We are still alive

I have been a bad communicator. I am aware. Life has been crazy lately. I have been teaching for several months, Allen got a promotion at work :) . We signed a contract on our house and construction will start soon. Wow.
I have been working on classroom things just about every night and have done a ton of stuff, maybe I will post about it over Christmas break when things *possibly* calm down a bit.

Our school is having a door decorating competition, the winner gets to wear jeans everyday for a month!!! Woo! I decided to enter, and am very proud of my door, but some of the other teachers have gone just absolutely insane! I will try to take pictures of some of their rooms later, but I thought I would share mine tonight. The doors will all be judged tomorrow, lets hope for some free jeans days! Oh, the simple things!

In other news I have officially declared myself addicted to pinterest. If you haven't had the pleasure of having your life consumed by this, it is an interactive way to share and swap ideas and interests... it sounds less exciting than it actually is. Anyhow, I have made myself a to do list of classroom ideas to do over the break, so hopefully I will have lots to show for myself soon. I love feeling accomplished!

I'm a teacher!

In case you missed hearing me shout it from the rooftops, consider yourself officially informed. I am a kindergarten teacher. Whew, that feels good to say!

Our hallway is jungle themed and I wanted to have a chicka chicka boom boom room so it worked out perfectly!



That's all my mammas handiwork, isn't it great?! And before anyone *cough cough Alllen cough* starts to fret over me posting a picture with childrens' names on it I blurred them all out in photoshop, no worries!

Now before we go any further, you must know that this school is a little bit older. And older schools tend to have a lot of character... well this "character" and his family moved into my room. I declared that one of us had to go. It was him or me, the room wasn't big enough for the both of us. Thankfully he decided to go peacefully and of his own accord. I swept his famiy out the door alongside him. Gross.
My shoe is there as a reference to his enormous stature. On Friday our good friends Ashley and Jarrett came up with mom and Jaden and helped us decorate the classroom and we were up there again the majority of the day on Saturday and by Sunday I was getting worn out and Ashley, Jarrett, Daniel and Elaine came up and helped us finish up. We had so much fun working up there together and who else can claim that their preacher comes and helps them cut the laminate for their classroom? Yeah, I love our church!

The boys also left me some lesson planning suggestions... we'll see about that.

My classroom has a porch! This is the outdor area attatched to the room where the students can play outside. I have sidewalk chalk, jump ropes, and bubbles to use out here.


This is the map that I painted in college for my "unit" I will eventually paint a quote at the top and use it to track a mail project we will be doing this Christmas.

Dog Beach

This is an established fact: I LOVE vacations.

Every time we go to visit the family in Florida we always say we want to take Kaya to Dog Beach but we had never done it, but this time we did and it was so much fun!

Kaya doesn't enjoy swimming (where she is in so deep she can't touch) but she LOVES getting in the water. This was the first time we were able to take her somewhere that we could get into the water with us and we had a blast.
This is the crab Kaya found, she chased it in the water. Between the crab and the seagulls she had a lot of fun "hunting" on the beach.

Allen's dad showed us this 24 hour self service dog wash. It is like a carwash for dogs. You just drive right up and wash your pets, I thought it was hilarious and also kind of neat!


Ken and Kristen (and Allen later on) swam and bobbed around while Kaya and I played in the shallows and took a nice walk along the shore.A great time was had by all, as you can tell by the looks of enjoyment on all of our faces...



Especially this one, hehe!

Prayers Please!

Hola Family!

This is going to be a short little update, but I just wanted to let you know what was going on with us.

My sister came to stay the weekend with us and it has been a ton of fun! We are going to a Memorial day cookout with some friends from church tomorrow and we are really looking forward to it!

On a more important note, I have a really close friend who is going through a really hard time. I mentioned it before, but my friend Amanda delivered her baby girl at 25 weeks. She was 1lb. 5oz and 15 weeks early. This is her website if you would like to stay updated. She could really use all the prayers she can get right now, so feel free to send some in her direction!

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/tinytensley

(For my family, this is my friend Amanda from ElDorado who I spent a few weeks with a few of the summers after we moved to Florida. She went to Ruston with our family for the peach festival and we had countless sleepovers in high school, we called each other sisters... just to clarify who she is)

Four Years

Cue the "aww" moment...

Thursday was mine and Allen's four year anniversary.
Wow, four years sounds like such a long time. In some ways it feels like we've been together a lot longer than that...but in other ways the time has just flown by. I got him to agree to four more years of marriage and I figure if I am sneaky and just add on each year (ex. next year I will get him to agree to five more years) I will eventually have him locked in forever! muahaha.

In other news my pre-k class had their graduation last night and it was quite the event. There were over 100 people there and I had to speak! I do not really like talking to groups of people over the age of ten so I was extremely nervous but it went really well and my kids did a really great job. On a side note the child in my class who was physically abusive towards the other children and myself graduated, so I might have a more tranquil summer. My kids lavished me with gifts for graduation. I was given a beautiful boquet, a bromeliad (don't worry FL family, we will keep it indoors, away from mosquitos!) bubble bath, a candle, and ferrero rondnior chocolates.
I have a confession to make. Allen and I have been trying to make healthier choices and have really been working hard towards a better lifestyle ( you might not have guessed that by my strawberry cake post a few days back) but along with these changes has come a new mindset...if you are going to eat something unhealthy you might as well make it something good. Wow. That looks horrible in print. What I mean is instead of eating a candy bar or junk food, pick something you will truly enjoy and savor it and then be done with it. For example, that delicious strawberry cake I whipped up (courtesy of an incredible Paula Deen recipe) Allen and I each enjoyed a nice lovely portion and then I wrapped it up and sent it to work for Allen to share with his office. Hence the new mindset in action. I met my downfall friday night after graduation. A Ferrero Rondnior. I believe these are made of pure temptation. I am not a big fan of Ferrero Rochers, and as a general rule I can pass up most candy with no trouble. However, these are a different story. Oh. My. Word. they are delicious. You should try one, or maybe you shouldn't... I don't know if it is right to suggest such a horribly addicting thing to an innocent blog reader. I apologize. On a healthier note, these are my favorite healthy treat as of late. Real fruit strips. They are all natural and they come in about 8 flavors. They are so tasty and you can feel good about eating them. I keep them in my purse and in the glove compartment of my car just in case I need a snack during the day. I jut thought since I went on and on about an unhealthy indulgence I might as well redeem myself so you don't think Allen and I just sit around popping chocolate all day long haha.

On a drastic note I donated a foot of my hair to Locks of Love. I went in to do it and the lady said my hair would still be to my shoulder. Well she and I have different opinions on where my shoulders are, but I am still glad I did it. This is me holding the four ponytails that she cut off. (Ignore the shocked "Oh my word I am going to be BALD!" expression on my face. I hadn't gotten to see my hair yet at this point and my overactive imagination had me picturing myself completely sheared.)
This is the next day after I had come to terms with my new do.
If you ever want to donate your hair it's a really neat experience. Make sure your salon is certified, if not just request to take your hair home and submit it yourself.
www.locksoflove.org

Have a wonderful weekend!

Cravings

Happy Mother's Day!

Allen and I sure love our mammas. As soon as church was over this morning (more on that later) We each called to wish our moms a happy holiday and when we talked to our Florida mom she was in the middle of icing a cake...which began our cake craving. If you know Allen very well you know that he "doesn't like that kind" and never ever ever wants cake, but I started craving cake, specifically strawberry cake, I kept talking about it all morning long and by the middle of the afternoon we both wanted strawberry cake so badly that we ran to the store and bought the ingredients. Now, if you know me very well you know that while I do enjoy cooking I did not come from an "everything from scratch" family. My mom is an amazing cook but I have eaten my fair share of meals that originated from a box. Sorry to rat you out mom. But Allen has been culinarily spoiled his whole life by an amazing cook who preforms kitchen miracles and as Allen has told me a billion times "oh, we don't eat things from boxes at my house" so when I picked up the strawberry cake mix box he would have none of it. Cue that culinary mastermind of all things sinfully delicious, Paula Deen. I found her strawberry cake recipe and attempted it this afternoon and OH MY WORD it was amazing. Even Allen was licking the frosting off of the spoon. It was a lot of fun and I was so proud that I made something on a whim that looked/tasted that fancy! I'm going to whip this up again for our church potluck next Sunday... although after eating it they might just force us to place membership!


Friday night Allen and I went on a date to a drive in. I didn't even know they still existed, but they do and it was SO much fun! It is a double feature so there are two back to back movies for less than the price of one regular movie AND you get to bring your own concessions!!! (can you tell we are cheap?)

I planted strawberries on our patio and they have finally started to produce fruit... unfortunately the neighborhood children/cats/various pests have been enjoying the berries before I can get to them to pick them. I found one ripe berry this morning and plucked it on our way to church... sadly it was the tiniest most pitiful little berry I have ever seen. We did some spring cleaning this weekend and re-covered our couch and loveseat. This is what our living room is looking like these days.

I mentioned a few weeks *cough* months ago that I was working on our patio while Allen was away. Well I forgot to post pictures of the progress so here they are! Just scroll up to see how horrendous it was before I got started. It is so much more usable now!

My morning glories! These are my favorite plants to grow. They aren't ready to bloom yet but I will post pictures when they do. They are so beautiful. ( They are the plants climbing up the trellis)


This is my summer squash plant. I already have a few baby squash!

I mentioned earlier that everyone but the two of us has been enjoying our strawberries? Well here is the proof. Something nibbles half of the berry and then leaves the rest there to mock me.
These are the plants we are growing. The tall flat ones are Gladeolous, the dark green leafy one is broccoli, the light green one in the middle are tomatoes and the little ones to the right are watermelon!
And here it is the beautiful and delicious strawberry cake courtesy of Paula Deen ( I love that lady!)


Well that is pretty much it for the exciting times in our lives right now. We are planning a trip to visit our Florida family this summer, Allen gets to start working from home three days a week this week so that will be really nice for him. My job is still quite terrible at times but I'm trying to make the best of it and we are really enjoying the church that we have been visiting. We are starting to feel like we are a part of it which is so nice! Things are really good here.

I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend and have a blessed week!

Yes, we're still alive

I have neglected my blog. I apologize.

Allen's job is still boring, my job is still icky, but surprisingly we both really enjoy our life right now. I love where we live, it is a really nice area with tons of fun stuff to do. We are still close enough to Searcy to feel connected but far enough away to feel independent. We went to Searcy last weekend to see my family for Easter and watch Julie in her first Spring Sing at Harding. It was so refreshing to go back to Searcy and spend time with friends and family. Kaya even made a new friend, our friends Katie and Nate brought their doxie Kevin over for a playdate, it was just an all around great weekend.

This weekend is Memphis in May, Beale Street Music Festival and my friend Brittany since I have known since way back in the Florida days came to spend the weekend with us. It has been a lot of fun having her here! We stayed up late last night baking chocolate chip cookies and watching Disney princess movies. Yes, I am aware that I am 23. Brittany is a thrifty shopper and I was telling her what a big deal Goodwill stores were in this area. There are donation centers ALL over town. For example, I work 27 miles away from my house and I pass 5 drive through donation centers on my way to work. I have never been a huge thrift store fan, call me snooty but I've just never really gotten the thrill of rifling through someone's used items. Until Today, I went to the local Goodwill today and I have been converted. High quality children's books for less than a dollar? Yes please! The local Wal-mart makes donations to goodwill so some of the items are new in the packaging! Now I am normally espcially weirded out by thrift store shoes and clothes but I was very plesantly surprised. There were items from very high quality brands that looked as if they had never been worn. Many still had the tags on them! Maybe this is how thrifting is for most people, but this was my first fun experience with it. Here is the rundown on our purchases today.

Lasko Oscillating tower fan normally $49.99... $6.99
Children's book normally $11.99... $0.99
Michael Kohrs Nautical Capris normally an outlandish $598... $4.99
Nurtures peep toe wedge heels (brand-spanking new looking) normally $79.99...$9.99


We came home today with a children's book, a oscilating tower fan, a pair of Michael Kohrs pants, and a pair of Nurtures shoes for $28.00!!!

I am such a fan!

Handy Lady

I have been at my job for over a month now and sadly it hasn't gotten any better. I just tell myself every day that "this too shall pass" and I get through the day knowing that our school district is holding interviews for the rest of this month so hopefully something will come of that and I will be classroom bound! Onward and upward!

To cope with the ickiness of my job and the fact that Allen is wrapped in so much training right now I have decided to take on a challenge... our patio.

Our apartment has a great patio, unfortunately we are not great patio owners. We have neglected ours and it has become a dusty wasteland of junk we don't have room for in the house/don't know what to do with/ forgot we even owned. We had a beautiful day on Saturday and we wanted to take advantage of that and eat dinner outside... we opened the back door and quickly shut it and sat down and had our dinner indoors. It was overwhelming disgusting. So I decided today that I wanted to make our outdoor space something that we could enjoy this spring/summer and I set to work on transforming it. When I say transform I mean I left Lowe's this morning with a power tool and a car full of lumber and paint... I'm not talking about hosing it down! I know it is a big job but I will have some extra time on my hands during the evenings this week and I want to see if I can complete my challenge in time to have friends over this weekend!

Much to Allen's dismay I don't have a written out plan or step by step instructions. I didn't watch a how-to video or print off a blueprint. I have a plan in my head and I am pretty creative, I think I can make this work. This is a part of my personality that drives Allen up the wall, so I'm going to keep him minimally informed until if is finished... I'll post pictures once it is done, we'll see how it goes! :)

In other news the weather is gorgeous and my garden is growing! I will post pictures of that soon as well. We love eating veggies straight from the garden. Yum!

My New Job... and other news

I started my new job the Tuesday after Valentine's day. The first week was all training ( this school is part of a nationwide company, so there are very strict company procedures and policies that I had to be trained for.) I started teaching in the classroom this Tuesday. This school is much different from anywhere I have ever taught before. There are no consequences for inappropriate behavior, which makes classroom management near impossible. I have come home with a headache every night this week on the edge of tears because this new school is just such an adjustment. I will not be able to share much about it through the blog due to new teacher/blog implications but if you would like to know more e-mail me and I will be happy to share.

(This teacher in PA has been suspended pending trial and may lose her job due to comments on her personal blog about her student's behavior. Teacher's Blog Case.)

I just finished reading I Am Number Four, I can't wait to go see the movie now, it was such a good book!

Allen has a lot going on these next few weeks, more on that later (again, e-mail me if you would like to know more) And please be praying for the budget situation in congress to work out quickly. The democrats and republicans are fighting with each other over the budget and to "prove a point" if they don't resolve the issue by March 4th (this Friday) then they will shut down the Government until an agreement can be met; which means Allen will be without pay for an undetermined amount of time. That's pretty bad news. This has happened before and they are saying it is very likely that it will happen again. The news article is here.

I am dreading going back to work on Monday... I think this chaotic classroom environment just might be my demise!

Nah, I know it will be okay, it is just going to take an extra dose of patience.

Bed and Breakfast

We recently returned from our whirlwind trip to Florida...*whew*
We LOVE getting to visit, but this particular visit was a difficult one. Hopefully next time we make the trip it will be strictly vacation!
And I swear that Florida is farther away each time we drive there... I don't know how, but I am convinced it's true!
Even though the nature of the trip was a tough one, the time spent there was no less enjoyable. It is always such a blessing to get to be with family.
On the subject of family... here is a pretty fantastic one:

The more the merrier. We were so excited about our surprise guest!

And of course the guys had to stop in the middle of the picture taking to inspect an engine.
I think it's a Henry thing...

"Black shades, white gloves,
lookin' sharp, lookin' for love.
They come runnin' just as fast as they can
cause every girl is crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man."
haha.

Aside from the time we all were able to spend together the next best part of our trip had to be our accommodations.
Since our trip was unexpected we weren't sure what the housing arrangements would be like and we were prepared to sleep anywhere...
Little did we know about the treat in store for us, our stay at the Henry Bed and Breakfast.

We had a luxurious, private suite to ourselves, full access to a common area that was shared between ourselves, the owners, and the other guest. The owners provided a stress-free, pet friendly environment. They went above and beyond, even caring for our furry friend when we were out of the house. The friendliness of staff was exceptional, although the dress code was not strictly enforced, especially in the evenings.
We have never slept better, the mattress slept like a dream. And the owners were so generous, they even offered to let us take it home with us!
All in all it was a wonderful experience, we would recommend it to all of our friends, and we will definitely be staying here again!

On the ridiculously lengthy car ride home we discussed our stay and decided that if we were to give it a rating it would hold a solid 4.5 stars.
(a 5 star rating would have been possible perhaps with breakfast in bed or a complimentary mattress delivery service)