A White Christmas

We left Atlanta the Monday before Christmas for Park City, Utah where we go every year to ski with family. Although I had a cold for the first few days of the trip, it was a really nice time and I did manage to ski on Friday (and only fell once). Although I definitely don't feel like a 'real skiier', I found myself more confident and able to enjoy it more rather than just worrrying about whether I will break my leg the whole time. It was the snowiest trip since I've been there and it was gorgeous to have a real white Christmas. The highlights of the trip included Matt's cousin Alex's song and dance routines, a delicious Christmas dinner at Chez Betty, ice skating on Christmas day, and major scores at outlet stores. We got home last Sunday with no delays at all. Here are some photos of the trip......

Once we got back home, I was greeted with a lovely stomach bug and then the same cold that kept fighting it's way back to me (and is still lingering).

This is definitely the time of year that above all else, I realize how lucky I am to have such loving and supportive family and friends. I am so thankful and blessed.

Happy New Year to all!

Time flies...

When you are doing 8 million things. Isn't that how the saying goes? I apologize to anyone that actually keeps up with reading this, since I clearly have not been. But, as you know, things have been busy around here. This is why I haven't been writing....

1. The House- We have been enjoying unpacking, buying some furniture, and generally just enjoying our house. We still have some boxes to unpack but we are having a housewarming party soon...so I am hoping that will motivate us to do it by then:)

2. Holidays....We had a very nice Thanksgiving with my family here in Atlanta. It was very quiet and nice. I worked most of the holiday week. After Thanksgiving we bought a very nice, but fake tree that actually looks pretty real. Here it is! It's exciting to have a full size tree for the first time together! We'll celebrate Christmas with my family here before we head to Utah for 6 days with Matt's family for skiing.

3. School/work (same thing)- I've been working hard to get my prospectus (the proposal for my dissertation ) finished very soon. I hope to defend it (OK, have to defend it) in March at the latest which means it's actually due in early February. Teaching 3 classes (but mostly grading for them) and coordinating the program I am has kept me very, very busy. I went to a conference in Orlando for about 5 days recently and while the conference was just "OK", I had fun going to Epcot and Hollywood Studios one day. I'll be doing quite a bit of work over the 'break' since I have a lot of program coordination-type things to do before the semester begins on the 5th....too early!

That pretty sums up the major stuff. We had 2 holiday parties to go to this weekend, but Matt is pretty sick and I am either just plain exhausted or getting sick, so we missed them both:( We are now obsessed with the show "Weeds" (yes, about 5 years late to that) so we've been at home watching that and getting excited about our new bedroom furniture and mattress that will be delivered this week!!!

Shopping, wrapping, packing (and unpacking), cooking, and cleaning are overloading the to-do list, but it's all stuff to be grateful to be able to do!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my wonderful mom's birthday. I am going to meet her for lunch near her work and we are all getting together Sunday for a celebratory dinner. I love you mom! Hope the day only gets better:)

Ron Clark Academy

Tonight I was lucky enough to be invited by my advisor, Amy, to attend the Ron Clark Academy here in Atlanta. It was an open house to raise awareness with the local business community since they are a private school that provides almost complete tuition assistance for most of their students. If you don't know Ron Clark or his story, google him to learn more. The school in its 2nd year and is for grades 5-8, in an area not too far from us. Students visit 7 out of 8 continents before they leave and the school looks like a movie set. A lot of learning is done through song, music, and technology. The energy and passion was everywhere and I enjoyed watching Ron teach a lesson with students. It was an abosultely amazing experience and I learned several students from one of my previous schools attend. I also slid down their big blue slide, located in the middle of the school! The best part was when they performed this song- see the links from Youtube. They'll be performing this on several shows this week. It was incredible and I felt very lucky to visit tonight. This is how all schools should be! I'm hoping to arrange for a group of my current students to go and visit one day to witness the amazing teachers. Check these out and enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEKNAZbn9p0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-2g7tYbZ_M

It's official!!

....so I can finally talk about it. We are the owners of an amazing house! It has all happened very quickly, but we are thrilled. At the beginning of September, Matt began to talk to a co worker who expressed interest in buying his first place in our area. We casually invited him over to check our place out, and amazingly, we settled upon a plan for him to buy the place without even putting it on the market and buy owner! This put us quickly into house hunting mode. Luckily, our friend Mark is also a real estate agent (if you are in Atlanta and buying or selling, you MUST use Mark- he rocks!). After looking at many houses, one stalled contract and one cancelled contract (long story there for another time), we found this house on its 2nd day on the market. The previous owners renovated it over 11 years and had pictures to show the transformation. Their love and care of the house was just so evident, and the process went quickly and pretty smoothly.

After a fast week of packing and getting the townhouse ready to go (we had to fix a few small things, which was more of a pain than I had planned but now I know of several good handymen if you need one!), we closed on both places last Thursday! We literally began moving stuff in about an hour after closing, and continued until Saturday when we had movers do the big stuff. Thanks to my mom, we had extra help with packing and some light moving. The first weekend in the place did feel a little strange- Matt described it as like living in a hotel. We have a lot of boxes to unpack, but slowly things are settling down and it does feels like home to me now. We are just over a mile from our townhouse, so not much has changed in terms of our commutes or where we hang out, which is just what we wanted!

Here are a few pics from before we moved in....If you are in town please stop by anytime you may be in the area. And, if you are out of town, please come and visit us- we now have a guest room (we just need to buy a bed, but you'll be our excuse!)

Congrats Lara and Bill!

Sorry for the major lack of postings lately. As many of you readers know, there has been some *major* excitement and stress (the best combo right??) going on in our world these days. I don't want to get into that now, but I will surely try to post more when things are settled and we have great news to share!

For now, I wanted to share some photos of the beautiful and fun wedding we went to in Wilmington, NC last weekend. Our friends Lara and Bill, who we have gotten to know through Matt's friends from his program at Emory (otherwise known as the "Allison/Alison/Alysons", although this group includes people with other names:), were so gracious to invite us to share in their awesome celebration. Wilmington is a beautiful town and we drove there with 2 of the Als (thanks to them, Matt and I did not have to aruge over each other's driving and just got to sit in the backseat!). On Friday night, we had dinner and met up with the wedding party for a pre-wedding shakedown at a bar/restaurant. Saturday before the wedding, we had time to have a great brunch and walk around downtown Wilmington with friends before the wedding started.

The ceremony took place on the beach and was so personal and amazing. I love how they wrote their own vows. The weekend was also great because we also got to meet our friends Erik and Amanda's little boy for the first time, Trent (you can see he enjoyed the ceremony on the beach). They were not able to make it our wedding and so it was great to meet Trent finally. The reception took place in a historic loft-like building in downtown Wilmington (which is SO cute). It was filled with great creative details like a candy bar, a great long table for the wedding party, and lots of brown and blue (our favorite color scheme of course). There was a lot of love in the room for Lara and Bill. They are such a fun and warm couple.

Sunday morning, Lara's parents hosted a brunch at their beach house, which was a great way to get us going before our long trip home. Congrats guys!!!

All photos by Ali P. (thanks Ali). I don't have a little camera anymore so I have to rely on others!

Happy wedding day Laura & Anthony!

My friend Laura is getting married today in Mexico. We weren't able to make it, but we know it will be beautiful and we wish them lots of love today and forever!!!! Congrats guys!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday to the coolest Dad I know...and I'm not just saying that because he's my dad. It's pretty widely know and understood that I, in fact, do have the coolest dad ever. He just gets better and cooler with age. Looking forward to celebrating with you today and Sunday Dad! I love this picture of him during our father-daughter dance because that look is just so him:)

i love my mom

today, my mom had an outpatient surgical procedure. i went there to pick her up to take her home so that my dad could go back to work, which is so busy for him right now. i won't go into details of course, but she is going to be fine and was such a tough cookie. although she was fine, it's never fun to see someone you love in a hospital bed and under the effects of medication like that. she is now at home and resting well. things like this make me realize how much you love someone. love you mom!

i am a bike person now

To say it's been a busy couple of weeks would be an understatement. School has started and things are nuts...it's going well but keeping me busy. More on school later...and I still need to post pics of our trip to CA on the way back from Hawaii. I am behind, I know!

There's been lots of good news lately in the midst of all of the madness- The same day my friend Allie got engaged, so did my old (but still good:) friend Margaret Anne. Her new fiance's name is also Brad...cool huh? So, now we have 2 weddings to attend in 2009, yay (of course I'm assuming that we'll be invited:)- We also found out that 2 different couples we know are pregnant (exciting!), but I won't spread their business with the world! Oh, and my friend Meg and her hubbie just closed on her first house yesterday....so cool!

I also got a bike this week! Here's a photo from the K2 website. Matt bought a bike awhile ago and has been loving riding around our 'hood and to places nearby. I have been slowly warming up to the idea and finally realized that it would be a good way for us to spend time together. So, on a rainy Monday night, we found an awesome deal on this bike at REI and took it home. We rode in the rain for a bit Tuesday night and I had fun. It's a very comfortable, non-serious bike and most importantly, it looks pretty cool too:)- Check out my awesome helmet too!

Congrats Allie & Brad!

Many congratulations to my friend Allie, who got engaged this weekend to the very great Brad. I know they are thrilled and we can't wait to celebrate with them! Enjoy this time guys!

Hawaii recap...the final days

So sad...

On Tuesday, we decided to go snorkeling at the local beaches on the North Shore. On the way, we stopped at Ted’s Bakery, a pretty famous North Shore spot for yummy pastries and other food. They have a famous coconut chocolate pie, which Matt ate for breakfast:) Then, we headed to Sunset Beach nearby to snorkel in Shark’s Cove, the best snorkeling spot in the area, and we spent a couple of hours exploring that area. It was so much fun! I saw the coolest, brightest, and biggest fish I had ever been that close to.

Afterwards, we headed just down the road to the Waimea Bay, an absolutely gorgeous beach area, to hang out and snorkel a bit more. We then had lunch at a truck place (not sure what else to call it, the experience was cooler than the description)- sitting outside and enjoying the weather and the view of the ocean. I had a chicken and veggie kabob, with a salad and the two scoops of white rice that seem to very popular in Hawaii. Another one of my favorite parts of Hawaii was how we ate almost every meal outside. The weather was so awesome- hot and sunny but there was always a breeze.

Then, we headed back to Turtle Bay to relax by the pool and enjoy our favorite smoothies they made at the pool bar (Just for the record- my flavor was mango-banana). We had dinner at another one of the resort’s more casual place and ate pizza…and yes, it was actually Hawaiian pizza!

Wednesday was our last full day in Hawaii, which means we had to keep telling ourselves not to be depressed and enjoy the last day. We ate at Ted’s Bakery again, then headed to a Waimea Valley Reserve park, which is a beautiful natural park with lots of history and information about the area. We walked to a waterfall where scenes from 'Lost' have been filmed (They actually film Lost on the North Shore, and although I was on the lookout for Matthew Fox, I don't think they were filming yet). We had hoped to swim in the waterfall area, but they have had a drought so it was closed for swimming. It was a really nice place to walk around and see local flowers and trees. Another cool thing about Hawaii is that there were chickens and roosters just walking around everywhere...and they were more colorful than your average birds. There was also a gorgeous peacock there as well that was very friendly (pictured here).

We headed into Haleiwa again, to do a little shopping and ate lunch at Kono’s- an awesome breakfast and lunch place that is supposedly popular with surfers, where we both had some of the best pork ever. We also stopped by another shaved ice shop and found that shaved ice pretty much tastes the same no matter where you get it (but I could still eat it every day!) For rest of the day, we hung out at the beach and the pool at the resort. They had some dancers from the local Polynesian Cultural Center demonstrate some different dances by the pool, which was cool. We were both tired and needed to pack (plus we had some leftovers from previous dinners), so we decided to order a couple of things from room service to supplement that.

Thursday, we took one last look and listen to our amazing ocean sounds and view, walked around the resort for a bit, and left mid-day to head to L.A……We were so sad but so grateful that we got to spend almost a week there to celebrate our first year! As I'm writing this, I'm trying to remind myself to remember those amazing days in the midst of the craziness I'm feeling right now with school....like my friend Sonia said, maybe I need to get some coconut lotion and just sniff it whenever I need a pick me up!....or maybe a coconut candle for my office?

Next up- Our trip to CA!

Hawaii recap, Part 2

Sunday and Monday.....(sorry for the delay- I've been battling jet lag + a wicked headache+ trying to plan 3 classes+first two days of boot camp making it very difficult to sit down, stand up, and walk up or down any stairs:)

Sunday morning we woke up still stuffed from our awesome dinner, so we had a light breakfast and then hit the beach. We rented snorkeling equipment and explored the bay around our hotel. There weren’t tons of fish, but it was still cooler than any snorkeling I’d done in Florida! At lunchtime, we headed to a shrimp truck just off the main road near our hotel- the famous “Giovanni’s” shrimp truck. There was a long line and you sit and wait at picnic tables under a small tent. What I loved about this place, besides the yummy shrimp, was that it was a cool mix of locals and tourists. One of my favorite things about Hawaii was the adorable local kids☺ What a surprise right?

After lunch, we headed to the town of Haleiwa again. We did a little browsing at the cute shops around the town and waited in line at the famous Matsumoto’s shaved ice shop. It was worth the 30 minute wait. We both got the rainbow option, but opted not to get ice cream on the bottom or the local favorite, red azuki beans….something about the combination of textures bothers me about those combos. We headed back to the hotel, where we had a light dinner at the sports bar there.

Monday…..was our anniversary! Yay! We decided to make a day trip to the South Shore, which is supposed to have the best snorkeling. We got to the Hanauma Bay and it was closed due to jellyfish☹ We still found this amazing cliff-maybe called The Blowhole? I hate this picture of me, but my wish to share the beautiful view will override my vanity.

Since we were in the area, we drove around a bit and had lunch in the area at a burger place. Then, we headed to Peal Harbor, on the way back to the North Shore. The memorial and museum was interesting, but pretty brief.

We got back to the resort and got ready for a very special dinner at Ola’s on the beach. Here’s a photo of us- again, I was having a bad hair and overall face day but I will share the photo with you anyway. We both had great fish again and couldn’t get over how well we were eating here. It was a wonderful way to end our anniversary day and celebrate our awesome first year…but, lucky for us, our celebration wasn’t over! We got to continue it for the rest of the week….

Hawaii recap, Part 1

Hello everyone!

We returned from L.A. late Monday, only about 2 hours later than the original plan....I'd have been shocked if we weren't late- something always happens when traveling from the west coast or vice versa, especially since we had to stop in Dallas. I've been incredibly jet lagged today and yesterday. We had a really great time in CA visiting family and friends- more on that later.

For now, I wanted to share a few pics and an idea of how the first few days went. Of course, all of the photos are by Matt:)

We arrived late afternoon on Friday, after a layover in Dallas. We rented a car and headed from Honolulu to the North Shore. Surprising, there is a lot of traffic around Honolulu, so it took us awhile to get to the more scenic and rural North Shore area. We stopped in the small town of Haleiwa to grab a bite to eat a shrimp truck and walk around for a bit. They have these shrimp trucks all over. People line up to buy $12 plates of fresh shrimp, cooked in their shells in a variety of sauces and served with two scoops of white rice. I liked it, but didn't like this shrimp truck as much as where we went on Sunday- the more famous "Giovanni's" truck...again, more on that later.

Exhausted from the trip, we drove a little further, past gorgeous small beaches, some houses, and little else...then, we arrived at our resort- Turtle Bay. If you've seen "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", you saw what the resort looked like. It was just as beautiful in person, and it is in an amazing location right on the beach. Our room had an amazing view and we left the door open often to get the ocean breeze and hear the waves. We soaked up the amazing surroundings and went to bed early.

Saturday morning, we had breakfast on the beach, at one of the resort's restaurants -Ola's. We relaxed on the beach for awhile, then headed to another local beach for our surf lesson. There are a few things I learned from our 2 hour surf lesson- 1. how to stand up on the board (but obviously not how to remain standing), 2. my deformed ribs that stick out make it extremely uncomfortable to lay on the board for any length of time, and 3. surfing is a really, really good workout for your arms. The tide was pretty strong and I felt that I was paddling and keeping myself from drifting to sea or the beach more than trying to catch the waves. It was fun though, and I did get up for a second or so a couple of times. Most exciting was that we saw a sea turtle swimming right next to us- it was huge! I was so excited...I had pet turtles as a kid but had never been so close to such a big turtle.

After resting at the gorgeous pool for the rest of the day (I know, it's a hard life), we got ready to eat dinner at another of the resort's restaurants, 21 Degrees North. It's a really well- rated restaurant for the area and we quickly realized why. We had an amazing meal, one of the best either of us has ever had. Matt had great ahi and a crab crusted sea bass. I had a crab salad and a pepper-seared ahi. Desserts put us over the edge and we left full and really impressed. Things were starting out well!

Sunday- Wednesday to come soon - including- our anniversary!!!

I have the Aloha spirit

Not sure if I can say that now that we're back on the 'mainland'- We just got into CA tonight after enjoy this for 6 nights.....
I need to go to bed, but wanted to just share what we've been waking up to each day. I love Hawaii!! More later...'Night!

Happy Birthday Lindsay!

A quick happy birthday to my sister in law Lindsay! She's far away in Mexico, probably spending the day in class and studying, but hopefully she can have a little time to celebrate! We'll be seeing her in about a week in CA so we can celebrate with her a little late....until then, have a great day!!

A nice Sunday

Yes, haven't been writing much lately.. Really, because nothing exciting has been going on and I try not to bore people.

After finishing grading and calculating my grades on Saturday, I was SO ready for a 'day off' on Sunday where I did not think about school all day (except for an hour or so in the morning when I worked). I went to a great brunch with my sister at the oh so yummy Sun in my belly and then Matt and I headed to the mall to pick up a few things for our ***trip*** (yay!). Matt had bought tickets for a 7pm showing of Dark Knight that evening, so we went on our way home from the mall. We waited in line to enter the theater but once in, got good seats and really enjoyed the movie. It is long....but so good. And of course, Christian Bale is just the best:)

Back to work for the week until we leave town- there's so much to do!

Coming to an end....

It's been a busy few weeks- not particularly exciting, but busy with summer school and such. Next week, everything is 'due'- my stuff and my students' final work, so after that will be lots of grading and turning in grades. I'm hoping to get a lot of planning done for fall semester which starts in a month (ah!) before we leave town (more on that later)....

Today was my last day of bootcamp. I've really enjoyed it, despite the early mornings (especially when I had to go the 6am instead of the 7am if I had an early meeting). I feel like my fitness has really increased, and this week on all of our 'end of camp' activities where we compare our scores and times to the first week, I improved greatly! I did almost twice as many push ups and squats as I did in week 1 today- woo hoo!

We also ran the Peachtree Road Race last week, which is a 10k. After going to bootcamp Monday-Thursday that week and the fact that I am not a runner by any means, running 10k on Friday was a little rough. It was my second year, but this year seemed harder- I think it was a combination of being sore from bootcamp and that the ending was more uphill than last year, which made my final impressions of the race very negative overall. We pretty much passed out for the rest of the day, so our 4th of July was pretty uneventful but fun.

We have a pretty laid-back weekend planned for this one. Hope yours is good!

Job. Check.

About two weeks ago, my department chair asked to meet with me and out of the blue (to me) offered me a full-time faculty position in my department as a Clinical Instructor. An explanation- (if you really don't want the details skip to the next paragraph).... The position is to teach and be the coordinator for the ESOL certification we have just begun to offer the students in the undergraduate program in my department. This consists of 4 optional classes in addition to their regular bachelors degree. Eventually, the goal is to integrate these courses into all the required literacy courses they take since it's a fact that all teachers will have these students in their classrooms soon. A Clinical Instructor is a position that is not tenure track and may or may not be held by someone with a PhD....basically, it means you are expected to teach a lot more than do research. So...I'll be teaching 3-4 classes a semester and coordinating the program.

Whew! Bored yet? So....this was honestly an amazing offer and I felt so honored that I was asked. She was interviewing a couple of people, but said if I wanted the job it was mine. Wow! I felt like turning around and saying- Are you talking to me, are you sure about that? It's a wonderful opportunity- more money, benefits, incredible new teaching opportunities that will look great when I graduate and apply for a job, and I get to park in the faculty deck (I may be the most excited about that). But, it definitely means that I won't have as much time to work on my prospectus (dissertation proposal) and then conduct my research in schools, so it meant that I needed to think about this for a bit. Plus, I am teaching 3 brand new classes....lots of planning there. Did I mention these classes start mid-August? Ah....

After sitting down with my adviser and planning out how it should be possible to only push my graduation back a semester to a year later (hopefully!), I decided to accept the job! Although the position is considered temporary and is on a year to year contract, there's a good chance it would continue each year based on our projected enrollment.

Friday morning, I found out that the Dean had officially approved me for the position- yay! So...if you don't hear from me much this year, you know why now! Now, I need to go plan 3 syllabi:)

New babies rock!

Our friends Ben & Blythe (and big sister Elena) welcomed baby Colin into the world on Thursday. Isn't he a cutie? We went to see them in the hospital on Saturday and everyone is doing well. Congrats guys! We took some pics but haven't uploaded them yet. This one is from the proud parents.

In other news, it's been a busy week....We saw R.E.M. last night which was great and went to dinner at Restaurant Eugene for Matt's bday on Friday, which was excellent despite being a little stuffy.
Summer school is keeping me busy and I've been working most of the weekend. Hope everyone else had a good one!