Hello 2013

It's really hard to believe that another whole year has come and gone. It was definitely one for the books though (literally. I just printed most of our proposal/engagement/wedding pictures, and I think it's going to take longer to scrapbook everything than it took to plan the wedding!). It was definitely a great year, though!

In January I turned twenty-two, and Michael and I started our last semester of college, and were living apart. He was still on campus at school, and I was back home three hours away, living at home with my parents while I did my student teaching.

In May, we both graduated from college. From the same college, on the same day, during the same ceremony. It was wonderful getting to see all of our hard work pay off (even though Michael really did not want to walk the stage). It was an incredible feeling, graduating after four years. The four years went by very fast though!

In June, I had my bridal shower, which was a complete blast. Even though we were still a few months from the wedding, we were moving into an apartment before getting married and wanted everyone to be there without worrying about work (for my teaching friends, which is a lot of them!).

July/August was busy for us. We were out searching for apartments when Michael got the call saying that he had gotten the job that he has now, and we were thrilled. We knew that we would only be able to get an apartment if he got the job. We found one we loved that day. During that time span, I was also given my job, which was very exciting!

The week of the wedding was full of fun activities. I took off Thursday and Friday since I had friends coming into town and things like that. Our rehearsal was on Thursday night, and it went wonderfully, and then I have my bachelorette party Friday, with the wedding being on Sunday. It was all a wonderful whirlwind, a lot of which I can not remember now!

And of course, in December we celebrated our first marriage as a married couple, though it was actually our sixth Christmas together. It was great, between spending time with both of our families, and having time to ourselves. Christmas morning. It makes me excited for traditions to continue in the future.

So, here we are with 2013. Here's hoping for another great year! Happy New Year, everyone! :]

Christmas 2012

From our date night, on the 23rd

 
It's really hard for me to believe that Christmas has already come and gone. It was our first Christmas married, and I have to say that it was a great one, full of new and old traditions that I cannot wait to share with our children when we have them in the future. As of now, though, we are enjoying the holidays as our tiny family of two, before going over and spending time with our families. We used to have a tradition of celebrating "our" Christmas on the 23rd (since we do everything on the 23rd), but we decided to change things up a bit this year.

Aren't the lights amazing?

Since we knew we would wake up at home Christmas morning, we decided to keep up our date night on the 23rd, but wait to do our presents. Instead, that night we invited my brother and his fiance out for a double date night. We went to dinner and then went to a place called Prairie Lights, where they had about 4 million Christmas lights set up. It was incredibly, to say the least. It was definitely a night full of many laughs and great memories, and a tradition I hope to continue for awhile, maybe doing something different each year.

Our winning gingerbread house, we didn't plan the Christmas colored shirts!

For the past few years, we have had the tradition of doing Christmas with my parents on Christmas Eve. Since we were all getting married/in relationships, it seemed like the best time to do it because none of us ever had big plans that day. This year, was by far the best so far. We had fun games like a gingerbread house competition (which we won (look at that beauty!)) and a Christmas Song scramble (which we won). We dominated the games, coming away with $22 in scratch off lottery tickets! We spent some time coloring, went to church as a family, had a dinner of my mom's famous, incredible lasagna, and opened presents. It was a great day, and it went by incredibly fast. This year felt very much like Christmas!

We went to see the Nutcracker ballet the weekend after Thanksgiving.

 Christmas morning, we did "our" Christmas together. I put some cinnamon rules in the oven, and we did stockings and opened our presents to one another while we waited on breakfast to cook. It was a lot of fun just having the time together. I know that this time will be set aside for us from now on, which will make for wonderful Christmas mornings when we have children. Christmas day was spent with Michael's family, something we have been doing for several years as well. His grandpa lives with his mom now, and his aunt and uncle were in from Minnesota, so most of his mom's side of the family was there, which made for a fun day. We had a big Christmas lunch, watching some Christmas movies, did a gift exchange, had dinner together, and then opened some more gifts. It was a great day, and a great holiday season!

Now comes New Years, taking down the Christmas decorations, and starting in on semester number two of my first year teaching. Hoping everyone else had a Merry Christmas!

I've realized...

I'm going to have to give in and have someone design a blog template for me. No matter what I find in the free things, I'm just not happy with them. I do not have the programs or ability necessary to do it myself, either. With that being said, any suggestions on who I should use? I don't want to have to spend a WHOLE lot, but I would like something that looks nice and clean so I can feel good about the blog and get it rolling again.

HELP?

Under Construction

I have not been happy with my blog design for quite some time, so I'm finally trying to work on it. (which should be interesting since I don't really have any of the programs needed to make that happen) anyway, it will be a little crazy around here for a little while!

Working at a Title I School...

 Let me tell you, when I got my job I was just so thrilled to finally have one that there were probably some things I did not think to ask before actually taking the job. Sure, I'm not positive it would have changed my choices, but perhaps I would have gone out for interviews I had gotten after I said 'yes' since I had yet to hear from HR. One thing I was not told at the interview when I was offered the job was that it was a Title I school, which would have been a pretty good fact to know. I certainly have nothing against them, and I know often these schools and students need a lot of help, but I was not prepared as a first year teacher at the age of twenty-two to deal with THIS.

Before school even started, I was asked to be one of the cheer sponsors. I had mentioned doing drill team through most of high school and dancing before that, and apparently that made me a prime candidate. Then we were told that there were only six girls total, so we would be combining the squads and working together, which was really for the best. It would have been, at least, if the other sponsor and I were not so completely different. I suppose that is another story for another day, though.

I was at our football game two weeks ago and I began to think about some things. I knew we were Title I, but I had never really been able to see the differences first hand. That week we were playing our new assistant principals' old school. It was quite clear they were not really wanting for much, and their demographic is VERY different. I did find this pretty interesting, since their middle school is less then ten miles away from our school.

Then I began paying attention to the details. A lot of my seventh grade boys play football, and they were thrilled to see me at the games, watching them play. While I could tell that they did not really care much about their uniforms, I found it bothered ME a lot. The other team had their name and mascot on their helmets. Their jerseys were their main school colors, were obviously their own with their name and number on them. They had the school name on the front. Despite being in middle school, their uniforms were honestly pretty legit.

Then I looked at our boys.

Plain white helmets, aside from the stains they had acquired throughout the season. White jerseys with blue numbers; no name of the boy, no name of the school. One of the boys told me that before the game they were simply thrown a jersey in their size and told to put it on, and then they would make the list so they could announce it. It made me MAD. My boys care so much about the games, and they have to dress like that.

Now, I know Title I means making sacrifices and not having much, but I did not understand it. Surely there is something that can be done. If several schools throughout our ISD have the money for things like that, shouldn't there be a way to split it up a bit better so we could get simple things like new uniforms for the football boys? At least ones that say our school name across them. I know in the scheme of things, it's a little thing, but I can imagine that the boys might have a bit more confidence in themselves if they had something a bit nicer.

Anyway, it's simply been on my mind. I know things in life are not fair, but sometimes I wish they were a little bit better.