Surviving the Holidays & Resolutions

Well, today is the last day of our vacation.  I'm definitely sad to see the return come so quickly, but I'm somewhat ready to get back in the routine. I just am not looking forward to the drive that comes with that routine.

Our first holiday together went smoothly.  We have done the whole sharing holidays with multiple families for a few years now, so this one wasn't all that different.  Sadly, schedules forced us to miss one of the Christmas', but we were able to successfully get to four others.

In the middle, we did take a short vacation in Canada (thanks to Scott's family).  For some reason, I've married into a family that decides to travel north during the cold months rather than south. ;) It's okay, it's always a pleasant trip.

Some pictures from the trip:

Butterfly Conservatory

The Gorge

While the new year has just begun, I have already accomplished something on my bucket list:

We went skiing! Sorry, we didn't get any action shots.  Don't we look darling in our helmets?  :P

I suppose bucket lists makes a nice transition to New Years Resolutions. I just asked Scott his, and he replied, "I don't have one."  I don't know if I have some "new" resolutions, but I do like to keep goals throughout the year.  They're basically on-going and have been for a few years... things like trying something new (skiing), eating healthier, exercising more, becoming more organized in my classroom, etc.  However, after watching Wheel of Fortune, I think I'll copy Vanna White's resolution.  She said that she wants to make a new recipe every week.  I feel like I've done that numerous times over break, but I like this goal.  Unfortunately, I'm not home to cook much for the week, so I'm going to say that I'll create (well, copy), one amazing meal per month. Or, at least cook an entire meal that I hope to be amazing.  Don't worry, I'll share.

While this isn't my amazing meal of the month for January, I did make a new recipe tonight: Chicken Spinach Pasta Bake.  Here's a link if you want to try it.  It was an odd concoction, but good.  It should make for decent leftovers for Scott during the week.  Feel free to share your favorites.

Well, I have an early night planned, as school starts in the morning.  Happy New Year! :)

They picked the right resolution. 

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is fast approaching.  Thankfully, Scott and I are all set to go.  I just need to figure out a couple of desserts to bring to the family gatherings.  This year, we'll have four Christmas celebrations and one trip to the "Great White North."

Scott's on break, and it's been wonderful to have some quality time together. He successfully completed his first semester of second year. I have four days to go... but the students are so ready for break. They are getting frustrated with one another (lots of tattling) and have decided they no longer care what I'm teaching.   They were probably ready for break a week ago. So, this week will be a bit rough.

To get us all through the last work week before the holidays, here's a lovely homemade e-card form us. This wasn't some fancy website either.  Scott started from scratch using Photoshop.  Enjoy!

We went and got the kitties their Christmas present: cute sweaters, hats, and scarves.  Yep, we're those people.

I'm pretty sure they were slightly disappointed this Christmas.  Really disappointed (see previous post)

Love,

Decorating: Part II

If you remember from my last post, I was a little disappointed that I didn't have a Christmas tree this year.  I was making do, but Scott must have noticed our house was lacking a little bit of Christmas cheer (or just didn't want me whining on here about not having a Christmas tree). I got home on Friday night from work, and Scott said that he noticed Meijer had a 4 ft. tree on sale for $25.  Obviously, I was pretty psyched. Knowing that we'll be shifting from apartment to apartment over the next few years, a small tree seemed like a perfect choice. So, we went off and bought the tree.

We were slightly disappointed by the extremely small box... but it was a tree. Now, if you remember from last time, Scott insisted that we shouldn't have a tree because we have two little terrors, I mean, adorable kitties, and won't be home much to control them.  But, they were eager to help out.

We bought some ribbons for decoration and ornaments...  (Side note: Ribbons can make surprisingly nice tree toppers if I do say so myself) and got it all set up.   It's really short...and we're convinced it's not actually four feet... but it works perfectly for our cozy little house.

While all our ornaments could be categorized as our first Christmas since they're all new to us, we did need something to add that "special touch."

Our presents are finally all wrapped. :)

While this all looks nice and merry, it is time to give Scott some "I told you so" credit.  While he was very humble, he was 100% correct.  Trees and cats don't mix.  Apparently, they had their own Christmas party while we were sleeping.  I woke up the next morning and counted 15 ornaments on the ground.  Today, we at least lessened the count to 12.

Don't worry, though... tomorrow, I take our little guys to the vet to get castrated. Our tree may look pretty for a while, but I'm pretty sure our kitties will be very angry.  Right now, they are convinced we won't hurt them.  They're starting to just stare back when we try to spray them away from the counters, food, etc. It's pathetic.  They're spoiled.

I'm sure we'll be getting Floyd's glare quite frequently after this week..

On another completely unrelated topic, two weeks until my break and 5 days until Scott will be on break. :) We're looking forward to some much-needed husband/wife time.

Love,

'Tis the Season for Decorating

I love Christmas.  My husband wouldn't let me a buy a Christmas tree this year.  We're moving in June.. so the reasoning makes sense.  He also says he doesn't want it because we have kittens.  We're going to have cats for along time, so I'm not letting that be a valid excuse. Anyway, it definitely puts a damper on my favorite parts of Christmas.  (In Scott's defense, he did just let me steal his old tree from his room at his parents.  It's about a foot tall, and was decorated with some sparkly pipe cleaners...).

I love the decorating around Christmas.  I revamped my mom's Christmas tree in high school.  We took away the ornaments made in elementary school (or at least all that she would let us) and added a nice color theme, only white lights, and some silver ribbons.  By the way, ribbons on a tree look gorgeous. I could only find this picture of the tree...from when I got my fancy camera.

 My old college roommate was so into Christmas.  Seriously, I've never seen a family with so many Christmas decorations. By the time she was in college, she already had a 6 foot tree that we eagerly decorated every Christmas.  There were ribbons, ornaments, lights, random Santa Claus decorations, the works.  The Christmas cheer in our apartment was always obvious.

Since I don't have a fancy tree to decorate (except for my lovely 1-footer), I've spent extra time wrapping gifts.  If I'm being totally honest, my favorite part of gift giving is wrapping the gifts.  Of course, I love the smile on the receiving end, but wrapping is so fun! I've decided to share a tutorial on how to get lovely DIY bows.  There are plenty of other tutorials out there for this exact thing, but I'm adding some holiday cheer to my blog.

First, you need scissors, ribbon (I prefer the thicker kind), and a wrapped gift.

Now, wrap the ribbon around the present both "hot dog style" and hamburger style."  I just tapped down my ends, instead of knotting it so that you can add the lovely bow at the end.

Now, cut a ribbon that is about half the width of your original ribbon and about 8 inches long.

Now, you need to circle the ribbon around so that you have about seven or eight layers, depending on how big you want your bow.

This is what it looks like flattened.

Using your scissors, cut two 1/4 inch slits in the center of your layered ribbon, 1 on each side.  Don't cut too deep, or the bow will fall apart.

Secure the layered ribbon with your thin 8-inch long ribbon.  It will sit right at the slits.   I made a double knot.

Tie your bow onto the cross section of your present.  Don't worry, it will cover up the tape at the end.

Now for the lovely bow...

Pull apart the layered ribbon, starting from the inside on each side.  You can move them around to whatever look you desire.

Curl any of the ends so that they blend in with the bow (or use this for any parts that may have fallen out).  

Add the finishing touches... 

And, voila, the final product. :)

To Scott's family, one of these is yours. :)
To my Secret Santa, the other is yours. :)

Enjoy!

Long time no see?

What an odd expression.  If you really think about it, why would anyone phrase something like that? Anyway...

I haven't written a blog in a while.  I'm sure you like to hear excuses, so here goes: Conference time.  For a teacher, that means absolutely no life. My school has 100% participation requirement... so you must meet with each parent, regardless of whether they want to meet (because of that last statement, you get a lot of no-shows). Thankfully, I'm nearly done.  I have one that I'm still waiting for, but we'll get it scheduled eventually.

Then, of course, Thanksgiving.  Being married certainly adds to the to-do list when it comes to Thanksgiving dinners.  However, it led to three delicious meals. :)  I also got to do some cooking/baking, which is always fun.  My favorite new addition to the recipe book is a delicious white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake.  Delicious... but extremely rich. We got to eat a lovely meal at Scott's grandparents', Thanksgiving at my mom's house with Grandpa and Aunt Rebecca (and Scott kicking butt in Scattergories!), and an additional meal at my Grandma's; where, once again, Scott and my team kicked butt in Guesstures. :) Have I mentioned my family loves board games?

Complete Topic Change...
A while back, we went to a Downhere concert with Scott's parents (and sister).  It was a really good concert, so I figured I'd share some potentially new music. First off, the lead singer, Marc Martel is becoming quite popular with his audition for the Queen Extravaganza.  He has quite the voice.

Go vote here! :) 

Don't worry, he's not famous for singing Queen.   They have many albums that could be featured, but I'll just showcase their well-known Christmas song, "How Many Kings":

I really could do a whole four-page blog with songs that I find worth listening to, but I'll let you explore here.  There's a button up at the top to listen to their music.  Do it.

While you're listening, here are some pictures from the concert!

Photo Credit goes to Scott

VIP Passes 

Let me know what you think! :)

Fall Festivities

As a teacher, I don't care for Halloween.  At our school, Halloween parties are supposed to last an hour, and the students must bring their costumes to change into. So, if you want them to get changed at school, you need thirty minutes just to allow students to run back and forth from the bathroom to change (with every other fifth grade class).  Needless to say, it's just a hassle.  So, I tried to ease my frustration by just watching a simple movie, allowing them to pass out candy, and I brought in my favorite fall treat: apple cider.  I couldn't believe that so many kids had never had it before.

Other teachers went crazy. Susan, if you're reading, this is for you. Black lights, scary costumes, even scarier contacts (I hate those...), spider webs everywhere, etc. Something that screams, "You're the coolest teacher ever!" ..So, in my shame of disappointing the kids, I promised to at least put a little effort into decorating Christmas.  Besides, Christmas is 10x cooler.... minus the snow.  I'm dreading winter.  I'm sure I'll post more on that later.

Anyway, as a kid, I loved Halloween.  I think I was fairly creative too... looking back I've been a genie, duck, cowgirl, TY Beanie Baby, Oompa Loompa, Cinderella, and many more that I can't remember right now.  I was always determined to never repeat a costume, and not buy one from whatever store was mass producing Halloween costumes.  In fact, all of my costumes were homemade.  Though, I'm disappointed as I go through my collection of pictures and not finding a single digital proof of any of what was said above. :(

I was excited to pass out candy this past year. I've never lived on a street that actually had houses close enough together to go Trick or Treating. I wanted to guess the costumes and see kids. Rather, I saw repeat costumes, a lack of creativity, and greedy kids.  It was very disappointing. This year, however, I'll be at school... probably.. grading papers into the night.  Scary, right?

Anyway, back to the point of the blog... Kyle, our hometown friend (and one of Scott's best men), came up here this weekend, and we participated in my favorite Halloween tradition: carving pumpkins. This year, I tried a new technique where you scrape off the skin.  It was difficult and I cut my finger, but I was proud of the result.  Kyle and Scott had great pumpkins too.

As a side note, Scott doesn't care for Halloween at all.  I was slightly appalled that he had never even carved a pumpkin.  I don't care if he doesn't like Trick or Treating, but I was determined to start this tradition with him. :)

My husband is slightly obsessed with time lapses. We're still in the beginning stages, but now you get to see us carving our super awesome pumpkins.

I completely forgot to do a kitty blog (but Scott beat me to putting pictures on facebook)... but you can see them being hilarious in the video above.

And, the final result:

Weekend Excursions

So, Scott and I had quite the weekend planned.  I was (im)patiently awaiting for the weekend to arrive, telling my colleagues and students that I was going sky diving.  Seriously, I think we ordered these tickets last May.  I was ready for it, too. It had been a stressful week...so jumping out a plane seemed like a worthwhile investment.

Doesn't that just look awesome!?  And, Scott, of course:

Since these pictures are definitely very different, I'm sure you can tell that our weekend went a different direction... and that was just Scott's fancy editing.

Yep, the wind got the best of us.  I think I can confidently say that Scott and I have terrible luck.  It happened to be too windy of a day, so we were grounded. I suppose it saved us a drive to Mount Pleasant, and it gave Scott a huge sigh of relief when he realized he had a whole Saturday to study (and watch those Spartans beat the Wolverines!!).   We contemplated rescheduling, but with his schedule and my realization that cold is nearer (tear...), we decided it would be best to get a refund and delay our sky-diving experiences.  It was quite sad, but maybe someday... we were so close...

I think I'll just show my students the first picture when they ask, and see who is the first person to consider that I should have had more protective gear and such when skydiving and ultimately realize the picture was fake... :)

P.S.  Yes, we know... our yard needs some raking (but the neighbor's is worse...so I think we're okay).

Much love,


(P.S.S. I know we need to post new kitty pictures soon... I'll try to make that the next blog.)