Catch Up!

Just merely living life has been exhausting lately and has been the cause for my lack of posting.  However, I have survived my first six weeks as a teacher at a public school!  I must admit that while it has been amazing it has left me questioning my career choice.  Teaching is by far one of the most exhausting jobs ever!  It doesn't help when you have 150 short stories to grade, and it turns out that my kids spell like the Chick-fil-a Cows. 

Moving onto other things...

My cousin's Quince was a couple of weeks ago, and we had our own fun while the birthday girl partied with her friends!

This week is concert filled, which is going to be fabulous and terribly exhausting!  Wednesday we are going to see Carrie Underwood and Billy Currington with my brother and his girlfriend.  Then, Friday we are going to see Shakira with my parents.  My dad loves her, so Nick and I got him tickets for Father's Day.  He is so excited!

Also, the weather is completely wonderful, and I can't wait for it to be colder!  I absolutely love fall and winter clothes!!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...

I am super pumped because our Christmas plans are already booked and are completely perfect!  My family does our whole Christmas shindig on Christmas Eve, and we will be here to partake in all of it.  Then, we will fly out Christmas Day to Chicago to go to Nick's grandparents, meet up with his parents, and see his family for their Christmas festivities!  I love getting to see everyone for the holidays, and this year we have an added bonus...road trip to North Carolina with Nick's parents after Chicago family time.  Nick's parents currently live in North Carolina and decided it would be fun to take the week after Christmas as a time to road trip up there from Chicago, do some touristy things there, and get to finally see the house they just recently bought.  We will fly home from North Carolina after a week of Christmas, family fun, road tripping, and a mini vacation.

Nick and I are also very fortunate to be planning a Spring Break trip too.  His parents have a time share in Hawaii that we may use in Kauai for the week to relax and spend more time with his parents.  However, if the hotel is already booked for that week then Nick and I are planning to go to London!  I am secretly way more excited about London and hoping it can be a go.  We also had to stop ourselves yesterday and remember how truly blessed we are to even be having the conversation of, "well, if we can't go to Hawaii then lets go to London".  Our lives have been remarkably blessed time and time again, and we had to stop and remind ourselves of this fact.  So, here's to a wonderful God, a wonderful Christmas, and a potentially wonderful Spring Break!

Exhausted!

Let me just preface this with the statement, my new job is completely exhausting!  It has been a crazy first two weeks at my school, and has included going from seven periods to eight, changing homerooms, adding and losing kids, and all kinds of schedule issues.  Public school is so much more work than private school!!

Anyway, there have been lots of things going on other than school/work since my last post.  So, here begins the pictures and descriptions of what we have been doing!

Nick was chosen season ticket holder of the match at the last Dynamo home game.  He got to lead the teams onto the field, we got to stand with the players before the game started, and we went onto the field during half time.  Very cool and definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

My fabulous in-laws sent me the most amazing care package to start the school year off.  It was full of wonderful teaching/office/school supplies.  Plus, who doesn't love to get a big box in the mail!

We partied with the Mexican side!  My mom's aunt and uncle celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, and as many may know Mexicans know how to throw a party!  We had a blast, and everyone was there.  My nephew did question my mom's true Mexican-ness though...he asked, "Ama, (Spanish word for grandma) you don't talk like brown people so you must not really be a brown a person!"  It was hilarious, and he has a point, my mom never really speaks Spanish in front of him or to him.  The best part of the night was when my mom's cousin Henry, who we all love, gave my dad a hat!  My dad said he liked Henry's hat, so Henry said he could have it because he had another one in his car...pure awesomeness!  So, below is my dad with cousin Henry and their hats!  Henry then walked around the party, pointing at my dad, and telling everyone he had a white cousin!

Eric and Selina showing off their moves!  We really had a great time, and it was nice to be surrounded by family.

I am so thrilled that tomorrow is Friday and that I have a three day weekend in store.  Plus, I have pretty much the best mentor teacher ever this year, and she is buying me lunch!  I will try to post more frequently, but I make no promises, seeing how exhausting teaching at the largest middle school in Houston ISD is!

Sweet Surprises

This weekend I went on a lovely date with my fabulous husband!  We decided to hit up The Heights first since that is where I will be working and spending a lot of time.  Our first destination was the Art Car Museum...we lived in Houston about 5 mins away and this was our first trip there.

We also found this super charming place called Dessert Shoppe on 19th in The Heights, and it was incredible.  They had all kinds of yummy, caloric fabulousness, but Nick and I decided on cupcakes.  It was an amazing choice, but I bet everything there is wonderful.

We also saw Dinner For Schmucks, which was hilarious.  I love Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, and the movie really was excellent...as my brother put it, "it is a comedy that actually has a really good plot"!

Dinner was interesting, to say the least.  We decided to try Tokyohana only to find that it had some sweet surprises and some disappointments as well.  To begin, I have never been to a restaurant where a magician walks around.  I am being very serious, there was a magician who walked to each table doing card tricks.  I haven't quite decided if it was off-beat and fun or just odd and a little disturbing.  Anyway, food was ok, the portions were huge, as was the price, and it is the only hibachi restaurant I have ever been to that makes you pay extra for the soup and salad.  It wasn't a bad experience, just not as good as we would have liked.

We had a very successful date, did lots of exploring in The Heights, and enjoyed a day where it was just the two of us!  On a completely different note, yesterday was of course Sno-Cone Sunday, and my brother joined us and spent the evening with us.  He has since decided that he will always join in on Sno-Cone Sunday and Selina, his girlfriend can't wait to come next weekend!  Weekend was amazing, and unfortunately my summer is officially over and it is back to work for me...

And so it begins...

Although the end of summer means I have to go back to work, which is completely bittersweet, it also means that TV is about to start rockin' again!  All of the fabulous shows that go on hiatus for the summer are getting ready to come back, and I can't wait!

Grey's Anatomy: The last episode was so intense that Nick refused to watch it with me, so where will this season take us?

Private Practice:  I have just recently gotten into this one, but I hated how the season ended!  Dell should NOT have died, and that is all I have to say about that!

Brothers and Sisters:  Oh, how I love this show!  Plus, Dave Annable is so ridiculously gorgeous!  I will miss Rob Lowe and Balthazar Getty, but this show keeps me coming back for more.

I am totally aware of the fact that this entire post is about TV and I am not ashamed, because even if you don't like to admit it you too have TV shows that you are addicted too.  It is a guilty pleasure, and I would just like to add that my life doesn't revolve around TV...I promise!

Love is in the air...

So, this coming Friday will be the 13th and also marks a year and a half of married life for Nick and I.  This is amazingly awesome because we got married on a Friday the 13th!  Needless to say it is kind of exciting, and is the inspiration for today's post.  Obviously, I love my husband but a few other things I love include:

• Our wedding wall!  We have this weird cut out thing in our house that I had no clue what to do with, and then my best friend, Sara, gave us a sign that inspired everything!  It has all kinds of memories, and serves as a constant reminder of the best day of our lives.

• Going along with the whole wedding thing, I still love our wedding invitations!  We did not go the traditional route, but I still think they are the best thing ever!  I love that we are crying by the box for those who could not attend.  In case you can't tell, the invitations have us on them!  A local artist created them for us after talking to us and learning what our interest were.  Nick has on flip flops, a soccer ball, and a finance book.  I have a camera, paintbrushes, and a book.  Since we like to travel there is a suitcase with stuff about us on it like the UST star, Viva Italia (that is where we honeymooned), a Don't Mess With Texas sticker, etc.  They were amazing and completely us!

 

 

• A more recent love is that I will be teaching in The Heights this year!  There are so many aspects to love about this...I am at one of the best schools in the district, I am a Vanguard teacher so I will be teaching GT and Pre-AP kids, Nick and I can carpool, and the people at this school are incredible, plus, I just adore The Heights!

Sno Cone Sunday!

Our lives are crazy, hectic pretty much all of the time.  In all honesty, I don't know what we would do with ourselves if they weren't though.  In all of the madness since the last post, Nick and I have decided to implement Sno Cone Sundays into our beautiful marriage!  It is our time to relax with each other and eat the best summer food ever invented.  Plus, it would make a kick-ass name for a Sno Cone stand, especially if we were to play on the pun with sundae.

Our sno cone stand of choice...it is the best out of like 4.  We have become sno cone aficionados!

Up until Sunday, though, we were all over.  Of course we went to the MLS All-Star game against Manchester United.  We were lucky enough to be on the field during warm-ups, which meant we got to be up close and personal with players and coaches.

I also got a picture with my two favorite Dynamo players, Geoff Cameron and Cam Weaver.  Yes, they are that tall and I am that short!

We also had my adorable nephews birthday party this weekend...they are turning 6 and 9!   Nick and I got the best present too!  We found this rocket that is 7 ft. tall and shoots 100 feet into the air, well after putting it together and much debate about whether or not it would work it turned out to be a huge success and went about 150 feet in the air!

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it shooting up, but that would be my nephew Tripp grabbing his butt in the above picture, haha!  It was a good time, lots of family, and an Olympic themed party at my brother's, who lives on 10 acres so there is always something to do.

Also, this weekend some of the other season ticket holders at the Dynamo game gave us part of the Houston Chronicle, and low and behold...

Nick and I are in the picture!  I have no idea why we look so angry, but it is pretty awesome!  The couple in front of us couldn't believe that the time they go to get food there is a picture taken (they sit right in front of us).

We had a wonderful week since the last post, and this week is not any less hectic.  My summer is coming to a screeching halt, and this is my last day of nothing to do.  I have new hire orientations, 6th grade orientation at my school, and I start back to work.  So long summer, hello new adventure into not only a new school district but also to public school...