Wednesday, December 26, 2007

A time for change

Well, Christmas has come and gone now. I always hate this time of year. Christmas is my all time favorite holiday, and I look forward to it for so long, but then...it's over in a blink. I have enjoyed my break from school, but Todd and I have been working our butts off getting our house ready to sell. I guess I should mention that part--Todd and I are moving to Kansas City!! Todd has accepted a job up there with his cousin at Sign-a-Rama. He will be working M-F, no nights, no weekends unless something comes up as an install or something like that. He officially begins on January 14th, and he leaves me here to sell the house. That being said, we have been feverishly painting and fixing up the place since last Friday. We have painted the kitchen, laundry room, and master bath. We are painting the office tomorrow, and Todd's parents are coming back down this weekend to paint the spare bedroom, living room, and hallway. The place will look brand new!! I am nervous about selling the house, though, the way the housing market is right now. I would love to have it sold by March!! That's my goal. If you know anyone who needs a house (3 BR, 2 BA) in Nixa, give me a call!!

I will try to blog some more about Christmas maybe later on in the week. I will try to include some pictures as well.
Have a good rest of 2007!!

Thursday, November 29, 2007

A time to give thanks

I have to stop apologizing when I don't blog as often as I should, but with so much going on, I can't help it! I feel like I should be shouting to world how thankful and blessed I truly am! I do want to say thank you to everyone who kept my family and me in their thoughts and prayers during the last few weeks. It honestly feels like it has been much longer than just 3 1/2 weeks since my dad died. After the initial shock wore off, I tried to do some soul-searching. After all, he was my dad and I discovered that he loved me very much and was loved by many. His funeral service was beautiful--definitely the most moving I have ever attended. The CEO of St. Jude spoke highly of my dad, and a cousin on my stepmom's side of the family told funny stories that each of us children had written down. I had written the story about Dad trying to kill my mom and me as he about drove off the edge of the road leading up to and back down from Pike's Peak. Cliff told the story about damaging the garage door when he was 16, only to cover it up from Dad and until the day of the funeral, Dad never knew about it. During the service, we all laughed and cried, then laughed and cried some more. This is one of those moments that I can't wait to scrapbook, but I do have other priorities first--a particular Christmas present for someone special (I can't say who b/c he or she might read this!).

Because Todd and I had already planned to go back to Dad and Pat's for Thanksgiving, we did just that. Even though Dad was no longer around the house, we knew he was a part of our celebration. It was during this time that I got to know my step brothers and sisters and that side of the family a little better. I knew we were "family" in the sense that Dad had married Pat and she had grown children of her own and those children had children, and so on...but the Thanksgiving after Dad's death made us connect more than we ever had. I loved being called the "little sister" and my brother was able to be "little brother" as well. We are all still a family and will continue to be one without Dad. This is the part that surprised me the most, but I love knowing I have more family than ever!

Below are some pictures from the funeral and family photos after the graveside service:
Everyone always said that I look like my mom (I don't see it), but I had Dad's hands--big knuckles and all.
Dad loved his job at St. Jude/ALSAC more than any other job he had ever held. Anytime we saw him he was wearing something that advertised for St. Jude. It was only fitting that he was buried with his latest pin and all the men of the family wore one of his ties to the funeral.

Pat made sure, in everything that was done for Dad, that Cliff and I came first before her own children.
All of us "kids"--we felt like the Brady Bunch in the picture--3 boys and 3 girls!

This is a picture of all the kids with each spouse or significant other. Don't we all look perty??


Tuesday, November 6, 2007

A sad night

I know this is not the post you requested Kodi, but it' s a post I have to do. I'm not sure how or why I am posting this just yet, but I wanted to get all of this down before this moment left. I found out tonight that my dad passed away last night in his sleep. Although we had our ups and downs, I still loved my dad with all my heart. I think I am still in shock, considering my sister-in-law just talked to him yesterday, and Todd and I saw him a couple of weeks ago here in town. Looking back, I thought it was strange that both my stepmom, Pat, and my sister-in-law, Terri, called me tonight. Neither one of them told me about Dad because they couldn't or didn't want to tell me over the phone, especially knowing that I was home alone while Todd was working. Todd came home around 8 pm, came straight into the living room, turned off the TV, then broke the news that my dad died last night. I think I broke down right then and there because I just couldn't believe it. Todd told me that Terri had called him at work and told him to get home to me because my Dad had died in his sleep last night and he had to be the one to tell me. Apparently, Dad was up in KC to visit some donors of St. Jude. He went to bed last night, as usual, but when Pat called him this morning, he didn't answer his cell. She called the hotel and they said he never checked out. A manager went to his hotel room to check on him and found him still in bed, head on his pillow, covered up with the blanket. No foul play...just died in his sleep. I guess that's the best way to go. I am thankful he didn't have to suffer after everything he's been through this past year. My brother, Cliff, is going over to Memphis tomorrow and is supposed to call me with news of funeral arrangements. I am playing it by ear until then. I am not going into school, even though that would definitely get my mind off of this news for a while. I know I probably wouldn't be any good tomorrow or Thursday. Luckily, we are out of school on Friday, but I was supposed to be at a speech tournament this weekend. Now those plans have changed as well. I know there is never a good time for someone to die. I guess I thought I'd just be much older when I had to deal with all of this. Are you supposed to bury your parents when you are this young? I guess only God knows His plan for each of us. I do wish Dad would have lived long enough to hold a grandchild from Todd and me, but now any future children will have to look at pictures and hear stories of their Papaw. I may have to think some more about this situation before I post again, but I would like to post a tribute blog to my dad. If nothing else, at least to get the words down so I can use them later when I include this story in my scrapbook. Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts in the past. I know they will be just as important now. God bless!

Monday, October 29, 2007

Are we traitors?

This past weekend was fantastic! While I had *every* intention of cleaning the house and actually get some scrapbooking in (sorry SG ladies!!!), my plans turned out a little differently. Todd called me from work Friday night while I was organizing my new scrapbook table and asked me if I wanted to go to the MU football game tomorrow. My initial thought was okayyyy... considering we aren't really MU fans to begin with. However, when he told me the tickets were free and were 10 rows up from the 20 yard line, I reconsidered. His boss has season tickets and was unable to use his seats on Saturday. So, Todd, two of his buddies from work, and me set off for Columbia early Saturday morning. Since neither Todd nor I had anything MU to wear, Todd ended up wearing a plain black shirt over his Nebraska shirt (of course), while I just wore a Kickapoo shirt with my gold KHS pullover. We blended in quite nicely I must say!

The football game was totally cool, and I took like 80 pictures that day. I couldn't help it! We were just so close and I knew I had to get some good shots every now and then. Turns out, I have 22 from that 80 that turned out very cool. I know that does not sound like alot, and I could print more than that, but Todd doesn't want the MU game scrapbook pages to be bigger and better than our Nebraska pages. Go figure!! Below are some of the better pics that turned out. I couldn't get any pictures of MU actually scoring because by the time the player got into the endzone, everyone was standing and waving their towels. In two pics, all I ended up with was a woman's arm or a white towel! By the way, MU beat Iowa State 42-28--a great way to end the day!








Saturday, October 20, 2007

What's new?

The Christmas season has "officially" began for me. Mom and I went shopping down in Branson, and while she bought several things for family members, I only ended up with one thing for Todd. He is so hard to buy for because most of his Christmas wishes must be bought online! I did tell Mom that I wanted a new scrapbook table and chair--Kodi, did you and Jennifer get yours at Sam's? We are going on Friday after school to look and see what they have.

Last weekend was the first speech tournament of the season for us at school. In fact, it was the first tournament in our area, plus it was held at our school! I ran around on both Friday and Saturday, trying to help out the kids as much as possible. The traveling season begins the first weekend of November, so I am free until then. After that, I am gone most weekends until March. I think we are going to 9 or 10 tournaments this year before district and state competition in March and April. What I am REALLY looking forward to is Nationals. I truly hope we have enough kids qualify because that means I would get a FREE trip to VEGAS!!! Vegas, baby!! Can you imagine me and one other adult taking 6-7 high school kids to Vegas? If it is the same as two years ago in Dallas, I would just be the chauffeur. Drop off the kids, have the days free to sightsee, then pick up the kids in the evening. Fun for me!! Let's keep our fingers crossed some of the kids make it--I may have to bribe them to do well!!

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Scrapbooking weekend

It seems since school has begun I don't have the 1) time or 2) energy to keep up with my blogging. I don't have the energy to keep up with anything at home much less spend time on my blog. However, I did find time on Sunday to straighten and organize my scrapbooking area. I really want a room that I can just dedicate to my scrapping, but that's a dream in another world right now. In the meantime, I have a space set up in our small office--card table, bookshelf, and closet. I organized all of my paper in their carriers, but I really want some stacking shelves I can keep my paper in. It would seem so much easier to find that way! I organized my pens and anything else that had just been sitting on the table since the last time I scrapped a few months ago. I even organized our Disney pictures from this summer! I am going to try to make an ABC album, so instead of organizing by chronology, which every other album I have ever created is like, I made categories. I have an "Are we there yet?" theme to a "Zipping around the world" theme, plus MANY MANY more in between. I do have more than one page for each letter. In fact I have several Ms and Ts. I think I may try my first hand at chipboard for the beginning page of each letter, then let the other same letter pages fall behind that main page. Does that make sense? I definitely want to get started soon, but I may wait until the speech tourney is over this weekend. My next two weekends are busy, so it may get pushed back to the end of this month. On a positive scrapbooking side, Todd and I did get his racing album journaled in this weekend. He went to the races back in June!

Two weekends ago I took some senior pictures of a former student and his friend. We went out to Sequiota Park and took more "natural" shots there, then headed over to the Maple Park (??) Cemetary on the corner of Grand and Campbell. We ended up downtown and shot some nice urban pictures. I think that most of the pics turned out really nice and the boys liked what I did with Photoshop. I told them to tell all of their friends and advertise for me!! Maybe I can drum up some business for next summer. I think it is a little late for this year!! Here are some of my favorite shots from that weekend--their faces are blurred because they are students at my school and I don't want to run the risk of putting them on the internet!

Thursday, September 27, 2007

The joys of heartache

Why can't I ever blog about happy news?? Why does everything have to be so negative? Todd and I just need to come to the conclusion that medical woes will always follow us no matter how hard we try! Tonight has been a bad night at the Nord residence. We just received two forms from our insurance company saying they are no longer paying for my gynocological visits because they are under the "fertility" umbrella. According to the insurance company, I owe $625 for two Dr. visits in August. I haven't even received anything for September yet, and I saw him two or three times for ultrasounds for my cysts. It's not so much the money issue because we'll just send the Dr. a monthly payment, but in order to keep up the fertility treatments, I have to pay in full each month--that's probably over $1000 without insurance coverage. We just can't keep that up. I guess we'll go back to trying ourselves, but we know where that has led us in the past. It breaks my heart to think that young girls get pregnant every day (we have a few at school that I see on a regular basis!), yet there are women like myself who want a baby more than anything, and after years of trying to get pregnant, and we all hit is a brick wall. I don't understand it, and while I'm sure I'm not meant to understand it, I wish for once that something would go our way.

Okay, enough of that...Tomorrow is Friday! Most of my kids at school have earned the privilege of having Starbucks (they are paying half) and watching a movie. Luckily for them, I'm so nice!!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Just an update

Not much new to report here, but this will at least give you something new to look at when you pull up my blog. I went back to the doctor on Friday and I still have one of the three cysts still hanging around. I am supposed to stay on the pill for at least another week and a half, then go back for another ultrasound. Maybe I will have some better news then!


On another medical note, my allergies have been really bad this past week! Of course, it doesn't help that we have our house wide open and the attic fan blowing in all the pollen around us. Todd thinks that we can save a bunch of money on our electric bill this way, but I have tried reasoning with him by saying that I would rather be able to breathe and sleep at night than have a cheaper bill. I always lose that argument! Needless to say, I am ready for some much cooler weather to come our way. Not snow or ice by any means, but how about some temps in the upper 60s, lower 70s for a change? Cooler weather also means wearing thicker and longer clothes to work, which means I may need to go shopping! It seems I don't have as much to wear in the colder months like I do in the warmer ones.


I know there is a new scrapbook challenge, one that I would really like to do, but I don't know if I will make it or not. I haven't scrapped in so long--I definitely need a weekend getaway. I don't see one coming this fall, but maybe sometime this winter! I just need to get my stuff together and do it! This is one of the pics I know I want to scrap, but I don't know when!


TTFN!

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Bad baby news

I'm sure all of you know that Todd and I have been trying to have a baby for some time now. I have been off the pill since March 2000, but we have only really just been "actively" trying since March 2006. That's when I had surgery to remove several cysts from both ovaries and my uterus. Well, since then, I have been taking daily medication, seeing my GYN about 3-5 times each month for ultrasounds, checkups, get more meds, get my monthly shot, etc. I have been doing all of this in the hopes that someday a baby would come.

Todd and I have had a little setback. I actually don't know how major or minor this setback will be, but it is one nonetheless. Monday night around 1:07 am (I remember the time distinctly!!), I woke up to go to the bathroom. As soon as I stepped out of bed, I doubled over in the most severe pain I have ever felt. I just felt like my ovaries/uterus had just exploded inside! I couldn't walk, lay down, sit, recline, anything. Todd wanted to take me to the emergency room, but I wanted to wait it out. I am tired of paying for all these medical bills--I didn't want to add an ER trip to the total! I did call the Dr.'s office and talked to the on-call nurse. She basically told me to either come into the ER or wait until morning to call the Dr. Thanks lady--I could have figured that out by myself!!

Todd gave me some aleve and it helped the pain go away after 45 min-1 hour. The next morning, I woke up okay, no real cramping, just slightly "like any other time of the month" cramping. I called the Dr. and talked to his nurse. Long story short--I went in today for a check-up and another ultrasound. As soon as he looked at the ultrasound screen, he knew what the problem was. I had 3 "sizeable" cysts on my right ovary. I'm not sure what the numbers really are, but I know they like my follicles to be between 17-20 for ovulation. These cysts were around 44. They were huge!! One took up almost the entire screen! He wants me to take it very easy over the next week or so, then go back on birth control pills until the cysts are back down to a normal size. When he said that, I about cried!! I haven't been on BC in so long.

I just feel like Todd and I back to square one--even worse that square one! Even thinking about it just makes me want to give up, but I am not a quitter. I may quit other things--diets, for one, but I will not quit on this! Just keep your fingers crossed (and if you want to say a little prayer) that these will come back down and not get any worse. Sorry for rambling--once I started, I couldn't stop.

Monday, September 3, 2007

I've Been Tagged!

I have been tagged by Kodi (of course!)! She tagged a while back, but I just haven't had time to get online to do anything *fun* since school started. I am sure all you teachers out there can sympathize! Since I have been tagged, I will try my best.

Here are the rules:
1. You have to post these rules before you give the facts.
2. Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had. ***IF you have already done your middle name than do the State that you live in with new adjectives!*****
3. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog-post containing your own middle name game facts. ***Or state if you have already been tagged before!***
4. At the end of your blog-post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here is mine:
K--Kind--I try to be nice to everyone I meet. Usually I am too nice and it ends up biting me in the rear. I have this one student this year that I am trying to kill with kindness. He is so angry and depressed all the time. I know he had a horrible middle school experience, so I am trying to make up for that. We'll see how far my kindness will go with him!
R--Robin--I miss my dear friend Robin probably more than she knows. She moved to California not too long after she got married back in 1998. I have only seen her 2-3 times since then. Every time we talk on the phone, we both just end up bawling like babies! I hope to see her soon--maybe this Christmas!
I--Ignorance--Todd always tells me that for someone with lots of "book smarts", I don't have any "street smarts" or common sense. I guess that's true! I have horrible observation skills. I will drive by something a hundred times before noticing that it's there. My mother is the exact same way! I guess that's where I get it from!
S--Sassy--I would love to be more sassy in my everyday life. I wish I could be more aggressive and assertive, but again, it all goes back to my K word--Kind. I am too nice to be sassy!
T--Travel--I love to travel! Although I enjoy staying home on the weekends during the school year, I love to travel during the summer! One of my goals is to see all 50 states before I die. I would also love to go to London, Paris, Rome and Moscow. Todd and I are hoping to go on a cruise next summer for our 10-year anniversary. We have also talked about going back to Hawaii instead. I have a feeling we will go to whichever place is cheaper!
I--(another I?) Inventive--At school I have to be inventive with my curriculum. I didn't even have a Reading curriculum until just about a week before school started. Because these kids usually hate to read, and they are in my class to learn how to be better readers, I have to invent ways of making reading fun. I try my best, and sometimes things I think are fun don't turn out that way at all in the classroom, but other times, my kids surprise me! We'll see how their textbook presentations go this week!
N--No--I am slowly learning to say "No" to people when they ask if I would do something. For example, when asked if I would continue to sponsor Key Club this year, I politely said, "No." It's not that I don't like the Key Club kids, but I would have to be at every after school meeting, before school meeting, conventions, etc. When asked if I would teach an English III class on my Conference hour, I politely said, "Oh Dear God, No!" Yes, I would be paid for it, but my conference time is the only time I have to work on SRI (reading test across grades 9-11) stuff. If I gave that up, I would be at school until 8-9 pm most nights! No way!! Uh-uh! Not going to happen!

Well, that's my tagged post. I am supposed people with the letters of my middle name, but I'm not sure I know people who read my blog with those letters, so here ya go:
You've been tagged--Mom, Robin, Haley
If you don't have blog, you can do your list as a comment on my blog.

Have fun!

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Day 1 down, 176 or so more to go

The first day of school is now behind me and I am exhausted!! I never sleep very well the night before the first day, and last night was no different. I woke up this morning nervous and excited to see all of my new students. Although I have small classes because I am teaching Reading, I can already tell they will be a handful. I think they will be fun to teach, though, because they actually interact with each other and with me. So far, so good!


I had to give my presentation on Tuesday, and you all know that I was SCARED TO DEATH!! I literally thought the audience of my peers would be able to hear my heart beating through the microphone, but I guess they couldn't. I had created a Powerpoint slideshow of facts, statistics, and just some things that a classroom teacher could do to help his/her students with reading. My presentation took just a little over an hour, and by the time I was finished, I wasn't nervous at all! Everyone was very kind, and gave me glorious reviews! I even had people saying that I need to be presenting professionally. I don't think so!! I may have been okay on Tuesday, but I don't think my heart or my stomach could handle it on a daily basis! Overall, I was very proud of myself when all was said and done. I am just so glad it's done!!


I am looking forward to this weekend. No big plans, but I want to re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I am beginning it tomorrow during class (during SSR time), and hopefully will continue it next week. I am also looking forward to planning my first big Reading lessons for next week. I will try to get those done tomorrow. Can you believe the projector in my room actually works? Now I can show my computer screen to the entire class! I even made up an SSR Powerpoint to show the kids tomorrow. I am moving on up!!


P.S. I had to share this picture. This one was taken two years ago during a student/faculty basketball game. I was a part of the cheerleading squad!

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Back to School...

Next week brings the close of my summer vacation, and I'll be back at school every day. I have already been up there for a week and a half (give or take a day) setting up my new room, having meetings about upcoming school year events and changes, and just trying to get ready for the new year. If you didn't already know, Kickapoo is trying a new program for incoming Freshmen. These are 9th graders who have already been targeted as potential dropouts if something doesn't change for them. Well, that change is me and two other freshmen teachers. I will have these guys for 1st Block Reading, then I will travel with them to their Science class. I will also have them 2nd semester for English, and they will be together for Social Studies class as well. Other schools have tried similar programs and have been very successful, so we are trying it out. I am a little nervous, but I like that the class is relatively small. I think there are 20 kids registered in the program, but I'm not sure how many will show on the first day. We'll have to wait and see!

I meant to take pictures of my new room this week, but I forgot to take the camera to school. I will post pics when I can. This is my 5th move in 8 years. I DO NOT WANT TO MOVE AGAIN!! I know I will have to move when the construction is finished, but that may be a couple of years away. This is my first time having a full-size classroom of my own though. I have always had either a special ed room (former closet) or shared a bigger room with another teacher. I will miss Hayley this year, but we each get our own room! YEAH!!

Good luck to all of my teacher friends who start school this week or who have already began. Pretty soon we will be back to our Christmas vacation, Spring Break, and then summer vacation again!

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Had a blast, plan to go back for more!

It seems as if it has been FOREVER since I have posted on my blog, and by the look of my previous post, it has been (wink-wink:)! If you are reading this now, you may want to go grab some food or a drink or go to the bathroom because this will be probably be a LONG post. After all, I need to tell you all about our trip to the House of Mouse!

Day 1: I did not sleep at all the night before up in KC because we had to be up at 4 am to catch our flight out at 6 am. Needless to say, I was exhausted that morning. At one point, I even fell asleep while sitting up in my aisle seat on the plane leaning out toward the window (wow--that's a lot of prepositional phrases!!). Once we arrived in Orlando, we got our rental car, a blue Ford Taurus (not Todd's first choice, but cheap), and went to our hotel. We were pleasantly surprised by this hotel. We were paying a very cheap rate (roughly $40/night), but the hotel itself and room were very nice by our standards. We had a fridge and microwave in our room, plus we didn't have to walk up any stairs with our (my) heavy luggage! That first day we went to Downtown Disney and spent some souvenir money. We also ate dinner at Planet Hollywood before seeing the Cirque de Soliel show. For anyone who has not seen this type of show before, RUN to the nearest show and see it people!! This was our second time, and it felt like I was seeing a brand new show for the first time. There is so much to see and take in that you have to see it more than once. I know we will go see this show again and again!






Day 2: We arrived at Magic Kingdom by 9 am just in time for the opening. We went straight to Adventureland to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. This was Todd's first time (my second--hee hee!) to see this ride since they updated it from the movie. Jack looks so real in this ride! We knew we wanted to go over to Tom Sawyer's Island because this was something we had never done in all of our trips to Disney World. I had read about finding paintbrushes from the DisBoard (Thanks!), and since we were on the first raft over to the island, we found 2 right away. We had no idea what they were used for, but we picked them up and held them proudly! We eventually gave one to a little girl because we knew we didn't need both of them. Once we got back to the "mainland", our entire raft was choses for "A Year of a Million Dreams" Fastpasses!!!! We were so excited! This meant that we had fastpasses (skip to the head of the line for you non-Disney folk) for most of the major rides at Magic Kingdom. We could only use them once, but that was plenty! We also found out that the paintbrushes meant we had unlimited fastpasses to both Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain!! We were in seventh heaven! You would have thought we had just won a million-dollar lottery!


We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon just walking around and taking in all of the Magic Kingdom. We met Brer Bear and Brer Fox in Frontierland. We waited a good 45 minutes to meet Ariel, then waited at least 30 minutes more to meet Snow White (or Snow Tan to us), Cinderella, Aurora, and Belle. We also found Chip, Dale and Goofy.

That night we had reservations at Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary Resort. We met and sat next to a really cool family from Illinois. We took pictures for each other during our meal. At this character dinner, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, and Goofy all came by to say hello and pose for some pictures. The food was good, but the atmosphere was just that much better!

Once we got back from dinner, we rode more rides and took in more attractions, but the highlight of the night was still yet to come. We watched "Wishes", the fireworks show, from behind the castle for the first time. It was a PERFECT spot to see the fireworks, even though we didn't have the castle in our view. We got to sit for a while and just take in the view. Once the fireworks were over, tons of people left the park, but many stayed to see the second parade of "SpectroMagic". Seeing this parade was the highlight of our day. Actually, what a man said behind us during the parade made our day! A VERY southern Hick man and his kids were standing behind us, and he gave us a play-by-play of each and every float that went by. Imagine in your very best Hick, southern accent: "Hey, look! It's Mary Poppins! Hey, look! It's Mickey Mouse! I got him, I got him gooooooooood!" The best moment came though, when he shouted out, "Hey look! It's the three little pigs!" (This was correct...) "Hey look! It's the three blind mice!" (This was NOT correct...it was the mice from Cinderella!!!!!) Todd and I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed so hard we both had tears streaming down our faces. I don't think I even took pictures for 3-4 floats because I was laughing so hard! This made our day and we still just crack up every time one of shouts out "3 blind mice"!

Day 3: Not as much to report for Epcot this day. We arrived at the opening and fastpassed Soarin'. We rode Nemo and Friends for the first time while we waited for our fastpass time to arrive. We spent the morning in the Future World part of Epcot, riding Living with the Land, Mission Space, Test Track, Ellen's Energy Adventure (good napping ride), and taking in Crush's Turtle Talk, Journey with Figment, and Honey I Shrunk the Audience (a classic favorite of mine). While we were waiting in line for Test Track, the ride broke down again! We have not been to Epcot yet when Test Track has not broken down. We were in the middle of the line, so we decided to stick it out. I sat down and actually fell asleep on the floor!!!

After doing everything we wanted to do in Future World, we walked over to World Showcase. This time we started on the right side over by England and walked around right to left. In the World Showcase, we met Mary Poppins for the first time, but we were also on the lookout for Aladdin. Alas, he was not to be found. He is one character that we want to meet, but he keeps disappearing on us!

We actually left early that night before Illuminations, the night show, even began. My feet were absolutely killing me, and we were both just so tired that we knew we would do a lot better the rest of the vacation if we just went back to the hotel and got some sleep. My feet hurt so badly that I felt like you could have chopped off my feet and I would have felt a lot better. I took off my sandals and wore my Crocs (ugly, but Disney!) the rest of the trip. My feet never hurt again after that!!! I am a believer!

Day 4: This was an easier day as it was spent at Animal Kingdom. While AK is the biggest park square miles-wise, it is probably the smallest walking-wise because the biggest part is spent on a Jeep during the Safari. After we did the Safari, we rode Expedition Everest. This is not a scary rollercoaster by any means, but it just a cool ride! I was actually brave enough to carry my camera with me and get some pictures while on the ride. I think they turned out pretty cool! That afternoon we took in the new "Finding Nemo" Musical. I LOVED LOVED LOVED this show!!! Todd only tolerated it for me (thank you honey!), but now this show is my new favorite! The show is made up of larger-than-life puppets and singers/dancers/puppeteers. Just awesome! We ate lunch at Rainforest Cafe, then went back to the hotel to rest. This was the first time we have ever done this while on vacation. We never go back to the hotel during the day, but we were just tired, and we had literally done everything at AK we wanted to. After our 3-hour nap, we went over to Citywalk at Universal to eat dinner at Bubba Gump's. This dinner was fantastic! We both had four different kinds of shrimp, and they were all delicious!!


Day 5: This was another exhausting, long day, but one of our favorites! This was the day we always save for last because MGM/Disney Studios is Todd's favorite park and my second favorite (MK being the first, of course!). During the morning we rode Aerosmith's Rockin' Roller Coaster two times, with the first time being when we were chosen as "A Year of a Magical Dreams" winners again! This time we each won a Magical Dreams lanyard and pins. Not as cool as the first winning, but still cool to win again! We also rode Tower of Terror (my favorite ride in the park!) a few times. We saw the Beauty and the Beast show. Again, I love it, Todd tolerates it. We also rode the Great Movie Ride. Todd swears we had ridden this ride before, but I didn't remember it at all. I even looked in old scrapbooks and couldn't find pictures of it at all. We ate lunch at the 50's Prime Time Cafe. I was scolded for having my elbows on the table, and Todd was scolded for not taking off his hat. We shared a lunch but then each had our own dessert! I ordered something I had not had in years--S'mores! Later that day, we rode Star Tours twice, took in the Muppets 3D show, the Backlot Tour, and walked through Walt Disney-One Man and a Dream exhibit. This was a really cool walking tour of Walt's life as a small boy to his vision and dream of Disney World. We got to see his second grade desk with his initials carved into it, plus replicas of his drawing table and office. We also did the Animation Tour basically just so we could meet the Incredibles, but they were off taking care of Jack-Jack. We only were able to meet Frozone. We wanted to meet Ratatouille since he was a new character, but he was leaving in 5 minutes and we knew we couldn't get up to the front of the line by then. That night we ate dinner at Hollywood and Vine (not impressed), and saw the night show "Fantasmic". That is exactly how I would describe that show as well. It's so good and one that I hope they never get rid of!

Day 6: Our last day of the Disney vacation and we had one more day of parks left on our tickets. Since they were going to expire within 14 days, we decided to go back to MGM/Disney Studios. We rode Aerosmith and Tower of Terror again, then saw the Indiana Jones stunt show. We had great seats for this, probably the best seats for any show we saw this week. We rode Star Tours again, plus the Great Movie Ride again. Todd wanted to make sure I remembered riding it this time! I also stood outside the big hat to watch the "High School Musical Pep Rally". Yes, I am 29 years old, and I love "High School Musical"!! This live show was cute, but the best part was two other girls about my age who didn't speak much English and I danced and sang to all the songs! Since this was our last day, and we had had incredible luck with the weather, it was bound to rain sometime. Well, it did today. Luckily, it only rained our last 20-30 minutes of actually being in the park, and then we had to head to the airport to catch our flight home. We were both very sad to be leaving, but we know we will be back again someday, hopefully soon!

We spent the rest of the week at Todd's parents' house in KC. They had a houseful! We were there, plus two of Todd's cousins and their families were there. We all had such a wonderful time, though. We never get to spend time with that side of the family, so it was nice to actually get to know them a little bit. In fact, I hadn't seen Rusty and Michelle since our wedding almost 9 years ago!

After being away from home for two weeks, Todd and I were both glad to come home to our doggy, Soze. She missed us so much and was so happy when we got home. We couldn't even go to the bathroom (seperately) without her coming with us to make sure we weren't leaving her again. Thankfully, we won't be leaving again for a long time, so Soze should have nothing to worry about. At least, not until I go back to school in 2 weeks.

TOP 11 THINGS WE LEARNED WHILE ON VACATION: (It was 10, but we had to add 1 more important point!)

11--Behind the castle is the best place to view just the fireworks at Magic Kingdom because it's not nearly as crowded and we could sit down!

10--Credit cards, loose change, and theme parks can mess up our room keys--we had to get new ones made twice!
9--Crocs are my new best friend.

8--Don't buy the pre-paid full tank of gas from the car rental company. We paid for a full tank at $2.87/gal, and we only used less than 1/2 the tank. We could have filled up for $2.79/gal.

7--We found 27 hidden Mickeys out of possible hundreds. We will buy the book next time to help us!

6--We discovered what happens when we find paintbrushes on Tom Sawyer's Island--free stuff!

5--Space Mountain, Star Tours, Aerosmith, Test Track, and Dinosaur are all as bumpy as ever.

4--Princesses are the most difficult to find and time-consuming to meet.

3--Disney takes great pride in the quality of their live shows and caters to kids of all ages (some more than others).

2--We want to stay on-site the next time we go. Yes, it's more expensive, but the details make up for it--Magical Express, put all charges on the room key, Extra Magic Hours, etc.

1--Disney is just as magical as ever, no matter which trip number we are on!

Now I just can't wait to scrapbook all of this!!

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Consider Yourself Challenged


After thinking of what I wanted to do for my challenge page, I decided to go back to my roots--the 80s. I wasn't born in the 80s (I'm not that young), but I do consider myself a "Child of the 80s". This became my theme. I found a picture of me during the 6th grade in 1989 and posted it, along with my current 2006 school picture to show how much I have either changed or not changed. I'm not sure which it is just yet. Along the pictures, I created a list of things I remember about the 80s. In case you can't read it, here it is:


*Tight-rolled jeans.

*I wanted to be on Star Search.

*I can sing "We Are the World".

*I wore Reeboks.

*I rollerskated on Friday nights.

*I thought Hulk Hogan was the best wrestler of all time.

*I watched the Smurfs on Saturday mornings.

*My bangs were perfectly teased 4 inches above the rest.

*I wore a side ponytail and Lee Press-on nails.

*Posters of New Kids on the Block covered my walls.

*I watched Luke and Laura's wedding.

*Banana clips were a godsend.

*I pinned friendship bracelets to my jeans to finish them.

*I thought Debbie Gibson was better than Tiffany.

*I yearned to be a member of the Baby-sitters Club.

*I wore 2 pairs of socks, each a different color.

*I thought we'd all be flying cars by the year 2000.

Almost finished with current scrapbooks!!

I am officially one page away from being caught up with all of my current scrapbooks. Over the past week I have scrapped all of Todd's drag racing pictures, our most current family pictures, and even the past school year pictures. The only thing left for me to do is the Scrapbook Generation challenge page. I am a little stumped on that one. I thought about including my "Teacher" page for the challenge, but I want it to be about me as a person, not my professional life. After seeing Kodi's challenge pages, I want to crawl into a hole! She is an awesome scrapper! If you haven't checked out her pages on her blog, click on the link from my page to hers. You won't be dissappointed! (By the way Kodi--how do you take such good, clear pictures of your pages???)

Here are some of the pages I worked on this week:

This is my "Teacher" page. I am so proud of myself (and of Kodi for being the guiding light) for stepping outside of the box and using more creative things on my pages other than just paper and stickers. I have 1000s of stickers probably, and I don't ever even use them anymore. I may use one here and there, but for the most part, I have started using more paper, ribbon, ink, and I would love to add more 3D embellishments such as eyelets, brads, stitching, and whatever else exists out there!

These pages above are from our "Girls Weekend" with Kodi, her sister Jennifer, and me. I actually like the Coyote Ugly pages better, but I didn't want to post them. They may have incriminating evidence on them!!



These last two pages are from the KC Botanical Gardens or the equivalent. Not much was in bloom the weekend Todd and I were up there, so I have only one picture of a flower. I didn't even take the picture for the flower; I took it for the bee on the flower!
I will have to post my Challenge page next, but this will probably be my last big post until Todd and I return from Florida. We will be up at Borders at midnight tomorrow night to pick up the last Harry Potter (say it isn't so!!!), and I am planning on reading it this weekend. No Internet, TV, nothing until I have the book finished. I may even wear my headphones tomorrow night so no one can spoil it for me. Monday will be reserved for cleaning and packing, then Tuesday we are vacation bound! We will be back on August 3rd, after spending 6 days in Florida, then another 4 days with Todd's family in KC. I will have so much scrapbooking to do when I return!


Saturday, July 14, 2007

UUGGHHH! Other people piss me off!

I feel so flustered right now that I am not sure I should be blogging because I might just ramble, but oh well! I feel like I have been defending myself as a good teacher to someone who apparently thinks I am horrible! On one of the message boards I frequent, we got into a discussion about school supplies. I responded to questions about the topic from a teacher's perspective. I told them what supplies I requested in my syllabus every year, and one woman (I assume it was a woman) jumped down my throat because I ask my kids to have a 1" binder for the class. This is her response:

"If the binder is so important why don't you buy them then sell them to the students, for your cost, of course? That way you will get exactly what you want. Diid you even consider that you might be compelling some students/parents to run all over town at inconvenient times just to get the exact binder teacher wants, assuming they can find it?Also, I thought things like crayons, scissors, glue, etc was for elementary grades. What are you teaching thme in HS that they need crayons for? No wonder kids get fed up/discouraged with school. I mean, can't the schools give them something more age appropriate than cutting up paper and making little projects all day/"

First of all, WHAT???? I responded back to her more nicely than I wanted to, but I didn't want to tick off other people as well. The last part of her response is what irritates me more than anything. I had mentioned in an earlier post that I kept markers, crayons, glue, scissors, etc. for students to use, so it's not a part of the school supply list. Am I an idiot to think that HS students wouldn't enjoy a more fun activity every now and then? She must think we just do paper/pencil work all day long. I'd hate to be in her class!

ETA: The discussion went on during the evening. Here is another response from the same person: "What grade is this? You said HS--High School? In my opinion, that's too childish for a HS project. My dd did something similar for 4th grade, she found it somewhat boring, the assignment was to make a poster of an historical character, using crayons, markers, glue sticks, etc. When I was in HS we were doing actual term papers, complete with bibliographies, footnotes, etc., had to follow MLA style sheet, served me well for college. I know the teacher doesn't create the assignments, its the school that decides what is done in what grade, you as a teacher really have little control over that. But I feel the project you described to be way beneath what should be expected from high school."

The project she is referring to is the one I described where the kids get to use markers, crayons, glue, etc. When we are reading Of Mice and Men, each group creates a character poster with the following: picture of character, what character says, acts, feels, and how other characters respond, all complete with quotes from the book. I guess that is too childish in her opinion.

Here is another response by this same woman: "I want to gag reading this! That's busy work plain and simple. Its at the elementary school level. Just what do they do in college--more of the same? Can't schools think of something for a student to do besides cut up paper and color all day? No wonder there's so many incompentents in the work force and employers are falling over themselves to hire foreign workers, they're the only ones who can do the job, unless its coloring and drawing."

This thread was making me want to scream. I even did a little and scared Soze half to death! This is an example of a parent who does not understand what it is like to work with kids everyday.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Scrapbook Central

I hadn't posted in a while (except for the tagged post), and I wanted to get some feedback on my new scrapbook pages. I haven't scrapbooked in a really long time. It has taken me a while, but I was motivated to kick it in gear. I have caught up to May of this year, and I want to be current before Todd and I leave for Disney. I know when we come back I will be heading back to school and will want to scrapbook that trip this fall. (Kodi we are getting together this fall, right? Ava Coon Club? I am there!)

These are some of the pages I have done so far:

These 2 pages of my HS 10-year reunion. I was going to do a small album of this event, but so many of the pictures were of "random" classmates that I found myself only selecting a few pictures of those people whom I was really close to during HS.



These 2 pages are of the ice storm. I know the pages themselves are VERY simple, but this was first experiment with ribbon. I am proud of myself for branching out--ribbon, stamps, 3D embellishments, etc. I still haven't used paper the "proper" way just yet, but I am getting there.


These pages are from the Cardinals game that Mom and I went to during our "Mother-Daughter Weekend" back in April. I also scrapbooked the "Chicago" musical, but since I couldn't take any pictures inside of my own, I didn't think it would be wise to post those pictures I "stole" from Google.


I am also in the middle of reading My Sister's Keeper. So far, it is a great read! I read until almost 3 am this morning. I want to have it finished before the last Harry Potter comes out, and at this rate, that shouldn't be a problem. Todd and I are going to see the latest Harry Potter movie tomorrow, and to psyche ourselves up for it, we watched the first 4 movies yesterday. ALL of them! We started about 3 pm and finished around 1:15 am. Not bad...God I love summers!