Akron Trip

Get ready for a lot of pictures...

My mom and I headed up to Akron yesterday afternoon to spend last night and today with my sister, Julie, at her apartment. We had such a good time! I hope we can do it again soon :-)

After the hour-long drive, we were hungry! So we ordered some pizza. To kill time, Julie gave us a tour of campus.

First she showed us the rec center. I went to Malone University, a small, private school. I loved it, but I gotta say, this rec center made me a little jealous that I hadn't chosen The University of Akron! By the way, their mascot is a kangaroo. Kinda funny, but that's why it's "Roo Town." This building is right across the street from Julie's apartment, along with the new football stadium.

Inside the rec is a HUGE swimming pool area with an Olympic sized pool and multiple hot tubs. But I thought the coolest part was this lazy river!

There's also a rock wall inside the building. Pretty cool! I'd be spending all my free time at the rec if I were Julie
Next, we walked around outside a bit. Julie and I posed under these sweet arches outside the rec
And I took a picture of this clock because I thought it was cool
Next it was time for pizza!

I had never eaten at Hundry Howies, but it was delicious. You even get to pick out whatever flavor of crust you want. We picked garlic herb crust, and it was amazing.

After pizza we talked and then watched 2 movies. I fell asleep during the second one, of course. It's what I do :-P Then we went to sleep in Julie's cozy apartment.

This morning we woke up and Mom surprised us with this breakfast spread:
Yum!! First strawberries of the summer
After breakfast, we decided to go to the Akron Zoo. I hadn't been there since I was about 3 years old. It was really nice! I actually liked it better than Cleveland Zoo. It was smaller and didn't have as many animals, but there was less walking, less vacant cages, and it was a lot prettier and cleaner. I really enjoyed it!

First we saw my favorite exhibit: the fairweather penguins
Oops...I mean THESE are the fairweather penguins ;-)
We thought this baby swan reminded us of The Ugly Duckling. He was adorable, though!
A cute lemur
I just loved these flowersAnd this little guy was Julie's favorite animal in the whole zoo. She just couldn't get over how cute his little mohawk was!
And we thought this guy looked like a gigantic Bugsy from the movie Bedtime Stories. So ugly he was almost cute :-PMom and Julie posed for a quick pic
Bald Eagles
Some goats at the petting zoo
And there was a cool little garden that you could walk through.
Here we are walking through the garden
And then my camera battery died :-( Apparently it either doesn't last long, or I hadn't charged it the whole way. Oh well, at least we were pretty much through the zoo when it happened!

After the zoo, we headed to Chipotle for a late lunch. I had never eaten there before, but it was delicious! Very filling, and very spicy. but delicious! After that, we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at a huge mall.

It was sad to leave, but Julie will be coming home for a few days this month, because she is also getting her wisdom teeth taken out (I had mine extracted about three weeks ago). So it won't be too long before I see her again.

On the way home, Mom and I stopped at Stricklands for smoothies, and then I bought some flowers to plant in my window boxes. She's going to come over tomorrow and help me plant them. She used to be a florist, and obviously has a green thumb. I'm excited to start cleaning up the outside of our new house...we don't have much land at all, but it still needs a lot of work!

Anyway, when I got home, this is what I found upstairs (please ignore the ugliest blanket ever made :-P)

Don't worry, Max isn't dead. Just in a very deep sleep. lol...apparently these two bonded over the weekend. It's a little sad, though, because Max is going home tonight. We've really enjoyed him this week!

Happy Saturday! I think some R&R is in order at this house tonight! I'm tired, and Luke worked all day.

Item #8

I wasn't going to post again until tomorrow, after my trip to Akron, but I'm so excited I just had to post this.

I am crossing off an item on my bucket list today! 1 down, 99 to go! lol...but I was excited.

#8 on my bucket list is to bake the perfect chocolate chip cookies. Today I think I accomplished that! I'm not a very good cookie baker. But I just used the recipe on the back of the Nestle choc. chip bag, and used a few tips from this website. I used a little more flour, less sugar, more vanilla, etc. And I think the trick was the butter. I actually used margarine, but I let it sit out for a few hours, and then microwaved it for a few seconds at a time. I stopped when I was able to make an indent with my finger by lightly pressing it. And I think that made all the difference in the world! The dough was even a different texture than normal: more firm. I think I have just been using the wrong consistency of butter/margarine all these years.

I also made sure I followed the recipe as closely as I could. I measured everything exactly and took my time. And just look how they turned out!I love it when they're still warm and the chocolate just oozes out when you take a bite :-)

Much better than my flat, sticky disaster from a few weeks ago!

I'm leaving for Akron at 4:30 with my mom today after a doctor appointment. I thought a few chocolate chip cookies would be a good thing for us to much on this weekend at Julie's place. And I'll leave half of them at home for poor Luke who will be left here to take care of the house, Gabby and Max. I'll only be gone for a mere 24 hours, but I'm still a little nervous that he'll forget to let Max out! (Shh, don't tell him I said that ;-))

Well I'm out...I have to finish packing, clean up my mess in the kitchen, and make it to my appointment by 3. Have a great weekend!

A Walk in the Park

I managed to get out of bed at 7:45 this morning! I was shocked. I got up, had peanut butter & honey toast for breakfast, and read my morning devotional.

Then it was time for my "something fun." A few days ago, I wrote about my goal to do at least one fun or relaxing thing every day this summer. I don't want to regret not taking advantage of all this free time when school starts again at the end of August! For my first day, I decided to go to the park with Max and walk through the nature trail. Here are some pictures of our trip:

Uh-Oh!
I ended up picking Max up and shimmying across the middle board to get across. I could have probably just jumped over the creek, but I didn't want to slip and fall

BIG tree that fellMax was pretty tired after the short, 30 minute hike. He had to sit and breathe for a minute before we left.

This was a fun way to start the morning, and to get some exercise. I'm having a lot of fun thinking of fun places to go or things to do this summer. And I woke up early enough that I still had the whole day ahead of me to get things done after the walk. I'm going to try to completely clean and organize this house inside and out this summer. Today was the starting point, and I decided I wouldn't take on anything too daunting, but just start with some surface cleaning. Getting rid of clutter, sweeping the downstairs floors with a broom, washing dishes, folding laundry, making the bed, etc. Tomorrow I'll be ready to tackle some deep cleaning in the kitchen. AND I'm planning on continuing my quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookies (one of my bucket list items is to bake the perfect chocolate chip cookies...I'm a very inconsistent cookie baker:-P)

Tonight I made a special dinner to celebrate the first day of summer! And guess what...we actually ate at the table! We're trying to do that more often. We spend too many meals in front of the TV.

I tried a couple more new recipes tonight. First I made cheesy baked chicken made with Cheese-Its. It was delicious, and the whole house is still filled with the wonderful smell.
I also made baked potatoes, and for dessert, this frozen raspberry cheesecake...it was heavenly.
Bottom layer: a crust made with chopped up Vanilla Wafers and melted butter. Middle Layer: cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, and a little lemon juice. Top layer: Rasberry sherbet.

To be honest, with all the new recipes I've tried this week, I'm surprised I haven't had a major disaster yet. KNOCK ON WOOD! :-P

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I already have my "something fun" planned for tomorrow: a trip to Akron with my mom to visit my sister and stay until Saturday afternoon! We're going to shop, watch movies, and hopefully eat at Spaghetti Warehouse. It should be fun! I love being able to see Julie almost every weekend in the summer.

Be back Saturday...pictures of my 1/2 weekend in Akron to come :-)

Sudoku, Back Roads, and Carried Underwood: Good for the Soul

Today was teacher report day. All morning I did random jobs, like make a bajillion copies for next year for some teachers, help the secretary do some filing, and scrub down every surface of our classroom. By about 11:30, there was nothing left to do. After grabbing a quick lunch, I praised the Lord that I had remember to bring this with me:
I spent the rest of the work-day working on those puzzles, and actually stayed 30 minutes late because I got so engrossed in it and couldn't make myself leave! Pathetic, I know.

But at 1:30, after I had successfully completed 12 Sudoku puzzles, I left B.L. Miller Elementary School for the last time until August. Or maybe for the last time ever, I'm still not sure yet.

When I got in my car and drove out of that parking lot, I expected to feel giddy. I expected to smile and joyously drive home. But that was not the case. I got in my car and started feeling a little down. Before I knew it, a tear or two trickled down my cheeks. The weird thing was, I couldn't quite put my finger on WHY I was upset. I'm still not sure. But there are three things that might have contributed my mood: 1. I am nervous and still unsure about next year. 2. I may be leaving that school and that town for the last time. I didn't expect to be upset about that, but I guess I was! and 3. (This one's a little pathetic and immature) Last year on my last day of work, I was looking forward to my bridal shower the very next day. I was excited about my wedding and honeymoon coming up in a month, and I just knew it would be the BEST summer of my life. And it was....This year feels a little anti-climactic after that.

So anyway, I knew I HAD to turn my mood around. It's officially summer, for goodness sakes! I shouldn't be crying! So I took the long route home. I drove down some back, country roads. It probably doubled my drive-time, but I only have about a 12 minute drive anyway. I turned Carried Underwood's Carnival Ride CD up as loud as I could stand it, and I just embraced driving through those country roads. It was just me in my little car and the cows out there :-) Seriously, when I go the back way home, it's nothing but farms, open fields, and trees. And the occasional big farmhouse or log cabin. It was very therapeutic to drive through the country while listening to songs like "So Small," "Get Out of this Town," and "Crazy Dreams." By the time I pulled into my driveway, I had a smile on my face, and I just might have been singing along at the top of my lungs :-)

It's summer! I'm not going to waste a minute of it being sad.

When I got home, it was obviously time to play with my new camera. It was raining, but I wanted to take some pictures outside anyway, so I just took a quick few of some flowers in our yard. Addicted much? Yes, I am :-P

I love the raindrops in the next one
Of course I had to get at least one daily Max pic in there. I just discovered the B&W and Sepia settings on my camera, so I was playing around a little bit :-)

Now I'm excited to get my hands on this house. After 9 months (well, 7 if you're counting from when we moved...but things weren't totally in order in our old apartment, either) of trying to keep up with it, I will finally have time to get EVERYTHING done that I want to! I'm not sure where to start. And it's a little daunting. But I'm just going to organize and clean little by little so I don't get too overwhelmed by the big picture.

I'll be cleaning for the rest of the day until our friend Jared's birthday party later. Wish me luck, somehow in the past week I've kind of let things go around here. I barely recognize the place!

School's Out For Summer

That song's pretty much been in my head all day, because it was the students' last day of the 2008-2009 school year. We, as in the teachers, still have to go in tomorrow from 7:30 until 1, but we're pretty much done. The room that I share with another teacher is totally cleaned up, everything's put away, and we have absolutely nothing to do for 5.5 hours. That is why I purchased a Sudoku booklet at Walgreens today, and plan on spending most of the day working through that :-)

Today was a little bittersweet, though, since I may not be returning next year. I still haven't decided if I will take the position they've offered me (math intervention teacher). We'll see. I'll really miss the kids if I don't return, though!

After work I whipped up my second new recipe of the week: white chili. I made it so we'd have something to eat later this evening when we returned from Luke's church softball games. I'm actually eating a bowl right now. I must say, it turned out pretty good! I'm really liking this "Cooking for Two" magazine, which is where the recipe came from.

Anyway, I had to make the chili really quickly so I could meet Luke at Wal Mart at 4:30 to pick out our newest toy. Here it is!
We ended up going with the Polaroid instead of the Nikon because it was less pricey. I love the camera so far...it has 12 megapixels, and my last camera had 5...big difference! And I love the green color...it just so happens to match my new phone.

After Wal Mart, Luke and I headed to the park for his softball games. He had a double header. It's cool that Luke's games are held at the park where he works, so he is usually the one to prepare the field(s).

Here are some of the many pictures I took tonight...I can tell such a big difference between this camera and the old one. The colors are less washed out and the details are so much more visible. Be expecting lots of picture posts in the near future!!

Luke and his buddies...they were so pumped up about the game at this point. And they were excited to wear their sweet new jerseys for the first time!

My best friend Rachel was there, with her beautiful Golden Retriever, Lexie
Here's my adorable hubby warming up

And some other teammates warming up

I got bored and decided I wanted to see how a close up picture would look.
Go, Luke!
Here's Lexie, up close and personal
Who's that cute guy?! He looks pretty good in his uniform ;-)
How cute...Rachel took her puppy and her nephew for a little walk.
And when we got home, I snapped a cute picture of Max. Minus the eye gunk, isn't this the cutest picture ever? :-P lol sorry to be gross
This was taken on the old camera, but look how close Max and Gabby are getting! Gabby's still a little nervous, but I think they may be on their way to becoming friends :-)

And that's all for today. Tomorrow is my last day of work until August!!! I may be doing back flips right now because I just cannot contain my excitement! And tomorrow night is Rachel's Husband, Jared's, birthday party. Yay for Luke's band practice being canceled, so we can go!

Now I think I might go play with my new toy a little more before bed. It's addicting...just wait until I get a really nice camera in a few years...that thing will probably permanently meld to my body somehow :-P

Preparing For Summer

With only 1 day of school left (we have to go in on Wednesday, but the kids won't be there, so I'm not really counting it as a school day) I just can't stop thinking about the summer. It seems like every year the end of August rolls around and I think, "Man, I wish I wold have gotten more accomplished this summer!" or "I wish I had done more fun stuff!" Well this year is going to be different.

First of all, I've decided that this summer is a chance to play housewife. This is the first year that I've gotten year-round pay working at a school, so it's the first summer I don't have to take on a summer job. There are a few goals that I want to accomplish daily since I will have free time:

1. Wake up early! Early for me would be between 7 and 8. I am going to try to wake up early every day. I hate it when I sleep in late and feel like half of my day is wasted! That's not going to happen this summer. I think maybe I'll wake up with Luke and see him off to work in the morning. He would probably appreciate that :-)

2. I'm going to try more new recipes, and try to improve my cooking and baking skills with every opportunity I get. I kind of got a jump start on that tonight, because I fixed a new recipe for dinner. It came from Taste of Home's "Cooking for Two" magazine. I tried the Santa Fe Chicken and Rice:I was so thrilled with how it turned out! First of all, it actually looked like the picture. This never seems to happen for me, so I was excited! And it tasted pretty good, too! It was a little spicy, because I accidentally used medium salsa instead of mild. Which, I loved, but Luke doesn't like anything spicy. I will definitely save the recipe and re-make it later. Next time I'll use mild salsa, but I think Luke liked it this time even though it was a little spicy. It was so easy, too! So anyway, I'm really looking forward to having lots of spare time to cook and bake this summer!

3. I'm planning on making t0-do lists and schedules and sticking to them, using my household organizing binder. I want to accomplish a lot inside and outside my home. I will NOT let myself sit around when there are things to be done!

4. I want to stick to my "Read through the Bible in a year" plan. I've been doing it for a month now, and have been sticking to it! I want to begin every day in God's word.

5. Finally, I want to get in shape! I will either walk, run, ride my bike, or do SOME kind of exercise as often as possible.

Now for the fun stuff. I don't plan on working every free minute. I want to enjoy myself a little bit too! So here are my "fun" goals:

1. Every Monday my mom has off work. I'm looking forward to going out with her and my sister on a lot of Mondays. Next Monday, Mom and I are planning on driving up to Akron to pick my sister up and go to the Akron Zoo, and then do some serious shopping and possibly a movie :-)

2. Luke and I are planning on doing some fun, different things that we haven't done a lot of. We're going to make a to-do list of things we want to do together over the summer, and see if we can get them all done before school starts again. Some examples are: bike riding, trip to Cedar Point, trip to Amish country, hiking, drive-in movies (we got rained out last weekend!), etc.

3. I feel like this year has been extra stressful. Probably the most stressful year of my life because of so many changes! So this summer I'm making it a point to do something fun or relaxing EVERY DAY. It will be hard to think of different things to do every day. But it could be as simple as going thrift store shopping, taking a walk through a nature trail, going to the park to feed the ducks, visiting Julie at college, going to White House Farms and picking berries, going to a matinee with a friend, swimming at Mom and Dad's, having an at-home spa day with a friend, etc. You can see I've got lots of ideas already ;-)

4. Read, read, read. I can't wait to have lots of spare time to read! Of course, with all my other plans, I may not have too much spare time to read!

5. Reconnect with old friends. Last Thursday night when I went to Dunkin Donuts with some of my friends, I realized I really need to keep in touch with my girl friends. I've been hanging out with Luke and JC and all of their friends a lot, but that's just not the same as having close, GIRL friends. I want to spend a lot of time with them this summer.

Well, now that I've made some summer goals, I'm really ready for it to begin! It will officially begin at 1:00 on Wednesday. I'm so excited...last year the first half of my summer I was preoccupied with wedding plans, and the second half I was preoccupied with adjusting to married life. So I'm ready to have a pretty free summer this year.

Oh! Before I go I have to share some great news! I wrote the other day about how Luke and I are planning on saving up for a new camera. Well today Luke surprised me by saying that we have an extra $300 this month that isn't budgeted to anything yet. We decided to spend half of the money on the new camera, and save the other half. So tomorrow night after work, I will be meeting Luke at Wal Mart and we will be picking up this beauty:
Yay for a new camera! My Kodak Easyshare is just not cutting it anymore. I can't wait to get my hands on this baby and play with it all night tomorrow! It's going to be a pretty great day: last day of school with the kids (although I will miss them!) and then immediately picking up our new camera. And then we'll head over to the park (where Luke happens to work) for Luke's first church softball game. You better believe I'll be takin' some pictures there :-D

Have a great night...Happy early summer!

Meet Max

After my sister-in-law's graduation today, my friend Kim dropped her Maltese, Max, off at my house. Her family is going to the beach for a week, and I'm the proud pet-sitter. Just look how cute this little guy is!He was a little drowsy when he first got here. Kim gave him some pills for the ride here, because he gets carsick. It must be pretty bad, because it was only a 10 minute drive for him! But he pretty much crashed when he got here. He laid with me on the couch while I watched one of my favorite movies of all time: Pollyanna. It just happened to be on TCM today. So we had a relaxing afternoon!

Gabby is not too sure about our little visitor. But despite a few hisses and one or two swats, she has been minding her manners. I'm hoping that they will get along by the end of the week! Poor Max, he keeps Naively running after Gabby, wanting to play. He doesn't realize she's still a little nervous and jealous of him! So I hope he doesn't get hurt.

I managed to capture a few pictures of Gabby and Max, trying to get used to each other. It was adorable.

At first, Gabby just hid behind a chair.
Then when Max and I were snuggling on the couch, Gabby got brave enough to jump up and have a peak at him.
She kept slowly putting her paw out and quickly tapping him, like she was trying to figure out if he was real, or alive or something. So cute
She finally got brave enough to come all the way up on the couch to check out the situation.
And then Max moved a little bit. He had just been staring that whole time. It freaked Gabby out, and she hissed and ran across the room. She jumped up on the table, and spent the rest of the afternoon there. Just STARING. If looks could kill...
Immediately, in Max's drugged up state, he fell asleep. Right on my stomach...he's a cuddler! I had to check to make sure he was breathing a few times...that pill really knocked him out!Gabby wanted so badly to keep staring at Max, just in case he made a sudden movement or did something interesting. But after awhile she just couldn't keep her eyes opened anymore. So we all had a restful afternoon :-)

Later, Luke and I had a bit of a date night. Well, we went to Taco Bell and Giant Eagle. Not exactly a "date" but still fun! I hope we can always just have fun together no matter what we do. I'm so lucky to be married to my best friend!

Well, I'm headed upstairs to watch a scary movie with Luke. I'm glad I have Luke, Gabby, and Max to cuddle with so I don't get scared! lol.

And I'm hoping that Max and Gabby will become friends this week. Gabby's gotta love him. Who wouldn't love this face?!

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Summer countdown: 3 DAYS!!! I couldn't be more ready for some time off to get this house in order, try out some new recipes, and just have fun!