And here's what has happened:
1. Stuart and I celebrated our anniversary in different states. He sent me flowers! (On the wrong day, but I believed his alibi.) :)
We plan on having a late celebration in October in the Outer Banks. One of Stuart's professors from his first semester at Brandcenter owns a bed and breakfast in the OBX. At the end of their class, he awarded Stuart's group with gift certificates for a free two-night stay and a free dinner at a local restaurant. Most of his group has already been and they all loved it, so I'm excited to go!
2. Izzy turned 1! And... I forgot about it. Until the next day. I made the dogs a cake (thanks to Lara for the recipe!) and special meatballs. They, of course, appreciated all the hard work. Me and my dishwasher - not so much.
3. My after-school program (finally named: Ready, Set, Play) held two days of training. Since then, I've been working out some of the details with my co-teacher. The other elementary school in my district just got a new music teacher, and she's going to be my teaching partner for after-school. Our first day will be October 13th! I don't think any of us feel truly prepared... but ready or not, it's coming!
4. School started! I had mixed feelings as we entered the start of a new year - total dread (nobody likes the end of a two-month vacation!) and excitement. Excitement won over, fortunately! :) My school doesn't start special area classes until the third day of school, and the day before I would see them for the first time, I had food poisoning. I had way to much work to do, so leaving wasn't really an option. It felt like the longest day of my life. And I was really nervous about missing the first day of my classes, but I was fine when I woke up the next morning! Stuart hadn't felt too hot either, so we definitely determined the Mexican restaurant was to blame.
I later ended up with a nasty upper respiratory infection that the doctor said could be whooping cough. I haven't been that sick in a long time, so I hope I've paid my dues! Having to leave my classroom for a couple days during the second week of school was very frustrating. I'm glad to be back and feeling better!
I'm trying a new classroom management model in my room this year (thanks Bonnie!) and it's working like a charm. I've been at it for two weeks now, and it's absolutely amazing!!! Along with that, I've made a few other positive changes and have been working on a really organized curriculum. Between all of those things, I'm feeling really encouraged... I'm determined to have a great year!
5. Stuart started his last year at Brandcenter and is already devoting a lot of time to class and meetings. Meetings, meetings, meetings. But he loves this and never seems to mind all the work and time. His current campaigns are Sauve and Method. I'll make sure he gets the finished products up on his blog! :) I'm especially excited to see how Sauve turns out - it's an interesting campaign they've put together.
6. I have fallen in love with my local CSA. Every other Friday, I get a delivery from Dominion Harvest. My box is supposed to have 7-8 different kinds of produce, eggs, and cheese. However, we're the last house on the route, so we often end up with the leftover loaf of bread, which is super delicious! The most unique things I've gotten are muscadine grapes and yellow-flesh watermelon. I'm not a watermelon lover, but this had a honey flavor and it was really good! The muscadine grapes are still in the fridge, two weeks later, waiting to be eaten. They have an interesting flavor - like a blend of a cherry and grape. Delicious, but strong. Two or three in one sitting is about all I can do. Otherwise, most everything we get, I love. It's keeping me on my toes with cooking because I have to use it up and find new recipes. My favorite of recently was fried eggplant. The first time I tried eggplant, I was not a fan. (I don't remember how I made it, though.) So I thought, everything is good fried. And that proved to be true. I couldn't get enough! A picture of my first "spread" from Dominion Harvest:
We're supposed to start getting freshly cut flowers this fall and I'm excited for that!
7. We went to the Virginia State Fair! And of course, we forgot the camera... We grabbed some fair food, then had a caricature made. We love it! I think it makes me look like my aunt Amy...
We then played a couple of games, and won a pig for the dogs. Last year, we went to a county fair here in VA with Spencer and Lara, and Erika and Audrey. Lara and I got sucked into playing a balloon dart game and won some really, really crappy bears. I was irritated that I paid $5 for such a pitiful looking bear. But Hutch loves that bear. In fact, until Izzy came around, the bear remained perfectly intact - despite the fact that Hutch could have ripped it up in less than one minute. His eyes are gone now (you can guess whose handiwork that was), but he's still a popular and well-loved toy in our house.
I wish I could say the same for the pig. He's was promptly gutted of the majority of his stuffing. That's not to say he isn't loved too. Just not in quite the same way. Here's us bringing it home:
I won't show you the after. I'll only say that I was picking up stuffing in 4 different parts of the house.
After winning the pig, we decided to pass on the rides and grab a fried Snickers. Which was lackluster. But hey... you never know until you try! Then, homeward bound - I was extremely tired and our cash fund had been depleted.
And that sums it up! Time is moving forward quicker than I thought possible and life is great in VA!
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