Holiday Planning

I have no excuses not to have my house fully ready for Christmas. I finished all of my shopping Tuesday night, so all I need to do is finish wrapping items. What a great feeling!

Over Thanksgiving Josh's mom wanted to take some pictures, and since our 5 year old nephew is so curious, he wanted to take some pictures of just us. Aren't we lucky?

Josh had to work Thanksgiving day, so I spent the day with his side of the family. My sister in law will be thrilled to see herself as the Santa version of Mr. Potato Head. Or would she be Mrs.?

Friday Josh & I battled the crowds to go shopping. Not as many deals as I remember in the past, but there were a couple that persuaded me to drag out of bed at 5 a.m. Nothing against the people who shopped at 4 a.m., but there were no deals that great for me. We did purchase some movies, the new Guitar Hero (for my brother, he never reads any posts), tools at the farm store, and a couple of presents for me. Actually, Josh purchased a new Cricut Expressions machine for me for Christmas. It's absolutely killing me not to get it out of the box. I suppose that's why he purchased one for me with me there. It's some rare form of torture technique, I'm sure. Although, now with the new machine, I'll really have no excuses not to get fully caught up with my scrapbooks.

Only two weeks left of school. (yea!) That means a lot needs to get done. Where does the time go? I need to get back to wrapping, and get started with my baking & candy making.

Look for our Christmas cards someday soon too!

Oh my goodness

Okay, so this is ridiculous. I'm checking out other people's blogs (because I should be grading papers), & they have all these wonderful posts.

Here I sit in a fully immersed computer haven at school, yet I don't even regularly post to my own blog. I guess I need to start making this a priority.

Really have been having a busy school year. Start my day with freshmen in Computer Applications, and then the rest of the day is junior high. I know what you're thinking, but they're my express lane into heaven. Unless I murder one of them, I'm free and clear.

We spent most of August & September making trips to the Diller area. My grandmother's cancer recurred and pretty much consumed her body. The week school started she was in the hospital, one week later transferred to a nursing home, and about one month later passed away. Really sudden, but yet for the best, as she lived 85 great years.

On to other aspects of our life that have kept us busy. Junior class stuff just never goes away. Hosted the soup supper that we have every year during Homecoming. Even while we are serving soup, the kids want to talk about prom, or the p-word as I call it.

For some other reason, I don't know what it is, I teach talented drama to 5th and 6th graders every year. I'm pretty sure something is wrong with me to volunteer for this position again. Although maybe this is what I need to remind me that although 7th and 8th graders are strange, they're nothing compared to 5th and 6th. Pierce is thinking of creating a true middle school. I kindly informed the powers that be that I'm not really keen on teaching even 7 & 8, let along lower grades.

Tomorrow in talented drama we are doing makeup, which is oh-so-much-fun for them, but it absolutely is a mess for me. But that is something kids always remember and talk about, so I guess it's worth the trouble.

I promise not to let this go for 2 1/2 months before updating again.

Girls' Trip 2008

Our annual girls' trip took us to Oklahoma City this year. Of course, the weather was extremely hot, but hey, it's July! On the way down to Oklahoma, we stopped at the Russell Stover's factory in Abilene, KS.

My, how humbling the Memorial is...I can't imagine what New York City must have been like. We also took in a ball game, state capitol, and cowboy museum.

Not positive where next year will take us. We're thinking about Colorado though.

We posed for our group photo in Toby Keith's restaurant. A $2 Corona was perfect on the blazing hot day. Plus, the restaurant was right across the street from the ballpark.

In the cowboy museum, one of the exhibits was an old west town. Mom & Peggy posed in the jail.

Taste of Chicago

Okay, even though we're not from Chicago, we referred to this as "Taste" because that's what everyone calls it. From Michigan Ave. east the streets were blocked off--all of Grant Park. I think there were over 65 food vendors alone, let alone the live entertainment, displays, cooking demonstrations, and today only--the Budweiser Clydesdales. They really are cool to see in person.

We ate and drank our way through the afternoon. What a wonderful way to spend the day in Chicago!

Museum of Science & Industry

Well, we figured out the El to get to the museum, but we still ended up walking for what seemed like forever (no really). But we did get to see Washington Park and University of Chicago. Now on ER when they talk about University Hospital, I have a complete frame of reference.

The museum was completely cool. We saw a U-505, which was the actual German U-boat captured during WW2. That thing was huge! We also took in some other really interesting exhibits. I'm sure Josh & I could have stayed there all day long.