Just a little

...taste of Savannah

This city is just as beautiful as I remembered it being. I was last here in 2000, and it continues to be a gem of the south. More pictures to come!

Charleston

Our first two days of vacation in Charleston were fun and exhausting. We walked around 5.5 miles on our first day there, as we traveled all over the city. We saw all the big sights (Rainbow Row, The Old City Market, The Charleston Museum), and we enjoyed some beautiful weather. It's been in the 70's our whole trip, which is a nice change from the 30's we were experiencing in Virginia last week.









On our second day in Charleston, we did a little more sight seeing around the city. I dragged J around a little so I could take a few more photos of this gorgeous place, and we also found a nice cafe for lunch. After lunch we headed off to Patriot's Point to take a boat to Ft. Sumter. What a neat place. It has such a history, and it helped that we had a great park ranger leading the discussion.




We're in Savannah now, and loving it! Another beautiful, southern city. More about Savannah in the next post, as we're off to dinner at Lady & Sons!

vacation

Sigh. Can you believe that there's only one more week of vacation? I guess I should still be happy. Two weeks of vacation is pretty nice.

We had a lovely Christmas with lots and lots of time with family. We got some great presents, and if you ask me, I think we gave some pretty awesome presents too. I made books at blurb for both sets of parents with wedding photos. They turned out so nice, and I (not-so) secretly had a lot of fun making them. As much as I love scrapbooking, this is a great way to document and save a lot of photos fom one event. I am even thinking of making another with my project 365 photos I am going to have from this upcoming year.

We're currently in Charleston, SC for a mini-vacation. We've been very busy enjoying all of the beautiful and interesting sights in this historical city. Other than a pretty horrible headache last night, it's been a lot of fun. We leave tonight for 3 days in Savannah, GA. Hopefully, I'll have some pictures of these beautiful cities in my next post!

a photo message...

Hope you have had a special day with your loved ones as you have celebrated our Savior's birth!

One of the many reasons I love my job...

Homemade mosaic candle holders for Christmas presents (and gift cards to a favorite restaurant...they're just not as fun to photograph!)

Hope you're enjoying the holidays! We've been having a fun filled week that has included chinese gift exchanges, bizillions of cookies, yummy breakfast, sleeping in, horseshoes, and many, many dogs!

oh goodie

3 more days! 3 more days! 3 more days! I don't know who is more excited, me or my students?

With the Christmas break right around the corner (2 full weeks of break that is!), I have been busy getting ready to celebrate with my kids. Friday we're having a fun day. We will do some work (come on, I can only get away with having but so much fun), but we're also going to watch a Christmas-y movie and make some crafts. It's going to be a good day!

I stayed late today to help with the 4th and 5th grade chorus performance, which was a chaotic yet wonderful experience all in one! The kids did a great job, though. Very cute show. The performance wasn't till 7, so I had a big chunk of time to get things done in my classroom; including making these cute goodie bags for my little ones...

All props must be given to Oriental Trading and The Dollar Tree!

And on one totally unrelated note....I am so psyched to be watching The Biggest Loser finale tonight!

good things

Well, good news, I have no cavities. Despite my mini-breakdown I had before going to the dentist, I am happy to report that I got a thumbs up and a "your mother would be proud" report from the dentist. Phew. Glad that's over for 6 months.

Some things I am loving right now: this falvorful, delicious dinner I made for us tonight, finishing season one of dexter last night...wow - what a good show!, coming home early from school today and having a nice, relaxing afternoon off, knowing I only have 5 more school days before break, the student in my class who keeps bringing me Italian candy to eat with my lunch, the Christmas Folk channel on pandora, finding an awesome sale at Ann Taylor LOFT last night...all sale items were 40% off the sale price!

Hope you've had a nice Thursday. I plan to spend the rest of my evening eating cookies and cream ice cream while watching The Office. A pretty good night, if you ask me!

a present

Look what I got in the mail today as a late birthday present from my husband...
For all of you non-scrapbookers, Studio Calico makes monthly kits of coordinating scrapbooking stuff. My husband certainly knows the way to my heart!

Totally not related: I am going to the dentist tomorrow. I am dreading it. In fact, I am on the verge of tears just thinking about it. Uhhh. So, now you know a deep, dark secret of mine...an irrational fear of the dentist.

why do you let me stay here?

New obsession:

many thoughts

I am made a pretty epic pie this week. If you want to make one for yourself...here's the recipe! Another marvelous P-Dub creation. My husband was in Orlando for this week for a convention, and I used this week to myself to do three things: be lazy, grade papers, make foods he doesn't like...like pies with apples and pecans! However, so I don't sound like a really mean wife, I'll have you know that I made a marinade for a steak that we ate in these quesadillas when he returned on Thursday. I also made homemade guacamole, with limes and cilantro - YUM. It turned out delicious and I declared myself a pretty awesome wife.

We went flea marketing this morning in a town across the water from us. They have a flea market the first Saturday of every month, but I always forget about it or we're out of town when I do end up remembering. Good news though, this morning as I was sitting and reading blogs, it hit me that today was flea market day. We headed over and found some neat things. J bought an old jar and a map from '68 of our city. I bought some old music books so I could have sheet music to use in my scrapbook, some old buttons and ribbon, and these incredible old JMU postcards which I am madly in love with ...


And speaking of JMU, I am wishing and hoping and praying that they beat Villanova in their play-off game today!

One last thing...listen to this song. Makes me so happy.

And now really, one last thing: thanks for the birthday wishes. I had a great day and got some thoughtful gifts and cards...thanks to all!