Round 1 of 3

Christmas! Wahoo for Christmas! I was SO ready for this break to get here! I need a break from students who were equally ready to be done with the semester as I was. Brian gets a nice long break from work too! On the 24th we usually go see a movie with my parents and brother, but there weren't any movies that sounded good, so we decided to play some board games instead. My dad (who is one of the most competitive people ever) won Clue. I was mad because he guessed the correct answer and I was going to win on my next turn! We played Scene It after that - my mom and I were WAAAY ahead until the guys got some lucky rolls of the dice and went ahead of us - and won. :( After losing, Brian and I went back to our apartment so that we could change clothes before heading to Christmas Eve service. As we were driving up to the church we were talking about how we should have talked with our friends Andrew and Amanda and asked what service they were attending. When we pulled in the parking lot we were EXTREMELY excited to find that they had arrived about 30 seconds before us! The service was good - but I'm fairly sure I drifted off to sleep - it did start at 11:00. Whoops. We came home, went to bed and I actually slept through the night. This might only be the second year that's happened. I'm generally too excited for Christmas morning to sleep through the night - and I always have to go downstairs and peek under the tree. I'm a snooper. However, we slept in our own apartment. It was the first time ever that I hadn't slept in my parents house on Christmas Eve. I thoroughly enjoyed my own bed.

We finally made it to my parents and started opening gifts around 10:30. I love that I am now far more excited to see how people react to gifts given to them than I am to receive gifts. I had spent some time shopping with my dad for gifts for mom and I couldn't wait to see if she liked some of the things I/we had picked out. My dad got her a pair of uggs. I'm jealous. She looked pretty cute wearing them. My favorite gift was a cookbook, given to me by my husband. He went through tons of recipes on allrecipes.com and made me a cookbook - complete with pictures and all. It is SO impressive. I thought it was an actual cookbook that he purchased until I saw the recipe category labels printed in my favorite font. It's full of recipes for foods that I love! It's a perfect custom cookbook. I love it.

Once we finished opening presents my dad told us that my Aunt Chris had passed away in the early morning hours. She's had cancer for a long time, and it was expected, but very sad.

Round 2 is tonight with the Foxworthy siblings. Derin can't make it to Florida with the rest of us, so we're going to get together tonight.

Round 3 - sunny Florida. Can't wait!

V8 and Holiday Sweaters

Have you seen the V8 commercial where this guy orders a hamburger with extra bacon and no lettuce or tomato - just to be hit smack dab in the middle of the forehead by the woman working the drive through window? The narrator then says, "You could of had a V8." I usually have to chuckle when I see that commercial. I often find myself in my job as a teacher wanting to give my students a similar forehead smack for the dumb things they say.

Me: Why don't you have any of your stuff?
Student: I forgot my backpack in my car.

I mean, seriously. FOR REAL. How can you forget your backpack in your car...Didn't you notice you felt a little lighter on your feet walking into the building?

Me: Why don't you have any of your stuff for class? (notice a theme here?)
Student: I let some kid use my backpack and he stole it.

Oh My Word.

Student: Do you want us to do this in SPANISH?
Me: You can do it in French or Japanese if you prefer.

Yeah...Spanish...cuz we're in SPANISH class.

Student: I was absent yesterday. Did we do anything?
Me: No. I saw you were gone so we sat and did nothing for an hour and a half.

I mean, come on. Do they hear the words that come out of their mouths? Did we do ANYTHING? They can't possibly think they didn't miss anything, can they???

I have to share this story... About two weeks ago we had a spirit day at school and students and teachers were supposed to wear tacky holiday sweaters. I didn't have one to wear - because amazingly after four years of teaching I still haven't succumbed to "teacher clothes". I thought of borrowing one from my mom - but I hope that over the years I've made clear that holiday sweaters with snowmen and trees and fuzzy balls aren't fashionable. Stacy and Clinton (fashion gurus from What Not to Wear) have said it MANY MANY times. I have a student - she is just about the sweetest girl - I love her to pieces and she said, "Señora, I have this teacher and she had on a sweater today. I, like, totally wanted to tell her that I liked her ugly sweater. But then I didn't know if it was on purpose. It's, like, totally the kind of thing she would wear on a normal day. I didn't want to tell her I liked her ugly sweater if she didn't mean for it to be ugly." Oh, bless her sweet heart. I told her she made the write choice. When she told me what teacher it was...I emphatically agreed that she had made the right choice.

Ah - ya gotta love 'em.

it just felt normal...

Four years ago I moved back "home". Yes, I lived with my parents again - but I was student teaching and not only couldn't afford to live on my own but I also didn't have time to cook for myself, clean anything, or do my laundry. If it hadn't been for my mom, I may have been the mangiest student teacher around. Way back then it was just a blonde (Amy) a brunette (Emily) and a red-head (me). It was a hard year - lots of transition and we were so thankful to have each other. After a few months, we found a fantastic church - and although it took a little while, we got plugged in and got to know some wonderful women in the church and after time, many more of our friends moved to the area and church became a place of wonderful community.

Sadly, after a year after all seemed settled, people started to move, our church opened another campus and people changed campuses - we got married and started to go to first service. Church became, well, just a place to listen to a message and sing worship songs. I knew people at church, but my friends I had gotten to know over the last two years were at a different campus, in a different state or at a different service. It was not the great place of community it had been. This has been continuing on for almost two years now. It just doesn't feel right.

THIS morning, however, it felt like it should. I heard that the guy who used to lead worship for Christian Challenge was leading worship at our church's other campus. Brian and I decided to head to that campus this morning because this guy is AMAZING. We both wanted a little piece of college back for morning worship. He did not disappoint! We're praying he gets the job for the new worship pastor at this campus! In addition to an awesome morning of worship - there were tons of friends at church. We stayed and talked to people after church for a long time. It was what church used to feel like. It's what church should be like. It was just a refreshing morning full of good community and good worship!