After the Fairytail

Fun with Catie Jean

2010-12-20T12:42:00.002-05:00

After Catie was born I started looking for something to do with the baby instead of sitting around the house with her all the time. I finally stumbled upon a website for Romp and Roll. Romp and Roll is a place located in Willow Grove that has gym, music, and art classes for children from 3 months to 6 years old. I have had such a great experience with Romp and Roll. Catie gets so excited when she knows we are going to gym class.

At the end of November I had the opportunity to go to a workshop with Catie at Romp and Roll. The workshop was basically about the importance of play. I found it very interesting. It actually followed my philosophy as a teacher. I have felt that there is too much structured lessons for children in Kindergarten and even Preschool and not enough play. This workshop confirmed that for me. We need to let kids be kids and stop teaching them how to take a test!

After the workshop the teachers at Romp and Roll held a mixed gym class. Catie, being one of the youngest there, couldn't really run around as much as the other kids but she had fun all the same! This was a Parent Inclusive class. I think some of the parents there need to be taught about what "Parent Inclusive" means. I was appalled at how little they interacted with their kids and what they allowed their kids to get away with. This has absolutely nothing to do with Romp and Roll and the staff. Those teachers are amazing!! Parents just need to learn how to parent and be responsible for their kids. Super annoying!

Anyway, the first class I signed Catie up for was a babies class. It was for children 3-12 months. It was neat to see all the babies grow during that 12 week period! Catie's favorite part of the class was seeing Rompy, the mascot, and the bubbles at the end. Catie is now in Tumble Tunes which is more of a music class but still allows her a lot of time to play in the gym.

I am so happy with Romp and Roll! I can't wait to try the other classes with Catie as she gets older!

Birthday Giveaway

2009-09-07T11:54:00.001-04:00

Checkout Mamacheaps for a great month long giveaway! Mama Cheaps, her husband, and their daughter's birthdays are all in September. She is giving away a lot of great things this month! Check it out here.

New Blog

2009-08-18T19:36:00.000-04:00

Here is a blog I started to follow along with my pregnancy!

http://anewchapteranewadventure.blogspot.com/

Way Behind!

2009-07-14T11:05:00.002-04:00

I know I haven't been writing much. I have so much to write about so this is going to be a long post!

School ended June 6th. That night Jim and I went to a party for his company at DelFresco's Steak House in Center City. It was the 25th anniversary of the company. They hosted a very nice dinner for us. I think Jim said he found out the open bar bill was like $15,000!!! We had a nice dinner. The guys Jim work with are nice and so are their wives. At the end of the night we all received a bottle of wine and two tumblers from TIFFANY'S!!! These people Jim work for are super generous!

The next weekend Jim and I went to Cape May for the weekend. I found out that Cape May Court House and Cape May are two different places. We actually stayed in the Court House. It is about a 20 minute drive to Cape May. We stayed at the Doctor's Inn Bed and Breakfast. I am not going to lie. I was a little creeped out at first. It was decorated old and dark. It was a nice place though. We had a nice time that weekend. We went to the Cape May zoo for the day. That is an awesome zoo. Another day we went to visit a friend of mine from Norwood, Sr. Roseanne. She works at the nun's shore house all summer. It turns out that there was another nun there that I know. Julie helped out with Hubert's swim team while I swam. We had a nice chat with them and then we drove over to Sunset Beach. We climbed a lookout tower and sat on the beach for a little bit. There were some WWII vets sitting in the tower so we talked to them for a bit too. We also spent some time in Stone Harbor. There was really only one block with shops and things to do but that was a nice little block. We went min golfing, ate ice cream, and walked into all the shops. It was a very nice weekend!

My friend Amy got married on June 20th. She is my oldest friend. I have known her since first grade! All of our friends from camp went. It was nice seeing Jackie, Emily, and Katie. We don't get to see them that often. The wedding itself was beautiful. Amy looked amazing! She was never really girly in the sense of make-up, tanning, hair done, ect. She did all those things and more for the wedding! She looked awesome! We had a nice time at the reception too. It was so much fun.

June 21st was our first anniversary and father's day so we had our families over for a BBQ. It was a nice day. We got to use our new outdoor furniture. It took us four different Targets and one return to get what we wanted. Jim's parents got us a beautiful portrait of one of our wedding pictures. My parents got us a great vase and some gift cards. After dinner we cut the top of our wedding cake and watched our wedding video. We had a nice time.

On June 26th we left for a trip to Jamaica. We went with Lauren, Matt, Ray, Julie, Tom, and Matt Huggins. We stayed at the Breezes in Runaway Bay. We had such a great time. When you go to places like this going to all inclusive is the way to go! All drinks and meals were already paid for. We didn't have to worry about tipping. They had a buffet area for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They also had three restaurants that you could go to. We went to the Italian place once, the outdoor stir fry grill once, and the Hibachi grill twice. The Hibachi grill was so much fun! A few of us went on some extra excursions so that cost a little extra. One day we went to Dunn's River Falls. For that trip we start at the bottom of the falls and walk up the falls to the top. Me, Jim, Julie, Tom, Matt Huggins, and Ray went on that trip. The next day Jim, me, Julie, Tom, and Ray all went zip lining and tubing. We had a great time. The only thing was the death ride up to the top of the hill where the rides were. Julie actually ended up getting sick from the ride. It was TERRIBLE. Once we got off the truck and on firm ground I think we all felt better. On the resort they had activities directors. Those guys were great at their job and getting people involved in the activities. A lot of times they tricked you into playing! Like I said... they were good. The last day we were there we did trapeze lessons. It was so much fun! I went twice. The second time it hurt a bit more and was a little harder to pull myself up but I did it!

Well that is about all that happened in June. I will try to keep up better!!

The Royal Pea Giveaway from Mama!

2009-07-09T09:45:00.002-04:00

I know I haven't been blogging much lately but here is another giveaway from Mama Cheaps. She is giving away one print from the fabulous site, The Royal Pea. They do custom prints for children's rooms. Check out the giveaway on MamaCheaps!

Sun and Earth Products Giveaway

2009-06-25T10:30:00.001-04:00

Head back over to my favorite blog, MamaCheaps, for yet another giveaway! This time she is giving away a bunch of Sun and Earth Cleaning Products. Here is the direct link for the giveaway: http://www.mamacheaps.com/2009/06/sun-earth-product-giveaway.html

Bittersweet

2009-06-17T10:17:00.002-04:00

Today I am heading over to St. Gen's to drop off some of my classroom things. My mom and Julie are coming with me and then we are going to lunch at McNallys.

I am excited for starting this new job but I am also still sore from the wounds I received the last few weeks I was at Norwood. I know I am not the first one this has happened to and I know that relatively speaking I am extreamly lucky that this is the first time this has happened to me but I came to feel like that school was family. I just feel like I was screwed over by a family member. I have been screwed over by an actual family member before and this feels just the same! I know this all may sound crazy but it's just how I feel. I will get over it eventually and I know I am going to a great school with a great faculty but I am still sore. Let me be sore for a bit!

Another Mama Giveaway!!

2009-06-15T13:55:00.003-04:00

I just wanted to tell you about another giveaway from MamaCheaps!

This time she is giving away two separate prizes. First place can win a 60 Minute Stroller Workout for Moms DVD. Second place can win a 30 minute Total Body Toning DVD. Both of these DVDs can be found at FitbySara

If you want a chance to win these DVDs head over to MamaCheaps to read more about it!

Mama Cheaps

2009-06-11T10:30:00.002-04:00

I'd like to tell you all out there about a fabulous giveaway on a blog that I follow, MamaCheaps. She is giving away a $100 gift card to Home Depot. Head over to Mamacheaps.com to see the details and learn all about how to save money!

http://www.mamacheaps.com/2009/06/100-home-depot-gift-card-giveaway.html

Last class

2009-06-03T14:17:00.001-04:00

So yesterday was my last day of classes at NFA. I was surprised at how well I handled it! My fifth graders wanted to sign my board before they left. Here is what they left for me.

Camp COLEY

2009-06-01T09:04:00.002-04:00

This past weekend the leaders and CITs from my camp had a nice weekend at Mount Allamuchy Scout Reservation where we spend a week in August. The CITs were there for their training weekend and the leaders were there to hang out, bond, and bounce ideas off of each other.

If there is anyone out there that is interested in sending their children to a week long sleep away camp in North Jersey check out our website at www.campcoley.com or feel free to message me!

Jesus Journal

2009-05-29T13:20:00.002-04:00

So as part of religion class, the fourth graders keep a Jesus Journal. This year I gave them the choice to write their own entry everyday. In the beginning of the year I told the students that their journals were between them and God and that I would never read their entries unless they wanted me to.

Well, yesterday some of the girls sitting around EM started laughing at what he wrote. I asked to see it. He says "You said this journal was between me and God!" After telling him that since he was clearly joking around with it that promise became null and void. He brought the journal up to me. Flipping through the journal I found that half of his entries were a sentence or two about how bored he was so I made him write two pages of seriousness. Here is his entry:

"This journal is serious. My name is EM. I am in 4th grade. Mrs. G is my homeroom teacher. I have to finish this by the end of the period. It is hard. really hard. I am not good at seriousness. I had Lucky Charms for breakfast this morning. The marshmallows are better than the cereal. I was going to have Cheerios but I changed my mind. I could go for a donut. Lunch is soon. Then I will go home at the end of the day. School is over in seven days. Then it will be summer and I won't have to do anything like this until Fall. Since this journal is serious, I'm going to call Fall Autumn like a serious person. I don't like being serious. It is boring. I am hungry. The wall behind the computers is actually a chalkboard. How unusual!"

This kid cracks me up!

Joanne and PJ's wedding

2009-05-28T09:05:00.003-04:00

So last Saturday Jim and I went with his parents and sister to his cousin Joanne's wedding. It was not very traditional as far as the reception goes. I think the goal was to have fun no matter what but a lot of it came off as a little obnoxious and rude.

The ceremony itself was nice. PJ wore a lei because his dad's side of the family is Hawaiian. I thought that was nice. I love all of that traditional stuff! The guys wore chucks with their tuxes. I wouldn't have gone for doing that but it didn't bother me. It was fun.

The ceremony was at 5:00. We didn't leave the church until 7:30. The reception was at 8:00. We didn't eat dinner until 9:00. That is all to just give you a timeline! Anyway, so the reception was at the World Cafe Live. It is a music venue at Penn and is set up for live music, not weddings. We got there and hung around chatting during the cocktail hour. There were not nearly enough appetizers going around. At the appetizer table there was only vegetables, cheese, and crackers. No hot stuff! I always look forward to the appetizers at weddings so I was a little disappointed.

Jim, MaryKate, and I were walking around looking for our table and it was nowhere to be found. It ended up being on the second floor balcony. On the first floor there were 13 rectangular tables that sat 10 people. On the stage was the bridal party and guests. That sat 30. Where we were sitting there was two tables that sat 20. Jim was complaining because all of the "married" cousins were on the first floor. We were the only ones upstairs. Well all of the other married cousins are in their 40's so the idea was for us to sit with the other cousins that were our age. Well because of the table situation Jim, MaryKate, a cousin's daughter, and I all sat at one end and the rest of the cousins were at the other end. Not that they are a close family anyway but it would have been nice to sit with people we knew!

So after the bridal party was called out the buffets opened. There was no order to anything. It was a total free for all! So we got our food and headed upstairs. While we were getting our food and heading upstairs the best man and two maids of honor were giving their speeches. The one girl asked for silence but you can't expect people to be quiet once they are trying to get their food and eat already! Anyway, the speeches were nice. Then the groom's parents, who are opera singers, stood up and each sang a song for the bride and groom. I found that so ignorant and if I was the bride I would have been pissed that they were stealing my thunder like that! They were standing directly in front of the bride and groom. The were just up there to preform. That is all! They were nice singers but it was just totally inappropriate.

Now cut back to the getting the food and speeches ect. My father-in-law was trying to be polite and not eat during the speeches, well when you are not eating dinner until 9:30 you get pretty hungry! So in between people speaking and singing he would try to eat a little bit. Well he started to choke. Went to the bathroom, came back, tried to take a sip of water, choked again, went to the bathroom, Jim checked on him, he came out and said he was going to sit in the car until the wedding was over. He was in that much pain! Well we didn't stick around much later than that. We ended up leaving around 11:00. It was later than we intended because of the situation but Jim's uncle, the father of the bride, caught us so we had to chat to him for a bit.

The best part of the night was the mummers. They hired part of the South Philadelphia string band to come and play for a bit. There was in no way shape or form enough room for the 230 (guesstimate) guests to dance along with the mummers. I had a fine time sitting on a couch in the balcony and just watching.

Here are the mummers and the bridal party coming down to dance!

They did not do all of the dances until about 11:00 when we were getting ready to leave. Here is a picture of Joanne and PJ dancing.

Joanne and PJ

I actually really like this picture a lot. I think it looks really cool! Then the father/daughter and mother/son dances came. The father/daughter dance was nice. The mother/son dance looked like they had eaten way to many pixie sticks! It was crazy! But to draw upon my original observation they were just out to have fun and not worry about tradition! To each their own. PJ is in a band and he sang a song that he wrote for Joanne. I wish we had seen that. I think that was super sweet!

All in all, I think that if we had been there with another crowd we would have had a lot more fun but since it was not a crowd that we normally are around that is why we didn't really do much.

One more set wedding is coming up on June 20th, the day before our first anniversary! I can't wait for that one. It is the wedding of my only friend from grade school.

PS- 7 more days until the summer!!!

Sunday

2009-05-18T11:00:00.003-04:00

On Sunday Tess was in her first art show at Saint Huberts. Her board looked very nice. Here is a picture of her board.

I was very impressed with her work. I have seen Tess' work before but not since she started taking art class at Huberts.

Before the Art Show Jim and I went out for breakfast at a place in Jersey called the White House Restaurant. It was delicious! I think we finally found "our place". I highly recommend it. The service was great. The food was great. The bill was great, only $19.01 for both of us!

I got...

2009-05-17T09:34:00.000-04:00

... THE JOB!! Sister Theresa gave me a call on Friday night to let me know that she wanted to offer me the job. I am so excited! I will write more about that later!

The stress

2009-05-15T08:47:00.003-04:00

Can you see just how stressed out I am? I have not one but TWO fever blisters!! How can I go on interviews with one fever blister let alone TWO???? This is disgusting! I know I certainly wouldn't want to hire me looking like this. Ugg!! I don't think those that don't think situations all the way through before laying someone off knows the consequences of their actions!

Just in case you can't see them and think I am totally freaking out over nothing, I have one on the left corner of my bottom lip and one in the middle of my upper lip!

Phillies!!

2009-05-15T08:39:00.003-04:00

So last week I went to my first Phillies game in over a year. Last year I didn't get to any games and of course that is when they decide to win the world series! Anyway, it was teacher appreciation night so a bunch of teachers and spouces/parents/siblings/friends went. They hired a bus to take us down. I was bringing Heather so I figured it would be easiest to drive down myself. I am glad I did because the bus never showed up!! It was a great game. We won! The night was complete when a guy ran onto the field, shook Feliz's hand, and then dodged about eight security guards. Finally they tackled him out in center field. It was awesome!! Here are some pictures from the night.

The warm-up

The Phans! The stadium was packed.

The Game. It was the only win for the weekend.

My sister Heather looking cute like usual. I hate her!!!

(Just kidding mom! I know you are reading! :) )

Job Search Update

2009-05-13T21:59:00.001-04:00

So just a quick update. I went on the interview today at St. Gen's. I felt like the interview went well. The principal, Sr. Theresa, was super nice. I think I would really like to work at this school. Well, as I was leaving the school, while the principal was still saying good bye mind you, I pulled a "Roche" and fell out of the door and skinned my knee! I was, and still am, MORTIFIED!!! Go figure, my first Roche klutzy moment is while I am trying to impress a possible future boss! Oh well, she said she would call me by Monday to let me know either way. I am keeping my fingers crossed!

New Start

2009-05-13T14:17:00.003-04:00

All year we have been warned that layoffs were going to occur at my school. About three weeks ago I got a call from our principal and was asked to come see her. At this point I knew the other "specials" were reduced to part time so I was anticipating that. I was totally thrown off when she said that they were not going to be able to give me a contract for next year.

I have travelled through all of the "death" stages as some of my friends here have called it. Depression, anger, and acceptance. I still get very upset when I think of the students that I have come to love over the last three years. I still get angry when I think about the responses that I was given by my principal to some of the questions I have asked. It will take time but I will be fine. I know I will.

In about ten minutes I am going to head up to St. Genevieve's school, which is about a five minute drive from Norwood, to interview for a position as a Kindergarten teacher. Their enrollment is increasing and they need to open a second room so my principal asked if she could pass on my resume and of course I said sure.

I am so nervous and I HATE interviews but I have a good feeling. I hope this job works out. It is a pay cut and traveling the same distance but I love this area so much! I will still be able to see my friends from Norwood easily and I can always connect with my students from Norwood as well. Also, kindergarten is something that I would LOVE to do! I love that age. I will write again tonight with how I thought it went. I hope it goes well. I really do!!!

Long Night, Nice Day

2009-04-23T17:07:00.006-04:00

So last night, after Jim left to go to work, he called me and told me to come down to the corner with something to wrap his finger because he had cut it on a sewer grate. Well an hour later I was getting dressed and driving him to Nazareth to get stitches.

Jim had gotten out of his car to mail a package and his keys fell into the sewer. He drove down to his parents' house to get his dad. The two of them came down to move the sewer grate to put a magnet down to pull the keys out. When they were moving the grate his dad dropped it early and it crushed Jim's finger. He had to get five stitches and has a splint on it just to keep it from breaking. The doctor explained that the finger wasn't broken but is "spidered" like when a piece of glass breaks.

Jim's poor finger.

We didn't end up coming home until about 12:30 and didn't get in bed until 1:00 so when my alarm went off this morning I called George and told him I wasn't coming in. We went back to sleep until 10:00. I woke up, walked to the corner pharmacy, got Jim's medicine, came home, and made him breakfast. I said it was nice out and since we were both home we should do something so I bought a membership to the zoo and we went to the zoo. We bought the membership because it was only a few dollars more than what we would have paid anyway!

Here are some pictures I took of our day. I didn't get any pictures of us because my phone ended up dying! :( That's ok though... we are members now so we will go back over the summer.

I can't remember what these things were but I thought they were cute sleeping together. They were in the Rare Animal House!

Some of the Galapagos Turtles eating.

The hippos decided to come out of their pool to play with their ball. I never saw the hippos do anything but float in the middle of the water!

I can't remember what these thing were either but they were pretty impressive looking. I had never seen these before. The brown one's name was Olivia, or so said the zoo keeper behind us.

One of the Gorillas. Jim laughed at this one because he was sitting on his steps looking like a king. I guess he is the "in charge" one.

One of the Orangutans. After I took his picture he stuck his tongue out at me!

The Gorilla cage from the top floor.

The lion habitat. This was the first time I saw the new "Big Cats" exhibit.

A Puma. The Big Cats exhibit lets the cats come really close to you, behind plexiglass that is! It was really neat.

The tigers were fighting! It was pretty cool.

"So There!"

The Prarie Dogs eating!

The Peahen eating the Prarie Dogs' food! How Rude!!

The Peacock showing off.

Got it!

2009-04-22T07:50:00.001-04:00

Yeah, so that A I asked for in the last post... I got it! And not just for the project... OVERALL!! Woo Hoo!!

Final movie project!!

2009-04-21T21:13:00.002-04:00

This semester I took an intro to TV Studio class. It was neat. We were put into groups and had to make three movies. I put the final project on you tube. Check it out!

I know! Cheesy! But it was fun! And we got to eat too! What more can you ask for? Maybe an A? What do you think?

Academy of Natural Sciences

2009-04-20T20:05:00.004-04:00

On Sunday Jim and I decided to take a trip to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. We stopped at the Aramingo Diner for breakfast and then headed down. We had a nice day! Here are some pictures.

This bone is as big as me!

This bone is as tall as Jim!

Jim walking on the treadmill to make the tool dinosaur run.

The Gigasaurus

One of the butterflies in the Butterfly exhibit.

More of the butterfly exhibit.

Jim putting together a dinosaur leg.

He's doing such a good job!

Me on the turtle. I have so many pictures of me and my sisters/cousins on this thing!

Flat Belly or Bust!!

2009-04-20T10:34:00.003-04:00

Today I started my "Flat Belly Diet". I bought the pack off of QVC. It came with a pocket guide, a journal, and two workout DVDs. My mother-in-law did this diet before the wedding and loved it! What I like about it is that it gives me exactly what to eat four times a day!

The diet starts with a 1,200 calorie four day jumpstart. After that the diet goes for 1,600 calories a day! My starting weight is 142 pounds.

So far, for breakfast today I had a cup of puffed rice, a cup of fat free milk, 1/2 cup of unsweetened apple sauce, 1/4 cup of shelled, unsalted sunflower seeds, and a few sips of sassy water. I wasn't feeling well this morning so I was having a hard time forcing the sassy water down. I have to remember to strain it before I drink it.

To make the sassy water you skin and slice a medium cucumber, slice a medium lemon, 1 tsp. of freshly shredded ginger, and 12 mint leaves. Mix all the ingredients in a pitcher of water and let sit over night. You are supposed to drink the whole pitcher each day!

Hopefully this diet works! We are t minus 49 days until Jamaica '09!

Busy Weekend

2009-04-05T17:07:00.006-04:00

On Friday Jim and I stopped at my parents' house to see Tess off for her soph hop. Tess and her boyfriend just broke up so she took a friend of her's from Judge's swim team. Here is a picture of them.

Tess and Shawn

After they left, and I listened to my daily dose of Kristine bashing from Julie (which is getting old by the way!), we drove to the Kimmel Center to see Riverdance! After we parked and walked in I took out the tickets and realized the tickets said Academy of Music. After confirming with a host at the Kimmel Center I confirmed that the show was indeed at the Academy of Music! Luckily the two buildings are only a block apart so Jim and I walked down to the show. We finally got to our seats. We could not have gotten any further back if we had tried! We were however in the center so our seats weren't actually that bad. The show was AMAZING!!! I loved it. Jim said that I looked like a little kid the whole time. I was laughing and clapping and bouncing around. I just couldn't help it!

On Saturday I had to wake up early to drive Tess, Heather and two of Tess' friends to Allamuchy. Allamuchy is the camp we go to over the summer. Tess and a few of her friends applied to work there for the summer and Tess' interview was Saturday. The ride is long but nice, especially when there are other people in the car. Tess got the job so she will be away all summer. After I got back home we ran down to Jim's parents' house to see Mary Kate off for her prom.

Mary Kate and her date.

Mary Kate, mom, and dad

Mary Kate, Jim, and Rob. Ed wasn't home.

Mary Kate, Babci, and Pop

After Mary Kate and her friends left we all hung around and had some dinner. Later we went down to Babci and Pop's house to see the new kitten that Rosie got them. He is a cute little thing. I wish Onyx wasn't nasty with other animals or I would get one!

He just woke up after a little nap on Babci's lap.

Cleaning himself.

Peek-a-boo!

Running around playing!

Erin and Bobby's Wedding

2009-03-29T09:32:00.005-04:00

Yesterday was my cousin Erin's wedding. Jim's cousin Rosie came over to do my hair and makeup. We ran out of time so she wasn't able to do my makeup but my hair looked fabulous! She blew dried t straight and flipped it out. We got dressed, took the dog to Jim's parents' house and left. Well the wedding started at two, we got there about five minutes late. Twenty minutes later the bridal party finally arrived!! Apparently the limo bus got lost. That's what happens when you hire a bus from Manhatten!

Anyway, the wedding was nice. There were a few little glitches, including when the priest forgot Bobby's last name. It was pretty funny. They got married at Saint Martin's on Oxford Circle. I only had my cell phone as a camera so my pictures aren't great but here is what I got!

Here is Bobby waiting for the Bride!

The boys are all lined up. Erin and Bobby had eight guys and girls! The bridal party was huge!

The videographer, my dad!

The littlest guest... Quinn Nicole. This is my cousin's baby born a week ago!

My cousins Pat and Jaime.

Erin and Bobby. Her dress was beautiful!

The bridal party during the vows... that you could hear!

My sister Heather reading the petitions.

My cutie patootie hubby Jim. My ADD was starting to kick in! :)

Heather and NEAL after the ceremony. Neal spells his name the Gaelic way.

Julie and Tom after the ceremony. I asked Julie to take a picture of me and Jim but she messed it up. Luckily my dad was behind her and ready with his camera! I will put that picture up later.

After the wedding my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmom, and my mom's cousins headed over to Julie's house to hang out, watch some basketball, and have some snacks before the reception.

The reception was at the Brookside Manor at Somerton Springs. It was a nice place. The food was decent. The DJ was lousy! She started playing Erin's father/daughter dance song during Erin and Bobby's time to dance. She didn't even realize! I mean come on... the song she was playing was "In My Daughter's Eyes" for peet sake! Then the maid of honor and Bobby's sister both gave speeches and then since apparently Bobby couldn't decide who to make his best man six out of the eight guys spoke a little. That got a little annoying since we were all sitting there waiting to eat. My mom had been asked to give the blessing. Then we all ate. It was buffet style. The food was good. The DJ, again being terrible, played dance songs during dinner. Not line dances or anything, but songs like Barry White! After dinner we all got up to dance. It was a good time!

Now we have two months until the next wedding. We have one in May, on in June, and a possible one in October. I am assuming we are being invited to that one. I love weddings!!

Ethan Quote

2009-03-19T17:43:00.002-04:00

So there is this kid in my homeroom named Ethan. He walks up to me and all he has to say is my name and I start cracking up.

Anyway, I decided that I would start writing some of the things he says.

Today, while I was teaching the class about Power Point, Ethan stops me. He says "Mrs. G. What does Jim stand for?" I looked at him and told him that Jim stood for James and then asked him why he was interrupting me to ask me this question. He said "Jim stands for James? Really? They don't sound anything alike." I told him that nicknames don't always work that way. He then said "I thought Jim stood for Jimathy!"

Oh Ethan! At least the boy is thinking!!

My new project...

2009-03-16T10:03:00.003-04:00

...one of them anyway!

Please go to www.campcoley.com to read about my camp.

This is a camp that I have been attending as a camper, CIT, leader, and staff member since is was 13 years old. We have seen many changes over the years and we are now working on building ourselves up more and more. We have a benefactor, a new name, and a new website made by me! It is not finished yet, but keep checking back for updates and if you are interested in sending your kids or volunteering yourself as a leader please click on the contact us section on the website or leave me a comment here. Thanks for the support!

Snow Day Fun

2009-03-02T15:54:00.002-05:00

Here are some pictures I took while playing in the yard with Jim and Onyx today during my snow day!

Here I am in my winter finery. Notice my boots and gloves.

Showing off my boots... ok, Jim's boots. I couldn't find mine so I put on a pair of Jim's old work boots.

Onyx playing with a neighbor's soccer ball that was thrown into our yard. Onyx got to it first and I was not getting it off her. There was a big hole in it anyway so I am not concerned about getting it back to them!

Jim and Onyx playing with the soccer ball.

My snow angel that Onyx ran through!

My friend Stacey

2009-03-01T13:55:00.003-05:00

This is my friend Stacey. When I told her that I had a blog she made fun of me and then asked me to blog about her. So here it goes. Stacey is super funny and fun to be around! She is a great friend and a good coach, even if the girls don't like listening to her because they are teenage girls and like pushing things as far as they can go! Oh yea... and Stacey has met, some would say stalked, Brendan Hansen the swimmer!

The end of Swimming

2009-03-01T13:37:00.006-05:00

So we ended swimming last week. I am glad to have a little bit of a break from coaching because lacrosse starts up on the 9th. Ugg!

Anyway, the last week of swimming we have a lot of festivities. On Wednesday we had our last swim meet of the season. We swam Little Flower and CRUSHED them! It was super sweet. At the last meet of the season the freshmen give a gift to the seniors. They got a sand bucket and shovel filled with goodies such as big clown sun glasses and leis. Here is a picture of our seniors.

Here is a picture of most of the rest of our team.

On Sunday they had senior good byes at a captain's house. At senior good byes the juniors read poems they wrote for the seniors and give them a gift from the entire team. Usually they are pretty funny. They were ok this year. We will see what next year's juniors pull off.

The next Wednesday after practice we take the team and their parents out to Tony's on Frankford Avenue for pizza. That is the time that the coaches recognize the seniors. The girls always have a theme. Katie says it has been going on for years but I never remember it happening when I swam. This year the theme was presidents. Here is a picture of JFK and Marilin Monroe.

The next night we had our last practice. It was only 20 minutes and was basically to get the girls in the pool and keep a feel for the water. After practice Katie, Stacey, and I went out to Chickie's for dinner. It was nice!

Friday and Saturday we had our districts. Everyone was super stressed and tensions were high. We were running things differently than what we are used to since we are now a part of the PIAA and are required to follow the Public Schools' rules even though they barely participated! Anyway, things went well. We were told some things that made me super angry at two coaches but I have already complained enough about that and I just want to forget about getting stabbed in the back by some one my family has considered a friend for years so I am not going to rehash it all here again.

One of our seniors finished second in the 50 free and the 100 free. We were so surprised. We knew she would finish in the top six but we never expected her to go to finals placed first and or place second in either event. She was really bummed that she didn't get first but those two events when you are that close to the top anything can happen. Another senior finished fourth in the breast stroke. She was bummed too because last year she finished second and really wanted that first place.

Anyway, that was the end of the swimming season. Hopefully next year is a good one. We shall see if adults are able to act their ages. If that is possible than it should be a great season!

Katie, Stacey, and me at our last meet!

New Blog

2009-02-25T13:57:00.003-05:00

I decided to start writing another blog. I have found so many good ideas on-line for teaching that I thought I would share my ideas and other ideas I have found. Check it out here and please feel free to pass it on!

Ash Wednesday

2009-02-25T07:39:00.002-05:00

Today is Ash Wednesday. We have liturgy at my school today. They are always fun. They aren't too bad. I just think they are a little over the top sometimes, especially with the school photographer snapping away during the whole thing.

Anyway, the first Ash Wednesday that I remember was very traumatizing. I was in kindergarten. My teacher told us that a priest was coming to our classrooms to put a cross on our heads. I am sure that she talked about ashes but as a five year old I probably had no idea what she was talking about, either that or I wasn't paying attention. Anyway, the time came. The priest arrived, one table went up, then another. Finally it was my table's turn. I was first but I kept letting my table neighbors ahead of me. I was last in line. I got up to the priest, squeezed my eyes shut... it was over! That didn't hurt. That is when I looked around at my class mates and saw what I thought was dirt on everyone, obviously I later realized what ashes were! See, this whole time I had thought that the priest was going to nail a little wooden cross to my forehead! I remember that day like it was yesterday. :)

This year, since I have been told recently that I apparently look preggers, I have decided to give up junk food. All junk food! I am going cold turkey. Hopefully this will help me get back my "stick" look that apparently the above people prefer especially since they are the best ones to judge me in their body situations. Please note my sarcasm on that last line! Grrr...

Jealous much?

2009-02-23T10:01:00.002-05:00

I have a lot to write about from the past week with swimming but it is too much to write in school so I will do that when I go home.

Today I woke up in a foul mood, mainly because of the weekend. My first class of the day is with the first graders and I can always count on them to say something cute to fix my mood, even just for that half hour period.

The first graders are creating feelings books in KidPix. Each week they write "I feel happy when...", they finish the sentence, and draw a picture. So today we did jealous and the one little boy, the "I live a duplicate" boy, said "I feel jealous when my cousin can have play dates whenever he wants." I responded by saying that is a good time to feel jealous. He then said "My cousin is 21 by the way." I love the things kids say!

I'm a better shot?

2009-02-12T08:44:00.002-05:00

So Jim recently bought two pistols. I am totally ok with it. I mean my dad is a police officer so I have always had guns in my house. Plus, since Jim is working night work I am at home by myself all night and let's face it... if someone is breaking into my house I am very confident that the only damage my dog would do to the person is trip them because she is so excited that someone else is around to potentially play with her!

Since Jim bought the guns he has wanted to go out to a range to see how they shot. He also wanted me to practice shooting since all I have ever shot were rifles and shotguns at camp. Pistols and rifles are a lot different! A friend of Jim's teaches a gun safety class so after his class he gave me and Jim a private lesson which basically just consisted of telling us of the three safety rules at the club and then letting us shoot for an hour and a half.

Apparently I was a better shot than Jim! Where I hit may have been up in the top left hand corner off of the actual target but they were always clumped together. Jim's friend told me that girls are usually better shooters than guys because they have hips. I wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not.

Jim is taking his grandfather to another shooting range tomorrow. His grandfather had knee surgery and is dying to get out of the house. They should have a good time.

Things Kids Say

2009-02-02T16:47:00.003-05:00

So today I was getting ready to leave school and there were a few stragglers left over. One of the first graders was telling a teacher that he moved and he loved his new house. This is what he had to say:

"I love my new house! It is two houses in one. It is one of those... what do you call them? It is a duplicate! That's it!"

~SS 6 years old

How cute is that?

The big 2-5!

2009-02-02T11:28:00.002-05:00

Ouch! Yesterday was my birthday and I hit my "old" age. When you were growing up did you ever think "Oh man! That is really old??" Well I always thought 25 was really old. I kind of just thought that that would change as I got closer to 25, yeah. It didn't I still felt like I was old up until today! I am over it now! :)

Jim's grandfather is turning 70 this week so Jim's parents had a birthday dinner for the two of us yesterday complete with two separate cakes. A Stock's pound cake for Pop and a delicious chocolate with butter cream cake from Shop Rite for me! My parents and sisters were invited. It was a nice day. Jim didn't give me his gift yet but I know what it is. It is a necklace I liked on QVC. Check it out here! I can't wait for it to arrive!

Catch up part two

2009-02-02T11:12:00.006-05:00

The rest of January was pretty much the usual business. I started my new grad course. I did not have a good feeling for the teacher during the first class which caused me a lot of anxiety the day of the second class but I feel better now. I just hate that I am going back to school but I know that I will regret it if I don't finish my masters somewhere down the line. I am taking an Intro to TV Studio class. I already know all but one of the other students in the class from other classes so that is nice.

We are now coming down the home stretch with the swimming season. I will be happy when this season is over. It has been a little rocky with the Philadelphia Catholic League joining the PIAA and therefore having to follow the PIAA's rules, no matter how ridiculous! Hopefully next year will be better.

On Saturday I had a wedding shower to go to for my cousin. It was a nice time. I got to sit and talk to my cousins, eat good food, and reminisce about my wedding events last year! My cousin's wedding is at the end of March. After that we have three, possibly four, other weddings to go to this year! I am at that age now where people are getting married so I guess it is to be expected. Here are some pictures from the shower.

Erin coming in to the shower. She thought we were having a dinner for my Grandmom's birthday.

This is my Grandmom. Isn't she cute?

Erin again. Erin's niece likes taking pictures with my phone! This picture, Grandmom, and the rest of the pictures are hers. She's not too bad for being a six year old!

A picture of the delicious cake!

The favors. It was a great idea! They were boxes filled with cookies and a lottery ticket. Everyone got one of three sets of numbers. They either got the wedding date, Erin's birthday, or Bobby's birthday. I got their wedding date.

Erin opening up one of her china settings. I loved her pattern!

Here is Erin with her hat on!

Catch up part one

2009-02-02T10:48:00.005-05:00

So I realized that I haven't written in quite some time! Here is what has been happening with me.

I went to a conference in Avalon from January 16-18. It was a great conference! Most of the sessions I attended were good, the hotel we stayed in was awesome, and the food was delicious! I drove down with my friend Betsy. The conference was at the Golden Inn.

I stayed in a room that sleeps six. I was the only one in the room! It was AWESOME! Here is the sleeper sofa.

I had my choice of two beds! The pillows were awesome!

It was nice having a fridge in the room for all the water bottles I brought!

I can't wait to stay there for a weekend with Jim! The keynote speaker the first night was a man I have "skyped" with before named Will Richardson. I spoke to him last year during one of my sessions in my first Grad class. For that class his book was our required reading. I brought it with me and had him sign it. I know I am a HUGE dork!

Here is Will. He is a great speaker and very knowledgeable. His book was one of the only required readings that I actually ever read. I suggest checking out Will's blog if you are interested in technology.

The one bad part of the weekend was that for the whole week before the conference and the whole week after the conference I was feeling so crappy it was not even funny. I had no fever and was not throwing up but I was terribly nauseous. My friends at work all had me convinced that I was pregnant. I had myself convinced of that too. I finally went to the doctors the Tuesday I came home from the conference. He told me that he wanted me to have a CAT scan done on my appendix. I am TERRIFIED of tunnels like that. When I was little I always had nightmares about walking through a cave and the cave getting smaller and smaller and me eventually getting stuck, or playing in covered slides and the slides getting smaller and smaller and me getting stuck. Oddly enough I am ok with water slides but MRIs and CAT scans freak me out! Luckily they called back with my diagnosis and I did not have to go get the CAT scan done.

The doctor took blood work to see if I was pregnant, I was not. He took a urine sample and apparently it showed a Urinary tract infection. Well the secretary wanted to call in a prescription for me and I didn't answer my phone since I was teaching all day so they called Jim. Jim is now back on night work and was woken up by the call. Between being half asleep and the secretary abbreviating it by saying that I had a UTI Jim thought she said I had Ecoli!! It was very confusing but we got it straightened out. Luckily my sister Julie is a nurse. I told her the medicine they gave me and she said that was for a UTI. I think it was not a UTI that was making me sick because I had no symptoms for that. I think the doctors just caught the UTI early because I did go to them at the right time.

44th President

2009-01-20T21:07:00.003-05:00

So today was the big inaguration day. President Barrack Husein Obama is our 44th president. It was actually the first time I have ever watched any of the day's celebrations. At 11:30 my school watched some of the actualy inaguration, although we missed President Obama actually being sworn in due to the fact that we were streaming off of cnn.com. That and the fact that there is no wireless signal in the building we were in! Oh well. Here is a clip of the President's swearing in and his speech which was not too bad!

I did not vote for Obama but I decided today that regardless he is now my president and I need to support him the best I can! His speech was not half bad.

I was not a huge fan of either of Michelle's dresses today. I thought she could have done a lot better. The people who are saying she is the next Jackie O. are nuts! She is defintally NO Jackie O.!

I watched the President and First Lady's dance also. Beyonce sang Etta James' At Last. She did a great job and their dance was the standard spinning in a dance type dance. Afterwards it looked like the Obama families and Bidden (The new VP) families were on the stage dancing. Everyone on stage was having a good time but quite frankly I thought it was painful watching Obama dance! :)

Now one thing that has bothered me about this whole campaign and something that quite frankly bothers me all the time. I am sorry if you find this offensive but you know what? This is something I feel strongly about. The term African American and how we think calling people "black" is offensive. Afraican American means that they are American citizens who were born in AFRICA!! Now if it is offensive to call someone black why is it not offensive to call me white? Why am I not being called Irish American? German American?? Russian American?? That is one thing I will never bow to. Unless you were born in Africa I will not call you an African American. I will call you an AMERICAN! As you can see that is something I feel strongly about and I can't say that about a lot of things.

Oh well, anyway, now that I am done my ranting... Here's hoping that the next four years go well!

My Clustrmap

2009-01-18T09:40:00.001-05:00

Wonderful Morning... NOT!

2009-01-12T08:57:00.002-05:00

So today my Monday morning is off to a horrible start.

The one thing I have been terrified of since I started driving finally happened! I ran out of gas. The light went on as soon as I sat in the car but I figured I would have enough to make it to the gas station on my way to work. It has happened before and I made it. Well about half way to the gas station from my house the car started to sputter. I was able to make it to the shoulder of the road before I lost all control of the car. I parked, shut it off and froze until my super hubby got there with 2 1/2 gallons of gas for me. The battery also died in the process of me waiting so Jim had to jump me as well.

I felt like such a jerk! Poor Jim is going back on his night shift job tonight so he was able to sleep in. Also, my principal asked me to sit with the Pre-K kids until it was time to go to their building. I love sitting with those kids because I love that age but obviously I couldn't. I called my friend Jim at work and asked him to sit with the kids. I ended up not getting to school until about 8:15. I HATE being late which is why I leave my house at 6:45 every morning instead of 7:00 which would give me plenty of time to get to school! Grrr... I hope the day starts to go better. Maybe one of my first graders will say something funny. They usually are good for that!

AMAZING MOVIE REVIEW!

2009-01-09T21:53:00.002-05:00

So Jim and I decided to go see Marley and Me tonight. It was absolutely AMAZING!! I had read the book over the summer and I loved it. The book was written by John Grogan. It was based on stories that he had written about him, his wife, their kids, and their dog Marley.

The movie was so good but you need to bring tissues or at least have napkins on hand. It was a huge tear jerker! I highly recommend it. In my opinion it beats out Brad Pitt's Christmas movie and I haven't even sen that one yet!! :)

Happy Weekend! Be safe in the snow tomorrow!

Tuckered Out!

2009-01-08T08:38:00.000-05:00

Here is my poor pup after the holidays! My pup was pooped!

Do you use power point???

2009-01-08T08:37:00.002-05:00

Then watch this video! It talks about what NOT to do when creating a power point slide.

2009!!!

2009-01-01T11:37:00.002-05:00

Happy New Years to everyone out there! I hope 2009 is a great year for you!

Last night we went to my sister's house for a black and white party. The girls wore black, the guys wore white. My parents went and my dad showed up not only in his tux, but his tux WITH sneakers on! He looked so classy! A good time was had by all, even my social idiot of a husband Jim. Him and a friend of Julie and Tom's teamed up and dominated in several rounds of beer pong which meant that I had to drive home in Jim's boat... ummm... I mean the grand marquis! Jim doesn't usually play drinking games, especially when it means he has to drink something like Miller Light. I was just so happy that he was having a good time. Normally he just sits there. Anyway, around 1:00 Julie decided to allow everyone to smoke in the basement since it was 19 degrees out. By 1:30 my chest was burning. I wasn't even in the basement! I was up in the living room. I told Jim it was time to go! He had to sit for a bit before we decided that I would just drive home.

Julie and Tom

My mom, my dad, Julie, and me.

Me and the hubby

Making cookies with mommy

2008-12-30T13:53:00.002-05:00

Here are some pictures of me and Onyx making gingerbread men, women, trees, and candy canes!

Daddy! I want some!

You lookin' at me bear?

That looks yummy!

Kozin Family Pollyanna

2008-12-30T10:21:00.004-05:00

The Saturday after Christmas we had our Kozin family Pollyanna. This year it was at Julie's house. Next year the plan is to have it at mine. We shall see if we can get the house finished enough to host it.

Anyway, because of drama spurring from my wedding and my Nana's death we decided to change our pollyanna up a bit. Normally we do the old name out of a hat thing but we didn't want people to not sure up and someone else get screwed over so we decided to do a Chinese pollyanna. I didn't think it was necessary to do that and I thought it would cause more problems but no one ever listens to me! Anyway, it was decided that next year we will go back to the original pollyanna. One of the problems was that the gifts had to be gender neutral, age neutral and we made the age limit be teenage and older. Well there are about six kids under the teenage cut off so I made some connections and had Santa come to deliver presents to those kids. They, for the most part, loved it!

Ryan was the first to see Santa. He was so excited!

Look at his little face.

Baby Ben, Ryan's cousin. He's not so sure about this dude!

Katie and little sister Dana.

Two of Katie and Dana's brothers, Will and Owen. Aidan was not having the Santa thing. It was pretty funny. He kept telling me that it wasn't the real Santa and that it was just "Johnny" dressed up but he still wouldn't sit with him. He would barely go up and get his gift!

The adults had to get in on the action too! Here is Roe Roe.

Santa and Aunt Frani.

Santa with Aunt Frani number 2.

Santa and his boys, Frank, Joe, Jack, and Joe.

All the girl cousins! Hillary, Erin, Me, Maureen, Kathy, Dana, Tess, Santa, Katie, Cheryll, Julie, and Heather.

Christmas Festivities

2008-12-30T09:49:00.006-05:00

Ok, so I already wrote about my first couple of Christmas parties.

On Christmas Eve we went to my in-laws. They do Wigilia. We don't go as in depth as that website describes but you get the idea! We start with mushroom soup and then move onto french fries, onion rings, fried flounder, crab cakes, and pirogi. After dinner we all kind of sit around. Last year for the first time we went to 9:00 mass at our church. I would rather go before dinner but going to our church at 9:00 is nice because it is not crowded at all so I think we are going to keep going to that mass. Anyway, we had some time before mass so we all exchanged gifts. Jim's parents got me a scent story from Yankee candle, candy cane smelling shower gel, a little digital picture frame key chain, earrings, and money. I always forget that I can take picture on my cell phone so I didn't take any pictures on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning the dog jumped into bed with us to wake us up. I felt like she was a kid waking us up because Santa came! We went downstairs and I saw that Jim had bought me the Wii and Wii Fit! He stayed up all night setting it up for me. He also got me a pair of Ugg boots. It was one of those things that I bought and made him put away as a gift for me! :) I was disappointed in what I got Jim but he liked it so it was all good. I got him the Electronic Monopoly, volume two of the James Bond collection, an MP3 player, and two gold fish. I got him the gold fish because whenever he guesses what I got him he guesses a gold fish so I finally actually got him some. He was home earlier from work than I expected on Christmas Eve so he blew the goldfish surprise but he was able to set the tank up!

We went to Jim's parents' house again for breakfast. A little while later we headed over to my parents' house to exchange gifts there. My parents bought us a deep frier and an ice cream maker. They also got us more pieces for our Lenox nativity set, gift cards, and two movies, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and PS I Love You.

Getting ready to open our presents. I wonder what they are!!

Yeah! My ice cream maker! It was on my registry and we never got it. Now I can make all the ice cream I want!

Once my sister Julie's boyfriend got to my parents' house we did our Pollyanna. We decided to do a Pollyanna this year instead of buying for all of us. It worked out well. Heather got me a five in one cake carrier, cupcake carrier, cake pan, cupcake pan, ect. Around 3:00 we all headed over to my aunt's house for dinner. Aside from the crazy lady who lives across the street from my aunt's house it was a nice night. The crazy lady asked several of my family members, including Jim and me, to not park in front of her house because her husband parks there. Number one she has a driveway, number two they live on the corner so there are a good four or five other spots that are potentially in front of their house and number three there are no signs saying no parking in front of their house. Jim said he would have just left his car there if we had brought the older car but since we had the newer one he didn't want the car to get keyed or anything like that! If it had not been Christmas I would have said something to her but I held my tongue!

My sister Heather and my cousins' baby Kenna Marie.

My sister Julie and her boyfriend Tom.

Me and my cousins' son Patrick.

Me, Heather, Julie, Paul, and Siobhan (Patrick's parents)

My Jim, Kara, and Brian.

This is where the cool kids hang out during dinner. My cousin Pat is on the computer, Kenna is in the green dress, Emme is in the red looking at the TV, Patrick, my sister Tess and Molly Jean. Emme and Molly Jean are Pat's kids.

Daddy come home!!

2008-12-21T08:58:00.003-05:00

So since I got a bunch of Dunkin Donuts gift cards as Christmas gifts from my students/grade partners/swim team we decided that was the perfect breakfast for this miserable Sunday morning. Jim ran out, salted the sidewalk, and ran out.

Whenever Jim leaves and I am home Onyx cries, jumps onto the door and looks out, lays by the door, ect. Here is what she looks like. Doesn't she look so sweetly pathetic??

"Daddy! Where did you go?"

"Mommy! Where did Daddy go?"

Saturday Night with the Hubby

2008-12-20T23:14:00.003-05:00

After the swim team party I was home by myself for a bit. Jim came home around 3:30 from the gun show. Jim decided to go to the Valley Forge Gun show with his grandfather instead of hanging out with a bunch of high school girls. Anyway, when Jim got back I decided that I wanted to play a board game, however the ones we have need more than two players so we decided to risk the "Saturday before Christmas" crowds at Target. I only really wanted to buy Life but we ended up buying Life (The new electronic one), Yahtzee, Sequence, and Mancala! We also got a few other things we needed.

We came home, put Elf into the DVD player and started a couple rounds of Yahtzee. After Elf was over I stuck in It's A Wonderful Life. About half way through that movie we started Life. After pausing in between every turn to read the directions we finally got it. Jim and I both give the game an A+ and highly recommend it for a good Saturday night in. It allows you to make a lot more decisions during the course of the game than the old one did.

Here is what the new board looks like.

Here is the new and improved spinner. Nothing goes flying off the track mid spin anymore! You insert your credit card and the machine does all the adding, subtracting, and results to other Life chances. It is awesome!

After It's a Wonderful Life was over we stuck White Christmas in the DVD player and played another game of Life. The directions actually estimate how long your game will last. For example, if you enter in that you want to play for 30 years (or 30 turns) it says for a four player game it should last about an hour. Isn't that cool?

This is me in between games. I was lying on the couch nicely watching It's a Wonderful Life. I went to lift my head and realized I couldn't get it off of the pillow! My cartilage earring got caught in some strings on the pillow! Jim had to cut me free. Thank goodness he was here. I don't know what I would have done if I had been by myself!!! I am totally not being sarcastic either.

Swim Team Christmas Party

2008-12-20T14:31:00.006-05:00

So today after practice I hosted my team's annual Christmas Party. It was fun although I was a little embaressed by the way my house looked. I tried to remind myself that in high school I would have cared less what a place looked like as long as there was food... especially after a 9:30 am Saturday morning practice!

Anyway, there are a few traditions that go along with this party.

Tradition 1 ~ The Place

Always, with the exception of one year, at a coaches' house. For the last two years it has been at my house.

Tradition 2 ~ The Tree

All of the girls decorate the tree. It is nice now since Jim and I don't have any kids yet. I guess when we do have kids who are old enough to decorate, assuming the party is still at my house, they will just have to help the team! Here is the final result.

Tradition 3 ~ The Ornament

The seniors make an ornament for the tree. Last year the girls forgot and gave me my ornament at the banquet in May. I couldn't find it since it never made it with my Christmas stuff. Hopefully I will have it for next year! This year I believe my seniors also forgot. When we asked if they made my ornaments their response was "Uhh... yea. It is done!" Here is what they gave me!

We think that the girls tore the top of a trophy off!

Tradition 4 ~ The Gifts

The girls each bring a $10.00 gift and we do a Pirate Pollyana. Everyone gets a number. The first person picks from the pile. The second person can either steal or pick from the pile. It goes that way until everyone has a gift. When everyone has chosen a gift the first person can either steal or keep the gift they have. Once everyone has a gift all the girls open the gifts together! We had to put a stealing limit on gifts a few years ago because it started to get out of hand so once a gift has been stolen three times it is retired.

Usually we eat before the gifts are done but we had the pizza delivered a little later than normal so we did the gifts before we ate.

This year I made some connections and had a special guest appearance by Santa! Check these out!

Here is me and Santa

Here is Katie and Santa. Katie is the head coach and was one of my coaches when I swam.

This is Stacey. She is the other assistant coach with me. We swam for Hubert's together!

Finally, here is my team with my dad, uh... I mean Santa!

Putting up the tree

2008-12-15T09:48:00.003-05:00

Sunday afternoon we finally got the living room cleaned up enough to bring the tree in. I am having the swim team Christmas party Saturday so I really need to do a lot of cleaning this week!

Here is Jim sawing off the bottom of the tree.

Onyx likes playing with the stump Jim chops off. After Jim threw it to her and she played with it for a little while I decided to look up whether or not that was dangerous. I didn't find anything that said it was so we let her go at it!

After playing for a little while Onyx finally realized that there was a tree in our house! She was pretty confused.

Here is Jim watering the tree. Good thing he doesn't read my blog. I don't think he would like this picture!

After the tree got put up, fell, and then got put up again we decided to take a break and head over to Target. We got some stocking hangers, some gifts, cereal, and a few other things. I LOVE Target!! It is a dangerous place for me. I can't wait to go after Christmas to get all of the decorations on sale!

Saturday Fun

2008-12-15T09:21:00.006-05:00

On Saturday, after swim team practice, I came home and put stamps on all of my Christmas cards. Onyx helped and boy was it tough work!

Around 4:30 Jim and I headed to Franklin Mills to stop at a few stores. We ran into KB Toys to try to find the SpongeBob Monopoly game for Jim's godson. No luck! Next we ran over to Harbor Freights, a tool store, and Big Lots. I went into Big Lots to try to find the Monopoly Game and a toy for the little girl my class is buying gifts for but again, no luck. At least nothing worth waiting in the lines for! I started walking over to meet Jim at the tool store but stopped in a kiddie clothing store to see if there was anything I could get in there and I got the cutest outfit for my class outreach gift! It was only $15.00 too. I have to remember that store for the future.

Next we headed over to Nifty Fifty's for dinner. We got the best waiter in the joint. He is so happy and you can tell he loves his job. It is so refreshing to get a waiter like that, especially with times as they are!! After dinner we went to Lowe's to pick out crown molding, chair rails, and the baseboard for the dining room.. Here is what we picked.

This is the crown molding.

Here is the baseboard.

Here is the chair rail.

Earlier on Saturday Jim and his dad went out to MAB paints and bought the paint for the dining room. We decided on a darker green for underneath the chair rail and a shade lighter of the green for about the chair rail. The lighter green will also be in the living room. In the dining room the furniture will be dark brown and there will be purple accents, curtains, table cloth, ect.

After Lowe's went down the block and picked out or Christmas Tree. It was too dark outside to take pictures with my camera. We had fun though. We stopped at my mom and dad's to grab a bag of stuff they had for me and then went home. We stuck the tree out back until Sunday since the living room was a mess and there was no room for a tree!

Friday Activities Part Three

2008-12-15T09:04:00.004-05:00

After Sephora and Victoria Secrets we were walking past the Piercing Pagoda. I mentioned that I always wanted to get my cartilage pierced. Gosh darn it, the next thing I know I am handing my credit card over to the lady at the Piercing Pagoda! I have to stop mentioning things like this to Rosie!

I look like I am about to throw up!

She's just smiling like that because she is not in the chair yet!

Here I am checking the marks she made on my ear. I got my cartilage and a second hole pierced since I did pay for two earrings after all!

I just realized how unflattering this top looks when I am sitting down. I need to make a note of that for next time! Anyway, apparently the girl just shot my ear with the gun! Notice my one eye closed.

Apparently sitting in the chair does not get rid of Rosie's cheeser!! :) Piercing Pagoda was having a buy one get one sale so Rosie got pierced too.

Rosie looks like she is starting to get a little nervous!

We were in trouble with mom and Rose but it was worth it! I like the way mine looks. :) Rose threatened to tell Pop on us. Uh -oh!!! Maybe it doesn't look that good. I did promise Rosie that I wouldn't take it out so in my ear it is saying.

What did Jim say when I showed it to him? "It looks like crap!"

Friday Activities Part Two

2008-12-15T08:51:00.003-05:00

After my Pollyana at school I raced home to go to a girl's night out/ornament exchange with the girls in Jim's family. It was me, MaryKate, Rosie (Jim's cousin), Rose (Rosie's mom), Babci (Jim's grandmother), and Jim's mom. We went to the Olive Garden in Cherry Hill for dinner. In between dinner and dessert we exchanged our ornaments. I had Rose. I got her a pack of tiny ornaments from Target. They were really cute. Rosie had me. She got me a shamrock that was made out of hand blown glass beads. It was so pretty. I keep forgetting that I can take pictures on my phone and easily put them onto my computer so I have no pictures from dinner.

After dinner we decided to run across the street to the Cherry Hill Mall. Our first stop was Sephora. I had never been in that store. It was such a fun store. There is makeup, purfume, body wash, and cream as far as the eye can see! I mentioned that I wished I could do my makeup so Rosie decided to give me a make over!

Rosie picking out the right color for me.

Rosie looking cool, calm, and collected about the upcoming make over...

... me, not so much!

I don't exactly have an after shot of the make over but I will say that it looked good. We headed over to Victoria Secrets where the make over continued. Rosie found some more make up that she didn't get to put on me in Sephora.

Friday Activities Part One

2008-12-15T08:36:00.004-05:00

Friday I was super busy from the time the dismissal bell rang until I hit my pillow that night. After school on Friday we had our first faculty/staff Pollyanna. Lisa, the secretary, ran it and she did a great job! We all brought in a $10 gender friendly gift and a dessert or appetizer. Each gift got a number that corresponded with a number on an ornament on the tree. We each picked an ornament and that is how we got our gift. After everyone got their gift there was an extra gift, a lottery ticket tree. Everyone had to remember their numbers. All the numbers were put into a hat and then one was chosen.

It was nice to be sitting around talking and eating with my co-workers. I get so much more close with them when we do stuff like that. I love it!

Here are all of our Christmas gifts. Lisa also made naughty and nice lists. Some of the teachers wrote their names on the lists. Hee Hee. See the big bag with the white tissue paper? That was what I won! It was a Christmas candy dish in the shape of snowmen heads, a jar in the shape of Mr. Peanut with peanuts in it, and a can of chocolate straws. I loved the dish!

Here are some of the treats we had. Can you see my gingerbread men? They were a big hit! At least everyone was impressed that I made them!

Here are Erin and another teacher's daughter. Isn't she cute? The little one isn't bad either! :) There were poppers on the tables with paper crowns in them. I took the picture because these two happen to get matching crowns!

Appleman

2008-12-12T08:50:00.003-05:00

Here is Jim's appleman. He was getting his snack for school ready and put together this appleman. Onyx was eyeing it up, she loves apples, but I couldn't get a picture of her quick enough.

Run run as fast as you can!!!

2008-12-12T08:36:00.003-05:00

We are having a pollyana party today after school. We were all asked to bring a dessert or an appetizer. I decided to make ginger bread cookies. It was a lot easier than I anticipated. I have never used cookie cutters on real cookies and I have never iced cookies either. They actually turned out cute! Here are some pictures.

Here are my cookies! We only had a few fatalities that Jim was quite happy to take care of for me. I tried giving them stitches like the Ginger Bread Man in Shrek but it did not work out so well!

Just wanted to share...

2008-12-11T08:29:00.001-05:00

... that there are seven more school days until my wonderful two week Christmas break!!! I am so ready for a break!

Day two of conferences

2008-12-09T10:01:00.004-05:00

Here I am, half way through day two of parent/teacher conferences and as you can see it is starting to take a toll! Actually, to tell you the truth it has not been too bad. I have one more meeting this morning and that one I am a little nervous about. So far, however, the parents that I was nervous to tell them that their kids were jerks responded with "Oh, that's my boy!" I was just like, Okie Doke! We spilt our conferences into two days which I liked. I just wish it was a Thursday and Friday not a Monday and Tuesday and then have to teach the rest of the week. We had meetings from 3-7:15 on Monday and 8-12 today. Not a big deal. I am going to go home and make Ginger Bread Men, Women, Trees, and Candy Canes today when I am done! We shall see how that goes!

Old Picture

2008-12-09T07:39:00.003-05:00

Ok, well really not that old. I was just deleting some pictures off of my camera phone and saw these pictures. They were from after our camping trip in October. Click here to read about that weekend.

Here I am with the best chocolate bar in the world! A wopping 5 pounder. The best $30.00 ever spent!

Now I am trying to figure out how to eat it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T11:49:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to put out a HUGE Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Have a great day and don't eat too much turkey!!

Snore

2008-11-24T13:13:00.002-05:00

See the picture of this dog? Yea, we were all afraid of her when my cousin brought her home. Rightfully so, she is a pure pit bull after all! Yea, look at us now!!

Eva Longoria??

2008-11-17T13:42:00.002-05:00

So I got a hair cut on Friday night and told my girl that I wanted to have the hair cut that Eva Longoria has. I love the way it turned out!! I came in to school today and all of my students have raved about it, in fact everyone has raved about it except for my husband who hates it. He just likes long hair. He can deal. Anyway, one of my first graders even continued to tell me how beautiful I looked. I love that little guy!

Here is my new 'do.

Dining Room Set

2008-11-14T08:42:00.002-05:00

When we bought our house the dining room set was left behind for us. That was great but now we have accumulated two more dining room sets, one with a china cabinet and one without, and another set of table and chairs. I eventually want to get rid of all of these sets and get my own but getting rid of the one that was left is my goal for the weekend.

Does anyone know of a place that I get send this too. I really would like my house in some kind of an order for the holidays and one of the ways to do that is to get rid of the set in my dining room. Thanks for your help!

Oh Toots!!

2008-11-12T13:44:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to post this picture I took of my youngest sister last Friday. After school I saw I had a text message from my sister Heather asking me to pick her up at school, she goes to Gwynedd-Mercy. I said sure but that I had to stop at the dry cleaners first to pick up my wedding dress.

I picked up my dry cleaning and the dress, which was in a box that was much larger than I expected, and drove away to pick up Heather. After I picked up Heather she said she was going to Julie's house. Julie, the sister after me, just made settlement that day so we were all going over for pizza. Heather wanted to get dropped off early to help her. So as I am driving Heather to Julie's my dad calls and asks us to pick up Tess, the youngest, at her baby-sitting job and drop her off at Julie's too. I agreed only before I remembered that I had a monstrosity of a box in the back seat and no room for Tess. I thought about putting the box in the trunk but, yea, that is a different story.

So here is what poor Tessie Toots looked like on the drive to Julie's house, although I am sure she wasn't smiling that cheeser the whole way!!

New President Elect

2008-11-05T07:31:00.002-05:00

Ok, so last night was the election for President. Quite frankly I was tired of all the BS that an election brings. I just couldn't wait for it to be over! Neither candidate, in my mind, came anywhere close to being qualified to be president so I am pretty scared to see what the next four years will bring with Barack Obama as a president. And before y'all jump down my throat for saying that I would have said the same thing about John McCain.

Anyway, yesterday was my first time actually voting. The last time there was a presidential race I was away at college and sent in an absentee ballot. I was so nervous. When I changed my drivers licence info I had them automatically change my voters registration as well. I figured it would be easier. HA! I got the new card but didn't know where it was but anyone I talked to said you didn't need it. Well Jim and I walk across the street to the grade school to vote. There were two wards I think they are called set up in the gym. We went to the right. I gave them my name, not there. I gave them my maiden name, not there. I was so bummed. I didn't feel like running back to my parents' neighborhood to vote when there was no line at this place! Jim votes, we go back home and I call my mom to see what to do.

While I am on the phone with my mom Jim calls his grandmother who worked the polls at the school for years. She explains to him about the two wards and that or house is on the other side of the gym! Jim has not changed his driver's licence info yet to reflect our address so that is why he was in the books on the left side and I wasn't! We went back to the school. still no line thank God, and checked with the other side. I was there! Now why couldn't the lady who thought she was funny from the first side tell me that I should check the other books, that maybe I was on the wrong side! I mean when I told her that I had had my registration changed when I took care of my licence her response was to laugh in my face and say "That doesn't mean much in this city!" and then to laugh again. Thanks for the help lady! What a dumb ass! Sorry, I try not to say nasty things in here but that was called for!

Anyway, I voted and all went well. Until I got to the three yes or no questions. I had no idea what they meant so I kind of closed my eyes and hit buttons, not really but that is what it felt like. I don't do well when I am given questions like that and expected to answer. I need them explained to me. After the fact I realized that I didn't even have to answer them! Oh well, I now know for next time!

Williamsburg Part Two

2008-11-04T11:05:00.003-05:00

The main reason for us to be down at Williamsburg was for the resort to try and sell us another more expensive room. We said no, several times, and were on our way by 3:00 on Saturday. The resort did buy us lunch so that was nice!

Sorry for this being on its side. I can't figure out how to slip the picture around. Anyway, here was one of the selections off the menu. A Philly Cheesesteak! Jim said he didn't even want to try it!

Here is a shot of the place we ate. It was eclectic but fun! I liked it!

These next shots are at the Jamestown Settlement. This place isn't actually the real Jamestown. It is a replication of it. The real Jamestown settlement is about a half mile up the road. This picture is of an Indian hut. During the tour we all filed in and sat on deer skins that area hunters donate to the settlement. I don't usually mind seeing animal skins and feeling them but these skins still had the heads attached! Ewww! For some reason that grossed me out! There were deer, wolves, foxes, raccoons, skunks, ect.

This is the replication of the church at Jamestown. The settlers were required to attend mass twice a day as well as work for six hours. Pocahontas and John Rolfe were married in the church. Pocahontas was married under her Christian name Rebecca.

Here are replications of the ships the settlers arrived on. They arrived on three ships, but I can't remember the names of two of them!! The one at the top of the picture is the Godspeed. That ship actually sails for most of the summer. I believe the biggest ship, which isn't pictured, was sent to England to make the same voyage the settlers made all those years ago!

Williamsburg Part One

2008-11-03T09:12:00.005-05:00

Last October we bought a timeshare in the hopes that we would be able to trade our week for a week in Hawaii for our honeymoon. Well we were able to trade and in my opinion our decision has already paid off! The timeshare we bought was in Williamsburg, VA at a resort called the Williamsburg Plantation. They invited us down for a weekend since they finished building a new complex. Here are some pictures from the room we stayed in.

The first bedroom. Both rooms looked like this one. We stayed in the other bedroom that had the master bathroom that was bigger than my bedroom at home!!

Here is the master bathroom complete with jacuzzi bathtub, two sinks, and a double shower! Yes, there were two shower heads in the shower!! It was amazing!

Here is the living room. The sofa is a pull out sofa so that is a total of three beds that sleep six. We actually own a double so there are four bedrooms that sleep twelve! We own two of these rooms. The top floor does not have a stove, that is how they can get away with selling two of these on one deed. The second floor does have a two burner thing that you plug in which is all we need. We stayed on the second floor this past weekend.

Every room has a fire place. Ours was gas but there are also rooms with electric and wood burning!!

Finally, here is our kitchen/dining area. The kitchen is stocked with cups, mugs, plates, silverware, pots, pans, pitchers, ect. Anything that you would need to eat! The theory of this resort, and resorts like it, is that it is your home away from home. I like that when we go home we aren't going back to a hotel room!

The aftermath of a drought!

2008-11-03T08:42:00.006-05:00

What happens to a city when their beloved baseball team wins a World Series after waiting for 28 years??

Street signs get knocked over!

Cars get flipped on their sides!

And men lose their mustaches!!!

Yes, my father-in-law is now 'stacheless all because of the Phillies winning the World Series. Back in '93, the last time the Phillies were in the series dad and my brother-in-law Ed wrote up a contract stating that if the Phillies ever won the world series dad would shave his mustache. This contract has been on the side of the 'fridge since then. While we were in Williamsburg my sister-in-law sent each of us a text message stating that he had taken up his end of the contract and shaved. He has had a mustache since he was 17 I believe and my mother-in-law said she would have to get used to it. Now she thinks she wants him to keep his face clean! We shall see what happens. I think he looks younger. What do you think?

Before

After

The Phillies Parade

2008-11-01T10:42:00.005-04:00

Here are some pictures I took of the big parade yesterday. I wasn't able to be there so I just took the pictures from the TV like I did for the last part of game five!

The Phillie Phanatic. I love that guy!

Some of the crowd. There were between 2 and 3 million.

Mayor Nutter holding our trophy.

The man of the day, our hero Charlie Manuel.

Brett Meyers and Cole Hamels, the World Series MVP.

Shane Victorino taking pictures of the crowd.

We drove to Williamsburg last night. We weren't able to leave until about 4:45 so we hit all of the traffic leaving the stadiums. I was just taking some pictures of the stadiums as we passed!

Halloween Cartoon

2008-11-01T10:32:00.002-04:00

Here is my absolute favorite Halloween Cartoon from when I was little! It comes in four parts on you tube.

David Letterman's Top Ten

2008-10-31T13:51:00.002-04:00

I love the top ten! Once the top ten is over I usually turn the show off. Cole Hamels was on last night. Here is the clip. Enjoy!

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!!! PHINALLY!!

2008-10-30T16:28:00.008-04:00

Oh heck yea!!! After a game that took almost three days to complete the Phillies finally won the WORLD SERIES!!! I am so excited, as I am sure you can tell from my picture. The dog, not so much.

She was unimpressed. When I started running around the house screaming she started chasing me and snapping at me. Apparently she didn't like being woken up! The noise around here wasn't too bad, a few kids running up and down the block, a few car honks, a few drunks from the corner bar. Nothing too bad. Obviously I wasn't there but here are some pictures I took of the news coverage after the fact!

Shane Victorino after the strikeout to win.

The pile of players after the win!

The crowd on the field

The World Series MVP, our very own Cole Hamels!!

Grrr

2008-10-29T11:06:00.003-04:00

So on Monday night I took off from class, well I actually just switched and am now going to tonight's session instead, because I had an eye doctor's appointment. I had to cancel the appointment because the stupid insurance sucks and never put me on Jim's insurance! I said that's ok, at least I can watch the Phillies win the World Series!!

I was a little bummed because I was watching the biggest game of the year all by myself. THen I remembered Onyx, man's best friend, my dog. I figured she would hang out with me and watch the game and then we could celebrate a Phillies win together. Yea, no such luck. Here is Onyx around the third inning!

Way to go man's best friend! Anyway, the game ended up being suspended because of the weather. They decided that at the top of the 6th. I think they should have decided that a few innings before but what do I know about baseball? I also think that a dome should have been built but again, what do I know? It was scheduled to be continued last night but due to rain, sleet, and snow... yes SNOW in October... it was pushed back to tonight. Tonight when I am going to a class that I don't normally attend. That totally is not right! Oh well, the class should be over a little after 8, the games starts at 8:37, I should be home a little after 9 so hopefully I will be able to catch the end of the game and finally be able to say I won a championship!!!!!! Well, at least my city won! :)

The Who??

2008-10-28T13:14:00.002-04:00

This weekend we had something going on almost everyday... AGAIN! Friday night was quiet. We went to BJ's and did some food shopping and then watched TV.

On Saturday I went to my sister's school for a massage. She is going to a school to get certified in massage. She is already an RN but loves massaging and figured she could do this as a side job. The massage was only $20 since I am her sister. For other people the massages are $35. It may not be the best massage in the world but it is still a massage for $20!! I highly recommend it. After the massage I went home and picked up Jim. We then drove to my aunt's house to meet up with my cousin. We bought tickets for the Who concert on Sunday from her boss. At my aunt's we went through some of my Nana's things. Nana lived with my aunt and uncle and my aunt is starting to go through her things. The hospice people that we used sent my aunt a letter right after Nana died saying we could send them some of her clothes to make a bear or a pillow out of so me and the two cousins that were there picked out PJ sets to use. After that we stopped at my parents' house to drop off a bag of things of Nana's to my dad. Then we went home and watched the game. The Phillies won after the world's longest rain delay!

On Sunday we worked around the house. I started working on our bedroom and Jim did laundry. It worked out well. We left for The Who concert which was great. Throughout the concert I checked the Phillies score. They won again that night also! The score was 10-2!! It was amazing! On Monday I took a personal day. I wasn't sure how long the concert would be so I slept in, continued to work on the bedroom, attempted to go to the eye doctor, had to reschedule because I was apparently not on Jim's insurance yet, went home, laid around, watched Dancing With the Stars and the Phillies game. At the bottom of the 6th inning the game was suspended because the rain got so bad. So right now the score is 2-2. The Phillies just need to win this and they win The World Series! I can't wait. They will continue where they left off tonight at 8 depending on the weather. It is still pretty nasty out. Hopefully the games goes on tonight and the Phils pull it out! I know they can!!!!!

Fun Website

2008-10-24T09:31:00.004-04:00

So I was looking at pictures on a friend's facebook page and thought that some of her pictures in the album "Yearbook" looked a little strange. Upon further investigation I realized that the pictures were from a website called Yearbook Yourself.

Check it out! It is a fun site! Here are some of my favorites that I did.

Me in 1984

Me in 1974

Me in 1962

Me in 1950.

A sad day

2008-10-22T10:59:00.002-04:00

So I decided that after being married for four months that it was time to take my dress to the dry cleaners to have it cleaned and boxed! That is pretty much the last of my stuff to be packed away, the stuff I am keeping anyway! I still have some thank yous to write, I will get to that eventually!, and some things to sell, loan out, but I guess the wedding is really over! Aww man!

Oh well, at least I can look forward to the day that I finally get my album. I am starting to get anxious about it now. My photographer is starting to annoy me just a little bit. I feel like now that they have all of my money they are slacking.

Another Good Weekend

2008-10-20T10:02:00.002-04:00

So on Friday I went home, changed, and we went over to Babci and Pop's (Jim's grandparents) house for Babci's birthday party. We had a good time. Everyone was there including Eddie Jim's brother who is living at a college in North Jersey. He is out of college but while in college Eddie was very involved in the Neuman center. Through that he joined a group called Focus. He is basically a missionary to the students at the college he is placed at. It was good to see him.

On Saturday Jim, his dad, and his brothers, took the fridge Babci and Pop had been holding for us in their basement out of their basement and over to our house to put into our basement. Tess, my sister, and I made dinner for the boys. We made pork chops, compliments of Aunt Anne, potatoes, green beans and pork and beans (which Tess ate all of). I say compliments of Aunt Anne because it was a recipe that was given to me at my shower. I am going to start using the recipes that I was given them. After dinner Tess and I made an assortment of pumpkin treats; pie cookies and bread. The bread didn't turn out so hot so I will have to try it again. I burnt the tops of all four loaves. The pie, from what I hear, was good and the cookies were awesome. I threw in some chocolate chips because everything tastes better with chocolate!! In my opinion anyway. After baking Lauren and Matt came over and we all carved pumpkins and watched some scary movies. Jim and I had bought a Winnie the Pooh carving book so Jim, Tess, and I did them. We carved Pooh, Roo, Rabbit, and Tigger. I messed up a little while poking the outline for Tigger so Jim finished it. The next morning Tigger didn't look so hot. Oh well! The rest of the gang looked awesome! Lauren and Matt just free handed it. We had a good night.

Tess slept over so the next morning when I woke up I made waffles and home fries. The home fries were pretty nasty because I used way too much oil! Later I drove Tess, her friend Eryn, Heather, adn myself over to Cherry Hill to visit family friends who were having an open house. That family has three daughters who are all the same age as me, Heather, and Tess. There was no sister for Julie but we were all friends growing up. The oldest had a baby over the summer so her and her husband had an open house at her dad's house for people to come visit. It was a nice time. I could only stay for a little bit because we were having dinner at Jim's parents' house before Eddie left to go back to his place. We had a nice roast dinner and hung out for a little bit. When we got home Jim fixed his car tire that had a flat and I fell asleep. I woke up, watched some tv and fell asleep again only to wake up when my alarm was blaring in my ear telling me it was time to go teach the little lovelies again! :) Hopefully this week flies by.

Weekend Adventures

2008-10-13T14:20:00.006-04:00

So Friday I left school early to head over to the Catholic League Tennis Championships. This was my second year coaching tennis for Saint Huberts. We finished the season in first place and had an excellent chance of winning the 'ship. We easily beat Archbishop Wood in the playoffs. Then it came to the championship. We ended up playing our arch rivals... Cardinal O'Hara. We quickly won our first two games and just as quickly lost the next two. It was down to our second doubles. The girls on that team weren't the best players but they certainly fought it out. Our girls lost the first set 6-1, fought hard and won the second set 7-5, and fought all the way through the third set. They ended up losing 6-4. It was so emotional after we lost. Even our hard ass coach was emotional. I have never seen him get like that. He was my coach when I played for Huberts myself.

Luckily I didn't have as much time as usual to dwell on the fact that I STILL have not won a championship because as soon as I got home we packed up the car, dropped the dog off at Jim's parents, picked up Jim's cousin Rosie, and head

ed off to Elizabethtown for a camping trip. We rented a cabin for the weekend, although the weather was so nice I think we would have done ok in a tent. The cabin was really cute though. Friday night we got out there pretty late, around 9ish so we really just hung around the fire and made s'mores. Saturday morning we woke up a

nd went to the Renascence Faire. Jim and I go once a year and love it. I was so excited that we got to go twice. I felt like we didn't see as many shows as we normally do but it was ok, we still had a great time.

We saw two of the three mudshows. I LOVE the mudshows. I would be satisfied if that was all we saw. Well, I would also want to see the final joust. Anyway, the mudshow is exactly what it sounds like. There are three actors that act out a story. The actors are dressed as beggars would have been back then. They put on three different shows a day such as The Muddy Wives of Winsdor, Romeo and Juliet, and A'ntny and Cleo. They pick out audience members to be in the show and there is a splash zone. The shows are great!

These are two of the actors in the Muddy Wives of Windsor. They pick one girl from the audience to play one of the sisters and then the two guys play the other two sisters complete with balloon boobs, balloon butts, wigs, and lipstick. I love it!

Anyway, we also saw a little bit of the archery demonstration which Jim likes. It is really cool. The guy talks about bows and arrows and shoots at targets that his apprentice throws up into the air. Then he starts shooting at targets with humans painted on them. As he shoots he back up. He get so far that he is clear off of the field and in a little wooded area! It is crazy! He is still hitting the targets.

After the archery demonstration was the first joust. There are two jousts each day and they, with another show, have a connected story. This year's story is the Russian Czar comes to find a wife. There is a joust and the Russians win therefore the Czar can pick a wife. At the other show he picks a woman who already secretly married a knight. The knight is then disgraced. At the final Czar turns out to be a woman beater and Queen Elizabeth doesn't like it. She allows the disgraced knight to get back on the horse and fight for the woman he loves. The Czar wins and demands to be married immediately. Well, the girl refuses, a fight starts, and the girl is to be burned at the stake. Does she live? You will have to go to find out!!

The joust was amazing! At one point one of the English knights "fell" off his horse. He was supposed to do that, however, he wasn't supposed to get his foot stuck in the stirrup. His horse had been acting jittery at the first joust and during the second one. When the knight fell, his foot got stuck in the stirrup and he was then drug around. A few actors tried grabbing his horse but they couldn't. Luckily, before he got really hurt he was able to get loose and was able to get back out there and continue acting. He really looked more shook up than hurt.

Anyway, everything was amazing. I bought some awesome beeswax hand cream. It was about $20 but I think it is totally worth it and since it is beeswax it should last a while. On Sunday we went to Indian Echo Caverns. They are so beautiful! The temperature in the caverns is a constant 52 degrees year round. The caverns are only about 10 minutes away from Hershey so we decided to go to Chocolate World and take the Factory tour. I love going there. I always feel like a little kid. Jim and I bought a five pound bar of chocolate. It was $30 but totally worth it!!! After Hershey we went to the outlets on Route 30. I bought a couple pairs of shoes. I love the outlets. Anyway, for lunch/dinner we ate at Cici's pizza. We always see comercials for Cici's but there are none around here. It is a pizza buffet and AMAZING! I hope they come closer to home soon.

Tag!

2008-10-13T09:27:00.003-04:00

A new friend of mine, Old Fashioned Gal, tagged me in a fun facts about yourself game. Check out her blog if you have a sec. She is so cute and always posts about creative ideas and recipes she has found or tried out.

First of all, here are the rules:

Link to your tagger and list the rules

List 5 random facts about yourself

Tag five people

If you're tagged, play along and pass it on!

Here a few things about me!

1) I have three sisters and I am the oldest. The first three of us are all 22 months apart and then there is the youngest who is 6 years after that. We think she was an accident! :)

2) I have mainly girls in my family and Jim has mainly boys in his. I am not used to all the testosterone that is around at family parties yet so it can be interesting.

3) I still get super excited walking into Hershey Park and taking the factory tour. I tend to embarrass my husband! :)

4) I love going camping. Every year I go for a week in the summer. Jim and I also try to go for a couple weekend trips a year.

5) I love babies and if it was totally my decision I would have started having babies right after we got married however the voice of reason, Jim, vetoed that decision!!

Ok, time to tag!

Weekend

2008-10-06T09:18:00.002-04:00

So we were supposed to go camping this weekend but Jim had an ear infection all week and still felt pretty bad so we ended up not going. Anyway, I got to work Friday morning and found out people were going to Happy Hour after work. I figured I would stop by after I dropped things we had bought for the weekend off at our friends' place. My sister asked me to pick her up after school on Friday and take her home. She lives at Gwynedd Mercy College so I said sure. She just turned 21 so I asked if she would want to go to Happy Hour with me. She agreed.

I picked her up and ran her to CVS to pick up a prescription. After waiting for an hour we left without the prescription. The insurance company was saying that she had not been insured since 2000. She has gotten x-rays and medicines since 2000 so that is absolutely not true! She just asked the pharmacist to transfer the prescription to the CVS near our parents' house so our dad could deal with it. I have to remember to ask her if she ever got her medicine. Then we headed up to my friends' place to drop the food off and ran over to Happy Hour.

By the time we got there it was 6:30. There were still some people there. A few people actually got there right before we did because they had been at different activities after school. We had a good time. Heather clicked with my friends which I liked. Usually when I go to Happy Hour after school I only stay for about an hour or so but we ended up leaving around 9:15!! I was totally not expecting that. Like I said, we were having a good time. There was a great Irish band playing so the place was packed. So much in fact that there was not a spot in the parking lot so I parked across the street at a Persian restaurant. I have never seen anyone in that place and there wasn't anyone in there that night either. Don't you know that one of the workers followed me into the bar and asked me to move the car!?! I was like are you for real?? Anyway, I went out to try to find somewhere else to park and another teacher and her husband were walking in. She said that there was parking behind the fire house across the street so that is where I ended up parking.

Saturday and Sunday we didn't do much. I tried to clean up a little bit. I got wash done, cleaned the bathroom and pretty much just sat around. I watched the Phillies loose on Saturday with Jim, my brother-in-law Rob, and Jim's cousin Rosie. I watched them win on Sunday so it was all good. We are now playing in the championships and then hopefully go to the World Sereies. I have high expectations for the Phils!!! :)

Yesterday the tennis team I help coach won and are now in first place. We have an excellent shot to win the championship which is on Friday. We have a playoff game on Wednesday and as long as no one on our team screws up I will be able to finally say I won a championship. I hope it happens this year because I promised my husband that this would be my last year coaching tennis. It takes up so much of my time. I will hopefully have a good update for the end of the week!

Marriage Questions

2008-10-02T08:30:00.003-04:00

So I read this on a blog I have been following, Shower of Roses. It is a pretty nice, reflective blog. Anyway, here it goes!

1. Where/How did you meet? We met a couple times senior year through mutual friends but we officially met and began hanging out during senior week in Walt Disney World. That is why we had a Disney theme wedding!

2. How long have you known each other? This summer it will be seven years.

3. How long after you met did you start dating? We started dating about a month after we got home from senior week.

4. How long did you date before you were engaged? We were dating for 4 1/2 years before we were engaged but we, ok well I, talked about it for a while before that.

5. How long was the engagement? We got engaged February 2007 and were married in June 2008 so not quite a year and a half.

6. Did you have a Bridal Shower? Yup! My awesome bridesmaids, mom, and mother-in-law threw an awesome shower for me!

7. What was your favorite Bridal Shower gift? I loved the KitchenAid mixer my mother-in-law got me. I was just really excited about all of my gifts!

8. How long have you been married? Three months.

9. How old were you when you got married? We were both 24.

10. What is your anniversary? June 21, 2008. We tried getting married on either the 26th or 29th because my parents' anniversary is the 28th and my inlaws' anniversary is the 27th but the 26th was a Thursday and the 29th was a Sunday, and my sister's birthday so we settled for the weekend before.

11. Where was your wedding? We got married at Resurrection of Our Lord, the parish that I grew up in. Our reception was at Rosewood caterers. Rosewood was amazing! I wish I could say the same about the church but that is another story!

12. Did your spouse cry during the ceremony? In pictures it looks like he is but he claims it is just sweat which is believable since the air was NOT turned on! (That goes along with the story I have of my disappointment in the church.)

13. How many people were at your wedding? 217 were supossed to be, I think we only had about 207. Some people had good excuses but others just didn't show and I am no longer speaking to them, including my first cousin but again that is another story!

14. What kind of flowers did you have at your wedding? I had calla lilies, and roses. My girls had gerbers and roses.

15. Describe your wedding dress. There was a lot of bead work on the chest and on the train. It was sleeveless but can with removable cap sleeves but I just had them sewn in and the neckline was a sweetheart cut.

16. How many people were in your wedding party? We had one maid of honor and one best man and then five more bridesmaids and four more groomsmen. We also had one ridiculously adorable flower girl!

17. Are you still friends with them all? Yup! They were mainly siblings and cousins. We had two friends in it too.

18. Are your wedding bands engraved? No, we weren't feeling too creative at the time. I do eventually want to get something put on them.

19. What did you dance your first dance to? So This is Love from Cinderella. Again, we went with a disney theme.

20. What kind of cake did you serve? Pound cake from Stocks. You can never go wrong with a Stocks cake!

21. What did you serve for your meal? We had a buffet style dinner. I can't remember the exact types but there was a chicken, a beef, stuffed shells, and something else. The head table and the two parents table were served the beef and then were offered the other entrees in smaller servings. It was great!

22. Most special moment of your wedding day? I think when my dad handed me off to Jim and Jim looked at me and told me I was beautiful and of course when we were pronounced husband and wife, although that wasn't actually said. Again, another beef I have with the church!

23. Any funny moments? Of course for the bouquet toss and garter toss two of Jim's first cousins from the same family were it! The MC asked them if the wanted to switch roles and they did. It was hysterical. Only at our wedding would that happen!

24. Any big disasters? Well the church did not put the air conditioning on, although they swear they did, and my husband almost passed out. My sister also almost got sick. There was no mic so no one heard our vows, and we were not pronounced husband and wife. All little minor details but still things that irked me. I was, and still am, very disappointed with my parish and the church in general. I think there is nothing wrong with keep a wedding religious and a celebration at the same time and people who are in charge are changing all the rules. That drives me nuts! Why fix what isn't broke?

25. If you were to do your wedding over, what would you change? I would have gotten Jim out on the dance floor a little more with me. I think I would also not have invited certain people. I would have asked my parents to just give us money instead of paying specifically for the reception then I would have felt more in control of the guest list without all the arguments that followed!

26. Do you have a favorite wedding gift? We mainly received money. I got a lot of picture frames too. I really liked the marriage cross that a family friend sent to us.

27. Where did you go on your honeymoon? We went to Maui, Hawaii. It was awesome!

28. How long were you gone? A week. I wish it had been longer!

29. Greatest challenge as a couple? Finding time for each other, breaking old family traditions and starting new ones.

30. Greatest strength as a couple? We are always there for each other.

Still not sure

2008-09-27T09:03:00.002-04:00

I am still feeling funky. When is this funk going to leave? I can only hope that after the tennis season is over it will all start to get better. At least then I will be able to go home right away at least three days a week. When swimming starts that won't be that bad. I can skip easily if I have to, I can go home and get changed and eat, you know... swimming is just a lot less stressful.

I just need a vacation. We don't have a day off until Thanksgiving! THANKSGIVING! Can you believe it? I know most jobs don't get vacay time like we do but teaching is a totally different type of job. We don't get adult time and when we do manage to sneak some adult time in we get corrected as if we were children. I don't know if this is how it is in all schools but it is defintally like that at mine. What makes it worse is that we can't even do anything about it. There is no one to complain to, no one to make it better. All we can do is sit there and complain which is all that has been going on, spurting my last post. I will say that Friday it was much nicer in the faculty room. Maybe everyone is finally getting tired of complaining. I sure do hope so!

What do I want?

2008-09-23T19:56:00.002-04:00

I used to love my job. This year it seems like more problems are being caused more quickly. I mean this is the third week of school and everyone is bitching and moaning about EVERYTHING! I don't know what is wrong at school, I don't know what is wrong with the administration, I don't know what is wrong with the order. What do I know? I know that I am slowly starting to despise the only thing I was ever certain about... teaching. I know that I love kids and working with them but I really don't know if I want to teach anymore. What am I supposed to do? I am supposed to love my job. Ugg... I am tired of this. Is it Christmas yet? Better yet, is it June yet???

Four weeks left

2008-09-15T08:48:00.002-04:00

Why did I think it would be a good idea to work full time, take two classes, and coach tennis all at the same time? I am so tired. I love tennis but I can't wait for this season to be over. To make matters worse, Jim is now working the night shift so I only get to see him for three hours at MOST a day! That sucks. We are newlyweds for goodness sakes!

Once tennis is over I think I won't be as stressed. It is over the last full week of October so that is good. The two classes a semester is going to be sticking until I finish up the masters which I hope to do next spring. I only have 8 classes left to take. As long as the classes are all offered that will take me to spring '09. The next step I am thinking about taking is getting certified in Montessori education just to give me an extra boost. I plan on not working when I have kids so I figure having the Montessori certification would help me if I wanted to come back to my school when my kids are older.

I say now that I want to not work but I am also ready to start having kids now, Jim's not, but I just started teaching. This is only my third year teaching. I don't know. We will have to see. I would love to have my kids go to the school where I teach but that would never happen. The teacher's discount would not help at all, and that is going by the tuition now, not when my kids are school aged. Oh well, I will have to think about it some more. Maybe I could keep teaching but part time, we shall see!

Ugg

2008-09-03T09:23:00.004-04:00

It's back to the real world for me. Summer is OVER!!

On Monday we had an impromptu BBQ at our house. Originally it was just Lauren and Matt and by the early afternoon all of our siblings, with the exception of Eddie who is in North Jersey, and parents were also invited and there. If I do say so myself it was a nice party!

I had to be back in school on Tuesday. We had meetings Tuesday and Wednesday. Then the kids started back to school yesterday. I am so exhausted! Now I start class for myself next week. I am taking two this semester. What am I nuts??

3 word challenge

2008-08-30T08:56:00.002-04:00

So I saw this on a blog I read. It is a blog I have been reading since I worked with the writer during my wedding. Marialena put together a wonderful pre wedding snack fest for me and my girls! She also did the dessert table at my husband's grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary. Check out her business, Wedibles.

Anyway, here goes the game!

Sometimes all it takes is Three Words to get the message across. Marialena had this challenge and I figured why not! If you want to do one, simply copy and paste and credit where you saw it from in your own blog! Have fun!

Use one-three words to describe or name the answer:

1. Where is your cell phone? On the Sofa

2. Where is your significant other? Still in bed

3. Your hair? In a ponytail

4. Your mother? Short preschool teacher

5. Your father? Tough biker guy

6. Your favorite thing? June, July, August

7. Your dream last night? Didn't have one

8. Your favorite drink? milk with chocolate

9. Your dream/goal? have four kids

10. What room are you in? The living room

11. Your hobby? sports, reading, movies

12. Your fear? in tight spaces

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? house is finished

14. Where were you last night? Babci and Pop's

15. Something that you aren't? Confrontational, self assured

16. Muffins? Oh yes please!

17. Wish list item? completed livable house

18. Where you grew up Northeast Philadelphia, Resurrection

19. Last thing you did? Ate shredded wheat

20. What are you wearing? Shorts and shirt

21. Your secret wish? for bigger boobs

22. Your pets? Onyx and fish

23. Your life? Cluttered, busy, tiring

24. Your current mood? Tired, grouchy, annoyed

25. Missing? Nana, summer, shore

26. Your car? Not mine, Jim's

27. Something you don't like wearing? bras, pantyhose, pants

28. Your favorite activities? Sleeping, eating, reading

29. Your favorite colors? pink, blue, green

30. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday at Babci's

31. Last time you cried? Last night, home

It's been a while

2008-08-29T14:22:00.002-04:00

The party that we threw for Babci and Pop was a good time. My dad took pictures galore and Jim's mom put together a photo book through shutterfly.com. She is really excited about it and wants us to stop over tonight to look at it before she gives it to Babci.

The whole week after the party I was sick. It started on Sunday night with a HORRIBLE cramp in my upper abdomen. By Wednesday I had thrown up twice and still had a fever so Jim made me go to the doctors. She said it was probably just a stomach virus and gave me medicine for nausea. She said I should be good by Friday which I was.

On Friday Jim and I drove out to Lancaster to camp for the weekend. On Saturday Julie and Tom met us at the Renaissance Faire. We spent the entire day there. The Faire ended with an awesome joust and we headed back to the camp ground. Julie and Tom camped with us that night. We had a nice night and just hung out. The next day we went to the Outlets on Route 30. I bought some tops and shoes for work. It was a pretty good weekend.

This is my last week before school starts. I am trying hard to get my first floor cleaned up so that Jim can finish putting up the dry wall. I really want to be able to have a Christmas party for my family this year so the goal is to get all the walls up and painted and new carpets put in before Christmas. I would also like to get new furniture. We shall see if it happens!

PAR-TAY!

2008-08-16T08:12:00.002-04:00

Today is the 50th anniversary party for Babci and Pop. They are Jim's grandparents. It is going to be so nice. We were at the boat club yesterday decorating the hall. It looks awesome. Jim's mom (and quite frankly dad and uncle too) has a very good eye for decorating things in general. I am so jealous of that.

After decorating all the girls (me, Mary Kate, Mom, Rosie, Aunt Rose, and Babci) went for manis and pedis. I loved the place we went. It is so much cleaner than the salon that I have been going to for years. I am going to start going there from now on!! I am seriously thinking of getting a pedicure once a month. My feet get so dry and funky feeling. I love the way they feel after a good pedicure session! Jim's mom wants to start going regularly too so maybe we can make it a date once a month!

After that we went to dinner at Gino's! It was packed but the food is great there. Then we went back to Babci and Pop's to see the decorations Uncle Mick put up inside the house. It looked great! I had Jim bring over the wedding proofs because Rosie, Aunt Rose, and Babci hadn't seen them yet. We all looked through them. It was a very nice night.

Now today Rosie is coming to my house around ten and we are walking down the block to the hair salon (This is why I love this neighborhood! Almost everything is in walking distance.) to get our hair done and then we are getting Mary Kate and Danielle, Jim's cousin's girl friend, and going to Beauty Works to get our make-up done. That is where we went for the wedding. Everyone was so happy with how everything turned out that we decided to go back for the party. It is just so nice having someone else do your make-up for you so you don't have to worry about anything!

Tonight we are going to 5:00 mass. Babci and Pop are going to renew their vows during mass. It will be so sweet. After that is the PAR-TAY! Woo Woo! It is going to be a blast! I can't wait!!!

Back home again!

2008-08-10T14:41:00.003-04:00

I just got home from camp yesterday. There were a few minor problems with people, children acting like children and adults acting like children, but for the most part the week was excellent.

This was the second year we were at this camp. For years we were at Camp Citta in Brookville New Jersey. Two years ago there was a terrible accident at the camp. A tree fell and killed a little girl. She was talking to my sister at the time. My sister is still extremely affected by it which upsets me. She will not talk to anyone, that is anyone professional, about it. I know that she really needs to and I think, or hoe, that she knows she really needs to also but she won't.

Anyway, last year we went to this new camp, Mount Allamuchy Scout Reservation. It is in Stanhope New Jersey and is a REAL camp, as opposed to Citta. The staff at Allamuchy is so much more helpful and willing to be a part of our program. They want to help us make our program grow. This year we had 73 campers, the camp director wants to help us grow to a max of 150. Anybody want to go to a week camp?

Leaving for Camp

2008-08-02T22:51:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow I am leaving for camp. I can't wait. I have been going to this camp since I was 12, well, not this camp, but I have been camping with the same general group of people since then. Anyway, last year we went to a new camp and it was phenomenal. The new camp is Mount Allamuchy Scout Reservation. The staff there is great and everyone is so welcoming. They really are interested in helping our program grow. They want to help us recruit to bring up our numbers, they actually work with us before, after, and during our week there. It is just a great place. I can't wait for this week. It is going to be AWESOME!

Second Vet Visit

2008-07-30T20:53:00.002-04:00

So tonight we took Onyx to the vet. She needed to get her shots and her regular yearly check-up. We adopted Onyx last July and in August I took her to the vet just because I wanted to have her checked. While we were there some idiot let their puppy run into the office, not on a leash, and the puppy ran right up to Onyx. I knew what was going to happen and I tried my best to pull Onyx back but she was able to grab the poor little puppy by the snout and sit there and hold her.

Fast forward to this year. I was a nervous wreck bringing her back. I made Jim come with me and we put a muzzle on her just in case. I was so upset and Onyx clearly was too. I don't know if it was because she remembered what happened last year, the vet had to hit her pretty hard on the snout to get her to let go, or if she was just upset because she had to wear a muzzle. I wanted to get there as close to five as we could. They re-open at five for night hours. I figured there might be less people there at that time. The place was packed!! There were about four cats in carriers so I was ok with that but there was a guy with an old lab. He was a little wacky and was making me upset. The dog's collar was not on tight enough and at one point she twisted out of it! When she was on the leash he kept holding it looser and looser! I knew Onyx wasn't biting anyone with a muzzle on but I am afraid that another dog is going to bite her and she won't be able to defend herself. Oh goodness I was sick!

Eventually we got back there. She weighs 71 pounds! Yikes! She got her shots which she took very well. The doctor also prescribed an antihistamine for allergies. We also found out that she actually was microchipped already. Now I just have to figure out what company was used so I can register the chip. Now I also have to renew her liscense. Over all the visit cost $81.00. I didn't think it was too bad! :)

Slacker

2008-07-30T10:00:00.002-04:00

Ok, so maybe I was shooting high when I said I would write in this everyday!

Anyway, on Sunday we went to the shore with my parents for the day. We are going to go back down over night on Thursday too. I can't wait! I love the shore. We decided instead of sending our dog Onyx to Jim's parents' house that we would bring her. Unfortunately Onyx gets car sick! We are going to take her to the vet tonight to see if he can give us something to give to her before we go.

On Monday we drove to Swedesboro, NJ to pick up our proofs from the wedding. I can't wait to pick out the pictures for the album. We have over a thousand and can only pick 70. Yikes! I am going to bring them to the shore with us to let my mom look through them. We used Perfect Day Photography and were thrilled with them. Their prices were cheap, they took a ton of awesome pictures and you get all the proofs, hard copies and on CD's, copywrite free. We are going to make up parent albums as gifts but shhh... don't tell our parents!

Tuesday we didn't do much. Jim had a viewing to go to with his dad so I went to his parents' house. I was supposed to help his mom with a project for Babci and Pop's 50th anniversary project but she decided against doing it. She wanted to make a photo book but couldn't bring herself to look at pictures of her brother or nephew. They both died one and two years ago respectively. She decided instead to put together an album of pictures from the party, like a wedding album. I said that was a great idea!

A new toy

2008-07-25T22:53:00.002-04:00

Last night we went to the Family and friends night at the Kildaire's in Newark. My cousin's fiance put some money into it and is a manager of sorts. Anyway, we had a great night. We hung out with our family which was nice. Since June, when my Nana first got sick, we really started hanging out more which is nice.

Today my husband brought home my wedding gift, FINALLY! When we got married he told me that my wedding present was the new I-Phone. I was so excited but I knew I had to wait. The phone came out while we were in Hawaii on our honeymoon and we tried to get it there but they were of course sold out. Finally, last week we went and ordered one. The guy said it would be in the store in a week which would have been Tuesday. It finally came in today. Jim said that the guy at the store said if we went in to order the phone today it would be a 23 day wait! Can you believe that. All for a silly phone. I am glad that mine came in so fast.

Finally

2008-07-23T14:22:00.002-04:00

Ok, so after the internet being down for a few days we finally got it back up. Apparently when Jim resigned with comcast they screwed something up and our internet went down. You would think that we would have heard about that!

Anyway, I decided to finally start our thank you's. I don't know why I waited so long. I just want to get them done now. I ordered wallet pictures to stick in the cards so once they come and I finish writing the cards I can send them out.

Movie/Book review. I just finished the Life of Bees. It was a very good book that took place in the 60's I think. It is about a girl that runs away with her house keeper and the house they live in for the summer. It is going to come out in theaters at the end of the summer I think. After that book I started reading The Other Boleyn Sister. The book has been great so far. I bought the DVD of the movie with the same name. I was a little disappointed with the movie but I thought it was pretty good anyway.

Back home

2008-07-19T21:40:00.003-04:00

So after a long drive out to camp we basically turned around and came home. I took an address off of the camp's website only to find out two hours later that I got the address for the council the camp belongs to which was an hour away from the camp. After getting the right address, going towards camp, getting a little twisted and finally finding our way we wound up at camp an hour late! Oh well, the four of us have already been leaders before so it was all good. We knew the deal.

While we were at the meeting I found out that we weren't actually staying over night. I am on staff. Why did I not know this? After the meeting was over and almost everyone left we headed over to Karyn and Gary's house. They just had their first baby last week. We all got to hold little Samantha. She was so cute. You held her and she just curled up in a ball! I want one, but I promised Jim we would wait at least a year. He wants at least one more nice vacation before we have kids. That makes sense, besides I have only taught for two years. I am not ready to stop that yet!

Camp Meeting

2008-07-18T20:58:00.002-04:00

So tomorrow is the leaders' meeting for camp. We have to be there by 11 which means I have to pick my sisters up at 8. It is about a two hour drive so I like to give myself time to get lost, stuck in traffic, get gas, or stop at Dunkin' Donuts. This will be the second year our group goes to this camp. I love it! It is so much better than the last camp we were at. The scouts at this camp are so helpful and willing to work with us to try and make things better. I won't be able to post tomorrow since I will be staying over night at the camp so I will write again on Sunday!

Bored

2008-07-17T15:43:00.002-04:00

Ok, so now I am just starting to get bored. I am tired of laying around and doing nothing all day because I don't feel well. I want to start getting my house put back together! Right before the wedding we got into the bad habit of coming in the door and throwing things down where ever. To tell you the truth my wedding dress is still in a corner of the living room! I have to find a dry cleaner and get the taken care of. Anyway, now my house looks like a disaster zone and I am getting anxious to clean up, or at least throw things in boxes to sort through later, so Jim can get the living room and dining room done and start on one of the bedrooms upstairs; maybe the little room so we can set up our computers and whatnot.

Ugg. I did not want a house that needed this much work but Jim did. Oh well! I know it will get done and I am getting tired of everyone telling me these things take time but this is getting out of control! I just want my house to look nice and to be able to use all the things that I registered for and got to use for entertaining. I am too embarrassed to have anyone over. Hopefully I am feeling better tomorrow so I can get up and get started!