Two Weeks & Counting!

Yep that's right it's officially only TWO WEEKS until we get married!  Part of me feels like that is plenty of time to get things done and the other part of me knows that it is going to FLY by!  Especially with having to work half days all week next week with our "Kindergarten Boot Camp" I know it is going to be here before we know it!

We have been having a great time in Tennessee for the last 10 days getting some last minute things done for the wedding and also just spending some quality time with our families.  Last weekend on the 14th we celebrated the birthdays in James's family by having a good ole southern BBQ at their house.  We also spent some time on the lake with Michael and Sidney (James's brother and his wife) and with Brady and Brennan, not to mention the fabulous tye dying that we did with them as well!  

Today James's Mom and his Aunt threw us our 2nd wedding shower at a local church and we had a great time.  It was nice to be able to meet some new people in his family along with meeting some of his Mom's friends that live in the area.  We got some really nice things off our registry and most importantly got to spend some quality time with loved ones!

Tomorrow we head back home to NC to finish things up the last week and a half before we leave for the wedding.  As I said earlier I know that this time that is coming up is going to just fly by along with the time while we are in Jekyll and I know that it all will not go as planned but whatever happens the most important part is that we get to spend time with family and friends and you can't get any better then that!

Schools out for Summer!!!!!

Friday was our last day of school with the kids. The first thing that popped into my mind when I woke up on Friday was the song "Schools out for Summer." Surviving your first year of teaching is a milestone I was told. It is one that I can definitely agree with now. Coming into the school year midway through the year has to be one of the hardest things to do. This year was full of ups and downs. There were definitely more ups than downs. The year was very rewarding, and I am looking forward to starting from day one in third grade next year.
Anna I know had a great last day of school with Beach day. It sounded like the kids had a blast it.

We have a few work days left to go, and then its off to Tennessee for a while. Birthdays abound while we are there. My birthday is on the 14th as is my twins of course, along with my moms. My dads and his sister's bday is on the 13th. That all adds up to a lot of cake and icecream over the next little bit. YUM!

Hope everyone has a great break and a great safe Summer. More posts to come. We can't wait until we see all of you at the wedding.

The Time Is Getting Near...

Gotta love a sunset in the mountains...just one of the many amazing things that God does to show us the beauty of the world!

Well yes as everyone keeps reminding me we are just about a month away from the big day...WAHOO! We are getting excited and to be honest I'm just sick of waiting and ready for it to be here. I went for my 2nd fitting on my dress today and that definitely gave me that "wow" feeling in knowing that the time is close!

While we wait we are definitely kept from being bored by all the things we have going on at school. Thursday is our field day and on Friday we are having a beach day in Kindergarten where the kids get to play a bunch of water games and such so that should be a good time and wear them out pretty well! It is really neat to see how far some of the students have come, especially given the way that they came in to K. Seems like if we let them that the kids would be able to run the class on their own (and some of them try to on a daily basis!) Even though many people talk about how much pressure is put on Kindergarten students it is great for me to be able to still get to see their innocence. Just today one of our students brought in pictures of his dogs and was telling us how one of his dogs can be mean some times and they have to "smack him" to which one of my little girls replied "well if he's mean and you don't like him then you should just sell him in a yard sale or somethin!" Gotta love the minds of kids!

As many of you know James and I have also been doing a lot of traveling lately including a camping trip to the beach with Molly & Matt and also a trip to the mountains that James to me on for my birthday! We had a great time on both trips and feel really blessed to be able to get away like that, especially with gas prices and all going up I think our trips are going to be minimal here the rest of the year! Here are a few pictures I thought you all would enjoy from those trips!

Setting up a tent on an incredibly windy day...not so easy but who needs guys when the girls can do it!

Molly & Matt on the beach with their dog Tacori

James & I sitting by our JEG in the sand that I drew...awww! OK 10 points if you can tell me what JEG means!!

James and I on our trip to the mountains at the top of Chimney Rock...we did it!

The view from Chimney Rock...it was BEAUTIFUL!

James doing some creative photography with my ring...thought it turned out pretty cool!

A.J. and I were ready for a nap after a long weekend!

A Year Already?

"To love is nothing. To be loved is something. To love and to be loved is everything"
~Claire Dempsey

Today is mine and James's one year anniversary of being engaged! Who knew that a year could fly by so quickly. He took me out to dinner last night to celebrate at O'Charley's since neither one of us could go this evening. We got to talking about our favorite memories since we got engaged and I said that one of my favorite was just being able to call everyone that night and share the news and also getting to tell everyone at school the next day was fun as well! James said that his favorite moment would definitely be buying our house which has been a huge part of starting our new life together!

James also surprised me tonight by coming home from our school play and knocking on the door. When I came to answer the door he had a dozen beautiful roses and a new wind chime to put outside our house...what a sweetie pie!

Our First Wedding Shower!

I had always wondered when the day would come that I would get my picture on a cake...lol well last Friday that lucky day came when Melissa and Tara threw James and I a wedding shower for all of our friends and c0-workers at school. We had an absolutely AMAZING time and were so touched to see everyone who came to the shower. It definitely made James and I realized how blessed we are to work with a group of such wonderful people that truly care for us both as a couple and as individuals! We were very thankful for how generous everyone was with their gifts as well and we are happy to report that we were able to go out this weekend and get everything we had wanted to set up our new bathroom and kitchen after we get married so we are excited about that as well! We are also going to paint our bathroom to match the new shower curtain so we got some paint to do that as well!

James and I with the wonderful hostesses of our party...we are SO lucky to have such great friends!

Melissa & Tara came up with a game to "Test your knowledge of James & Anna" and these were the four winners of the game (JoAnna, Molly, Meredith, & Beth), great job ladies!

The kindergarten team...yet another group of people that we are SO blessed to know down here...life wouldn't be the same without them!

James with his future 3rd grade staff...he is looking forward to working with these great ladies as well next year!

James and I with good ole Sally who is actually going to be the lucky one to marry us this summer...maybe she will give us a little saranade after the ceremony as well!

Cinco De Mayo

Ole! Ole! Ole!

It's Cinco De Mayo Day!

Ole! Ole! Ole!

It's Cinco De Mayo Day!

Man who knew such a simple song would be so catchy! Just wanted to post a pic that I stole from Melissa's blog of us out celebrating Cinco de Mayo last night...good times were had with Margarita's and Fajita's at Chili's, who could ask for more...OLE!

The OFFICIAL Taste Testers...

OK so I was telling this story to Melissa and she said it was definitely "blog worthy" so here goes! James and I frequently visit a coffee shop here in good ole Monroe and the other morning when he went in to get us coffee he got us volunteered for a job...go figure! Well this one was actually a pretty cool job. We were asked to come by Thursday afternoon to do some taste testing for them for a new drink that they were creating to taste like a butterfinger candy bar. So to make a long story short, we went in that afternoon and they gave us several rounds of drinks (hooray for caffine) and we got to help them to come up with the recipe for the drink. It was definitely fun and took me back to the good ole days of starbucks! James really had a good time as well and he definitely likes giving his oppinion when it comes to chocolate and coffee drinks, now if we could just get that some job at an ice cream store!

As for the rest of the weekend it has been going pretty well. We spent the day today doing some spring cleaning around the house and I have been trying to get my two final papers done for grad school which ends this week...YAHOO! We are also going over to our friends Matt & Molly's house this evening for a little BBQ and then some night golf so that should be fun! Well I guess that is going to be all for now seems how is it about time to get ready to head out. Sorry no pictures on this post, hopefully we'll have some good ones to add soon!