Back to School

This is how I feel about having to prepare lesson plans and go back to work tomorrow.  A little on the sad and blah side.

Don't get me wrong.  I love my job.  But I also love vacation, and it is always a little hard to let go of sleeping everyday past 8 a.m, staying in my bathrobe and pajamas until 11 and MAYBE think about leaving the house!  Work forces me to do all of these things!  Crazy!

It's also going to be a very weird week for me as I am not going to be physically at school all week.  My partner teacher and I are working on our accreditation book and need to finish it this week, so our principal got us subs and we are working until we are done.  Lesson plans are not fun, but they are especially not fun when you are making them for someone else.

I had to go to school today for a few hours to pull stuff together for the sub.  At least I know the sub because he is part of the junior high team.  I didn't have to go into too much detail!

Anyhow, I'm a little down that Thanksgiving Vacation is almost over.  Three weeks until Christmas Vacation!  Yay!

Last Day of November

I thought I had more pictures, but I don't.  I took this one a few days ago when I started to take down Fall decorations and put up Christmas decorations.

I am super excited that I now have enough Fall decor to fill two storage boxes!  I was pleased that you could tell I decorated for Fall.  It wasn't just one or two pumpkins here and there.  Each room had pretty things!  Then I got excited because I found a third box in storage that I forgot about!  I need to remember it for next year!

I have more ideas for Fall decorating next year.  I am also wanting to expand decorating into Easter/spring and Fourth of July.  It's a lot of work to decorate, but it also makes me very happy when it is done.  So I need to spend time doing it for the happiness that follows!

Pinterest is my new friend when it comes to decor.  I spent less than $50 (of my own blow money) to do Fall stuff.  I think there needs to be a spot in the budget for house decorations!  We'll see what Eric thinks about that!

Christmas Tree Shopping

On the day after Thanksgiving we usually go see Eric's parents, but his mom was not feeling well so we stayed home.  We were planning on getting our tree on Saturday, but since we had an open Friday, we headed out in the afternoon to find our tree.

We have gone to Hillcrest Tree Farm for the past two years, so we drove to Reedley to scope out trees.  And they were closed!  We should have checked the schedule before driving 30 minutes.  It's a bummer because Hillcrest is really cute with a train ride, food, fire pit, trail and castle.

We drove back into town and went to Simonian Farms to get our tree.  Not the same as being in the small hills of Reedley, but still nice trees.  I made Hudson take a bunch of pictures with me.

 It was very bright and warm yesterday.  I don't want to live where I have to fight snow, but some cold and dreary days would be nice.  It was in the 70s yesterday.

 I've never had a flocked tree, but they are so pretty, so we went for it.

 Finally, a selfie where I'm in the frame with the kid and the tree.

 This kid makes me laugh.

 Hudson had enough of posing in the bright sun.

 I hope it fits in the house.

 We explored the area a little bit.  They had a cute barn with old fashioned candy and treats.  The kids got ice cream and I had a caramel candy.  Tasty!

 The tree is HUGE!  We took it through the back yard and in the house through the side sliding door.  It made a huge mess along the way, but it is up.  I had someone on Facebook say it is pretty even without decorations.  I have to agree.

But I went ahead and decorated anyway!  It is massive and fills up the entire corner by the fireplace.  We can't have anymore fires until it is down, which sucks, because I have really been enjoying the fires in the morning.  Granted, life is going to get busy in two days with school and weekend activities, but I like a night time fire.

I still have more decorating to go, but this room is done, and I have a gorgeous tree.

Thanksgiving Vacation

When I first started teaching, I used to have to work on Monday, Tuesday, and usually half of Wednesday.  It was a worthless teaching week where not much got done.  Luckily, several years ago my school switched to taking the entire week of Thanksgiving off, and I LOVE it!

We were slugs on Saturday.  I can't remember Sunday!  I put up half of my Christmas decorations on Monday.  Then on Tuesday we had big plans!

My friend Aniesha invited me to a Fall Flower Arrangement class.  She lives in Hanford.  Eric works in Hanford.  Perfect!  I drove the kids in and dropped them with Eric to take home.  Before the swap, however, we had to get ice cream at Superior Dairy.  A trip to Hanford requires ice cream there!

 Evan ordered a chocolate shake, Hudson got a chocolate sundae, and I got a single scoop of strawberry ice cream that was as big as my head.  I ate about a fourth of it, but it was delicious!

 Old fashioned chocolate shake made the way a shake should be!

Evan has been into personal grooming lately...up to two showers a day, gelling his hair up, wearing deodorant!  It's cute.

 Once Eric and I exchanged kids, I headed to Aniesha's house.  She and her husband recently moved in, and it is adorable!  We ate a quick small dinner at Panera and then headed to the flower shop.

 I know this picture looks the same as the one above, but it is a totally separate picture...I swear!  We had so much fun laughing and making these arrangements.  The shop owners showed us how to cut the flowers and poke them in the green spongy stuff.  It wasn't hard, and I was really happy with how my arrangement turned out!

Our finished arrangements.  The flower shop was GORGEOUS!  It was like a fairy wonderland with ornaments hanging from the ceiling, pretty decorations everywhere and flowers!  I wanted to buy all the stuff.

Our last stop for the evening was Starbucks where I ordered an actual coffee drink rather than cider or hot chocolate!  And I liked it.  I don't know what is up with the weird bump in my hair here, but oh well.  It was the end of the night.

I really want to like coffee, because I'm just not so sure drinking a diet soda every morning for caffeine is the healthiest option.  But I need the caffeine,  I like tea, but coffee is always available almost everywhere.  We'll see how this experiment of me trying to like coffee goes!

Happy Birthday to the Best Husband!

Today is Eric's 46th birthday.  I know this is a funny picture to share for his birthday, but there is a story.  Basically, I'm the most blessed person around to have this man in my life.  God certainly blessed me with an amazing person to love and raise a family.

Anyhow, last Thursday was academic awards at school, so Eric came to school that morning to see the boys get honor roll certificates and perfect attendance awards.  I'm the official school photographer, so I was using the good camera to take a bunch of photos.

After the awards were finished, Eric was walking back to class with me to get my car keys.  Another teacher started talking to me to ask if I could email her pictures of her son getting awards.  I was joking with her about not sending the pictures and started walking backwards.

I stepped back into a puddle and sank ankle deep with both feet!  My shoes and feet were covered in mud and water.  It was awful.  I was in shock and sort of teared up.

The other teacher felt so bad, and Eric helped me out of the mud.  Thank goodness I didn't fall down all together.

The man is such a sweetheart, because he went to Wal Mart and bought me new shoes, new slippers because I was feeling sorry for myself, and a surprise Diet Coke!  I needed the shoes, I wanted the slippers, but the Diet Coke was the best surprise!  I took a sip and it was like instant good feelings!

I am truly blessed to be able to spend my life with Eric.  He is an amazing father, husband, and friend.  We laugh, we accept each other for who we are, and he is our protector.  We all love this man!

I'm Sorry to My Three Fans For Not Posting Much Lately

I'll try to be better, even if it is just a photo or two a day.  I'll try.

This was taken so long ago, I'm not even sure what we were doing.  Let me think...it must have been at a soccer tournament.  I must have been taking off my sweatshirt and told Hudson to hold my glasses, purse, and hat.

I'm not sure of the reason for the goofy face.  This kid always looks so cute in a ball cap.  I wish he would wear them more often.  Neither of my boys really cares for hats.  He is also sporting his new Captain America sweatshirt that I bought him on a whim at Target.  Got a good deal that day.  I thought it was going to cost $20, but I bought both him and Evan a sweatshirt, and they were on sale for $7.99 each!

Yay for deals!