Adventures in Texas

Since this month is almost over, I figured I should wrap up my posts about Texas. FINALLY!

Our first full day in Texas was pretty relaxing. We spent the morning sleeping and lounging around my uncle's house. We were all still pretty tired from the long trip. We decided this would probably be the only day we had free to ourselves so we decided to take a drive to the next city which is a bit bigger than the small little town my parents moved to. It was really nice and I liked it there. We began shopping for supplies for our adventure in painting while still in my parents new town and continued along the way.

Because the area my parents moved to is so small not every store is in every city, like it pretty much is here (or at least within a reasonable driving distance). So we ended up driving even further to the next city for another store. We ended up going back and forth across the highway on this loop most of the afternoon. We would be in one store and remember we needed something else in another store which would happen to be across the highway. This happened numerous times which was a little confusing. The loops there take some getting used to but this particular loop was under construction at the moment which made things a little more interesting.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end to our days adventures. We headed on our way back "home." Meanwhile, my parents are still getting used to the area and began to "discuss" which way to get back. I chimed in with a brilliant idea of using the GPS. I know, I know, what are they going to do without me. :) I got everything in and gave my dad the next directions and turned it off so as not to wear down my mom's phone.

Then my dad saw a sign. I think we all wish my dad had never seen that sign. Because that sign took us on what seemed like a wild goose chase. When he turned I asked if it was the street I previously told him to turn down. He said he didn't know but that the sign told him to go that way.

Well, I don't think I mentioned this before but my parents basically moved to the south. They are in east Texas not far from Louisiana. And this road we were on wound round and round. We had no idea where we were, there was no signal on the phone for me to look up GPS or even call anyone to see if we were on the right track. And this road went on for what seemed like forever. Meanwhile, the theme song to Deliverance was dancing through my head as we saw lights from the houses we passed deep in the woods. We finally made it out and we were indeed there. But I guarantee my parents won't be taking that route again.

The next day we still were a little lazy and took it easy that morning. But we were soon off to the house for some major painting. We thankfully had a bit of help during the day and a little more help that evening. However, before we got that much needed help that evening we had a bit of an incident. Better yet, I had an incident. Backing up a bit. A few years ago my knee popped out of the socket. It was not a fun experience and had quite the makings for a very embarrassing moment. But I won't get into that this time around. A few months ago my knee did the same as I was getting into bed. Yes, I know. Very strenuous things I'm doing to cause this to happen. So there's a little background for you.

Meanwhile, we're painting this 2400 sq ft house. I was in one of the bathrooms as you guessed it, painting. I had done about as much as I could on the ground and I crawled up on the sink (don't worry it was plenty sturdy for me to be up there) to paint above the mirror. When all of a sudden my knee popped out of the socket. I shrieked. Actually, it was more of a shrill scream. This was made worse by the fact that unlike the other times when my knee just popped right back in place, it wasn't. It stayed out until just before my mom and the rest of the ladies helping us arrived to find out what on earth was going on to make me scream so. Now this was only a few seconds but when you're knee is out of the socket, this is an eternity. It finally popped back in place, thank God.

However, I'm still in this predicament of standing on a sink with only one good leg. There is no where for me to go but down. And down I went. Thankfully, I did not fall completely to the floor, instead I made a nice seat for myself in.the.paint. Yep, I sat in the paint. There was no where else for me to go and I plopped right in the middle of it. My mom came in the room and had to stifle her laughter as she saw me sitting in paint. I myself had to contain from laughing because it hurt too much to laugh. I was in quite the conundrum, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. This all took place in a matter of about 30 seconds. But it sure does feel like an eternity as its going on.

I eventually calmed myself down enough to get off the sink and hobble out to the backyard where my mom proceeded to hose me off. I was then restricted to sitting on the tarp the rest of the day, not that there was any real furniture to sit in in the first place. I then spent the next two days sitting on my behind scooting along the walls painting the lower half of the wall.

So as you can see my time in Texas was full of little adventures. That Saturday the truck with my parents things came in. We were thankful to have enough help that it was completely unloaded in only 2 hours (it might have been 1 1/2 hours). Our help then left and my parents and I spent some time getting a few things put together. My dad then told us that we were not going to do anything on the house on Sunday, we were just going to relax. With that we went back to my uncle's for some much needed rest.

Parents New House

Side of the house

Fenced in part of the backyard. (Goes out further than the fence)

Next post I'll finish up my exploits in Texas with a few pictures to make things at least a little more interesting.

Trip to Colorado

The day after Christmas I was woken up at the abysmal hour of 3am, after having gone to bed at 12pm. That's never a good thing. I rolled back over for another 30 minutes but then it was time to actually get up, in the dark, with no sight of sunrise in the near future. Blah. Thankfully, I had almost everything all ready to go before I went to bed. J.R. and I got ready and were waiting to walk out the door at 4:00 when we had promised.

Then we got a call from my dad. He overslept and they were running late. If you know my dad you know how incredibly unlike him this is. He is always the one to get the whole house up. He is definitely a morning person, unlike anyone else in my family (except J.R.) So J.R. and I were left to sit around and wait for my family to show up. They actually made it to our house pretty quickly considering how late they woke up.

We loaded up the church's minivan (which wasn't an easy task considering there were five adults in the vehicle and very little storage room) and we were off. J.R. made breakfast burritos for everyone which we ate as soon as we were on the road and said a quick prayer for safe travels. Almost immediately after eating, Greg was out. J.R. and I shared the back bench which gave us a little more room but don't kid yourself it was anything but comfortable. J.R. tried to nap and I think he dozed off a little. I unfortunately was wide awake and couldn't get back to sleep. I borrowed Greg's brand new ipod.

Our first stop was Vegas (don't worry I'm not going to talk about every little stop) where we had some breakfast. Ok I know I already said we had breakfast on our way out. But lets get real that was 3 1/2 hours before and we were all a little hungry. I think after that stop I was able to get a little rest but pretty sure I still hadn't slept. The windows were pretty fogged over and it was difficult to see out. The next thing I knew I wiped off the window and I was in a winter wonderland. It was pretty crazy and oh so pretty.

Our journey slowed to a crawl once we got to Utah as we met up with a snow storm. It was pretty scary and we took it nice and easy. When we stopped for lunch it stopped snowing which was nice but my mom was able to get us trapped in a parking lot for a brief minute when she was turning around. It was a pretty funny sight. I wasn't sure we were going to make it out of there. As we stopped for lunch we received quite a few strange looks from the locals. They could definitely tell we weren't from around there. As we were leaving lunch someone else was in the same predicament that we had just been in. However, they needed a big push from a few guys to get themselves out of the parking lot. We made sure we took the longer way around to avoid the same fate. Wow we just aren't used to driving in this stuff at all. Life is considerably different when you have to consider the snow.

Then as many other travelers that day our windshield fluid line froze. My dad had to stop every so often and throw snow at the windshield to clean it off. So far you can see this trip was quite the adventure. We made one final stop before we made it into Colorado. I had become fairly car sick. Thankfully, I hadn't thrown up but I was feeling rather nauseous. That is when my mom took over the driving and I was her navigator. Typically, a navigator’s job is to sit there and not do a whole lot.

That night the job was a little more involved. We hit that same snow storm yet again on our way into Colorado. It was pretty crazy as you couldn't see the lines in the road. My mom took it nice and easy but I was having to constantly help her see the lines and direct her driving. As we were driving through the storm I teasingly told my mom, "Light speed ahead!" The snow was coming at the screen and it really looked like the movies whenever a spaceship begins moving light speed. It was pretty funny. But you probably had to be there for that one. ; )

As soon as we hit the outskirts of my grandparents little town the snow all but died. We made it safely! We checked into our hotel around 7:30. The entire trip took us about 14 hours! Ugh! Imagine with me for a moment being stuffed in the back seat of a minivan for 14 hours. Not a fun thought is it? But we made it.

We learned later the night before they had sent my grandfather home after they drained his lungs of fluid and his heart rate was normal. So we were thankful that we weren't going to have to visit him in the hospital. Funny story. The doctors were trying to give him an oxygen tank to carry around with him. He kept refusing saying he didn't want to get addicted to it. I almost fell out of my seat when I heard that one. We all promised we wouldn't say anything to him about it as we didn't want to make him feel bad. But amongst ourselves, well, that was free reign. The comments about trying to kick our oxygen habits were let loose.

We arrived at my grandparents and they still had no idea we were coming. My uncle and aunt and cousin arrived a few days before as a surprise. My grandparents kept asking him when my mom and aunt were coming. He kept telling them he was there and that was it. Well, then my aunt showed up earlier that day. So they were asking where we were. They told my grandparents that we were shopping, which wasn't exactly a lie. :) We walked in the house and my grandpa was sitting in his old recliner he's been sitting in since I was a little girl. The first words out of his mouth were, "I have a family full of liars!" It was really great to see him and everyone else for that matter. I could tell it really meant a lot to him and gave him quite the pick me up.

So that was our long and treacherous trip to Colorado. I'll be back later with more details of the trip and hopefully some pictures. I've been waiting on pictures for quite some time now.

Painting!

About a month ago my mom and I decided to do some painting for one of our weekly outings. We loved it so much we ended up going the next week as well. We did our research ahead of time and found this small privately owned place. Their rates were pretty cheap and their pieces were also pretty inexpensive. I really enjoyed the feeling of this little shop as the owner was extremely helpful. She worked really hard to help us figure out exactly what we wanted and taught us some tricks we wouldn't have known about otherwise.
I decided to do this little, well, I don't know what you would call it. It's where I keep my ring. My mom is pretty talented and is the one that drew the flower on the piece for me. It didn't turn out as well as I envisioned. However, it turned out quite a bit better than I expected when I left it to be fired. I thought I created a mess of things. Turns out it wasn't so bad. Not as good as I was hoping but still kind of cute.


My mom decided to do this cute little cupcake. The yellow turned out a bit darker than we anticipated, but it's still really cute. The owner was the one that helped us figure out how to get the lettering on there nice and neat. It was a bit of work (I ended up painting the lettering for my mom), but it turned out really nice.


The next week we decided to go again. However, I saw a piece at the more expensive place that I really wanted to do. They also had much cuter Christmas pieces. So despite the cost we headed over there for another day of painting. This time I was prepared. I brought along different sizes of flowers to put on my piece. And because we went to the other place the week before I was able to know exactly what to ask for and what to do. I was very thankful for that because the people at this more expensive place weren't so helpful. They were nice enough. However, they didn't go out of their way to really help us out.

And this is how it turned out! I'm so happy with this. I think it's really cute. The top comes off and can be used as a jewelry box. I'm also extremely relieved that my mom convinced me to only do one flower. This one was extremely time consuming to do. I can't imagine having done more.

My mom decided to do this snowman plate as we both love snowmen. It turned out really cute. She even gave it to me. How sweet is that?

So that was our adventure painting. We really enjoyed it. I can't wait to do it again.

Makeover!

A week or so ago I began seeing commercials for a certain company. I was intrigued as my mom used to sell their stuff. I had never seen them do commercials before. So in a fit of boredom one day I made my way to their website to see what they had, not that I can afford to buy anything from them right now.

When looking through their website I came across this cool little feature they offered. You could do a virtual makeover and even upload your own picture. I was curious. Many of these that I have seen are pretty lame. So I uploaded my picture to see what would come out. What I discovered was pretty cool. The makeup feature didn't make you look silly and cartoonish, that is unless you used certain colors. No it was pretty real.

Then I discovered the hair feature. This is when I started to have some fun. A lot of the styles aren't too flattering, at least on me. But it was fun to see what I would like like with different hair styles. I also discovered that I really like me with very light auburn hair. I've always wanted to try it but never brave enough. At one point I put on a particular hair style and gasped. I was no longer looking at myself. I was looking at my mom. It was unreal. My mom and I look insanely alike anyway, but when I put on a hairstyle similar to my mom, I was staring at her.

A few days later I was showing my mom the new toy I discovered. She fell in love with a couple of the hair cuts on me. She really fell in love with the red hair on me. So much so she was offering to give me that for my Christmas present, as I haven't had a hair cut in close to a year. Blech! I am really in need of one. I just can't justify the cost right now. So I sit and dream about what I might do. So for kicks here are some of the looks I discovered.

These are the two my mom loved.

I love this one but I'm not sure it looks ok with my face.

This is the one I thought I looked exactly like my mom.

My mom and I (Yes it's an older picture but she isn't going to be happy about me even posting this one. Silly.)

As much as I love long hair, short hair suits my face better.

Cute but wrong color.

For fun some silliness

Bouffant anyone?

What I would look like if I were Wolverine. :)

So which one do you like? And how about that color? Oh and if you'd like to try this for yourself, you can find it at Marykay.com. Have fun with the makeovers! :)

Self-Destruct in 5, 4, 3 . . .

Oh, the joys of technology. This morning I was driving to work. I had just merged onto the freeway when out of nowhere I hear a beeping sound. I started to panic. It was coming from inside the car, but where? Frantically, I began looking for the source of the beeping. None of the lights on my dash were lit up. Hmm? What could be wrong then? Then I noticed the flashing seat belt light on the passengers side. That's where it was coming from. I tried adjusting the bag so the beeping would stop. Wasn't happening. It was too heavy for me to move off the seat and continue to drive safely. The beeping continued to become faster and faster as though my car would self-destruct. Then it stopped. Relief. How sad is it that my bag, with all the papers I have to grade, is so heavy the car thought it was a person sitting there and was exclaiming that that person should be wearing a seat belt? 7 more days of school!!

Water Balloon Fight

At my school we have a missions team. Its a fairly new thing that has developed over the last couple of years. The past two years the teacher in charge has taken them to Mexico during spring break. It has been really incredible to see the reactions of the students when they return from these trips. This year they have also made the effort to visit a homeless shelter once a month. Its a really great thing for the students to be able to see outside their little worlds. This next summer they are planning a trip to Panama. Right now they are in the midst of many different fund raisers to lessen the cost. Even though these students are attending a private school, most of them can not shell out the extra money to go on these trips.

This past Thursday they had a fundraiser that involved teacher participation. I reluctantly agreed to go along with their plan. Honestly, I didn't want to do it (neither did any of the other teachers). But I couldn't tell them no as it was for a good cause. The fundraiser? They sold water balloons to the students to hit us teachers with. Can you see why I wasn't jumping at the chance to do this? They set up this big circle on the field and then another outer circle. The students were supposed to stay behind the outer circle. But who are they kidding, there is no way they stayed back there. We were bombarded with balloons. Initially, we all got pretty wet. It wasn't because we were being hit directly either. The splash from others catching the balloons was enough to get some of us pretty wet. I had a couple of direct hits, one to the face and one to the arm. They didn't pop. It hurt.

Some of the boys got a little crazy and were filling trash cans with water. The male teachers then tried to wrestle the trash cans away. It was quite the sight. I stayed as far away as possible during these skirmishes. Then the students decided to get out the hose. Well, thankfully the hose didn't make it all the way to where we were. But one of the teachers decided to wrestle the hose from them. He got it and started spraying the stands. Then he was doused with a trash can full of water. It was pretty funny. I stood there watching all this go on. I wasn't too concerned with getting hit anymore because basically all the balloons had been popped and all the action was going on far away from the circle. That's what I get for letting my guard down. All of a sudden out of nowhere I got hit in the behind. I turned around quickly to find one of the boys running away. This is the student that if there was a vote would be voted off the island by the teachers the quickest. Dang it! I had to be hit by him of all people.

So turns out my dread of this event was unfounded. It was actually pretty fun. Our missions team was able to raise over $200 too. Thankfully, I was smart enough to remember a change of clothes so I didn't have to sit in my wet pants for the last hour of the day.

April Fool's

This morning I was approached by one of my fellow teachers. He asked if I would like to play an April Fool's joke on our seniors. Quite obviously I jumped at the chance to fool my students even if for a little while. He had come up with the idea that he would tell them he had resigned from the school. We even got the secretary involved.

At the beginning of class, our secretary brought over Mr. B's class. Immediately, all of the students were wondering what was going on. They began to ask question after question. I simply told them that I was going to let Mrs. D (our secretary) explain. Mr. B had left a letter to be read to the students. It basically said that circumstances came up and he was having to leave and that I would be teaching both classes (government AND economics) until there was a replacement. Mrs. D did such an incredible job. As she read the letter to the students she actually had tears in her eyes. It was fantastic. I had a hard time not busting out laughing.

As she left the class, I then had the time of trying to control these students and be as vauge as possible in answering their questions. I began my lecture for my economics class and had the government class start on their work. I must say they were all fairly perplexed. They continually said, "This has got to be a joke, they can't be serious." As I tried to get the government class to do their work, one girl in particular was having a hard time adjusting and processing the whole thing. She kept telling me that they had been working on debates. I calmly told her that I just found about this whole thing this morning and that I would figure things out as quickly as I could but that they would have to be patient in the mean time.

As my lecture in economics continued, Mr. B had placed a slide in there that was outlining the term "Fictism." I continued on like it was a real word and a real issue in economics. Then the last slide said, "April 1, 2008 Mr. B and Mrs. R play an April Fool's joke on the senior class." As this slide went up, Mr. B burst through the door. This was accompanied by very confused looks on our student's faces. His class then proceeded to throw paper balls at him. It was so funny. He then began reading off all the text messages he had received from the students. They were all so concerned about him. They had been texting him asking if everything was ok and whether or not this was some kind of a joke. What a fun way to start a day.

Snowball Fight!

I've been meaning to post this for awhile. So rather than focus on the frustrations I'm experiencing in the classroom (stupid disrespectful students) and in life, I choose to focus on some happy thoughts.

While we were up at retreat a month ago us teachers had quite a bit of fun. Its wasn't just a time away for the students. It was a time for us to get away as a staff and get to know each other and relax. The second day we were up there Paul (the guy who basically does this entire retreat for us) had us coordinate some games for the students. The students were all split into teams. There were 3 main teams and then 8 more teams within the larger teams. So we had 5 stations split up with 5 different games going at the same time. It's quite a production. But it keeps almost 300 students busy for a few hours.

Before they sent the students our way we were just standing around in this huge field of snow. It became just a little too tempting for us. We began a snowball fight. We had a blast! (I'm going to take a quick second to note that the VAST majority of teachers on staff here are my age or younger, most of them being younger.) At one point, Melissa took a run at Mark and completely took him down. It was pretty funny. The rest of us then pummeled Mark with snowballs. He has since then not stop making excuses for being taken down by a girl and even now refers to Melissa and her best friend Eleanor as big bullies. Good times! I've got to say one of the things that keeps me sane while working here is having great coworkers.