Last Day of Summer. What a bummer!

Today is my last day of summer. I officially go back to work tomorrow. Although I have been at school on and off all summer it is different once it is "official." I have inservice the rest of the week and orientation for the kids on Saturday. Then we'll start the school year off with a bang on Monday, August 27th. It is weird because this is my first school year to not have a classroom of kids to prepare for. There is still a ton of work to do but it is a different type of work. In fact, I have more to prepare for inservice week then for the first few days of school.

In honor of this last day of summer I treated myself to a manicure/pedicure. The girl asked me if I wanted a flower put on my toe. I didn't really understand what she asked but said yes anyway. I look down from my magazine moments later and she is putting little white dots on my big toe. I figure "What the heck." It is summery and I know it will impress my cheerleaders at practice tomorrow. I'm all about being down with the 7th grade crowd. (Kidding!).

I also have a doctor's appointment today because I have to squeeze everything in before school starts. Actually I make a big list of "to do's" at the beginning of the summer.....and then try to get them all done during the last week.....so I also have a ton of errands to do that are probably not going to get completely.

I still need to pick out an outfit to wear tomorrow too.....the attire for inservice is "casual--no shorts" but I'm giving a presentation and I have a feeling that my boss will be wearing "professional attire." So, I guess I should dress for the job I want.

HAPPY LAST DAY OF SUMMER!!!

I have the best husband....

I am in love with my husband. He's awesome. He came home tonight after being away on business all week. So what did we do to celebrate his return???? We went to DSW and I got 3 pairs of shoes for work (good thing they sent me that $10 off coupon). Josh didn't watch me try on shoes most of the time....he went and looked in the men's section. But still, I took longer than he did and he was such a good sport.
Then we went out to eat Mexican food.
Shoe shopping and Mexican food.....what a perfect evening!!!

Disclaimer: I am totally in love with my husband for at least 1000 other reasons too!!

Pics not possible...

Well I would post a pic of my new hair but we don't have a camera. All the Simpsons pics were taken with my sister's camera and we had to borrow my parents' camera when we went to Belize. We actually needed a camera last Christmas when we were in Boston so we took one of the disposable ones from Josh's firm's Christmas party and used it as our personal camera.....there were some pics of people we didn't know at the beginning of the roll....but the rest was all us and the beautiful city of Boston.

I have a digital but it broke last summer while we were in Florida....something inside it is rattling and it won't turn on. I've been lazy and haven't taken it to be fixed. We keep discussing our need for a new one but we were waiting for the right time (right time translates to when we get pregnant) and who knows when that will be!!

Anyway, sometimes I think I just want a good digital camera that is small but then I see my friends (like Emily P and Meredith) with their nice cameras and I think about all the great pics Brittney took in college with her nice camera and I think maybe I need one of those.....for those you who don't know Em, Meredith and Brittney: a nice camera equals one with a big lens on the front that you turn to zoom and where you have to press the button half way down to focus and then all the way down to take the pic. (See, I was listening!!) I don't really know a ton about pictures so getting a fancy camera might do me more harm than good. Maybe I'll go spend some time at Wolf Camera asking the guys there about it.....or maybe I'll just run to CVS, get a disposable and get a picture CD when I get the pics developed.....yes, I still get pics "developed" because you can't just print from those $7 kodak throw away cameras.

So now here is the response part (if you got this far): If you have a camera that you like, tell me about it!!!

Fun times.

I taught another workshop this morning. It was fun....mainly because I had already done the workshop twice before so it required no preparation and I got paid. Woohoo!!

Tonight we are just hanging out. We'll go out to eat because I can't cook on Fridays (or Sunday afternoons or Wednesdays because of church or any night when I have football or a grad school class.....so basically one night a week tops....no wonder we're both gaining so much weight) and maybe we'll rent some movies. Josh has been out of town all week so it will be nice to just hang out at home.

Tomorrow we're going over to my mom's to go swimming. I love my parents' backyard. Basically last summer my parents' took a cue from "Pimp My Ride" and "pimped" their backyard. The pool is amazing....sometimes it makes me sad that it wasn't like that when we actually lived there....maybe I would've learned to swim. :)

I got my haircut yesterday and it is the shortest it has been in about 5 years....I'm still adjusting and trying to figure out how to fix it. Overall I like it but it won't go into a ponytail at all anymore so I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I go the gym...because I've commited to going to the gym on a regular basis now.

On a side note: Shannon, the girl who cuts my hair, does a great job and she's located in Frisco for all you friends who live over in the Dallas area. And don't say that Frisco is a trek from where you live.....I know. I live in Fort Worth.

Today kinda sucked.

Today kind of sucked for three reasons:

1) Josh is away on business.

2) I got dressed to take Monty for a walk and got him all excited about it by saying things like "Get your leash" and "Let's go on a walk" until his tail was wagging so fast that I'm surprised his butt didn't fall off.....but alas, I can't find his leash anywhere. How in the world do you lose a dog leash?? How many places could it possibly be?? Honestly, we don't walk Monty all that often so I'm not even sure about the last time we used the leash.

And here's the doozy:
3) I had to go to work yesterday and today. Yesterday I worked in my office and today I taught a seminar. Anyway, waking up before 7am and working all day just drives home how amazing summer is....and makes me so sad that it is almost over. Ahh....summer.

However, I'm doing nothing tomorrow and going to the pool Thursday and then having my hair done....so the week will get better!! Woohoo!!

Kwik-E-Mart

Well, as y'all know Josh and I love the Simpsons!! We named our schnauzer Monty after Montgomery Burns from the show. Anyway, this past weekend we went to the Kwik-E-Mart in Dallas with my sister and her husband. We had so much fun. Here are the pics: (Yes we took pictures at a 7-11....don't judge us!)

We are so blessed.

We are so blessed. We are members of the best "small" group ever. I put the word small in quotations because there were 22 adults and 4 kids at our house last night so the group isn't exactly small. (We were also missing 4 members.) We ate and caught up with what everyone has been doing since summer has flung our group far and wide.

The best part was when we finally all got settled in the living room for the Bible study part. Nick, our group's leader, asked if anyone wanted to open us in prayer. Harrison volunteered. Harrison is four years old and this was his first time at small group because his parents are just staying in town while stateside for a few months. But he is a bold little boy and Harrison opened us up with the sweetest prayer I have ever heard. He thanked the Lord for being able to worship Him and for all the people who were there. I wish I had had a tape recorder.

We are looking forward to getting to know Harrison and his parents and sisters better during their time in the states.

Today I met the mailman

Today the doorbell rang around 12:15pm. I've been working on my paper and presentation for my grad school class all morning so I'm still in my PJs. So I open the door and there is my mailman. He says, "Did you know the price of stamps went up?"
Actually I did but the stamps I have don't have numbers on them so I thought you could keep using them....he says no....and although he's the mailman and does this for a living I still think I'm right. He says he's been mailing the letters anyway and they've been going through....I figure that I've got 6 stamps with Lady Liberty and no number on them so I'll keep mailing stuff with them.

When I shut the door I caught a glimpse of myself in our mirror in the foyer....nice. I'm sure the mailman was totally impressed by my old Chi O t shirt, my pajama pants and my nice "I was sleeping and then working on a paper" hair do.

Lunch with Friends

My sweet friends Sharee and Jessica came over to my neck of the woods for lunch yesterday. Jessica brought her little girl Emmy and we had such a good time.

We went to Lucille's, a Fort Worth favorite and Sharee's friend from childhood, Hailey, met us for lunch too. It was so fun to just hang out like old times.

The Quest for the Perfect Coffee Table...

We've been on the quest for the perfect coffee table since we bought our house, which means I've been searching for a year and a half. We are currently using the same coffee table Josh had before we were married. It is functional but it is also from IKEA and our dog chewed it a little as a puppy. For those of you who haven't stopped by our home, here is a pic:
I found a great one when we first started looking but had a REALLY REALLY bad experience with the sales woman and the manager. Long story short, when we went to close the deal on a sectional these actual words came out of the managers mouth: "You're young and I'm not sure if you've bought quality furniture before." For the Baylor grads out there, the saleswoman reminded me of Dr. Curry for the curriculum class. UGH!!
Anyway, I haven't been able to find it at another store but here is the pic:

Then we went to Stacy's furniture. Everyone in the DFW metroplex knows the commerical slogan that "If you aren't shopping with Stacy, then you're burning money." Of course we don't want to burn money. There we found a coffee table which might be the one. It is HUGE but it is also the perfect height to sit at while we eat dinner...which is a major plus in a coffee table since we eat at the coffee table a lot more than our kitchen or dining room tables.
So what do you think??

Driving without contacts = Bad!!

Today on the way home from class and I experienced one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me. I had just exited the highway and was sitting at a red light on the service road. My eyes were a little dry and itchy so I rubbed them both. When I opened my eyes my vision was a little blurry.....for those of you who wear contacts you know this isn't too unusual when you rub your eye for your contact to get messed up.....but then,
BOTH OF THE CONTACTS FELL OUT OF MY EYES!!!! AT THE SAME TIME!!!

Now, I've worn contacts since 1993 and can count on one hand how many times a lens has popped out of eye. So I turned the corner and pulled into my neighborhood was able to pull over and tried to find the contacts. I could only find one and when I tried to put it in I dropped it again. I was searching everywhere but couldn't find them. So I continued to drive home, squinting through the pouring rain because I couldn't see a thing!!! To tell you how blind I am, I passed three stop signs and could make out the red octagon but the word never came into focus!!

I did make it home safely and somehow managed to even park the car in the garage without incident. Praise the Lord that I was close to home when this happened because I don't know what I would've done if this had happened to me on the highway.

I finished...

I finished Harry Pottery Sunday afternoon around 1pm. Josh hasn't even started reading yet but of course I'm dying to discuss. So, if you've finished and you need to talk about it....call me!!

I married Harry Potter.

Yesterday, Josh went to Baton Rouge for work. In the airport a woman asked him, "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Harry Potter?"

Then later when the flight attendant was giving the safety briefing and when he finished he looks at Josh and then says, "We have Harry Potter on the plane tonight." He has experienced several incidents like this....especially with all the "Harry Hype" going on right now.

It is just the dark hair and glasses and the lightening bolt scar on his forehead (kidding!). Personally I think Josh is cuter than Daniel Radcliffe (who plays Harry Pottery) but I might be a little biased. :)

I keep trying to convince Josh to throw on his graduation robes and let me draw a little purple lightening bolt on his forehead and go out in public. Wouldn't that be fun???

However, he told me that it is crazy that people dress up to go buy their Harry Potter books.....so we will be waiting at home on Saturday for the mailman to bring ours.

I don't think I'll finish reading it Saturday though because we have Matt & Emily's engagement party that night. It will give me a good excuse to avoid studying or working on my final project for my grad school class.

I thought that I liked school....

I thought that I liked school....but as I start graduate classes I realize that I really liked the fun part of undergrad---eating in Memorial with all my friends, walking around campus, hanging out, wearing the same tshirt as 200 other girls on the same day (this is such a Baylor thing by the way).

Now that I'm back in school it is all coming crashing back how I sat in the back of classes and slept or worked on other stuff while the professors talked. Or how I was late for almost EVERY meeting of my curriculum design class....it started at 8am on MWF and lasted for two hours....the entire course contained only about two weeks of useful material so I still made an A despite arriving at 8:15-8:20 every morning. I remember skipping all my classes when a big project was due at 5pm.....and just working on it all day.

But now I'm really doing school. I have papers to write and books to read. My school district will reimburse part of my tutition if I get good grades....so I'm motivated to get some money back since we are trying to do this without loans.
It isn't all bad though. I am taking two classes--one on Monday nights and one on Thursday nights. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Thursday night class. I hate Monday nights....so I'm batting 500....not too bad.
And I keep trying to focus on the positive side that I'm only taking one class in the fall and then maybe a wintermester and I'll have 12 hours done by the end of the year. Woohoo!

I forgot how good I was at procrastinating!!!!

I should be writing a paper for my Foundation of Educational Policy class but I'm not. I haven't been for quite a while. I'm forgot how good I am at procrastinating and now I'm just amazed at myself. It is 10:45pm and I've been back here in the office most of the night.....I have almost 2 pages written but I've also checked all the blogs I like to read, read some message boards on The Nest, checked out cnn.com and done a little "window shopping" on Coach.com.

The paper is due Monday night....so I guess I still have some time....although it is difficult to write mainly because I'm bored to tears. The topic: Political Agendas in Education. I had to read a book about it and now I have to write a book review. Did you know a book review is different than a book report??? A book report is much easier by the way. Anyway, I had originally planned to finish the paper tonight so I could work in the yard tomorrow.....but it looks like I'll be back in here typing after church. Woohoo!!

Happy 4th Anniversary to us!!

Woohoo!!! Today is our 4th Anniversary.....but Josh had to work today and I had class from 5-9pm so we are actually celebrating tomorrow. Here is what we will do to celebrate:

--eat at some point this week off of our china
--drink champagne while we watch our wedding video

This is what we do every year. However, this morning I woke up to find a dozen roses on my kitchen table and a sweet card from Josh. He woke up early and got them before he went to work. Isn't he great??

You'd better Belize It....

Well, we've been back from Belize for a few weeks and I'm just now getting around to posting the pictures. It turns out that grad school is a little more time consuming than I thought.
Anyway, Belize was amazing. It was probably the best vacation we've ever been on. The country is beautiful and the people are friendly. We had so much fun relaxing, snorkeling and exploring.

This is a picture we took of ourselves our first day in Belize. Please notice how incredibly pale we both are. The next day we would spend 2 hours snorkelling and return to the resort redder than red. It was a bad sunburn....like I can't sit down or wear pants bad.....however, the snorkel trip was so amazing that it was totally worth it.


This is the front of the casita we stayed in. It was our own little thatched roof house for the week. It was amazing. So amazing that I told Josh if we ever build a custom home I want a master bathroom just like the casita's....


We spent a great deal of time on these chairs under this umbrella---especially after the sunburn. This was directly in front of our little casita.



We went on a tour and they told us we had to ride across a river on a ferry.....we were quite surprised when we realized this was the ferry. The guy standing on it just turned a crank to pull the boat across the river.

Exploring Belize....

We spent an entire day in Belize exploring the Mayan Ruins in the western part of the country. Our first stop was Xunantunich. This is El Castillo--the 2nd tallest structure in Belize.


And here's the view from the top: (if you look closely I think that is Guatemala out there)


This is the side of the El Castillo temple. We learned a lot about Mayan culture that day. Long story short, it was pretty brutal.


We also checked out the ruins at Cahal Pech. These ruins were smaller but had more passageways and little rooms to explore. One of the families on the tour had a 13 year old son who loved taking pics. He volunteered to take several for us and it was kind of like having our own personal vacation version of Flash.


This is a Mayan ball court. The losers were sacrificed but sometimes so were the winners. Fun, huh??

Leaving Belize...

Here is Josh getting on the plane that took us from Dangriga back to Belize City for the American flight home. It sat about 14 people and flew about 500 feet off the ground.....which sounded scary until we did it and then it was awesome.
We were sad to leave Belize and head back to the real world.....I think Josh was the saddest since he had to go to work the next day.

SPAMALOT!!

Tonight we went to see Spamalot with my sister and her husband. One word: HILARIOUS!! We laughed so hard. I think I might have forgotten how funny the movie was in the first place. But the musical had it all--singing, dancing, a black knight, terrible taunts by the French and of course the Knights Who Say "Ni."

You must go see it if you get the chance.....but if it isn't coming to a city near you than you can just watch the movie and laugh all over again.

I'm off to find a shurbery!