School's out for summer!

I’ve been out of school (work) for two weeks and have gotten lots done and had plenty of fun! (And I like to rhyme all the time. Seriously.)

Here’s what’s happened the past two weeks:

• I’ve organized and cleaned a lot! You just might not be able to tell when you first look at our apartment.

• I went to a public laundromat for the first time. I figured it was time to wash our comforter after two years. I’m glad it at least fits in our dryer so I could bring it home for that.

• Joshua and I attended a Rexburg Airport Board Meeting. It should be called a Bored Meeting. The Chairman likes to hear himself talk; I felt like I was at church. And I don’t think they really accomplished anything, but whatever floats their boats. It was awkward for us to be there. One of Joshua’s teachers is on the board and has talked to Joshua about it, and he said the meetings were open to the public so we could come. When we showed up they were all sitting around a board meeting table and had to go hunt down chairs for us.

• I finally found the perfect kitchen rug! It makes me so happy.

• I’m teaching myself how to french braid my hair. I can’t quite figure out how to do it when I get to the end of my hair to pull in, but I’m workin' on it. Someday I will french braid beautifully.

• We celebrated our second anniversary!!!

• I’ve been crafty and started a few different projects. One day soon I’ll finish them! (I have to go outside to spray paint and when I can it is not nice enough outside.)

• I’ve read a few good books.

• We have eaten quite a few fabulous home cooked meals, made by yours truly!

• I’ve conned Joshua into spending tons of time with me (though it didn’t take much conning). We even went to see Atlas Shrugged at the cheap theater. I thought it was good. Of course Joshua thought the book was better, but he thought the casting was really good and overall it was okay.

• And last but not least, I’ve finished a lot of blog posts and am way closer to being caught up! Soon I hope to be all caught up on last year so I can finally print it in a book. Woohoo for having some sort of family history!!

Our pretty new rug:

Anniversary Weekend

Monday was our second anniversary!! I can't believe it's been two whole years already!

We wanted to do something special and memorable for our anniversary without spending too much money. . .so we went camping in our very own living room! Saturday night we packed up all of our stuff so we could "leave" for our camping trip.

Here's how our camping trip went:

First, we set up our tent.

Then we got settled into our campsite.
We brought our backpacks full of treats, games, movies, pajamas, and flashlights; tons of blankets and pillows; a thermos full of hot chocolate; and, of course, root beer.

We went to our camp kitchen to get dinner ready and cooking.

We settled in to watch Bourne Identity while dinner cooked.

When it was ready we got to enjoy a tinfoil dinner!

After our movie we went for a nature walk.

We stopped to swing at the playground.

We stopped to enjoy nature.

This tree smelled soooo good!

Joshua hiked a mountain.

By his mountain we discovered that apparently
this is what it looks like under the road near stoplights.

After mountain climbing, we stuck to walking on the trail (railroad tracks).

Right before we made it back to camp we saw some wildlife!

Back at camp we enjoyed our hot chocolate (really it was just warm. . .
the thermos people lied) and a game of Settler's of Catan.

Then we watched Hitch before it was time for bed.

On Sunday we had our French toast breakfast for dinner.

Monday I took down camp while Joshua was at school.
I was pretty proud of myself for fitting that tent so neatly back into the bag!

We had a candlelit dinner of chicken croissants.
(They're our new favorite! Seriously. So good.)

For dessert we finally got our s'mores!! (We'd been too full on Saturday night.)

So that was our camping trip. We loved it! The weather was even nice so we left our window open for real fresh air most of the time. We tried the whole flashlight thing for a while (even going to the bathroom) so we could have more of a real camping experience, but when we wanted to play Settler's we decided it was just too much.

Settler's was our anniversary present to ourselves. We have so much fun playing it together! (And sometimes there's much competition and frustration/anger as well, but we'll just go with the positives right now.) Joshua also bought me pearl earrings, and maybe I should count the new organ book I essentially got for free when we bought Settler's with a coupon. I got Joshua the first Harry Potter book in Latin. He was thrilled!! He was really excited that he could read and understand the title of the first chapter. One day he'll have the skills to read it all on his own, but for now it's one he'll have to read with a Latin dictionary close by.

We had a fun weekend, and it's been a fun two years! Nobody can make me laugh quite like Joshua does. We're pretty silly sometimes and I'm glad we have each other to grow old and never grow up with. (I hear I'm pretty fabulous too.)

Mad at Craigo's

Yep. I'm mad at Craigo's. Joshua called the Craigo's place in Broulim's and ordered us a pizza, half cheese/half pepperoni, for dinner. When we got there to pick it up. . .there was no more Craigo's place in Broulim's. The lights were off and nobody was there. We asked the guy at the deli if he knew where they had moved, and he said they hadn't moved, just closed. Saturday had been their last day. What in the world?? We had called and ordered a pizza and they told us when it would be ready.

So we tried calling them back to ask where they were. I was put on hold and in the meantime we just drove to the regular Craigo's building. On the way to Craigo's, I ranted about them closing/moving and not telling us. Like Craigo's should have told us personally that they were moving. Of course I was mainly kidding, but really. . .it was only Tuesday and Saturday had been their last day at the place in Broulim's. It seems like it would be a common courtesy to mention to anybody that in case we didn't know, they were located at wherever they're located now.

We showed up at Craigo's (they'd never come back to talk to me, so after 5 minutes I was irritated and hung up) and waited in an atrociously long line! That was just to find out if they even had our pizza. Thankfully, they did. I think it's totally weird that they closed the place in Broulim's and didn't even bother to leave a sign or something. I was happy to have our wonderful smelling pizza, and I thought maybe I could get over Craigo's being lame.

Then we got home and opened our pizza. . . .
(Don't worry, this picture is after Joshua ate a couple slices. We didn't get a half-eaten pizza.)


In case you can't tell from this picture, only slice had no pepperoni on it. And the other slices that were pretending to be cheese (as in, they only had minimal pepperonis) totally made up less than half of the pizza. Somebody should be fired. Or at least taught how to cut a straight line.

We got jipped. And I'm mad at Craigo's.

He's got the fever!

Literally. Joshua had a really high fever all last weekend. It fluctuated between 100-102.8! Yikes! It was kinda scary, but we figured the doctor could only tell him to take Ibuprofen, drink lots of fluids, and rest. So he did all of those things, and we decided if it ever got to 103 we'd go to the emergency room. He spent much of the weekend looking a little something like this:

Monday morning came and he was still feeling super rotten. He not only had a high fever but some symptoms, such as a stiff neck and distinct headache, that the Mayo Clinic says you should see the doctor if you have. (The Mayo Clinic is pretty much like the Bible - but for sicknesses.) So he called the Health Center and went in that morning. They hooked him up to an IV and gave him 2 liters (that's soo much!) of fluid and nutrients. At this point he looked a little something like this:

Then they decided he had meningitis...but weren't sure if it was bacterial or viral. They were gonna send him to the hospital for a spinal tap so they could find out, but decided to hold off. In the meantime they gave him 3 medicines (one of which has 3 different drugs in it...so basically he's on 5 drugs) to take. If his fever got to 103 we were supposed to take him to the E.R. as soon as possible for a spinal tap. Scary stuff!

Good thing his drugs knocked his fever out! He stayed home from school on Monday and Tuesday. He went back to see the doctor on Tuesday and the doctor said it was nice to see he was still with us. Comforting, huh? The doctor said if it was bacterial meningitis the drugs wouldn't have been able to keep the fever down so we were past the scary part of his sickness. That was good, but viral meningitis is still a yucky thing. He made it to his classes Wednesday - Friday, but that was draining and he's spent much of the rest of his time resting. He still starts to feel nasty when his medicine is wearing off and it's time to take some more. Now he looks more like this:


With his monster pills and lots of sleep I'm hoping he's all better soon!

New Glasses

I got new glasses today!! I love them.

So in my handful of trips to the eye doctor I found a pair of frames I loved. They were just great...except that they were teal. I asked if they had them in any other colors and was super disappointed when the lady said no. She wrote down the info so I could look them up online. And I found that they also make them in brown. Turns out I could get the entire pair of glasses at the eye doctor for about 8 dollars more than what the frames alone cost online. :( I was sad because there's no way buying the brown frames would be worth it.

I was pretty set in loving the shape of these frames. I'd originally planned on buying glasses online anyway so I looked at a bunch of other websites and couldn't find anything that I liked. And I was set on having something I really liked. I was never really sold on liking the glasses I currently had, and after having to wear them every day for over two months I was pretty much hating them. So my new ones had to make me happy.

After much deliberating (really...it was like a month) I finally decided to get the teal frames. I really like the shape and how they fit. And besides, they'll be fun! So I went and ordered them. And then spent my days anxiously waiting for a phone call to say they were ready for me. Today was the day! And let me just say again, I love my new glasses! (Even the teal-ness.)

Me and my fabulous new glasses:
Check out this funny picture Joshua got
in his attempt to get a decent picture of me...

We're not sure how it happened that my mouth looks
like that but we both laughed really hard when we saw it.

Donut Monster

I've decided I'm a donut monster. I think I'm addicted. Seriously, I think about wanting donuts every day...or at least every other day. But don't worry, I don't really eat donuts that often. I just want to.

When I was considering my favorites I came up with chocolate, maple, chocolate or maple with nuts on top, glazed twisty donuts, cake donuts, coconut crunchy donuts (I don't know if they really have a name), and anything with lots of SPRINKLES!!! And my new and current favorite that I've only found at Broulim's...German Chocolate! They have them in both maple and chocolate. The hole isn't cut out all the way and they fill the middle to overflowing with German Chocolate frosting goodness. It was love at first sight. I want one now.

All I'm really trying to say is . . . I love donuts!!

Here's a picture some scrumptious looking donuts I found online.
(I love when they have TONS of sprinkles!)

The "Feds" & Easter

Each Head Start has a federal review every three years, and it was our lucky year! Seriously, we've been anticipating this forever. At least since I started in November. We were expecting them in December, then January, then . . . you get the picture. One of our regular volunteers always made fun of us for talking about "the Feds." Eventually we found out which week they were coming and got ourselves all ready. And they came last week!!

It wasn't nearly as terrifying as I'd been expecting. One came to our center on Tuesday to observe Connie's and my class. Rose had told us she would probably be there for half an hour. Two and a half hours later we were glad to see her go. But she was a really friendly lady. Not scary like I'd imagined. And she was only observing the environment and what we do for school readiness.

The other "Fed" that observed our classroom came on Thursday. She was the one actually using an observation tool to grade everything based on a scale. I wasn't too nervous to teach with her there until I noticed how often she was checking her watch. In the back of my mind, I knew it was really because they are supposed to do 20 minutes in/10 minutes out, but I couldn't help thinking maybe I was spending too long on certain activities. I got nervous then. Turns out she thought our classroom was great! And now we can be relieved it's all over for another three years!!

Now, totally unrelated except that they happened in the same week. . . .

We decided to buy lots of Easter candy this year!! Joshua and I went shopping together but kinda bought our own candy, so we both got what we wanted. Then we threw it all together for our basket:


For Easter dinner we went over to the Barrons. They made a succulent ham, green bean casserole (my first experience with one! and it was so good!), and cooked carrots. We took over potatoes, gravy, and rolls. Basically our dinner was heavenly!! For dessert we had our own mini cookie monsters! After dinner, we were so busy talking we forgot to play games. Overall, I'd say Easter was great this year. Good church meetings, awesome dinner, and even better company!