Home Stretch!

I am looking forward to the last week of school coming to an end. I have so much to get done and still need to pack up EVERYTHING. I just really have an extreme aversion to moving and the packing associated with it. It's always super stressful, but I'll be glad when it's done. Due to the size of our tiny apartment, I'll be putting some of it in storage over the summer.

Tonight, we're going over to our friends' house for dinner. I so love spending time with their little family. They have the most adorable 18ish month old. He is just so fun to be around. Zach and I have extreme baby fever right now. We want babies, and we want them now. We both know that now just isn't the right time for us for things to work the way we want them. We're very aware that God doesn't usually follow our measly plans and we're okay with that. For now, we play with other people's babies and have fun "picking out" things in the baby section at Target. Anyone else seem to drop about 50 bucks every time they go there?

Been a While

I know it's been a long time (huge understatement!) since I last blogged, but I'm back. I do have a good reason for my long hiatus. I got a teaching job! Praise the Lord, I was hired at the very beginning of August and have been going non-stop since then. I'm working at a charter school teaching first grade. In August, I would have told you that I wanted to be at a public school. However, I can see the big picture now and I'm almost certain that I would have been let go by default as a first year teacher. I'm fortunate to be at a school that is not taking a big hit by all the school budget cuts. While I am still waiting to meet with my principal about renewing my contract, I am hopeful that I should still have a place at my school. I'm just going to trust that God still knows the big picture and that He's going to put me where I need to be.

I am definitely counting the days left until summer. I need a break; my 25 kids need a break! I can't wait until summer! My husband and I definitely have some big plans up our sleeves. We're hoping to visit his parents in England for a couple of weeks. I'm super excited about that. I love Europe, but it's been a while since I've been there. I make it sound like I visit there frequently, but I've only been to Germany once and England once. I've also got a ton of stuff do do for my classroom. I'm going to attempt to make some felt storyboards and some other centers and knick-knacks. I also want to take up sewing. I guess I'll need a sewing machine before I do that...

Anyway, kudos if you're still reading! Now that I'm caught up, hopefully my next post will be more entertaining.

My First Meme!

Okay, this is my first time doing one of these, so I hope it works right.

1. If you had to choose a country to live in besides USA (or the country you live in), which would it be?

I would probably choose Germany. I went my freshman year of college for 2 weeks, and fell in love. My husband would say China, and I’d be up for that too. I love to travel and I think it would be really cool to live in another country for a year or two. What better way to learn about the culture than to live there?!?!

2. Which would be worse, wearing flip flops in the snow or wearing gloves in the summer?

Gloves in the summer. Let me just say “Ew!” It is waaay too hot where I live to wear gloves in the summer.

3. Fried or Bake and why?

Mmm, fried food is so good, but we never make fried food. I’m kind of afraid to fry. It just looks so messy, and the smell lingers for days. I think I will go with bake.

4. If you were an entertainment reporter, which celeb would you love to interview and why?

Um, I don’t know…Rachael Ray maybe?

5. What was your favorite book as a preteen/teenager?

 

I was pretty in to Harry Potter. Oh wait, still am! Well, I still like it a lot, but have toned it down over the years.

6. List your top 3 guilty pleasure television shows.

19 Kids and Counting, Secret Life of the American Teenager, and Next Food Network Star.My husband and I LOVE to watch these shows together. He’s the best! We love Food Network and TLC.

7. What bumper sticker slogan best describes you/your attitude/your life?

Read to your children! (I’m such a teacher…)

8. If you were to join a circus - what performer would you be?

An acrobat. (In my dreams, haha!!!) The trapeze just looks so fun!

 

Now go to Mannland5 to get the questions and link up!

Back Home!

We are home for good for a while, from vacationing with our families. Zach's back at work, and I am back to the job search. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do, but it may or may not consist of phone calls, school visits, emails, and who knows what!

Image via Wikipedia

We had a great time in Florida. We ate lots of great food, spent some time at the beach, visited a couple of cool places, ate lots of good food, and just had fun with my family. The beach was pretty good. The weather started out a bit rainy and there was a bit of algae and seaweed at first, but everything cleared up real nicely. I somehow managed to get some oil on my foot and swimsuit the first day, but really the oil is all cleared out at Pensacola at the moment. We didn't have any more run-ins with oil and I don't think it's a problem right now.  Boy, that stuff it hard to get off! We also went to the Pensacola Lighthouse, Fort Pickens, and The National Naval Aviation Museum. The Blue Angels were in town practicing for their air show (which was earlier today). We weren't able to stay for the big air show, but we got some up close and personal views of them doing stunts. It was pretty spectacular!

On the way home, we decided to stop and have a dinner and a movie date night. We went and saw Eclipse at one of our favorite movie theaters. [Zach is really the best because he likes all types of movies (except Lifetime!). I love not having to convince him to see certain movies. He still likes very boy/guy movies that I'm not always super excited about seeing. Most of the time, I don't mind because I usually end up liking them more than I expected.] I enjoyed it, probably the most of the three. Now I am no Twilight Fan. It's way overrated in my opinion. I started the first book, got about 50 pages in, put it down, and never picked it back up. I really don't think they're very good or very well written. Just my opinion. Read if you wish; I won't think less of you. Now I AM a huge Harry Potter fan. I love the books and can't wait for the next movie. In fact you should check out the trailer here. I also can't wait for the next Narnia installment, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. You should watch that trailer here. I basically jump and quiver with excitement when seeing these trailers on the big screen. Still waiting for the HP trailer to be in theaters. Speaking of movies, what's with all this 3D movie hype?!?! I don't buy it.

Well that's it for now. Maybe later I'll come around to uploading some pictures, maybe...

P.S. I added this Zemantra Assistant, but I think it's making typing out my blog suuuuuper slow. I like it because it makes it easy to add pics and stuff, but this is ridiculous. I suppose I will look for something else. Any suggestions?

Dripping Wet!

It's been a fun couple of days around here. I love spending time with Zach, and the last few days I have gotten to do a lot of that! It has been raining like crazy this week, CRAZY! Partly because of this, we have been catching up on all of our shows that we missed while we were spending time in Thailand (We were visiting Zach's parents who are living over there right now. More on that is a later post.). The other day, Zach came home from running an errand with a plan (and the food!) for lunch that day. Then he made us baked pork chops and herb pasta. Yum! Today, we made a trip to get the registration renewed for our car. On the way, we grabbed a chicken bisquit from

Image via Wikipedia

 and headed out in the rain. Then, we met Zach's grandparents for lunch. We ate at a local seafood restaurant that his family (and mine) really like. For some reason, we don't find it super enjoyable. There's just something off...However, we had a good time and the food was nice and edible. After lunch, we headed to Wal-Mart. I really despise that place. Yes, it's cheaper, but most of time I don't care. There's just way too many people, terrible selection, the parking lot is a zoo, and they have organized the place so that the simplest of things are impossible to find. That being said, we still venture to Wallyworld once or twice a month. It is good for some things. Today we needed windshield wipers and water shoes for Zach. We got soaked in the parking lot (literally dripping wet soaked) and found a meek selection of water shoes. The (2) available sizes were too big. Target (my fave!) and Payless also failed us for water shoes today (Do they not make them anymore? Seriously!), but we hit a home run at Academy for just 5 bucks.

That pretty much concluded our day, as Zach is working until midnight this week. This weekend, we leave for a Florida vacation with my side of the family. We are staying in a condo with my parents and visiting my brother, who lives out there. It should be super fun!

Oh, and I almost forgot! Tomorrow, we're finally going to celebrate our anniversary. We are going to travel into the big city to go see Toy Story and have dinner together. Really, the only thing we've done for it is eat our cake from our wedding day and some more anniversary cake from my parents. Way too much cake.Our wedding cake was surprisingly good and still moist. How awesome is that?!?! This will be some much needed date time right between two trips with our families.

I think this is it for the day!

Life as I know It

Let's see, I'm happily married to my amazing husband, and we just celebrated our one year anniversary. I can hardly believe it's been a year! It has been so much fun getting to know him in this amazing thing we call marriage. He works pretty odd hours sometimes. Well, most of the time really. Usually he works until midnight or overnight. I don't love the hours, but we both know that we are blessed that he has that job. Most of the time, things work out pretty well, despite the crazy hours.

For over a year now, I have been looking for a teaching job. I graduated from an amazing university and did pretty well there. I have a passion for kids, always have, and I love teaching them and seeing them learn and grow. For this reason, it's been hard not being able to live out my passion in the way I want to. I do however believe that God has a reason that I don't have a job yet. It has been a big step, learning to trust Him with this part of my life. I go through periods of discouragement, but my God is big and does amazing things, and I know He can do this. I believe that He is going to provide me with a teaching job. I would love for you to pray for me to get this job, but most of all for me to trust Him no matter what, and to have discernment in whatever job offers do or do not come. I want to use this blog to document my job struggle (and whatever else comes along), so that when I do get a job, God gets the glory for it.

If you haven't noticed, I am a follower of Christ. This doesn't mean I am perfect, but it does mean that I live for a higher purpose and reason. God is a very loving and personal God. He cares about me and you. If you ever have any questions or want to get to know God yourself, feel free to comment or email me and I'll do my best to introduce you to my wonderful Savior.

Welcome!

Hello! It's nice to see you here. This is the first blog I've done in a while. I used to have a xanga back in the day, but didn't update it very often. We'll see how this goes...

Excuse the large amount of posts today; this won't be a regular thing. As it is, this is my blog and I get to organize it any way I please. HA, so there!