Category Archives: special events

Feb14

Valentines Day 2012

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Valentines Day 2012

Actually, my Valentines Day started back on Saturday. I had been anxiously anticipating this particular Saturday for months. And all because my awesome husband snagged us 3rd row tickets to see one of my favorite musicals: “Wicked”.

That’s right. Jared had the insight before we even knew about Baby Boothe to buy the matinee tickets, which meant that we got to go at 2:00 PM instead of 8:00PM, which was much better for my pregnant body. And naturally, the musical was again, incredible. And Jared was great when the rest of the evening thereafter I kept singing songs from the musical… Didn’t complain once.

In summary: it made for an amazing day.

Today the magic continued. The surprising part was that my day started off so well at work because my students were so incredibly sweet. I have never received so many thoughtful gifts from my students for Valentines before! I got all sorts of candy, cupcakes, and even these beautiful flowers from a seventh grader student:

Crazy, right?

Then, when I thought the day couldn’t get any better, Jared sent flowers to my work, which were also beautiful. And they made all the girls in my 5th period class go “Awwww” because of how sweet it was that my husband sends me flowers at work.

Then I got to come home, make a fun dinner for my wonderful husband, and eat said dinner with my wonderful husband. Then, to top it all off, we did some additional gift-giving, wherein Jared went over our pre-arranged money limit (he usually does) but always has thoughtful gifts that I love!

All in all, it’s been a wonderful day, and I feel so lucky to be surrounded by great people, especially my incredible husband! 🙂

Dec31

2011 Reflection

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2011 Reflection

Getting to the end of another year is bittersweet. While I am enormously grateful for all the things I have learned and experienced in the past year, it’s always amazing to me how time flies by. Wasn’t it just last week I was finishing up finals in college? And just a little before that, finishing high school? Good old nostalgia.

So, looking back at this year in a glance, here are some of the highlights:

January: I was still enjoying teaching in my new school. The “honeymoon phase” was almost over, but not quite.

February: The dogs got to experience a Texas snow day. And what’s not to love about watching dogs who are pansies in the normal wet stuff try and figure out how to navigate FROZEN WHITE wet stuff?!

March: brought one of my favorite holidays, Spring Break, and I learned how to make my first quilt… which I really will finish, one of these days!

April: School spirit abruptly changed as several people found out they would be losing jobs and that budget cuts were going to cause dramatic changes for the upcoming year (Thanks again for supporting Texas public education, Rick Perry. I’m sure you’d do even better over the nation.)

On a much happier note, Jared and I celebrated our 4th anniversary where he stole me away from work for a few days and we went to Fredericksburg, Texas and hiked at a local park, Enchanted Rock.

May: Jared got to celebrate his birthday in style, which unfortunately (for me) included getting his Ninja 636 bike. We also had a lovely visit from his grandparents, whom we hadn’t seen in years. We had a great time visiting the Lady Bird Wildflower Center.

June: I had a wonderful opportunity to be involved with the Central Texas Writing Project. I learned a lot, had a chance to practice my writing more than I’ve had a reason to for years, and found strength to attempt another year of teaching 7th grade. Most importantly, I met some incredible, inspiring people that I connected with at a professional and personal level, which forever changed me.

July: was my down month (sort of). I had the chance to attempt some art projects, read some books, and squeezed in helping my district’s Young Writers Camp for a week.

August: Jared threw me a surprise party for my birthday, which made me feel like a princess. Just another reminder of how grateful I am for having him in my life. I also started my fourth year of teaching 7th grade, which was probably a bit of a mistake, looking back at the feelings of anxiety and discomfort I had been experiencing leading up to that moment. Hindsight now is 20/20.

September: We finally received rain. That deserves honorable mention because we had the worst drought recorded in Texas history. And my garden that I planted actually survived through it mostly intact enough for me to get a few things from it. I got a much needed new cell phone, which I have had a lot of fun with since. (How did people do it without cell phones? They are such amazing devices!)

Best of all, Jared’s work rented out a local theme park and we got another weekend away. Gotta love being spoiled like that.

October: Jared crashed his motorcycle on a race track during a track day, and fortunately, didn’t get hurt. While this isn’t exactly a “positive” highlight, as a wife, I can appreciate his safety a lot more than his need for speed. So while he was understandably upset about the whole situation, and I was sad for him, I was also not-so-secretly glad that he no longer had easy access to a dangerous vehicle.

R.I.P., no-longer-so-pretty blue bike.

November: Getting to see family and friends, some whom we had not seen in years, in Utah was a treat. More importantly, it did not snow while we were there, which meant we didn’t freeze to death! (Just kidding- seeing family was more important. Promise.)

December: is my favorite month. There’s just something about the holiday season that generally makes people kinder, and our world needs more of it. I got to spoil Jared for Christmas, which was fantastic, because I can’t usually surprise him like that. We were also lucky enough to sell the rest of his motorcycle gear for a pretty decent price. We also have had two weeks off from work and have just spent time with each other– and amazingly, we aren’t sick of each other yet! I love this guy so much.

All in all, I’ve learned a lot of important lessons in 2011, many of which I probably shouldn’t discuss in length on here. However, I can say that 2012 will be the biggest year yet! Major changes are in store, which I will discuss at length as things unfold in the near and far future. 🙂

Goodbye, 2011! You were good, but I’m welcoming 2012 with open arms.

Oct4

It’s been a week…

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It’s been a week…

You know that there’s something wrong with you when you look at your blog and go, “Wait! Why is that the top post?! Did it not save my latest few posts?!” and then realize: “Nope. I had a lot going on it my head, but was too busy to do anything with it.” Yes, I really did have that train of thought run through my mind.

Anyways, this past week has been insane. It was the end of the first grading period, and it almost did me in. The whole past week, I have had 7th grade papers as my constant companions. When I wasn’t grading, the thoughts of what I needed to grade haunted me. Poems, book reviews, and miscellaneous late work fluttered around me… and it was horrible. Even with these two hanging out with me as I tried to work hard:

Thanks for your patience with papers being all over the house (and pets), Jared. I know that was rough.

On the flip side, to balance out the misery and chaos created in my life by grading, this weekend was General Conference weekend for Church. And it couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I was triple booked this weekend (between grading, my CTWP conference, and an amazing book festival going on within a hour of here) along with General Conference. And they were all important and/or meaningful things for me to be involved with. I had to make a conscious choice to choose Conference.

I always seem to enjoy the Saturday sessions more. And this year I was not disappointed. Within the first two hours of Saturday morning, I had several talks that felt like specific parts were addressed directly to the struggles and discouragement I have been facing. This year has had so many things go wrong, and I have never felt so hopeless or discouraged, even when I have tried so hard to focus on the good around me.

General Conference touched me and reminded me that all these things will pass. These issues and doubts that have plagued me are temporary, and that I can rise above it. I feel so lucky to have such easy access to inspiring and good people sharing simple truths about how to live our lives.

That, and the fact that grades have been officially submitted, make life a much happier place to be.

Sep25

A needed escape…

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A needed escape…

As per my last post, I’ve been really down. For a lot of reasons.

So, Jared decided that we could get away from the weekend. And since his work rented out Six Flags Fiesta Texas for today, he thought that might play in perfectly to my need to separate work from the rest of my life.

So I wasn’t able to get any work done, and I needed to be away from anything remotely school related SO badly.

Saturday morning we dropped the dogs off at the boarding place, and then drove to San Antonio, where we stayed in a B&B. We stayed with this particular place before a year ago, and they remembered us, which was cool.

We went out to dinner at Azuca, a rather expensive Caribbean restaurant, but the food was REALLY good. We got a rather wimpy appetizer (you’d think that if you ordered an $8.50 coconut shrimp appetizer, and there are two people, you’d get more than THREE medium sized shrimp!) and so we were worried about the rest of the meal. But out came dinner’s MAIN course:

It looked better in real life, but believe you me, lots of food, and lots of GOOD, very tasty food. I couldn’t finish it!

We then went swimming in the B&B’s lap pool, which was amazing. I loved to swim when I was younger, but just haven’t really been able to do that in a long time. It felt so good just to swim and be in a pool and do the different strokes (and know that I could still do them).

Then after showing so I didn’t smell like chlorine, I went to bed soon afterwards. Jared had to do some church-related work until pretty late, but I couldn’t handle the masks that were visible in the main room/kitchen area:

I mean, what’s not romantic about THIS wall?

Anyways, I was feeling pretty sick for various reasons, so I didn’t sleep very well. So even AFTER Jared came to bed, I was up a lot during the night, which left me a lot of time to ponder about what the heck this might be:

I think it looks kinda like a washed out chili pepper, but Jared said it reminded him of a snail. So I don’t know.

Anyways, this morning after breakfast, we spent the morning at Six Flags. It was awesome because our average wait was like 5 minutes or less, even for the BIG rides like Superman or Poltergiest. But between the 100+ temperature (because Texas still doesn’t realize it’s fall, yet), my headaches getting bad, and the fact that we got all the big rides and some of the small ones too, by 1:00 we were ready to come home.

Which we did.

And even though I have to go back to the real world tomorrow, which I am hating, I know that I have a wonderful husband who goes out of his way to make me happy and will always be there to catch me when I am down, like he did this weekend. Thanks, babe.