Monday Funday!

Yesterday Cody and I enjoyed the day at Sea World!  I hadn't ever been before, and he'd been wanting us to go all summer.  We really enjoyed it... minus the heat and blazing sun.  Speaking of... while I did thoroughly enjoy our day, it was horrible timing.  I was still sunburned from South Padre and I KNEW being in the sun would be a bad idea -but we couldn't think of another day that would work (as we're hoping I'll be hired soon).  About half way through the day, I rubbed my arm and it felt funny.  I looked down, and my arms are covered in these tiny clear blisters.  And the hypochondriac that I am (according to Cody) started freaking out.  Cody calmed me down, saying he'd had that when he was little from a bad sunburn, and since they were odd but didn't hurt, I tried to enjoy our ride on the Steele Eel.  Anyways, besides freaking out whenever Cody accidentally touched my arms the rest of the day, I was fine -and after sleeping and rolling around on them, I woke up to just peely skin and hardly any blisters left.  So besides the sunblisters, we watched both the Shamu show and the Sea Lions show, feed Sea Lions and Dolphins (which I touched for the first time!), saw the aquarium, watched the Pirates in 4-D show, and rode both rollercoasters twice! There were NO lines, and it was amazing.  We rode each ride once in the middle-ish and then the second time in the very front.  We had a lovely date day together.

My Sunblisters!  They looked like water droplets.

On a seperate note, today I had an interview at an elementary school in Southside at 4 o'clock, and it went really well!  I think they really liked me; my only concern is that they may want someone with experience in the younger grades (it's for a 1st Grade position).  So please pray that they like me and decide I would be good for 1st Grade!

(PS - I know I still haven't finished sharing about South Padre... I will!  It takes forever for me to go through my pictures.)

Goodness, it’s hard to workout when your younger brothers are there mocking your exercises!

We're currently in South Padre enjoying a nice beach trip with my family -minus Ryan... but we all wish he was here!  So if anyone cares, here's my new workout update: I've been good doing it everyday from last Monday when I started through this Sunday, and I took my first day off yesterday due to already being extremely sore from the paddle boards.  However, I will say... Sean and Aaron have not let me hear the end of how "weak" my Kickboxing video workouts are!  They have half-mocked-half-pretended to do it seriously with me a couple times.  It normally ends with one of them laughing and asking me "Are you seriously out of breath from that?"  I guess at least I have provided them with daily entertainment! 

Cody bungee jumped for the second time!  I think he's now addicted to that adrenaline rush because he's saying he may do it AGAIN here this week to record a video of it to possibly use in his classroom.  It was nothing compared to his first jump at Victoria Falls... but it was a bungee jump nonetheless.  I may try to convince him to share about it on here later. 

This morning I had a phone interview with a middle school in Judson ISD for an ESL teaching position.  They called me on Sunday and asked me to come in today, and I'm grateful that upon telling them I was on a vacation with my family here, they were perfectly willing to do a phone interview.  While it was very short -only 5 questions and 10 minutes long- I think it went really well.  We'll see if anything comes from it.  It's now August and I can't help being really nervous that I'm not hired yet.  Please keep praying for a job!

Anyways.  We're enjoying the sun and beach... and our new condo!  We stayed Thursday to half of Sunday in one place that my parents weren't pleased with, and after talking to the manager, we moved to a new, clean, pretty nifty place for the rest of Sunday through Thursday.  Cody and I are definitely not complaining about now getting our own room without the boys!

More to come along with pictures of our South Padre trip once we're back home!  Hope everyone's having a lovely week!

Happy Wednesday

First of all... I hate headaches!  -Especially headaches that stick around for Day 2.  My head was killing me last night, so of course I was excited to go to sleep and wake up feeling all better... only that didn't happen.  I woke up with an even worse headache that has only continued to worsen as the day has gone on.  Ugh.  Anyways... that's not really why I'm posting.  I realized I forgot to mention the Christmas in July sale I did with my mom on Sunday! So, last Sunday I helped her set up, take down, and work her booth all day.  Unfortunately... it wasn't very successful.  Hardly anybody came and we only had 2 sales -both to friends that showed up right as it all opened at noon, and after that nothing!  While it wasn't technically profitable, I'm glad we did it and I really enjoyed the day with my mom.  We haven't had girl time in quite a while and it was nice.  Nonetheless, I doubt she'll be doing a sale like that again anytime soon.

Also, we leave for South Padre tomorrow! Whoop!  Tomorrow is Cody's last day at his conference... so I'll be driving up with my parents and brothers in the morning, and he'll drive up in the evening once he's done -unless he's too tired, in which case he'll join us on Friday.  I'm seriously hoping my headache is gone by tomorrow... because 5 hours of sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Sean and Aaron in the car will definitely make it worse if it's not already gone!  We're all excited for the trip though... who doesn't love the beach and sun and ocean?  -Minus the sunburn and jellyfish and crabs and sand that gets everywhere... Seriously. I do love the beach, just if you know me, I'm not a very outdoorsy person in general!

So that's it.  I'm annoyed by Day 2 of my horrible headache and just wanted to share about the Christmas in July sale and our South Padre trip starting tomorrow.  Happy Wednesday!

 P.S. If you happen to enjoy online shopping... check out my mom's eBay store: Only If It's Cute. Click the following link to go to her site!

http://stores.ebay.com/Only-If-Its-Cute

Lately...

Well to start, two weeks ago I had 2 more interviews at elementary schools, on the 12th and 16th. The first didn't go so well, but the second one did -however, nothing (at least so far) has come from it. So, on the job front note, still waiting and hoping for more calls. As it's pretty much almost August... I'm starting to get more and more nervous about not being hired yet. I'm still trying to remember to trust that the Lord will provide something, just this waiting and not knowing isn't very easy or comfortable to do. Any continuous prayers for a teaching opportunity are still very welcomed!

-Cooking Experiment: Success or Failure-
On a different note, the past month I've kinda taken off cooking our dinners -not intentionally... with the Ohio trip and stuff randomly coming up, it just sort of happened. So the past week I've made a mental note to make an effort to buy groceries and cook for us again. So far we've enjoyed a couple new meals this week as I felt in the mood to experiment some. I made a cream of chicken dish that was fairly good, and then chicken with egg fried rice which was definitely a cooking experiment success! I was excited to find something new that was easy and quick but still enjoyable. I also recently made no bake cookies that my dad said he used to make as a kid and hadn't had in 35 years. They weren't bad, just not what I was expecting. I may make them again, but definitely not often... maybe as a gift for my dad (here's hoping he wasn't lying that he liked them!).

Last Thursday Cody and I had a fun date day at Fiesta Texas (thanks to Sue and Steve for the tickets... and sorry again we weren't able to use them with yall earlier this year). Fortunately it wasn't super crowded and we got to ride everything we wanted by the time we were ready to leave. The first ride we did was the (fairly) new Goliath roller coaster. I don't know if it's because it's been three years since I've ridden a roller coaster, or because I'm constantly becoming more weak and wimp-like, or because it was just an intense ride... but nonetheless, half the ride my eyes were squished shut and the other half I was screaming -after having decided I was too adult to scream on rides any more. We got off and I nearly fell over trying to walk. A ride has never made me so dizzy and light-headed before. Maybe I don't handle roller coasters as well as I used to! Anyways. Aside from the Rattler (which I already knew I hated since it's a wooden ride -and only rode so Cody wouldn't ride alone), the other roller coasters were much less intense. We very much enjoyed the day out together doing something different.

Today was the first day of Cody's AP conference. That's what he'll be doing all this week, getting the necessary hours and training to teach his Pre-AP courses for this coming school year. At least from this first day he's said it's been some good, useful, and interesting stuff they've talked about. I'm sure by day four he'll be ready to be done. As for me, being home alone today forced me to face the mess we've been accumulating. Two loads of laundry and some dishes later I decided to leave the rest to split up between tomorrow and Wednesday. –Sadly I am NOT a naturally domestic wife in the sense of keeping our apartment clean and tidy! It’s something I’m working on. Thursday is the last day of Cody's conference, and is the day I'm leaving with my parents and brothers for South Padre to enjoy a nice beach trip. The plan as of now is for Cody to drive up Thursday evening after he gets out for his last day... we'll see if he's up to it, otherwise he'll join us on Friday.

Goodness... there was more to write about than I thought. The last thing for now is that as of today I started "working out." I say "working out" because with my asthma, after 3 minutes of anything I can’t breathe... therefore running and most things are not an option for me; I just do things to tone up and such. Usually my motivation to work out lasts for about 1-2 weeks tops and then I quite for 3-4 months before trying again for another measly week. So, I'm hoping that sharing this in our blog will help motivate me to keep it up. I'm doing workouts from a Kickboxing exercise video... I did two 10 minute videos today, and the soreness is starting to kick in! Hopefully though I'll keep it up. I'll share whether it does continue or whether it turns out to have been a one day fluke. We'll see!

Apple Crumble

This past weekend I made a new dessert -Apple Crumble.  Now, as silly as it is, I truly want to find a dessert that my family loves... and for some reason this has been difficult for me.  Cody insists that I like trying to make weird things and will therefore never succeed.  I bake cookies that everyone loves, but in my head, the cookies' success doesn't count when they come out of a bag mix.  So, I decided to try an Apple Crumble recipe.  Along of course with Cody, -Sue, Steve, Kari, and John were over that evening to be part of my test subjects.  And I'm glad to say, unless they were all lying to me, that they liked it!  I am claiming it as a success among my baking experiments and will continue to make it and try to modify/improve it further.

If you happen to be interested in viewing or using the recipe, click here: Simple Apple Crumble.

Trip Pics

Rangers Game in Dallas with some friends.

Cody holding a baby for the first time! Holding his cousin's week old son, Grant.  We enjoyed visiting with them while in Dallas!

 Driving Pic -Entering Tennessee

We might have had a dance party in the car when we reached 1,000 miles on our trip.

Driving Pic -We all agreed that Kentucky was the prettiest state we drove though.

Just us.

The boys enjoyed lots of ATV riding around my aunt and uncle's land.

Who doesn't have fun on a trampoline?





And this is our game called Cornhole.  You and a partner stand opposite each other and play against another paired team.  You take turns tossing bean bag things (I think technically they're filled with corn, hence the name.) to score points.  1 point for landing the bag on the board, 3 points for making it in the hole. Our family enjoys playing this tournament style.

At one point during the drive, this is how bored I was!  I created a Starburst wrapper collage... and took multiple pictures of it.  -Thank you Cody and Sean for donating your wrappers to my art.

 

And even though Kim refused to get out of the background of all the family pictures lol... I'm glad we took these!  Family pic: Ohio Trip 2010.

46 hours: 2,600 miles

That’s right. From San Antonio to Ohio, our round trip was approximately 46 hours drive time and 2,600 miles. I’m sure people make longer car trips than we did, but that was definitely long enough for me!

We got back home late Wednesday afternoon after about two weeks out on the road. Our trip started in Dallas (as already mentioned) for a wedding, and then we met up with my family and started the long drive to Ohio for a fun and casual family reunion.

It was wonderful getting to see everybody again that we haven’t seen in years! And I was very glad that Cody finally got to finish meeting everybody on my dad’s side. It was a pretty big group (although that’s nothing new for either my mom or dad’s side). I could be wrong… but I believe our total count was 41, with 39 being the largest number of people gathered at the same time. It was great though –the more the merrier. There was always something to do! Our days involved a lot of board games, card games, talking/catching up, eating, and Cornhole. In fact, Cody organized a lovely Cornhole tournament that almost everyone participated in. (This should not surprise anyone if you know my dad’s family.) I’m proud to say that my cousin, Kris, and I were the runners-up in the losers bracket –and while it may not sound like it, that’s quite an accomplishment for me! Besides Cornhole, my mom brought a new game to the table and we (of course) organized a tournament to play this game as well… I don’t know what it’s called, so I’ll call it the Oreo Challenge.
We drew numbers and were paired up, and what you do is sit in a chair and race your opponent. You tilt your head back, place an Oreo cookie on your forehead, and then start squirming and wiggling your face to move the cookie from your forehead, to cheek, to mouth, and the winner is the first to successfully get the Oreo into their mouth with only using your face muscles. It sounds ridiculous; it looks ridiculous; it feels ridiculous as you are doing it… but it is well worth it because it is hilarious and overwhelmingly entertaining with a group! There was chanting and cheering and lots of pictures taken of people with Oreos on their faces.

Towards the end of the trip we drove by my grandparents’ old house (I knew them as Mimi and Poppy), and I guess as expected, the house was completely different. We also visited the cemetery and found their gravesite/tombstone. By then it was basically the end of our trip! We spent more time in the car than we did in Ohio, but it was worth it to see everyone. We enjoyed seeing lots of babies on our trip! Starting in Dallas we saw Cody’s cousin’s newborn, my cousin’s (approximate) one year old, and in Ohio two of my cousins had babies, a 3 month old and a six month old. I really enjoyed getting to see and hold all of these adorable babies!

I know this has gotten beyond long for a blog post, but the last thing to mention cannot be forgotten. Growing up a huge part of our Ohio trip each summer was White Castles. White Castle is a fast-food hamburger restaurant that is not available to us in San Antonio… or at all in Texas (I think). Nonetheless, it was part of the tradition of our trip each year, and something I think we were all conditioned to love growing up. I wish I had the highest count of who ate the most… but sadly overall this trip, I think we ate them the least of any other year –only either 3 or 4 stops. And for myself, I was sick the drive home, so I only believe I had 3 or 4 White Castles the whole trip… it was a very low count compared to previous years… if only I hadn’t been sick!

Anyways, that’s pretty much it! Two weeks on the road; round trip: 2,600 miles and 46 hours from San Antonio to Ohio. Now we’re glad to be recuperating back at home!