Thankful for Thanksgiving Break

I am currently sitting at the AT&T Education and Conference Center at UT in Austin. This hotel is only one year old and is only a few yards away from the center of campus (right by the tower and close to the capitol building). I brought my new MacBook with us and was glad to have free WiFi in our room! So, I am sitting on the bed doing a little blogging and Casey is watching something on the tv. We are taking a little time to relax in our room tonight before we go out again! We are having a great time celebrating our 2 year anniversary. I simply cannot believe it has been 2 years already. The time has really flown. We have had some great times in our short 2 years of marriage and I am looking forward to 60+ more years of great memories! :) God has been good to us. :)

I will blog more about our anniversary getaway a little later - I need to catch up on November before I start on December!

Let's see...I last blogged about my November 20th outing to see New Moon with Laura, so now I'm up to Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is greatness as a teacher in Forney because I get a full week off. It is a great time to get some Christmas shopping done, decorate, relax, and take our annual trip to College Station or Austin to see A&M and UT play in the Lonestar Showdown.

This year we spent Thanksgiving morning/lunch time at my mom's new house in Rockwall. She and my grandma, whom I call Momma Sheila, made some terrific food! Here are some pictures from our day there.

Then we were off to our annual game day tradition... this year the game was in College Station (my favorite, obviously). This year we did not get tickets from any students that we knew, but instead we drove down to Aggieland without any tickets. We got there about an hour before the game, parked, and bought tickets from a scalper! They were excellent seats! We sat on the alumni side this year instead of the student section. At first I was disappointed with this because I LOVE the student section at A&M, but our seats were much better than I had anticipated. 40 yard line, second deck. Very good. And to top it off, A&M played the best game they'd played all season. I actually thought we were going to win there for a while. Not too shabby considering we were playing a team that is going to be in the National Championship this year. On that note, we're having a UT/Alabama watching party at our house on the 7th to watch the Championship. Casey has already said he doesn't want any Alabama fans there just in case. ;) He gets to into the game. He's bound to hit someone if they say the wrong thing! Ha ha! Here are a couple of pictures from the game...

Last, but not least, we had Thanksgiving with Casey's family on the Saturday after. We went over to his grandmother's house for lunch. Good food again! And it's always fun to play with our nephew, Caleb. He always gets a fun game that we adults end up liking even more than him! This year it was a "go fishing" type game, but with tires. I think it was called Cars (based on the movie). Caleb has also been on a big cowboy kick lately. He wears a hat and cute little boots and carries a guitar. He even serenaded us with Jingle Bell Rock. :) I was given his great-grandfather's cowboy hat to wear with him. Check it out...

Alright, that's all for now! Check back soon for our Mavs game, Christmas, 2 year anniversary, and New Year's pictures and updates!

Eddddwwwaaarrrrrdddd!

So, a month ago tonight I went to the midnight showing of New Moon! I got Laura & I tickets to the 9pm showing of Twilight showing in Rockwall followed by the New Moon showing at 12:02am! We got to the theater at about 7:45pm and stayed until New Moon was over around 2:30am! That’s almost 7 hours! AND I went to work the next day, mind you! I felt wired all day instead of sleepy. It was odd.

Anyway, for Twilight I wore my black Edward shirt and then for New Moon I put my white Jacob shirt on over it! Haha! I’m pretty sure I was the only one in our theater with 2 shirts to wear. I also got Laura one of the Jacob ones. The movies and the shirt were her birthday present, but I don’t think she liked it as much as I would have, haha. She and I agree that I am the biggest Twilight Saga fan that we both know. :)

Anyway, here are a few pictures of our late night out!

This first one is of us before Twilight at 9 (notice the black Edward shirt)!

Here we are after Twilight waiting for New Moon to come on! When it finally did people cheered :) Notice the change of shirt :) Haha!

This is after the movie – they had a bunch of cut outs and t-shirts to buy! I settled for a picture with the life-sized Edward! :) Don’t worry, Casey isn’t a bit jealous of cardboard. ;)

Have a great weekend everybody! I am officially on Christmas break for 2 weeks! I so deserve it after this past week of putting up with those crazy 6th grade rug rats! :) I love ‘em, but I need a BREAK! :)

A Scrapbooking Victory!

This weekend has been super busy for Casey and I. In fact, this is my first time to sit and relax at all. I am using my time to do a short blog before bed because I have a great new piece of furniture in my house! A scrapbooking desk/table that I’ve always wanted! :) It’s from Pier 1, and I bought it from Natalie Clark-Swartz tonight for $150! I have always wanted one of these tall desks and am now very excited to be an owner of one! Thanks to Casey’s parents for helping us pick it up and bring it home! It is quite heavy!

So here it is! A couple pictures of my super fantastic scrapbooking desk! Wahoo! One side has 6 shelves and the other side has 9.

Tomorrow starts the official “12 days” until Christmas! This month has flown by! I, myself, only have 5 more work days until I get 2 weeks off! As you can imagine, I am VERY happy about that! :) I hope you all have a great week as well!

Granny’s 80!

A few weeks ago we went to Culpepper’s in Rockwall to celebrate Casey’s granny’s 80th birthday! I have only met Casey’s extended family (from Houston) a few times, and some not at all, so it was nice to go and meet/see them again!

Here are some pictures of the lovely birthday event! The first one is Granny opening her brooch from Bailey Banks and Biddle and the second one is of a funny hat they made her wear as a joke while we sang.

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Here’s a picture of the whole Coats group! Starting in the back left we have Aunt Barbara, Uncle Steve, Granny, Bill, Casey, Lauren, and Mitch. Starting in the back right we have Uncle John and Aunt Sue with their 3 granddaughters, then Stephanie and Caleb, and Beverly.

Have a great week!

Harry Potter!

The week after Halloween (that tells you how far behind I am with blogging…) was Young Reader’s Week at school! Each day the kiddos did something regarding reading such as writing a letter to their favorite author, making their own book, and dressing up as a book character!

As you can see, I dressed up as Harry Potter! Not because I like Harry Potter, because I’ve never read the books, but because I had someone that I could borrow the outfit from! And another person to borrow the Hogwarts banner from! This costume cost me zero dollars and the kiddos loved it! Score! :)

Check out some of my other teacher friends! They were so creative! A lot of us, including myself, were put in the Forney newspaper! In that same paper is an article that I co-wrote about my students going to the North Forney High School football game. I had Casey pick up 2 papers for me. :)

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Hope everyone is having a fantastic week! Mine is going great! Only 16 days til Christmas and only 10 days til I have 2 weeks off! Hip hip! Hooray!

I. Promise. To. Blog. Soon

I promise to blog soon. I've got SO much to blog about - from seeing New Moon to book character day at school to Thanksgiving to the A&M/UT game to the Mavs game and even more! I felt like I just needed to write something on my blog to get me started.

So here's my promise.

I will blog by the end of this week. I want to. I miss it.

So, I Promise.

Until then....

Food + Friends = Fun!

Last weekend I had a nice surprise when Lauren called me and told me she was in town! We ate at one of my favorite breakfast places – La Madeleine. It was so yummy! Didn’t you think so Lauren? Here are a couple of pictures of our delicious breakfast :) Can anyone guess which breakfast was mine and which was Lauren’s? Let’s see if you know my personality, blogger friends! :)

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After we filled our bellies at breakfast, we did a little shopping and then went back to my house to meet Laura and Aubrey K. We had some fun chattin’ it up and watching Aubrey play with Lucy. One of her 4 words is “dog,” and she said it a million times while looking at Lucy.

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Here are a few pictures of the 4 of us – for those of you who don’t know, back when we went to Eastfield, we called ourselves the L-Crew since our names are so similar. So, here is a picture of the L-Crew + Aubrey :)

Here are a few pictures of us with one another….of course, we had Casey be the photographer for the photo shoot we had going on….he didn’t mind, I’m sure :)

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Well, that’s all for now! Stay tuned for pictures of “book character day” at school – I’m sure you saw on Facebook that I was Harry Potter. You need to see the other teachers and students – it was a fun day for all!

(Ps. Don’t forget to “vote” on which breakfast food was mine –Oh, and like I tell my students, I don’t just want a guess, I want a reason for your guess!:)

Don’t Judge Me

I took the day off.

Yes, that's right. Don't judge me for it (Beverly, I'm talking to you :) haha)!

I was sick Wednesday night...I felt bad at school that day, left around 5, got Sonic, came home, ate, and then threw up. Yeah, not pretty. Went to bed at like 8:30 that night and went ahead to school the next morning because I didn't have "substitute friendly" plans ready. I decided on Thursday while I was at school (still not feeling well) that I would take off on Friday to catch up on rest, house work, laundry, and errands. You know when you're on your last pair of undies that its time to do some laundry! Well, that’s me! Too much information?

I have done well today! I woke up around 9, giving me 2 1/2 hours of extra sleep, but still an early enough day for all that I had planned!

Here's a run down of my day!

1. First off, I did the dishes and cleaned out the washer & dryer--Casey washed Lucy's bed in there and there was dog hair ALL over it. So trying to clean that out was a lot of fun.
2. After that I started on my laundry while picking up around the house. I will probably do around 8 loads when it is all said and done. I can’t even see my closet floor due to all the dirty clothes that are overflowing from my super-packed laundry basket.
3. Next I took Lucy to PetsMart to get a "puppy bath and brush" for only $11! They bathe her, blow dry her, brush her, trim her nails, and clean out her ears for $11. That's a pretty good deal considering all the time it would take ME to do it. I wouldn’t even know how to go about cleaning out her ears, and I’m sure there would be lots of blood if I tried to cut her nails.
4. After I dropped her off I made my way to the bank where I spent 30 minutes trying to get my silly ATM card fixed. It's been blocked many times and keeps saying "check financial institution." Turns out the problem was on the bank’s end and they fixed it, but it took a long time to figure out the whole mess. I'd already gone in there to take care of it a couple of weeks ago, and thought it had been fixed until I tried to use it again.
5. After the bank I got myself a mocha frappucino at Starbucks.
6. Then I went to Pier 1 to look at all the cutesie Christmas decor, but I kept myself from getting anything this time.
7. Next I went to Old Navy and got my gift for Pokeno night tonight! It's super cute! I can’t tell you what it is because it’s a surprise for tonight! While I was at Old Navy I got an awesome deal on 2 swim suits on clearance! I got a blue and white tankini for $10 and a cute black one piece for $5! I'd been looking for a tankini and a one piece this year, but never found one I liked. Finally! And on sale! Whoo! I also got some cute, pink house shoes. I know most people call them slippers, but I call them house shoes. My current pair have seen much better days. Time to retire them.
8. Now I'm back home doing more laundry and cleaning some more while I watch last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy! I LOVE Grey's. It's by far my favorite show these days.
9. After a little while I'm going to go pick up Lucy at PetsMart and take her to get her last set of booster shots and also her rabies shot at 4:30. I kind of like going to the vet - his office is cool and they have a big, live-in cat. He's pretty cool. :)
10. After that I'll come home and get ready for Pokeno Night! This month it is at Natalie's at 7! I'll be riding with Ginni there. It's been a fun day and, I have fun night ahead of me! Yay for the weekend!

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of my cute-and-cuddly companions on this gorgeous Friday afternoon!

 

Happy Halloween!

Tonight was c|Life’s trunk-or-treat at Chickfila in Forney! There were some pretty cool trunks, games, and costumes! Casey’s family showed up and Caleb (our nephew) attended his 3rd trunk-or-treat this week! Lucky boy! Sadly I didn’t get any pictures of him dressed as Larry Boy! Afterward we all went to Martinez. Yum!

Today was also:

Laura K. Bond’s 24th birthday!

Old woman! :) Here’s a picture of us with Princess Peach from Mario Brothers :)

Princess Peach, also known as Aubrey Kay! :)  I think it’s funny that Lucy’s head is in the bottom right of this picture. And here is Lucy’s Halloween shirt – just some pumpkins and “Happy Halloween!” It’s funny because she has learned to take this shirt off on her own. I have found it in the bed, in the yard, and in the couch this week! :)

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Happy Halloween everybody!!

Don’t forget to set your clocks back!

One hour of extra sleep! That works great for all of the kiddos on sugar rushes from trick-or-treating. They’ll need that extra hour in the morning! :)

My Name is Lauren and I'm an Addict

Lately my need for Starbucks in the morning has gone too far.

I have been calling my husband once I have gotten to school begging him to stop by Starbucks and bring it to me on his way into work. He has been generous enough to do this several times this school year, but a couple of weeks ago he informed me that it was the last time.

I would promise a Starbucks builder/owner that I would stop at his/her Starbucks store EVERY SINGLE DAY if they would build one on my route to school. Both the Starbucks by my house and the one by my school is not on my route. They either require me to go the wrong way when leaving my house, or going way past my school and then turning around.

Ps. If you're interested, my favorite cold drink is a Green Tea Frappucino (w/ no whip) and my favorite hot drink is a Mocha White Mocha Cappucino (w/ no whip), also known as a Zebra or a Michael Jackson, lol.

Lovin’ My Job Right Now

There were soooooooo many times last year where I did NOT like my job. For whatever reason there were bad days. Either the kids were bad, I hated morning duty, I felt like my principal and AP did not like me, I hated all of the paperwork, I didn’t feel supported by my team or at home, or I felt that I just wasn’t good at it.

This year is not last year.

I looooove my job. I love my kids, I love my principal and AP, I love my team, I love my husband, and I am GOOD at my job. (I still don’t like morning duty or the paperwork, but the rest of my job makes those things so small:).

I know I am teaching my kids something.

I can feel it in my veins.

They are learning things about reading, culture, respect, common sense, and even Jesus.

Yes, I said Jesus. (They have learned that I will answer any question they have. It started with them asking me what the moment of silence was for, then it turned into what I do during it, and then that ball just kept rolling. But really that story is for another day).

Tomorrow is my PDAS (my evaluation). I am not scared like last year. I am ready (I think:). I am not even doing anything differently than I would any other day. Obviously, more thought goes into making sure all of the main objectives they want to see are covered in the tiny time they will be in your room (45 minutes, when I have each class for 90). Heck, I left work earlier today (the night before my PDAS) than I have any other day in the last couple of weeks!

Last year I would not have thought I would care enough to stay at work late to make things BETTER. I was just concerned with staying afloat.

Anyway, here are a few cutie pictures of my super awesome students. (Don’t worry guys, we have waivers from all of their parents saying that they are allowed to have their picture posted on the internet – Forney’s website – and this blog has thousands of less readers – 41 total to be exact. :)

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The first picture is of my current 6th graders hanging signs at the new high school for their homecoming game (their school is right across the street from us). The one next to it at the top is ME in a firefighter’s suit. That is from last year. That thing was crazy heavy. I look funny. Ha-ha. Next to it are some kiddos from this year carrying the posters to the high school. We did that the beginning of October. The 2nd row on the left is when the pumpkin patch came to our school. Each kid got to pick out a pumpkin for $2. The bottom right is a picture of all of the 6th graders from last year posing with the firemen. :)

Have a great week everyone!

Ps. Can you all believe that the holidays are almost here? I am so excited! I realize it is more than a month away, but I can’t wait to put up our Christmas tree! Yay!

The State Fair of Texas

A couple of weeks ago Casey & I went to the fair!   It was a lot of fun!    Fact: Did you know Texas has the biggest state fair in the United States?    Fact: Did you know the Texas Star is the biggest the ferris wheel in the Western Hemisphere?    Everything’s bigger in Texas!

Here I am with Elsie at the Borden exhibit! :)

 

Casey & I at the petting zoo! Feeding the lama and ostrich…also loved the baby camel! :)

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Casey tried to shoot a faraway shot to win basketball tickets – it was SO close, but didn’t go in.

  

Fried Snickers: so yummy it received a thumbs up!

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Casey in front of the Texas Star – the 25th tallest in the history of ferris wheels!

Overbooked

Is anyone else feeling overbooked these days?

I am.

I have had this type of week. Or month rather. This school year has just felt this way altogether.

First off, I have all these after school meetings. Today I had 3 obligations... I had to leave one early to get to the next one, and I had to skip the third one altogether. Makes me feel bad when I have to do stuff like that.

The same thing is going to happen next Monday when we have a somewhat important faculty meeting at school, but I will also have an ESL meeting at admin from 4-7 (which is wayyy too long to be working if you ask me - that's 12 solid hours - not to mention all the other after school stuff I need to do). I have my PDAS evaluation next week (most likely Wednesday) and that's something else that stresses me out. All of my teacher friends out there are understanding that one. (Shout out!)

Thanks for letting me vent to you all, my blogger friends.

Leave me any vents that you may also have. I'll listen. :)

Pokeno Pronounced Po-kee-noh

Last weekend me & the girls had our first Pokeno Night! We are having these monthly get togethers on the first Friday of every month. The first month was at my house. Each month, the host chooses how to get the word out (ie. invitations, e-vites, facebook), cooks dinner & dessert, and choose the gift theme. This first month Laura & I co-hosted it. I sent out invitations & made dinner, and Laura brought lots of yummy desserts! I made baked spaghetti from a recipe I got from Brenda at church! It was extra yummy, and we had plenty leftover for Casey to eat (which he has, several times). We decided that the gift would be “anything” this month since it was the first go around. I am already excited about next month! It will be at Natalie’s house on November 6th! If any of you girls out there would like to join, let us know! This month we had a group of 5, but it can be as big as 10, I believe!

Here we are holding up our game boards and cards with our milk and desserts on the table :) I forgot to mention that you put your gift in a paper bag so you can’t be swayed by wrapping paper. Everyone gets a gift. We had some really fun and cute gifts this month! I won an awesome pumpkin spice candle from Jenna! It is burning in my living room as we speak! :)

Playing Pokeno!

We kept putting our cameras on timer and running over to get in the picture! It was pretty funny!

Happy Sunday!

Double the Fun

Last Sunday after church two of my students from last year got baptized. I wrote about their story before, here http://caseyandlaurencoats.blogspot.com/2009/08/power-of-prayer.html?zx=c344d56dc7615d99 They are now in 7th grade and in Casey’s youth group. It has been awesome to see them accept Christ and then show that step of faith by being baptized. I love both of these girls so much and it makes me love my job so much more! It is cool to have kids who I taught last year join our church and youth group the next year when they are in 7th grade. We have 3 of my former students at our church now, and none of them were members before. I can’t wait to see if any of my current students will start coming!

I love this picture of Madison getting baptized with her sister, Paige watching in the water, waiting her turn.

Madison

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Paige

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It just so happened, that on the same day, Kristi’s (my team teacher from last year) neices were getting baptized as well! So, Kristi was there! It was a funny little coincidence that both of the twins’ 6th grade teachers were there to see them get baptized. Here is our little reunion picture! :)

Kristi, Lauren, Madison, & Paige

GO STARS!

A couple of weeks ago, Casey’s dad’s friend gave us his season tickets for the night! This is probably our 3rd time to get his tickets and go to the game and park for free! It’s always good fun. This time I got to buy a shirt in the store inside of the American Airlines Center.

At this game I saw more fights than ever before! Casey said it was the most he had ever seen, too! We probably saw 8 altogether – 3 being drop-down-knockouts! They took off their helmets and gloves and beat each other with their fists! Crazy!! But highly entertaining! haha. Stars won 3-2, I think (I can’t remember the score for sure)! I had to miss the season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy to go to this game (although I had it on DVR, but still!), and I’m still glad I went, so that means it was a really good game! :) Here are a couple of pictures from our night at the AAC.

 

Barktoberfest

This past Saturday Casey & I woke up and went to Ft Worth to BARKTOBERFEST ‘09 at the Ft Woof Dog Park!! :) It was loads of fun and also a little bit hilarious! :)  When we showed up we walked around and saw the booths, the Ticket 1310am announcer guys, and signed up to win A&M vs Arkansas tickets for that night (which we did not win). After that we went to the off-leash part of the park where Lucy just ran around with other dogs…well, kind of. For the most part she just ran to humans—any human.  It was her first time ‘off-leash’ and she didn’t really know what to do. One time there were about 4 dogs who were running and chasing after each other and she joined in for a minute and then ended up huddling up under a guy sitting on a bench. It was pretty funny there for a minute though :)

After all that there was a dog costume contest for Halloween! That was by far the best part. They paraded through while one of the Ticket announcer guys announced what he saw. I will post several pictures of the dogs in their costumes. I wish that we had dressed Lucy up, but didn’t have time to get creative. She did wear this funny pink shirt with a fuzzy hoodie though :) You’ll see it in the pictures of our fun outing! :)

Lucy & I in the car on the way to Ft. Worth – she is incredibly good in the car. She just lays in my lap and sleeps most of the time or she perches up on the window seal and looks outside :)

 

Just arrived at the dog park…

Doggies in their costumes!  Here you have an angel, a ghost buster, and a doggie witch :)

Funny story, when the huge angel dog walked by, the announcer told the woman that her dog looked like a boy dog dressed up like a girl he said, “I’m sorry ma’am, but your dog looks like a cross dresser!” He/she ended up winning 3rd place in the contest :) The Ghostbusters won 1st place (there were actually 2 of them, but I only put up a picture of one of them)

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Look at this funny Chihuahua as a Seniorita!

Okay, and something really funny….they had a pastor come out on the field and say a ‘dog blessing.’ She told everyone to put their hand over their dog while she prayed. I thought it was funny and played along while Casey made jokes during the doggie prayer. We both thought it was really funny – they called it the Blessing of the Animals. :)

And now for a family picture to end the day at Barktoberfest ‘09! :)

The whole day was really fun and we’ve already decided to go to more dog stuff if we hear about it (please don’t judge us, it’s not nice:), not just because we love Lucy, but because other dog owners are pretty crazy and we get a kick out of laughing at them with their dogs! Yay for pets! And free, fun events! :)