The Countdown Begins

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Ohio this year. Our days were spent in Amherst, Ohio with David's parents. On the long drive there Tuesday night at 1:00am, my hubby decided to take a detour to show the sleeping kids and I Akron's new football stadium. It is still under construction, but it will be so nice when it is finished. Hopefully we will be able to catch a game there someday. The campus has changed so much since we were there. Lauren says she is going to go to school there. :) On Wednesday we ate lunch at Hot Dog Heaven. This is a unique hot dog place in Amherst. For ten years, I have been promised we would eat lunch there and finally this was the year! We enjoyed a meal of hot dogs and fries that were so good. We couldn't get over the pile of fries we received. On Thanksgiving we enjoyed a wonderful turkey dinner,( thanks Cathy) and then spent the evening with David's grandparents and family. On Friday, I convinced David to go Christmas shopping with me in the early hours of the morning. He wasn't looking forward to this outing, but I love to go every year. I just love picking out all the gifts for my family and friends. We left the house at 5:30 and didn't return until almost 2:00. We had a wonderful time shopping for our kids, ourselves, and our parents. We don't get much time together without the kids so it meant a lot to me. We decided that we should do this every year together. We met David's dad for lunch and then headed home. We then went bowling with the kids and ended our day with some wonderful margaritas at a mexican restaurant. On Saturday morning we headed down to my parent's house to visit with them. We had a wonderful visit which included a trip to the Barn for lunch. The kids just love this place. After some shopping with my mom, we started heading our way back to Charlotte. We put up our tree this afternoon. Now the countdown begins to my favorite holiday. I feel so blessed to have so many good friends, a great husband, awesome kids, and a healthy family. I just love this season of giving and showing others how much you appreciate them. Happy Holidays!

The Loft

Two weeks and piles of sawdust later....my husband has finished making Lauren's loft bed. He has become a handyman around here lately. Lauren is thrilled with her new bed. Our final step is to paint it, but we will do that when we return from spending the holidays in Ohio. In the meantime, Lauren is enjoying sleeping in her new high bed. Thanks dad!

Fun in the Pool

The real reason we went to Myrtle Beach was for my sister's wedding. If you ask my children what they did last weekend, all they can recall is how much fun they had in the pool. They have always loved to swim, and last weekend, they had a ball at the hotel pool.

Reception

Reception Fun

My sister's reception room was beautiful. My mom and Dawn had filled various vases with sand, shells, and starfish. The ceilings were draped in white tulle. All I can say about the food is......YUMMY. It was the best wedding food I have ever had. Now as most of you know I do not eat much fruit or any vegetables so this menu was right up my alley. Theh buffet line began with tossed salad, rolls, fried shrimp, red skin mashed potatoes, rice pilaf, mac & cheese, green beans ( I passed on these ) grilled chicken breast with a champagne cream sauce, and then there were various pies and cheesecake! It was a wonderful carb filled meal. At the reception my sister had party blowers at your seat. We were to blow these instead of banging our glasses to get them to kiss. The kids thought this was a hoot. They enjoyed this part the best. When it came time for the bouquet, she threw a bag of lottery tickets instead of flowers. Alex was the lucky man to get the garter. Although he still can't understand why someone would wear a ponytail holder on their leg. The cake was a red velvet cake, so good. They used the letter W as a border around the cake which was so pretty. On the top was they African Love Knot. It was such a great day. I had so much fun visiting with my family and just hanging out all weekend. Congrats Dawn and Gerald, may your love for each other last forever!

Ceremony

Dawn & Gerald's Wedding

On Nov. 15 my sister married the love of her life, Gerald. It was a beautiful outside ceremony at a hotel on Myrtle Beach. The weather was rainy in the morning, but clear and sunny for the ceremony. Dawn and Gerald had great music to make the ceremony upbeat and fun. One neat thing they did to remember this day was, they put their handprints in cement that was in a heart shaped tray. Very unique idea. My sister looked so beautiful in her dress that had a watermelon color sash. Everything about her was glowing. I am so glad she found someone that will make her happy. Best wishes!

Being sick stinks

So many things have been happening lately, but I just haven't had time to blog them. My sister got married in Myrtle Beach this weekend. It was a beautiful wedding and I plan to download the pictures tomorrow. We had a wonderful weekend visiting with family and friends. However on the way home on Sunday, the achy flu feeling got a hold of me, and tonight I think it is finally on it's way to visit someone else's body. So tonight I say, good-bye to the sickness and tomorrow I will say hello again to my messy house, dirty laundry, and tons of pictures to download. Stay tuned!

Skating Fun

Today was an awesome day. Lauren had a birthday party at a skating rink for one of her softball friends. It turned out to be so much fun....for me. As Lauren hung on to the wall the entire time, I skated my heart out. It brought me back to the days when I was in junior high and I would go skating with my friends. I had such a good time skating to the music. I can still skate backwards and squat down and skate on one foot while I hold the other one straight out. Anyone remember that move? As you can tell by Lauren's picture, skating is not her thing. I can't wait to skate again, of course I probably won't be able to walk tomorrow because of sore muscles, but it was so worth it.

Rigorous Work

Lately life at work has become very stressful. Administration is constantly telling us to make sure our lessons are filled with "rigor." At our last meeting the message was to make our rigor "risky." Sara and I spend our entire day justifying everything that we do is risky and rigorous. For example, counting pasta could be risky rigor because they might drop one on the floor, it breaks, and now their final count would be different. As you can imagine, we are laughing the entire day as we do this. Since work has become so stressful this past week, we decided to make our rigorous joke public by making shirts. On Friday we wore shirts that said "Respect the Rigor" and on the back it said, "Make Mine Risky." Turns out everyone loved them, and many teachers wanted one. Having someone I can laugh with all day long just makes my job even better. Thank you Sara for all you do!

A Season Comes to an End

Just wanted to give you an update on our softball and baseball seasons. It was a fun and tiring season. It seemed that this season my kids schedules were always the opposite so I ended up being at the fields almost everyday of the week. Plus a few nights having to travel to Lauren's games, which made us not get home until 8:30 on a school night. Lauren's team ended the season with a fight to the finish. It was a very exciting game to watch. Throughout the season I saw Lauren hit many triples, doubles, one homerun and even a few double plays. Alex's team did an awesome job, I think his team only lost 3 games. He has really improved as a player this season. I am so proud of him. Now begins our next sporting activity which is basektball. Let us all hope and pray with me, that their practices will be on the same night!

Halloween

This year we waited until the last minute to carve our pumpkins...Halloween evening. It turned out to be a great family night. We started carving our pumpkins as soon as we got home from school. Just a side note, Alex designed his pumpkin and I had to cut it out where he made the marks. I did not put the mouth on crooked on purpose. :) David did Lauren's pumpkin which was a bat, clearly the winner. Next, we all sat down and ate some hamburgers while we watched a few Goosebump shows. That really got the kids in the mood for trick or treat. The kids decided to be boxers this year. They will be playing with these outfits all year. Then David took the kids off around the neighborhood with Darrelle, Stephen, and Sydney. They soon found out that for some reason, not too many people this year had their light on. I stayed at our house to pass out candy but I bet I only had 20 some kids. I thought we would be bomb-barded with kids since it was on a Friday night, but I guess everyone was having parties or they went out of town for the 4 day weekend. After trick or treat, we headed over to Darrelle's for some drinks and munchies. It was a great night!

Buster and Alex

Two weeks ago, Alex got selected to bring home his class stuffed dog named Buster. We started out entertaining him by feeding him some Hungry Howie's pizza. Then on Saturday we took him to Alex's baseball game where he sat with me and cheered Alex on. I have a bear in my classroom that the children take home. This is my first experience doing this with my own child's class. I think it is so neat to see what others have written in the notebook about their experience.