Birthdays

Last week was my birthday; I am now 26 years old.  Twenty-six still seems fairly young to me even though it does round up to 30 (although, 25 did too, so I was already used to that).  Twenty-seven however ... next year, really just sounds old.  Not OLD, but you know... older, more grown-up, a real adult, etc.  Cody is therefore, as of November, officially old in my mind.

This round of birthdays we both enjoyed weekend trips.  In November for Cody's birthday, we went up to College Station to watch an A&M football game.  It was a short trip but we did stay the night about halfway home which ended up being really nice and just gave the short trip a real sort of 'weekend trip' feel.  One of Cody's favorite things from College Station was Layne's chicken fingers and sauce.  Oh my goodness.  I cannot count how many times I have heard him talk about wishing he could have some Layne's or joking about driving up to College Station just to get lunch.  So of course as soon as we arrived in town, we ate at Layne's.  (Technically only Cody ate at Layne's... as you probably know I do NOT enjoy Layne's chicken fingers.  I suffered instead through a Schlotzsky's sandwich as they terribly messed up my order.)


Also before the game we super briefly met up and said hi to a friend of Cody's, Aaron, who was also visiting College Station that weekend.  We also toured the new MSC and Rudder fountain.  I was not a fan of the new fountain.  What was wrong with the old one?? I liked the old one.  The new MSC was ... very new and modern looking.  I guess it was neat and fine, but again, I liked and remember the old one.  I more understand the need to rebuild the MSC building though than the fountain.  Really - what was wrong with it?

Then we finally got to hike it on up the ramp to find our seats for the game.  We were in the far end of the student section; however, it was the least lively student section either of us had ever seen.  It was almost odd.  The thing the students around us were most energized and serious about was crossing their fingers for our kicker.  Other yells and things didn't get much energy at all.  (And if I say that, it says a lot.)  I learned a great deal about Johnny Manziel from Cody throughout the game and other players as well that I don't remember anything much about.  We had a great time though and really enjoyed it together, despite it getting pretty cold towards the end of the game.  Cody enjoyed it all so much it was beyond worth it.

This past weekend for my birthday, Cody bought us a weekend getaway to a bed and breakfast in Comfort that we went to in October of last school year - Meyer B&B. I took Friday off (yay!) and we enjoyed a wonderful 3 day weekend together.  When we arrived Friday after unpacking, we strolled around the B&B grounds for about two hours, taking tons of pictures, sitting on bench swings, and exploring.  It was a really nice time just talking with absolutely nothing specific to do or worry about.  We seriously probably took about 200 pictures just while we were having fun walking around.

We had a fireplace and jacuzzi to enjoy in our room!

Back porch area

Swings down by the creek

We thought the reflection in the creek was really pretty.

We went to the suite we had stayed in before and laid on the porch hammock for a bit.

Ready for dinner the first night.

We dressed up and went out to dinner Friday and Saturday night.  Cody doesn't care as much about this, but getting dressed up some to go out to eat together is something I really enjoy.  Cody was amazing all weekend since it was for my birthday by constantly letting me make decisions about what to do, where to eat, etc.  The only problem with that is how indecisive I am, but it all worked out nicely.  Saturday we drove a bit to Boerne and walked around exploring some antique shops and random other things.    We also brought a couple games and ended up only playing Sequence, but we played it numerous times.  Unfortunately I have the worst luck (or skill, who's to say...) and constantly lose.  I literally think we played either 7 or 8 games... and I only won about 2 of them.  Oh well.  We had fun.

In Boerne walking around.

Back at our B&B playing Sequence.

Overall it was a fantastic weekend and just much needed time together.  It's kinda hard to come back to a stressful work week after such a relaxing vacation where I forgot all about school and papers and to-do lists.

Dinner the second night.

Before our B&B trip, we also enjoyed three (yes, 3!) birthday dinners within the week.  First we had delicious Alamo Cafe with our small group of friends from church.  On Monday we went to Formosa Garden with Cody's family -Sue, Steve, and his grandpa and grandma.  And lastly we went to Macaroni Grill on Thursday with my parents and brother Aaron.  All the dinners were great and we got to enjoy lots of time with friends and family to celebrate!

Dinner with the Hendersons

I think everyone else enjoyed or at least tried the sushi except me.

My feelings about the sushi.

Reading cards and opening gifts.

Sue and Steve

Dinner with my parents and Aaron

Cody got me a delicious cookie cake to enjoy at dinner.

These last birthday dinner pics are from our cell phones and therefore awful, sorry.

Oh and PS - My birthday at school was also pretty nice : )  My suitemate decorated my classroom door with a banner and streamers hanging down. -They are all still up because it makes me smile each time we walk into the room.- Two of my teammates popped their heads in my door that morning and started my class singing happy birthday.  My team all together have stored me up with enough candy to last through the remainder of the school year, and my students were amazing and so, so sweet!  They told me happy birthday the minute they saw me that morning (and no, I did not remind them or make sure they knew it would be my birthday) and pretty much constantly throughout the day said they hoped I was having a good birthday and just made me smile.

Camping, Christmas, & Catch Up

First off Happy New Year! We enjoyed bringing in the new year with a simple and fun evening with some friends.  We always love eating at Alamo Cafe and then went to see Lincoln (Cody was interested, me not so much...).  Afterwards we went over to our friends to hang out until midnight and played a fun game of Balderdash.  I was sure I would win until right at the end when I was passed up lol.  Oh well.

Now to jump back a bit for some quick catch up...  The semester finished fairly quickly for both Cody and me.  Cody is loving his part-time job at Rackspace and that job will be continuing throughout the spring semester.  He finished his semester of grad school still maintaining his 4.0 and I am very proud of my hard-working husband : )   He only has 1 semester left (whoop!) that 'should' be a little easier and lighter of a load.

Teaching got pretty busy and stressful for a while (which is sharing nothing new) but thankfully the light of winter break helped to get through and I am almost ready to go back this coming Monday.  I'm hoping to hold off counting down toward Spring Break until at least mid February.  Surely that won't be too hard since my kiddos this year are amazing and everyone will hopefully be energized and refreshed for a while after the break.

Cody had his 27th birthday in November and we enjoyed a weekend in College Station to watch the A&M vs. Missouri game.  It got c-o-l-d at the game but was a lot of fun.  I think what I enjoyed most was just how happy it made Cody to go watch the game together, and of course to eat at Layne's once again.

December was a busy month full of two camping trips and of course Christmas.  I also enjoyed a day at the Witte Museum with my dad and youngest brother, Aaron, exploring the mummy exhibit.  While I'm sure some people would disagree, we all thought it was really fascinating. Towards the beginning of the month, Cody and I went on a camping trip with our church small group to Pedernales Falls.  We enjoyed campfire hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner followed by s'mores for dessert and hiked down around the falls twice.

Guys setting up one of numerous tents for all the couples.

We all packed into Pete and Kimberly's truck to head down to the falls.

Group shot at the falls. (I don't remember whose pic this was but thanks!)

The girls on the trip.

Just sitting around the fire.

The night we camped was the night of the Heisman announcement -so of course we had to listen to it to hear Johnny win : )

The next morning we hiked around the falls again.

Quick kiss while hiking.

The boys starting to explore.

We had a blast with our group!

One of the benefits of living in the same area as both our families is that we get to see both of them at Christmas.  We started off the day with my parents and brothers and enjoyed opening gifts, hanging out, and a delicious ham lunch before heading over to Cody's parents and grandparents.  There we enjoyed a second round of gifts and a wonderful turkey meal.  It was a fantastic day full of family and fun.

We celebrated our own Christmas together on Christmas Eve : )

Enjoying a delicious Christmas lunch.

Thanks Loves for taking the picture!

Cody and me on Christmas day.

Opening presents with the Hendersons.

Cody with his parents.  -Note the matching A&M hoodies : )

Cody and I had enjoyed camping with our friends so much that we planned another short trip to Pedernales Falls just a few days after Christmas.  Originally it was going to include all 3 of my brothers but that ended up falling through, so it was just Cody and me -oh and Callie and our neighbor's dog, Dax.  While we still were glad we went and had a nice trip, let's just say we won't be too eager to take two dogs camping again any time soon.  One dog -maybe, two dogs... probably not. Some of the things that happened on the trip:  We knew it'd be cold and brought plenty of layers to stay warm, however it was already colder than expected as soon as we arrived.  The layers started to go on immediately!  Then we realized we forgot the blankets for the dogs.  Each of us though the other had packed them, and so in fact neither of us did.  It was cold enough that we really were a little concerned so we set up the tents (yes tentS -we had one tent for us and a separate tent for the doggies) and then I was tasked with finishing setting up stuff inside the tents and staying with the dogs while Cody drove to buy blankets at wherever the closest place was he could find.  (And hot chocolate that we also forgot.)  He told me he'd be about 10 minutes, no problem.

Cody's new tent that was an awesome Christmas gift!
-Also we bougt a double person sleeping bag after another couple from our small group had one at the first camping trip earlier in the month.

So I finished blowing up the air mattress, setting up the sleeping bag, the dog's tent stuff... put on more layers... played with the dogs... sat in the dirt with the dogs because Cody took everything else with him and didn't even leave me a chair... and waited for what felt like forever.  The dogs were already slightly annoying -barking at every other dog and even just every person that was in any close proximity to us.  They were extremely restless and so I stupidly (yes, stupidly is very appropriate... even Cody had told me earlier that at no point on this trip did he want to have to walk/handle both dogs at once, that we always needed to have one each) thought to myself 'I don't remember it being that hard to walk both of them' and attempted to do so.  I barely managed to just get both of them off their stakes before thinking I was going to lose a finger.  They tangled me up all around my legs causing me to almost fall down a couple times, and in trying to get out of the tangle I managed to tangle my hand good in their leashes and again though I was seriously going to lose one or two fingers.  I'm sure I looked beyond ridiculous to the people slowly walking by our campsite.  I think we only made it about fifteen feet before I gave up realizing how awful this idea was and then struggled to get them each tied back on to their stake again.

While I was bored waiting for Cody to get back, I did have the camera and so I took some pictures. Here is our two tent set up. 

Both doggies tied up to their stake.  I don't know who was more bored and impatient while waiting... them or me.

Finally Cody arrived back about 50 minutes later (felt like SO much longer, although I will argue that even just 50 minutes is quite a while to be stuck by yourself outside in the freezing cold without even a chair to sit on).  We did have a nice rest of the evening together and enjoyed another round of hot dogs and s'mores.  The rest of the shenanigans happened in the middle of the night and the next morning.

Already cold still during the afternoon.

Cody, with Callie in his lap, at the fire.

Roasting our dinner over the fire.

We got all ready for bed after setting up Callie and Dax all nice warm and cozy in their dog tent.  It was frEEzing and we finally were semi-warm and fell asleep.  We both woke up in the middle of the night and it was somehow even colder than when we went to bed.  Seriously cold, and of course, I needed to go to the bathroom.  Cody checked in on the dogs and we bundled up like mad.  But after Cody looked in their tent they refused to settle back down.  Callie started whining so we decided to take the dogs with us on our trip to the bathroom.  Afterwards when Cody and I were putting the dogs back in their kennel in their tent, somehow that we're not quite sure, one of them (and I'm not specifying which) managed to run out. It took a second to realize what just happened (I mean really... remember it's beyond freezing in the middle of the night, one minute there's two dogs put nicely back in their kennel, and a second later we see one dart away into the pitch black woods surrounding us.) and when we did Cody and I just stared at each other in shock.  It was definitely a moment of 'oh my gosh, what do we do now?!'  Cody grabbed a light and went off to look while I searched in our tent for another light to join him.  Thankfully in a few minutes Cody was heading back with the dog in tow and we were beyond relieved.

The night was far from over though as Cody and I finally were back trying to get warm in our tent.  We, however, could not fall asleep due to Callie being the biggest baby in the world.  She is extremely needy and I guess after seeing us in the middle of the night she decided she could not be content being separated from us.  She would not stop whining and we could not fall asleep.  Once again Cody re-bundled up and went to bring Callie into our tent so hopefully she would be quiet and we could sleep.  At first all was well and we slept, I think, for a while at least.  It was a restless rest of the night though as Callie must not have been comfortable herself and decided to readjust herself and move probably every half hour until morning.  And being a small tent and a small air mattress to begin with, a dog walking all around and over and often on us definitely made it hard to sleep.

When morning came I woke up and found myself literally buried in our sleeping bag.  Seriously.  I was scrunched up in a ball to stay warm and my head was down in the middle of the sleeping bag.  When I woke up I kept scooting up to get my head out and kept thinking "where is the top of the bag? why am I so far down here?"  It was kind of funny -until I finally made it to the top of the sleeping bag, only to immediately see Callie's face in my face and then hear her start gagging/heaving... some awful noise and I knew what was coming. I yelled at Cody that she was about to throw up, not exactly knowing what I wanted him to do... unzip the doors and push her out of the tent in all of 5 seconds maybe... but it happened too quickly and before we knew it Callie threw up IN our brand new double sleeping bag - right by my head and pillow. I scrunched back down in the sleeping bag to avoid the ... you know... while Cody frantically searched for something we packed to clean it up.  While searching for something to clean it up, we discovered that this was Callie's second vomit and we must have slept through her first - as Cody's new A&M hoodie definitely had already been thrown up on.  Needless to say this all woke us up quite quickly.

Anyways.  We did, after some clean up, enjoy a nice camping breakfast of an egg scramble with tomatoes and hot chocolate.  Then we went down to the falls to hike around with the dogs and did have a great time out there.  We did overall enjoy our trip and were glad we went... but like I said, next time we'd prefer to go without the dogs.

We hope everyone reading this had a wonderful Christmas and New Year and will have a great January to kick of 2013! -And I don't know why I am incapable of being more brief in my writing, but props to you if you read through all my rambling to get to the end of this post.

Do these look like slippers to you???

My dad must care a lot about the shoes that people wear -or at least shoes that he deems "not real shoes" and therefore are not appropriate to wear out of the house.  For years now, I have consistently heard comments and questions about the shoes I choose to wear.  A long time ago it used to always be about my flip-flops -because through high school and most of college those were literally all I ever wore.  Now I have upgraded to what I consider "adult" sandals with little straps and things and flats.  I feel like I've way improved my shoe selection and can now present my feet in a more adult and professional manner.

The silver flats I was
wearing at lunch today.

 I get the feeling though that my dad disagrees.  Today Cody and I met my parents and Aaron for lunch in honor of my parents' 28th anniversary.  (Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad!!! I love you both a lot!)  On our way out of the restaurant, my dad made some typical comment about the slippers I was wearing out in public.  I tell you whole heartedly -I was NOT wearing slippers!  And I do not ever wear slippers out of the house.  He tells my mom the same thing often.  (Although to be fair, there was a period of time I do think she wore legit slippers to HEB consistently lol!)  I was wearing my silver flats that I even wear to work occasionally -and have gotten compliments on.  They are far from slippers.  I also have a pair of winter flats that are SO comfy and closed toe and cute that my dad always insists are slippers.  Today after lunch when a discussion ensued about shoes compared to slippers, my dad even specifically referred to my winter flats that I love and wear all the time once it gets cooler and I had to defend them yet again.  My brother, Aaron, who bought them for me for Christmas, also stood up for them as definitely not being slippers.  I think the pair of shoes I wear that my dad could make the best argument for would be my winter boots.  I guess they're a knock off type of Uggs.  However, they are such a common type of winter boot that I have trouble believing my dad doesn't know what they are and realize that so many women wear them during winter.


I decided to post about my shoes vs. slippers so I could feel like I have defended them publicly. Lastly to prove I am not wearing slippers out of the house, I took a picture of all the shoes in question and then also a pair of slippers that I have.  Feel free to comment and let me know if you agree that some of my shoes seem to be slippers!  My dad would love someone to back his side of the argument lol.

Cute comfy winter flats

Silver flats

"Uggs" (cough*)

Do any of those look like slippers to you???

REAL slippers

  

Highlights

I feel so blessed this year.  Even with the last two weeks probably being the most stressful and busy feeling weeks of the year so far (seriously, something just kicks in during the month of October... it's apparently a weird but fairly universal happening in the realm of teaching), I still am loving how this school year is going.

My class for the most part is really just a bunch of sweet, funny, and helpful kiddos.  I mean, they're not perfect... we have some "whoa" moments -but they have been few and far between... and even the worst of those yet this year, is not even a fraction of things from last school year.  They love earning tickets... I pull those out, and almost everyone is as close to perfect as they can get.  They're like tiny (dirty lol) magic cards.  I haven't even needed to bust out my "Super Tickets" yet, while last year, even a super ticket would only half do the trick.

Here are a few new things that I am really enjoying this year:

• VIP Folders -thanks to my suitemate for the idea! -I 'steal' a lot from her : )  They seriously have kept me up-to-date with grading each week and getting work corrected and returned.  SO much better than the system I used last year.  

• Friday Journals -this was suggested by our 2nd grade team leader and I'm really enjoying doing them!  Each Friday during our writing time the kids write a letter in a "Friday Journal" to their mom/dad/someone telling all about what we've done and learned this week.  Then over the weekend the parents write a short reply.  The kids really enjoy writing these letters each week.  It's awesome to hear what they remember and to see some things they write about.

• Calendar Time and Number Talks -while this might be boring to others, I absolutely am in love with this short time of the day.  We started both of these on day 1 this year and it is firmly built into our daily routine.  After lunch and recess we come in, sit on the carpet, go over our calendar for the day and then do a number talk.  I guess I don't know if I'm technically doing the number talks 'correctly' or not... but the kids get into it, and it really seems to be extremely beneficial so far.  It is probably one of the most quiet and focused times that I can even ask questions in a whisper and the kids answer with one.

• My team! : )  They are awesome. 

And now some random highlights of kid moments that I just feel like sharing:

• We recently did a short play over Christopher Columbus... and by 'play' I mean two groups took turns standing at the front of the room and reading the script to the rest of the class, definitely not a big ordeal.  But still, the kids had SO much fun and I had fun watching them.  They practiced reading their lines together, helped each other with their lines, and were so excited to 'perform' for the rest of us!  During one of our performances, I had two boys reveal their natural instincts to act.  Well, one more than the other, but they were hilarious to watch!  It was awesome.  Student X would say his lines with dramatic pauses, while everyone else was standing still and shy at the front, he was strutting across the room and would occasionally throw up some hand and arm gestures that matched his voice fluctuations.  Student Y, who had already said his one line, was behind him, and was also moving in smaller ways and attempting to "get into" the play lol.  Seriously... I don't think I can describe what it was like, but I was at the back of the room trying not to just crack up! At one point I literally held up the script I had in front of my face.  There were still other kids though that could see me and some comments I got were "Mrs. Henderson, your face is all red!" Along with, "Why are your eyes so watery?"  I love moments that are so funny I have to try and hold back my own laughter!

• Today I had a girl come up to me and give me a little coupon looking thing that said "You Did an AWESOME Job!"  She said, "Mrs. Henderson, this is for you.  I already have enough compliments for myself, so I thought you should have this one."  It was really sweet.  I hung it on my wall with other pictures and things from kids.

• I have just a few small pictures of me and Cody at my desk area, and once a student came up to me while I was putting our attendance and lunch count in the computer, and he started to ask a question, then stopped mid sentence, reached out and patted my arm and said (in an extremely giddy voice which added to the moment) "Mrs. Henderson, you look beautiful in this picture!"  He seriously melted me in that moment lol.  He was SO genuine and just smiled, and was pointing like he wanted me to see how beautiful I looked in the tiny picture on my filing cabinet. 

• One afternoon when we were going to the library for our turn to check out books, I had a boy holding the door for all of us.  It was his job, he was our door holder for the week, so he was doing his job nicely.  Usually though after the last student I take the door and have the door holder walk in before me to wherever we are going.  But this time, I went to take the door and told him thank you and he could go on in, he didn't move and he said, "No Mrs. Henderson, ladies first.  I'll go after you."  

• At the beginning of the year when I was telling my class all about me, I showed some pictures of Cody and me and said I was married and all of that jazz.  A few weeks after that, I mentioned again at some point that I was married, and half of my class had reactions and comments like they were shocked beyond belief (obviously the info I shared about myself wasn't interesting enough to remember lol) and I had one girl say in a seriously confused voice "When did you have time to get married?  How did that happen?"  The way she asked and her puzzled face was really cute.

• On a similar note to the above, and again with the pictures by my desk, I had a boy again come up to me and stopped to look at the pictures.  He pointed to one of me and Cody and asked "Who is that man with you?"  I replied he was my husband, and then the boy points at a wedding picture and exclaims "Ohh, so you were with the man and got married!"

• And last but not least, farts.  Yup -farts.  They CRACK me up!  Especially when we're on the carpet for a lesson, so we're all fairly close together and it's quiet, and well -there's no denying what we all just heard.  Half of my students are good about acting like it's no big deal and some of them even say things like "We all do it", but the other half are sitting there making ridiculous faces and trying to figure out who it was.  And oh my goodness, I always do my best to just help everyone keep moving on and doing what we're doing... but sometimes I just want to crack up because 1) it was SO loud or 2) just who the kid was that did it or 3) the face of the kid who did it is always priceless with a deer caught in the headlights look and 4) the reactions from other students are always entertaining.

Alright.  Sorry for probably the world's longest post about school... I guess that's it for now.  Yay for the weekend : )
   

A Little Perspective

Right now my mother-in-law, Sue, is on her third mission trip to Uganda.  I always really enjoy reading her blogs while she is on these trips and thought that there might be some other people out there interested as well.

Cody and I went on a mission trip to Zambia together when we were still dating during the summer of 2007, but for two reasons that trip often feels more like a distant dream rather than a real life experience.  Reason one is simple, it was more than five years ago now and some of it is starting to fade when I think about it.  Reason two is not as easy to admit, but honestly I do not think I was fully "there" during my time in Zambia.  I really believe I was called to go, I felt that strongly, and so obviously I did go.  And I loved it and it was absolutely an incredible experience, but it came at a time when there was so much... just life happening back home, that I was never really able to fully leave that behind and immerse myself in the mission trip at hand.  For that I often feel guilty when I think about the trip and truly regret not being able to put more of myself into what we were doing there.  However, part of all of that going on, was a big reason I felt called to go if that can make sense.  I truly believe had God not put that trip in my life that summer... well, I don't know what would have happened, but I think I possibly would have lost myself in way at that time.

What I was trying to get at, was that reading about Sue's experiences for the past two years and right now, always helps me remember my own experience in Zambia.  And more than that, it helps me remember that there is SO much more of the world out there.  It is far too easy to get lost in the daily routine of life with work and schedules and laundry.  I frequently live in a way that I seem to be oblivious to people and life outside of the school I work at, let alone people on another continent.  The pictures that Sue brings back, the stories of the children's faces lighting up, and hearing how such small things like a pair of shoes or medicine can so drastically impact and improve someone's life, all helps me remember there is such a bigger picture going on around us.  This world is so much bigger than me and my life and my problems or accomplishments.  It's good to be reminded of that.

If you would like to read about Sue's current mission trip to Uganda, here is a link to her blog.  She is also going in October on a trip to Ethiopia and will be using the same blog to document her experiences there as well.

http://suehenderson2012.blogspot.com