South Africa, Garfield has seen lions, leopards, elephants, zebras, and giraffes in the wild. Oh, how I wish I was in his place…

Africa is one of my top five places to visit in my lifetime!

Stay tuned for more of his around-the-world-adventures with Allison and Jon!

:-)

Garfield recently returned from his trip to Delaware where he visited TrashcanFashionista. He had tons of fun and lots of adventures, but alas, he’s off to visit Denise in Washington…

That cat gets around more than any other stuffed animal I’ve ever had :-)

She and Garfield just sent a package full of goodies for the class that showed all of the fun he had while he was gone ~ a really cute red t-shirt of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware with a crab on it, a package of shells, information about Lavendar Fields, which is a five acre lavendar farm and cottage store that he visited, a card with a handwritten message, and lots of cool pictures!!

I’m going to give each student a shell to keep from Rehoboth Beach, and I’m going to let Garfield wear the little red t-shirt when he comes back from Washington! He will look so cute sporting his Rehoboth Beach tee…

He visited the Bridgeville Library, the famous Rapa Scrapple Plant, Lavendar Fields, a historic graveyard, the Archaeology Museum (Garfield pounding corn is one of my favorite pictures), Dover Downs Raceway, the capitol building, Rehoboth Beach, Baywood Golf Course (which is beautiful), and the local produce stand.

He had so much fun that he wanted to stay! I told him he had to be on his way, though and that he would have more exciting adventures to fill me in on upon his next return…

Thanks so much, TrashcanFashionista! The kids are going to love everything that you’ve done with this project ~ we super appreciate it!!!

:-)

I just received an awesome map postcard from Keksi and Garfield in Germany! Garfield has just checked in with her and is getting a tour of the city of Stuttgart. Then he is off to more adventures! Thanks so much, Keksi for hosting him and I hope that both of you have exciting travels together in Germany ~ can’t wait to hear all about it!

:-)

I have missed that kitty! :-)

He has been gone since February, traveling around the U.S. visiting many people and places along the way. He just returned from visiting Segsy in New York and is now relaxing on his special stool in front of my chalkboard at school ~ patiently awaiting the first day of school when he can tell of all of his exciting summer adventures…

On Garfield’s return, he brought three beautiful postcards from New York from Segsy ~ The Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge/Lower Manhattan, and Long Island (a nice map postcard). I will be sharing these with the kids next week…

I have quite a few other Garfields traveling the country right now, as well as other countries! If you would like to have a Garfield sent to you, let me know. We would love to have you help us (my third grade class) in this goal!

:-)

Garfield had an exciting time with YRush in Ohio! He hung out with her son, Ethan and met all of her neighbors. He even took a walk around her neighborhood. I’m sure Garfield needed the exercise ~ :-)

He even got to visit Ethan’s preschool and meet his friends and teacher. He also visited Kent State University and the University of Akron. Maybe he learned some things while he was in these positive, educational environments ~ he’s been out of school since February! When school starts back, we’ll really have to work hard to catch him up…

:-)

Thanks so much YRush for all of your help ~ the pictures and letter are great and the students are going to be excited to hear about his adventures with you and Ethan!

Petra (SweetPea7) has been hosting one of my class Garfields in California, and I just received a beautiful postcard from her describing one of the many places that he has visited.

The postcard was of the Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District of San Francisco. It is a Greek and Roman inspired structure that was originally built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. The exhibition hall originally housed Impressionist paintings, but is now the Exploratorium ~ an interactive science museum.

Thanks so much for hosting Garfield, Petra! I hope you had lots of fun with him…

:-)