pre-international adventures.

i'm leaving for guatemala in mere hours.

what am i doing blogging.

i have no idea.

terrible use of time.

but, here are our recent adventures in life!

my parents wanted to see me before i went all international on them, so they came up for the day on saturday. we had a great time, and went to a restaurant i've been wanting to try! j. alexanders. DELISH. check out this trash:

 my handmade veggie burger with INCREDIBLE mac and cheese.

 that's my mom's. check out that potato. YUM.

 matt's was SO good. it was like a whole chicken or something. and smashed potatoes. (not mashed).

 haa. then my dad needed a snack. 

i told him i took a picture of him sitting on a random bench by himself eating a sundae, and he said, 

"did i look blissful?" 

i said, "yes." 

he said, "good. i am." 

i love it.

my next adventure:
deciding to become a TRUE couponer.
bought the sunday paper and everything.
i couponed it UP.
spent $38 on groceries, saved $18. i'll take it!

my next adventures will be posted at the beginning of may... because i'm off to guatemala...

maybe i'll come home with a baby?

i would not hate that.

business in the front, party in the back.

matt needed a haircut.

so i started.

then he said, "let's just shave it off!"

so we started.

then the razor died. 

we charged it for 5 minutes. 

died again.

we went to bed, hoping it would charge overnight and wasn't broken (matt had to go to school the next day).

it worked in the morning, but it meant that i got an evening of a mullet-head husband.

pictures don't do this thing justice.

uglifruit.

uglifruit was 10/10 at meijer.

i decided we should try it.

here were the results:

an odd and not delicious mix of grapefruit and orange.

not recommended.

also we pretended it was the gift we gave our nephew for his 6th birthday.
he was not amused.
i think it goes without saying that we were.
then we nerf gunned him. he was ecstatic.
we live to please.

geek moment.

so.
i love what i do.
and i have been learning this week about how to do it more effectively.
this reading and phonics program i'm finishing up learning (week long workshop) teaches kids to go up multiple grade levels in three months.


i literally have the tools and competency to change the educational lives of children.
i'm beyond-words excited about it.


i mean. really.
i've never been so excited to be a teacher.
want to check it out?
here's the site.


yes, please.

wildly wonderful weekend.

catch that alliteration?
so our weekend was pretty incredible.


friday night:
FRCS formal auction.
we WON something.
a cut and color for me at a fancy salon!
also, they had these:

yep. a photo booth.
also i felt famous because they called me up in front of everyone at one point in the auction. very exciting.


then, saturday night:
the civil wars.
in concert.

we got there early... and got front row "seats" (does standing count as seats?)

they were literally about as beautiful sounding as possible.

 his guitars.

 here, i'm sitting on the stage waiting for the concert to start. literally.

set list.

 very excited for it all to start.

 yep. 

AFTER the concert... we waited around (i let matt buy a t-shirt... he was ridiculously excited about it) and we got to meet them! and got a picture! and she knew me because i had facebooked about them (and we're friends on facebook). i mean. it could not have been better.


then, sunday:
we went to a spanish church.
awesome.
then, we gave our 6 year old nephew THIS for his birthday: 

good stuff, right? who doesn't love nerf.
hope you all had great weekends, too!

preparing.

check out this trash.

i was a good wife.

i premade meals for matt to eat while i'm in guatemala.

i know, 10 points. but then i made fun of him for being sick... so i lost those points about as quickly as i earned them.

that's a paper that has what to do for each meal. as in, "turn oven on."

birthday time.

it's our nephew's birthday on tuesday.

we have a party to go to on sunday.

what do you get a VERY active soon-to-be 6 year old?

we think... this:

also the quickest way to get his parents not happy with us.

but hey, it looks pretty dang awesome.

who wouldn't want their own rocket?

propelled by the force of your foot?

let's just hope they're in stock at toys r us.

maybe we'll just buy 2 of them.

my job.

every job is different.

today, i realized how wonderful mine is.

i got to school at 7.

i left at 515.

i spent all but 30 minutes of that with 6 and 7 year olds.

and i left with a smile.

just to come home and prepare for the next day.

if i give a booboo a kiss, it's cured.

if i want to calm the mood, i tell a bailey story. (my dog is a literal pop icon in there)

if someone's upset, i tickle them.

if someone's doing something wrong, i pray with them. (thank you, christian school)

i get a billion hugs a day, a million "i love you"s, and a trillion smiles.

and i love every moment.

every ridiculous story.

the endless number of colored pictures i get each day.

and lately, the crowns (i've become queen of first grade every day for the past week, crown included).

every made up joke that makes no sense.

man alive.

my life is pretty dang good.

i feel like i don't give my job enough credit sometimes. so there it is. life is good.

world traveler

i just caught myself having a serious "i would rather be getting an uncomfortable exam at the doctor than this" moment.
making sub lesson plans for a whole week of missing school. NOT fun. every supply, every single little thing I want the sub to say to my students... about 6 pages per day.
thus, i'd rather be getting teeth pulled.
not really.
but sort of.


to combat this, i started thinking about going to guatemala in 18 days. CRAZY. thus spurred the idea of creating a picture list of places i want to visit SO BADLY:


enjoy.

guatemala.

(yeah buddy. about to check this one off. the only way to make it better is to bring a baby back with me.)

tuscany.

southern france. mostly for the vineyards.

the louvre.

kenya. mostly so i can see this girl.

let the dreaming continue...

i'm back in action.

well. it's been a while since i've blogged.

these are the reasons:
reason 1. matt has his birthday! or, as i like to say... i had cake day!
this year... homemade carrot cake. from scratch style. i've only made one other cake ever... his cake last year (which was fun, too... strawberries and chocolate cakes...)


first, grate a TON of carrot. i even grated my pinky more than a little. yum.

reason 2. birthday weekend celebration for matt. 
stop 1: ikea.

 stop 2: date night in ann arbor. italian and comedy.

 stop 3: celebration with fam. and cake eating.

 reason 3. i live with this. how could i not be distracted. how can someone find time to update a blog when situations like this are happening mere feet from where you would blog.
overwhelmed state of matt whilst spring filing and purging all the unnecessary things i always want to save.

 reason 4. i spend my days with students who do things like this: (he's supposed to draw a picture to describe an activity to do during the fall. i mean. come on. that's hilarious and very insightful for a 6 year old).

reason 5. i finished my first class of grad school! yay for me!


reason 6. i accidentally spent all of our grocery budget a week early in march (whoops!) so i didn't have any recipes to post... because our meals were not noteworthy in the least. i literally ran out of almost all foods.