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!

Back to School I go...

Well, this week I started back to school for staff development. I went back on Tuesday. It was a tired, busy day. Wednesday and Thursday were also staff developments and tomorrow is a work day (where I work in my classroom & on different projects around the school). We have another staff development on Monday and Meet the Teacher night is that evening. Then one last work day on Tuesday before school starts on Wednesday!!

The first three days were good, although I was VERY tired since my sleeping schedule was off from the summer. By the way, I already miss summer. Ha ha. I do feel like this is going to be a good school year, though. I have been feeling a little bit sad that I won't have my same kiddos. I loved them so much, but I know I will find that with this new group as well.

On that note, I wanted everyone to know that I am making my blog private again, so if you would like to be invited to read, please comment and leave your name and email address and I'll add you. I will be making the blog private again some time next week when school starts, so comment if you wish to read!

Here are some pictures of the last week or two of summer.

I got a free ticket to 6 Flags from school so Casey & I went one Friday and had a blast!

Casey & I on the little train at 6 Flags!

Another try at not having Casey's neck look broken :)

You can't really tell, but I am soaked from head to toe here thanks to the Roaring Rapids!

Casey & I in line for the new ride: Tony Hawk's Big Spin

It made us SO dizzy after it was over!! The ride itself was fun though!

It is kind of like the Crazy Mouse at the Fair that we love :)

We went to Louisiana for Katie's (Casey's high school friend) wedding!

The bride & groom dancing!
A North Mesquite picture :)

Casey, me, Carolyn, & John (Carolyn is one of Casey's best friends from high school)!

And yes, I know my purse clashes with my dress, but that's what happen when you travel 4 hours to a wedding and change into your clothes in the car :)

On one of Mom's days of we ate at Ava's in downtown Rockwall.

Very cute place!!!

At lunch!

Mom enjoying her food!

Our AWESOME food. We ordered two and split both :)

Well, that's the final update on my summer unless I still pictures from my mother-in-law or sister-in-law of our fun trip to the cabin in Oklahoma! I forgot to take any pictures and was kind of bummed, but they took lots for us :)

Happy school year everybody! I hope it's a good one for you all!