JAMBO!

Well it seems that no one liked our last post since we got NO COMMENTS on it so I guess I will try again and hopefully you all will like this one better!

Nothing real major to update about right now. Our semester is coming to an end at school this week and we are about to start our 2 week spring break. However, James and I will both be teaching intersession next week so we will only get one week "offically" off of work but that is definitely better then nothing! We are excited to be going home for Easter to Tennessee to be able to catch up with our family. Speaking of family, my parents are heading home from their 2nd leg of their trip and if you haven't checked out their page you should to see some great dolphin pictures...it's clute.blogspot.com! Oh and of course as you can see from the picture below, James and I must brag on our very own star student who recently graduated from his intermediate class at Petsmart! Now if he could only act that well at home...

Over the break I am hopeing to get lots of wedding plans finalized so that it can be smooth sailing from here on out. We are going tomorrow to order our bridesmaid dresses and i'll need everyone to say a little prayer that they get in on time (seems how the estimated time looks like mid June to get them in). Other then that I think we are right on track with things which is great! I just can't wait to get married and to get to see everyone who can make it down to the island...it's gonna be fun times for sure!

The last few weeks at school have been big ones as we finished up our Africa unit and had our big African marketplace where the kids get to come and "shop" for goods that have been made by other classes and play a bunch of African games and also make some sweet roles! We also learned a little bit of Swahili (hope I spelled that right) that is spoken in parts of Africa when we say JAMBO, which means hello! It is one of those very chaotic things that we do in Kindergarten but the kids LOVE it. We also celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday by making Green Eggs & Ham for snack one day and yes most of our kids did like it, Sam I am! James has also been busy at work with the writing test that they had this month and now they are working on preparing for their end of grade tests (EOG'S).

Mrs. Runyan & Mrs. Tye enjoying themselves at the marketplace!

Could you, would you in a house? Would you, could you with a mouse?

Well I guess that is about it for our little update right now...I will try and post again before we go out of town next weekend and who knows I might even get James to leave a post one of these days!

A Beautiful Life...

Well I have a night to myself at home tonight (James is working at a 4th grade writing workshop at school) so thought I would take a little time to update the blog. Things have definitely been busy as always, but good, on our end. This weekend we had James' family in town and had a great time with them and they even introduced me to what it feels like to have real buttermilk and shortning in the house when they made us some good ole southern homemade biscuits and gravy Saturday morning (which we ate instead of going to weight watchers) and we also got some homemade oatmeal cookies that night. We also got a chance to take them out to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner which was a lot of fun. We definitely enjoyed having them here and are thankful for the help that James' Dad gave us around the house as well!

While we were getting ready for them to come we attempted to clean out the office and in one of the boxes that I went through I found an "old" card from my Mom. Now I have the word old in quotes because it was given to me last year just after my birthday but is dated May 24, 2008. Now you would have to know my mother to enjoy this fully but basically she bought me the card for my bday last year and forgot to give it to me so she decided to just give it to me when she found it and date it for 2008...lucky for her I found it! Anyways reading through it again made me remember how much I loved the card and what meaning it had for me so I thought I would share it on here for everyone to enjoy so here it is!

"How to make a beautiful life...

Reflections for a daughter on her birthday.

Love yourself.

MAKE PEACE with who you are

and where you are at this moment in time.

Listen to your hear.

If you can't hear what it's saying in this noisy world,

MAKE TIME for yourself.

Enjoy your own comany.

Let your mind wander among the stars.

Try.

Take chances

MAKE MISTAKES

Life can be messy and confusing at times,

but it's also full of surprises.

The next rock in your path might be a stepping-stone.

Be happy.

When you don't have what you want,

want what you have.

MAKE DO.

That's a well-kept secret of contentment.

There aren't any shortcuts to tomorrow

You have to MAKE YOUR OWN WAY.

To know where you're going is only part of it.

You need to know where you've been, too.

And if you ever get lost, don't worry.

The people who love you will find you.

COUNT ON IT.

Life isn't days and years.

It's what you do with time and with all the goodness and grace

that's inside you.

MAKE A BEAUTIFUL LIFE...

The kind of life you deserve."

I hope that my Mom realizes how lucky I truly feel that I am to have someone like her in my life and all of you that know her, know what a wonderful person she is and how much she meant each one of those words just for me (and all of her "other" daughters). After reading through this a few times I decided to post it on the wall in my bedroom so that I can read it often. I thought that it might just be able to help out a few friends in my life right now who are going through a rough time...just remember that those of us who love you are ALWAYS here for you!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well you got it...nothin says "Happy Valentine's Day" like a heart shaped pizza from Papa John's! Yes James and I celebrated the night before v-day by going out and doing some research on dresses and tuxes for the wedding and then stopping on the way home where he surprised me by ordering the v-day special at Papa John's! It was a darn good pizza too if you ask me! That was not even the end of our celebration though...I was surprised with a card at school the next day that had a message for me telling me that I would be going to get a massage that night at 7pm...now that was a GREAT present, especially after spending the day in my classroom with a bunch of hyper children and no assistant I definitely welcomed a bit of relaxation time!

The next night we made dinner together and I made a special weight watchers treat for him that was a baked apple with candy pieces inside and it actually turned out pretty good so he said we "had to take a picture for the blog" so here it is!

I guess that's really about it that is new for us right now. We have been trying to lay low lately and save up a bit of money but I have to tell you that through doing that it is amazing to me how much we have been able to learn about each other and learn to appreciate that time that we now have to be able to just hang out and actually "do nothing" together. When James was still working at HHGregg we were lucky if we spent an hour a day together and now we have all weekend and most nights to just be together! Along with the time of just relaxing together we have gotten quite fond of going out and renting movies from our local store with the 1/2 price movie special that they have! We have rented quite a few movies and if you have time I think we would both highly reccomend seeing Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married. It's one of those movies that just really makes you think and appreciate the things that you do have in life and in love. We also were able to go out to lunch the other day and just talk and sit and ask each other questions. We kinda realized that we don't always do that as much as we used to in our long distance days because during those times we would talk on the phone for hours and now we are always with one another so we tend to take those moments for granted.

OK well I guess I will stop rambling on about all that now but just thought I would try to share a little bit about what we have been up to lately since we haven't posted in a bit! Oh yeah and we also have James's family coming out to see the house for the first time next weekend so we have been trying to clean up the office and get it ready for them...we are looking forward to that visit and will be sure to have some pics to post when they are here!

And you know us, we can't make to many posts without including a picture of A.J. so here is one of him that we took after he got a bath the other night...I think it is definitely a good look for him, what do you think?!?!

Superbowl Fun!

Well as planned we had a few friends over this past weekend to watch the Superbowl on Sunday. Now how does one get ready for a superbowl party you ask? Well by raking leaves of course! Yes we borrowed a rake from some friends and spent the first three or so hours of our Sunday raking the leaves up in our back yard and putting them into about 25+ bags. Here are some pictures of our work!

Even A.J. pitched in to help clean up some sticks in the yard...no telling where they ended up!

Shortly after that was finished everyone came over to have some Superbowl fun. We got some chips and salsa from Chili's and James made his families ham, cheese, & pineapple snacks and then everyone else brought a dish to make quite a nice spread...needless to say we all ate WAY to much that night, right Melissa?

Our new cooler that we got for the party!

Everyone pitched in to make some fabulous snacks!

It was definitely a nail biting finish to the game where the Giants won...yes friends the Giants and the Patriots were the ones who were playing...and the Patriots were wearing blue while the Giants were wearing white...glad we cleared that one up finally! Anyways wanted to post a few pictures of us all hanging out...can anyone guess who gets the award for most spirited? I know that James and I had a great time with our first "party" in our new home and hope to make the Superbowl get together an annual tradition!

Right on Jones, way to be ready for the party!

Melissa and Beth...hanging out on the couch "watching" the game!

The Brown gang at the (soon to be) Brown's house...can anyone guess who is the most innocent out of this group?!?!

The girls...ready for bed after a long night of eating, eating, and more eating!

OK well last but DEFINITELY not least I have to give some props out to Brian and Matt for coming over tonight while Tara and I were at class and helping James to hang our new light that we got for the dining room...thanks so much guys, it looks great!

New Beginnings...

Well I came home from work today and was getting ready to go to class tonight and found something hiding in my purse. My wonderful fiance had put a card in there for me and it was a card that just seemed like it was made for us. It almost brought me to tears to read it and see the way he truly cares about me and loves me for who I am, even though I may not always be someone who is easy to love. I really am thankful that I have such a great man in my life who is willing to stick with me through thick and thin and I really know that no matter what happens in my life I will always have him to turn to. What a wonderful thing it is to be given a second chance...

Could it be snow?

Thought I would give a little update to all my "Yankee" friends up north about our call for "winter weather"...if you can even call it that! Many people say that southerners are crazy when it comes to snow and bad weather and today that is just proven more. Don't get me wrong I love ya'll down here but some people do go a little over board with the snow thing! We are calling for the possibility of some wintry mix over night of rain, sleet, and snow. Let me tell you everyone down here is just talking all about school closings, delays, and trips to the store to pick up some milk and bread...even if we do get a day off I highly doubt the stores will be out of milk and bread come tomorrow afternoon when everything is melted and gone...but we better stock up just in case! Haha! Oh and the other crazy thing is that they don't build in any bad weather days down here so if we DO happen to have school called off then we have to make it up on one of our work days, what's up with that?!?!

I guess there is also no better time then this to post some of the pics from my trip up to Illinois over Christmas break where we actually did get a few inches of snow! I know that Tara and Matt will agree when I say that once you are away from the snow for a while and finally get to see it you feel just like a little kid in a candy store...it's all about sledding and snowball fights! I don't think I was ever that excited to shovel snow as a kid when I had to but this time I was all about it! Even though everyone does get a little crazy down here I really do hope we get a little snow because I love it just as much as the next person and truly miss it when I don't get to see it every year not to mention I would love to hear what my students think of it given they probably have only seen snow once or twice in their short little lives. Anyways i'll keep you all posted on our "winter weather"!

Mom was pretty excited to get on the tractor...to bad by the time she got it running we were almost done!

My Uncle Bill and I preparing some snow balls!

A Wii little get together...

Well Friday night James and I had some friends over for dinner and to hang out and we ended up spending half of the night playing the Wii. Tara, Melissa, and I let the guys have a little "Man time" when they were first playing but then we couldn't help but to join in with them. Here are a few pics of us bowling and boxing...make sure to check out the video of Brian's great boxing moves at the bottom of the post (that's assuming I can figure out how to get a video on here)!

Tara and I celebrating after a strike in bowling!

Tara bouncing with the boxing moves

Matt and James worked up a sweat doing some boxing

A.J. taking a little nap on his new pillow and watching all the fun