And now the outside

So after several weekends of work, we have most all of the outside decorations up.  We have a few things that we bought this year for the porch and columns- but honestly I don’t think they are going to make it up this year.  And that’s ok.  There is only one more week until Christmas!

This year we added the red lights around the garage and the lights coming down on the right side.  And all the bushes are red lights, unlike last year only the uppers were read and the lower bushes were multicolored.  This was mainly because we could only find multicoloreds last year.  I found some more reds this year.  We also added an angle to the front porch.  Russell thinks she looks kinda cheap- I like her.

This year, and the discovery of pinterest, I have done some Christmas crafts.  You have already seen the ornaments.  Now I have made these cute little snowmen.

I suppose I should get a Christmas rug to go on the porch now.  Perhaps there will be some on sale after Christmas.  That’s where I normally get stuff for the next year.  So stay tuned

Tis the Season

So the Christmas season is here.  This Christmas I am feeling crafty.  Well actually there is this website www.pinterest.com – it will make you want to be crafty.  I saw several ornaments that were really cute and they make it seem like its not that hard.  So I went out to Hobby Lobby got my supplies and got started.  Here are some of my creations:

Inside is officially decorated… hopefully tomorrow after church we can get up on the roof and put up the outside lights…

Thanksgiving

This week we got a whole week off for Thanksgiving!  It was awesome.  Technically Monday and Tuesday were bad weather days (if we had a hurricane this year). 

I went to Dallas on Monday, since a weekend is never long enough to see everyone.  Monday I met up with Dad for dinner.  Apparently Leslie said she was coming too, but neither dad nor I knew that so when I saw her walk by (Ggnghis Grill at the mall) I stood up and waved and made a scene- but she was coming all along.  HAHAHA. oops.    After dinner dad and I went to see J. Edgar.  It was not good- nothing like we thought it was going to be… so weird

On Tuesday I met up with Lauren and Heather for lunch at Panera Bread.  Then we went and hung out at Heathers new house.  Then we went to the Galleria and walked around, shopped, and had fun.  We ended up having dinner as well.  It’s been so long since we have had two meals together.  We used to do it all the time in college.  I miss the days when we complained that I was 10 minutes away from their apartment. 

On Wednesday Leslie and I headed to Greenville to see Grandmother and Granddaddy.  We met up at their apartment to have lunch and ran some errands with Grandmother and then went to see Granddaddy, but he was in the middle of a therapy session so we didn’t stay too long.  But it was great to see them.  I miss them.

On Thursday we went to nannie and Da’s for Thanksgiving.  On our way over though we had a family photo shoot.

Then mom and dad went to see Grandmother and Granddaddy, so we killed some time at a gas station.  Russell saw a scratch off machine and wanted to buy a lotto ticket, but only had $4, so Leslie chipped in the last dollar.  They won ($10) so they both doubled their money and were SUPER excited!

While we were at Nannie and Da’s we got to meet my newest second cousin (I think that is what she is to me). 

Friday Rachel was in town, so the girls came over to my house to hang out.  Again I miss us all being together.

Then we had dinner with the Smiths.  On Saturday we (mom, dad, Russell and I – Leslie had to work) went to Top Golf.  That is a fun place and I did decently well. 

We met Leslie for lunch.  Then we went to see the Muppets movie.  We got their pretty early, and so they made us stand in line.  We were the first ones.  So nothing like being the first in line for a kiddie movie. lol.  But it was still a really good movie- brought back memories.

All in all is a was a GREAT week.  Too bad then we had to come back.

I love my church :)

I just want to say I love my church.  Yes, it is hard work, but the people are great.

I say it is hard work because we meet in a middle school and we help tear down, pack up, and load out every Sunday.  So while everyone else is home eating lunch and napping, we are still up sweating (yes even well into November) and tearing down.

Some of our manly men that help.  We have four 25 foot (probably) trailers that we load up every week.  Fortunately we are not on the crew that sets up at 6 am. 

We also attend both services every week.  Well I should clarify, we attend the 9:30 service and then at the 11 service I teach the 2 and 3 year olds in Sunday school and Russell helps greet, offering, and tear down.

The people at our church are great- especially the people on staff.  They decided that this week we should tailgate.  So we did.  And it was awesome.  Each lifegroup was charged with making a pot of chili.  So yesterday several members got together to cook.

Here we are tasting it- and we approve.  We found a chili online that had cocoa powder, coffee, and beer (*gasp* don’t tell the people who ate it at church lol).  It created a nice taste. 

The competition

Our entry.  Yes I made the signs.  Had had several names, and no one wanted to pick one, so I put both.  Choeeree (a combo of chocolate, beer, and coffee our secret ingredients) and 3^3 (three meats- ground chuck, sirloin, and pork sausage and the three secret ingredients).

Our judges.  Ours didn’t win, but that’s ok we still had fun.  But we will blame these guys!

Manning the grill is Tracey and Pastor Bryan!

Our favs: Bryan, Jake and Beth

AND at what other church is proper attire your jerseys?!?  Just saying….

…and yes I know you all love my macaroni necklace.  It is a friendship necklace because God gives us friends who help us, like Jonathan helped David.  (see above about teaching 2 and 3 year olds)

Whew!

Where has this semester gone?
I can’t believe that it is already Thanksgiving?  I am pretty sure my last post was Labor day.  AH I am so sorry.  And it has been a busy semester, stuff to blog about, but I have been SO busy with work.  It’s crazy.  This year has definitely been crazy, and unlike any other semester before.  I will update you on this past semester, but until then I will remind everyone (including myself) why I do what I do:

Labor Day Weekend

This past weekend was a three day weekend!!  YAY!! 

My parents came into town Friday night.  And they brought Kristin!  Kristin is a sophomore and Dallas Baptist University, and I have known her since she was two.  Mom used to babysit her and her brother when they were younger, and when she only had one brother, now she has two!  I love the Thieman family!  And I was really excited that Kristin had a free weekend to come down.

We didn’t really do too much over the weekend.  It was nice to just sit around and hang out with my family.  Saturday we went to Cypress Station grill for lunch (and was also dinner) and then went and go frozen yogurt later that night (yes that was Russell and I’s third time to go that week- ) lol. 

Sunday we went to church.  Mom, dad and Kristin went back home after the first service.  Russell and I stayed like we always do. I teach the 2s and 3s in sunday school and Russell greets at the door and takes offering.  After church we just had frozen pizza for lunch, because for dinner we had fajitas while we watched the Aggies play.  Russell’s family, and my friend Amanda came over to watch as well (even though she is a longhorn).  We had fun watching the Aggies win, hopefully that’s a trend that continues!!

Monday we hung around the house, and then went to Smash Burger for lunch.  Mom and dad were curious about it, because they don’t’ have them in Dallas (yet- I’m sure).  We love Smash Burger and eat there pretty regularly.  Last week on Groupon they had a buy a $12 gift card for only $6.  So I bought two and so did Russell, but Russell had a ten dollar credit so we got $48 worth of Smash Burger for $14.  Not to shabby!  After lunch mom, dad, and Kristin had to head back to Dallas. 

That night we had our fantasy football draft.  This is Russell and I’s second fantasy team.  This one was just for the Roddy/Taylor/McCarthy family.  Leslie chose Payton Manning first round, first pick over all.  She knows he’s hurt- I don’t know  her thinking on that one.  Oh well her loss my gain!  Go McCarthatrons!!

More bad luck

I thought the bad luck with cars would be over. . . I was wrong!

Yesterday morning when I was driving to work, I noticed my interior lights were dim (yes school starts so early that it is dark when I am driving there).  But I didn’t think much of it, and clicked them brighter.  Afterschool I ran a few errands (ok actually I went to the outlet mall) and everything was fine.  When I got home, Russell was already home and was reheating some leftover pizza from this weekend.  I asked him if he wanted to do rotisserie chicken like we planned, or to just snack and do leftovers.  He voted for the latter.

Later that night we decided to go get some frozen yogurt.  They just opened a new place by our house, and it’s really good, lots of variety.  They have a “smile points” that are basically a frequent visitor program.  So after many jokes about us increasing our smilage, we went over and got some.  When we walked in, Russell noticed a coworker in there with his family.  So we went and talked with them for awhile.  It was about 8:30 when we left, and it’s no longer summer so it was dark.  All the sudden on our way home the radio clicked off.  I asked Russell if he did that, and he aid no.  So we were confused.  About 15 seconds later the entire car shut down.  We were able to coast over to a side street.

Russell popped to hood and looked, I don’t know what he was looking for.  But he decided that we needed to have someone come jump  us.  So we called his mom and she came to save the day.  She jumped us and the car started up.  so we turned around and tried to make it the last mile home, and about 52 seconds later it died again.  This time there was no side street to turn into close by.  So Russell got out and started pushing the car.  I just want to say that power steering is AMAZING.  It takes so much to turn a car when power steering doesn’t work. 

We turn into a private neighborhood/rich people private airport.  So we were out of the way of traffic.  Russell calls Geico and they send out a tow truck (yay for having good insurance!!).  Russell’s mom took us home (we both had to pee- lol).  She left and we waited for the tow truck guy to call and say that he was 10 minutes out.  He called about 15 minutes later, so it wasn’t that long of a wait. 

So we go back out and wait for the tow truck.  We saw it pass by once, and then come and find us.  The guy was really good.  he had to jump it again,  so we could put it in neutral.  He tows it to a place closer to Russell’s parent house, because it had an open lot at night.  But this time is 10:30.  By the time we made it home, we both needed showers, because we had been standing outside a lot.  We normally go to bed around 9:30- so I was very tired this morning.

Russell was tempted to called in from work, but I told him he needed to take me to work, so he might as well go too.  So Russell dropped me off at school this morning, went to work for a few hours and then went back to the mechanics to talk to them and get it fixed.  It was the alternator that went out.  So apparently that’s what charges the battery when the car is on, and since it wasn’t charging the battery, the battery was completely drained.

The mechanics fixed it today, and we picked it up tonight.  So the ordeal is over, just about $700 poorer than we were yesterday

Hopefully this is it for our car troubles for awhile (knock on wood)

Back to School

Sorry I haven’t posted in a few weeks- but all the sudden my life got busy.  haha.  School has started. 

The first week was just meetings, development, and planning.  On that Monday (the 15th) we had a convocation and met the new superintendent.  That was at the Berry Center, so we all got bused there.  Trust me- teachers aren’t huge fans of busses. lol.  Tuesday we had a district content day.  Everyone who teaches high school social studies met at the same place- and that just happened to be at my school- so that was nice.  It was good to see all my Creek  people again.  Wednesday we did some team building at our school.  We played silly games, but my team came in second- so I get three days of jeans passes- very exciting!!  Thursday and Friday we meetings to train us on our new grade book, new teacher webpages, and new lesson plan system.  You might be thinking that oh what a nice thing to get upgraded on all of these things.  You would be thinking wrong.  They are not upgrades, they are freebies.  To save the district money.  And they are awful- especially the grade book.  The lesson plan system  was supposed to be up and running- and it’s not, now they are saying second six weeks.  So yeah change THREE critical things and then not even make them user friendly or good.  ugh.  Ok done ranting. . . . for now.

This past Monday was the first day of school.  This is my third year teaching and my first first day of school. lol.  It was nice to actually have all my students from the beginning.  Right now I am sitting at 178 kids, and only more will come.  They are adding one more psychology AP class, so the will break down one of the other psyc teacher’s regular psychology class, so I’m sure I will get at least ten or so into my psyc class.  And the are taking away a world history AP class (kids are dropping out of it like crazy- they have already gotten rid of 2 AP classes already).  So I’m sure some of my K (honors) classes will be getting some more (but they are already sitting at 35-37).   I still feel like I’m flying by the seat of my pants for psychology, but that’s because the main psyc teacher is also a coach and coaches 1st and 7th, so he is never in his room before or after school, and we have different off periods.  I’m sure we will get in a groove, once they level the classes some.  But it’s still a fun class, the kids seem to really like it.

So far my kids have been really good, and I think it will be a really good year!

It’s Official

Summer is over. 

Today is my last day with nothing to do.  I’m kind of sad.  I know Russell is happy because now we both have to wake up early to an alarm.  Starting Monday I will have a week full of training and planning, and then on the 22nd it’s the first day of school.

This is my first year to actually start on the first day of school!  I am excited.  Even though I got thrown a curve ball last week.  I found out that I will not be teaching Geography like I was told I was, and like I taught last year.  This year I will be teaching 5 sections of World History- which I taught my first year and one section of last year.   I will also be teaching one section of Psychology in the fall, and a section of Sociology in the spring. 

As much as this threw me for a loop, I am excited.  Psyc/Soc is a senior elective class, so it should be fun.  Plus there s a bunch of interesting stuff to teach.    I am a little concerned about World History, they have changed the TEKS (the Texas standards that we teach to) and now we have to go all the way to 2011 (revolutions in Egypt/Libya and the death of Osama bin Laden).  Last year we spent one day on the Cold War/Korea/Vietnam- yes one day total for all of those.  So we are going to be moving at a RAPID pace- I don’t know if my freshman I had last year can work that hard to keep up with the pace this year.   So we shall see!

Well summer 2011 it’s been a blast!  Can’t wait for 290 days, or May 30th 2012 when it will be summer time again!  In the meantime I’m pretty sure this school year will be a blast too!!

I think I have a problem

Hi I’m Stacy and I’m an Aveenoholic.  Seriously, I am obsessed with this stuff. 

This is what’s on my nightstand.  Six different Aveeno products, and that doesn’t include what’s in the bathroom and shower. 

This stuff is amazing and works well with my sensitive skin- I can’t use anything else.  If you haven’t tried it you need to it’s definitely worth every penny!!

and the bad luck continues. . .

So last week I was running some errands, and while I was at the dry cleaners (for like the ONE thing in our closet that needs to be dry cleaned lol) and this guys goes, I don’t know much about tires, but you definitely have a flat.  And sure enough it was flat, so luckily the dry cleaners was my last stop.  When I got home, I saw the nail that was in my tire.  The next day I took it to Discount Tire, and they had to replace the tire, it couldn’t be fixed.  While I was there I was informed that I need all new tires, since they were getting kind of low.  Which Russell had actually mentioned that to me, but since we just got back from vacation tires will have to wait a few paychecks. lol.  I got the one replaced for only $28.  Is there such thing as tire fraud, because I would like to just perfectly place three nails under the existing tires and drive over them to get all the other tires at $28 as well.  That’s probably illegal though  

On Friday we were driving to Katy to meet up with our friends Katie and John who live in Sugarland (so Katy is about halfway for both of us) and we hear this noise.  All the sudden we are driving over spilled paint.  OMG.  So frustrating.  As we keep driving we see the can dragging underneath a car.  We pull over to a gas station to assess the damage.   I didn’t take a picture because I think I was in shock and wanted to try and get it off asap! It looked like how when upi drive through a big puddle of mud, only it was paint.  I guess I am glad that it was beige color, not hot pink or something- though that might have been cool- lol.  At the gas station we use the window scrubbers to try to scrub it off.  It comes off kinda, but its balling up and leaving some weird residue.  UGH so frustrated.  We do what we can at the gas station but eventually leave to go to dinner (which was SUPER fun I love them).

Saturday I looked up on the internet how to get paint off a car.  Somehow no one had my same problem- all it talked about it like paint from another car.  So I went to Walmart and got some Goo Off and it seems to work, along with a lot of scrubbing (I think I ruined Russell’s sponge).  However, its not working good enough, so we decide a pressure washer would work best.  So I empty out our change jar and raid it for all the quarters, go back to Walmart (and also one more time that day with Russell to get more charcoal- so three Walmart runs in one day- probably a record even for me) to get another can of Goo Off, and head to the closest do it your self quarter car wash (which was not actually close- but it was the only one I knew of- so I’m sure there is one closer I just don’t know about it).  So about a million quarters and an hour of pressure washing later my car is back to normal.  It also got rid of some of the scratches from my wreck earlier in the summer, and some other scratches that have come over the years.   So all is well, just very frustrating.

Tomorrow I am going down to the courthouse to take care of the ticket I got- which means defensive driving. . .  BOOO.  This summer has not been good to my poor car. 

Tennessee Part 2

The last week we were in Tennessee, we stayed in a super sweet cabin about 10 miles outside of Gatlinburg.  Russell stayed in it on Friday as I spent Christy’s last night as a single lady with her.  However, that night he checked in was after the rehearsal dinner, it was late, and raining, and the code they gave us to get in the cabin didn’t work.  But because the cabin was in the mountains, there was no cell service.  So Russell had an interesting night before he finally drove back into town, called the owner, and got the right code.  The hassle was worth the wait!




We loved the cabin. . . so if you are planning a vacation in Gatlinburg we highly recommend it. 
The first full day we were in the cabin was Sunday.  We went to Pancake Pantry for breakfast.  Pancake Pantry was recommended to us by at least 4 people (here in Texas).  Of all the pancake places (which there is a lot in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area) this one is apparently the best.  And it was really good; however, there are a LOT of choices.  They need like a silver dollar pancake sized sampler platter. 

After pancake pantry we went to the grocery store and got some supplies for the rest of the week.  The rest of the day we just relaxed.  On Monday we went to Cade’s Cove, which is basically a fertile valley community  in the middle of Smokey Mountain National Park before they bought the land for the park.  In Cade’s Cove we saw 3 bears, a mama and her two babies.  They were SO cute!






That night we went to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. for dinner, Russell wanted shrimp.  I don’t like shrimp so I had a burger. lol.  We also walked around town some and Russell got some fudge (the first of many times haha).
On Tuesday we just relaxed around the cabin.  After our New Zealand honeymoon, which was very action packed, we both knew that we didn’t want to have something scheduled everyday.  But that night we went into Pigeon Forge to go to the Dixie Stampede.  Dixie Stampede is a dinner show put on by Dolly Parton.  It was a good show, horses, buffalo, pigs, good times.  Mom had texted saying that they might not have silverware.  And she was right.  I still don’t understand why not.  It was a LOT of food, soup (yes with no spoon!), a WHOLE chicken, a pork chop, corn, potato, and roll, PLUS dessert.  No cameras were allowed during the show, so sorry for the lack of pictures.


On Wednesday we went zip lining.  There was a place that was literally two minutes from our cabin.  It was SO much fun.  They had 10 zip lines that we did, and we never touched the ground until the very end.

After zip lining we went back to the cabin and got cleaned up.  Then we went and played putt putt.  We chose to play at a place called Hillbilly Golf.  We chose it because it looked cool, you have to ride a little tram up the mountain where the course is.  However, we were not too impressed with the course itself.  After that we went to a place where everyone in the guest book recommended, the Alamo Steakhouse.  It was really good, it was a nice place to have a nice meal.

Thursday was our last day in Tennessee.  Unfortunately, we had to be out of the cabin by 10.  So we packed everything, had breakfast at McDonalds, then went looked at some of the artists shops.  The first one we went in was definitely the best, it was a woodcarvers, where I got some Christmas ornaments.  After that we went to the aquarium.  It was good, but I wasn't overly impressed.  Then we went into Pigeon Forge and had lunchand then went to the Christmas store.  The Christmas store was AMAZING, there was all these different trees with different themes.  I wanted them all:  here are a few of the best:

blue and white china tree

red and white snowmen

gingerbread men

smores (marshmellow snowmen)

After Christy's Christmas in July theme wedding, and the Christmas store I am ready for Christmas!  If I start praying for a white Christmas now, do we think that God will get tired of that prayer and answer it?  

Oh yeah, we also got this made while we were in TN.  We love it, but not sure where to put it, so for now its on the mantle.  Please give suggestions.