Summer time!

Yes, it is officially here...summer vacation! Our last day of being at school was last Tuesday for post-planning a.k.a. sit around and do nothing because we've moved all of our stuff to the middle of the room. I have pretty much been cleaning around the house and getting ready for my other "school" to start up. Our time this weekend consisted of un-clogging the left side of the house's gutter in the back. It was completely clogged up with leaves and debris since we don't have gutter guards on the roof and we had to dig up the drain pipe under our retaining wall AND freshly planted garden. It was so hot outside...poor Dallas spent forever trying to find the clog and on Sunday we fixed it. One of the next big investments: gutter guards!!

My classes for UGA start up next Monday! I am taking 3: one online in June, one in Athens in June and one in Athens in July. There's only 10 in the program, so I'm hoping to be done by next August. Athens is such a pretty town too, I had to go last Wednesday to get my parking permit and i.d. card made. I will definitely be hoofing it to class this summer (and up a humongous hill) but when school starts back up in the Fall, I'm definitely getting a spot right next to my building or close to it. As for Dallas, he is in week #15 right now....only 6 more to go! We can see the light at the end of the tunnel....

My and Dallas's 3rd wedding anniversary was last Wednesday. We went out to Ted's Montana Grill (our favorite restaurant!) and celebrated by getting each other small gifts this year...we usually outdo it and buy super expensive stuff (i.e. a fence :]). Dallas got me a simplehuman stainless steel trash can for the kitchen. Some may say, what? a trash can? but this is one that Moe canNOT get into at all! Whenever we leave him out he goes trash diving and trash is usually all over the kitchen when we get home. But not any more!!! I love it! For Dallas, I have a friend that is building her photography portfolio and agreed to meet us in Downtown Lawrenceville for a photo session! I got Dallas a new shirt and new hair clippers too. Some of the photos I will post below, the preview ones we got last night are so good.....we can't wait to see all of them.

Our favorite one so far is the one of us sitting on a bench in black and white.

Relay for Life and Mother's Day!

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Relay for Life was at the Gwinnett County Fairgrounds this year. This is the first year I've done it with school, and had a ton of fun! My friend Stacey and I grabbed dinner before heading out after school on Friday. We were soooo wrong for doing that....Minor Elementary's site was right in front of a Chick-fil-A, a stand for funnel cakes and fried Oreos, and a Waffle House site! I will remember next year to not eat anything all day in preparation for the event :)

I ended up raising about $450 with all of my family and friend donations, Hat Days from my kids at school, and the Coins for a Cure fundraiser. It was such a great event and I will definitely participate in it each year. Our school used to have 100% participation 17 years ago when Relay first started up in the county. Now, we're lucky to have about 20-25 people sign up. Not too many came that night either to walk.

Sunday was Mother's Day! I took mom, dad, and Katie to No Mas Cantina in downtown Atlanta, or specifically- the "revitalized" Castleberry Hill area (almost scary part of town). I wasn't really sure where we were headed, so I'm thankful we had their new Garmin to direct us. It was a ritzier Mexican restaurant with a beautiful bodega in the back with pots and Mexican stonework. I got mom a monogrammed tote with her initials (I don't think she has anything at all monogrammed) and some pretty flowers to plant. A picture is above. And what's Mother's Day without new Wallflowers? :) Fresh Linen of course.

Kendall

So as promised, here are some of the pictures we took when Kendall was born:

Me holding Kendall

Dallas and his dad

Hopefully we'll get to see Kendall soon! I'm sure she's grown a lot!

5 months!

Yes, I know, it's been about 5 months since I've posted ANYTHING! Haha, I was politely informed by my sister-in-law that every so often when she checks it, it's still the same Christmas pictures. Well, hopefully the new look is better!

We've only got about 4 more weeks of school left (THANK GOD!). The CRCT has already come and passed and now we can just do the fun stuff :) instead of worrying about that silly teaching.

I got into UGA's Ed.S. program for Early Childhood! I actually have my first orientation on 5/5 and will learn more about which classes I will take and when. I may actually be taking a Maymester, but we'll see. My plan is to be finished with the whole program next Summer or early Fall of 2010. The hard part is figuring out how to pay for tuition....I've never taken out a loan for myself and neither has Dallas! My parents took one out when I went to Berry College my first year, but I was not involved in any of the planning. So hopefully we're making smart choices....

Dallas is still alive and kickin in his Academy class. They have qualified in many areas: shooting at the range at 80% and 70% for the state and the county, driving (today where it involved wearing a riot helmet!), and defensive tactics. We actually just went down to Stockbridge last Saturday and Dallas got his first gun! So exciting. And what did I get out of the whole deal??? A Glock ball point pen! Yesssss, it's what I've always wanted. His gun is a "baby gun" so it has to be cute, right? :) Atleast there aren't any babies crawling around to get ahold of the gun, just Moe! Dallas is in week #10 right now, only 11 more to go! The last week is mainly graduation, so that one doesn't count (to me!).

Our small group at church is also winding down to a close....we joined a really great group and have met some really nice couples through it. This may be the last one Dallas and I can do together for a while. When his shifts start up in the Fall or Winter, he won't have a set, regular schedule for us to follow. Some weeks he would be able to come with me at night, and others he may be working.

Dallas's brother and his wife had their baby Kendall, yay! We went up a week ago to meet her. The pics will come soon.

That's all for now, hopefully I will add more more often :)

It's been a while....

There are so many things to update on...first and foremost, Dallas got the Police job! He got the offer about a week ago from the county and his first day is 12/22. The Academy starts at the end of February and it lasts 21 weeks, yuck. He starts physical training and everything next Tuesday which he's really excited about!

We are finishing up this week at school and there have been so many things we've done! We went on our first field trip on December 1st to the Nutcracker at the Gwinnett Center. Here are some pictures:

The school also had a Holiday Luncheon for the families. Here are some pics of our kids and Dallas and Chris (Amy's husband) joining us for lunch!

Halloween

So Friday was Halloween at school, and we had so much fun! This was the first year our students could NOT wear a costume (bummer) and there was no costume parade either :( Instead, we decided to carve pumpkins all morning! Amy has never carved a pumpkin before...I can't believe someone who has lived in America her whole life has never carved a pumpkin!!!! Then we had our unofficial Halloween "party" (that we're not technically even allowed to have) in the afternoon with yummy cupcakes and cookies! It was also crazy hair day, hence the neon pink hair and pipe cleaners sticking out.

Here are some pictures of our class carving. We carved the big one as a class and then each table got 2 to dig out the innards and seeds:

We had so many trick or treaters this year!!! I ended up turning off the lights and locking the doors when we almost ran out of candy around 9:30. What a difference a fence in the backyard makes with a dog that goes crazy when the doorbell rings!! I really enjoyed just sticking him outside with Summer and letting them bark at all the trick-or-treaters out of earshot.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!

Classroom

Here are some pictures of my class this year....I'm team teaching with my friend and my class houses the math and reading portion of our day. I have the calendar in my room, as well as the door to our garden. The easel was given to me by Dallas's mom over the summer, I LOVE it!!!! It's probably my favorite thing to use now. The kids can use the back of it because it's magnetic. I'll probably be transferring to a new school next year, so just imagine how fun it's going to be when I have to pack all of this stuff up (again), plus Amy & I combined ALL of our books in the library in her room, so we have to sort through those also!