Thursday was our last day of school and my last day teaching Kindergarten! I will be teaching 1st grade next year and I am so excited about it! We had an end-of-the-year party outside with the 7 other Kinder classes with a bunch of games the kids could choose from. It was a lot of fun! I will miss my kiddos, but I'm sure I'll have some of them again next year in 1st! Here are a few pictures of some of my kids. Yea for summer time!!
Well the tile folks finally finished at midnight on Saturday. Halie and I both think they did a really good job. Halie's in love with the floors so that means that I am happy too. Right now I am working on putting new baseboards back up. Halie is busy cleaning the dust off everything. When we eventually get everything in ship shape we'll post some final pics.
Day 3 and things are finally starting to come together. As you can see tile is being laid. They have done a great job, especially with the pathway around the bar. We were a little worried about that because we drew that pathway ourselves, through the carpet. There is dust everywhere and our fridge is still in the den, but soon we'll be able to clean everything back up and enjoy our new floors.
Day 2 - They finished tearing out all of the old tile and tack strips. In order to make the floor nice and smooth they had to spread "float" everywhere. This is a picture of the float that is drying. Apparently new houses in Collin/Denton don't have very smooth foundations so we required float everywhere. José the installer says the older homes in Dallas have perfectly smooth slabs. Go figure.
Halie and I are embarking on a very ambitious flooring project in our home. When we bought our house 2 years ago the previous owner had put in builder's grade carpet for the quick sell. Well, it is already showing signs of wear in the high traffic areas. The previous owner also laid his own ceramic tile and let's just say that craftsmanship is not one of his gifts.
We've decided that we're going to be in this house for several more years so the floors need to be replaced at some point. We've decided to put tile in all of the high traffic areas as well as replace the existing ceramic tile. Halie paintstakingly picked out the perfect tile for us. The crew is coming this morning to start tearing stuff up. We will keep you posted on the progress. Check out the photo album for the before pictures. All the furniture and baseboards are removed, but you get the idea.
I was just informed this week that there's an opportunity for me to take get a training class in Seattle for free next week. So my company is flying me up there for it. I've never been to Seattle so I am looking forward to it. Hopefully it won't rain the whole time. The training is for Cisco's Unity Voicemail system. While I have been mostly doing wireless projects at my job, I am learning more and more about IP Telephony (phone calls over computer networks) and am starting to move my area of focus in that direction.
I'm staying downtown which is near the training center. I hope to have enough time to explore the city and see some of the famous sites such as the Space Needle. If I find any 12th man signs, I will be sure to rip them down!
We met up with the Coopers again for another intense game of spades. It was a hard fought battle. They were sand bagging like crazy but were scoring a lot of points. We were bidding well but not getting good enough hands to rack up the points. We ended up with a score of 415 (boys) to 455 (girls) with one hand to go. (First one to 500 wins). When it got to my turn to bid we knew we had to get 9 tricks, but there were only 8 tricks "out." We took 9 anyway. Whichever team didn't get their tricks was going to lose. We thought we were doomed, but somehow we managed to pull it out being dealt fairly decent hands. The girls were unwilling to pose in dunce hats for a picture. They didn't want another picture on the internet. That's fine, we can make due!!!
We got back yesterday from our ski trip to Breckenridge, Co. We went with 3 other couples from our Lifegroup. We had a lot of fun as well as a lot of adventures! The day we were driving in, there was a huge snow storm that dumped 14 inches of snow in one day! It hit just as we were getting into town. Little did we know, our house that we had rented was about a mile up in the mountains from the road we were on. Neither of the cars we came in had 4WD, so we got stuck. A nice man stopped to tow both the cars all the way up to our house. Once we made it to the house, we had about an hours worth of shoveling snow, axing ice, and pushing cars to get them in the garage! That was all in the first day! :) Check out the pictures from our trip!
Laura came in town on Friday from CT with her sweet baby girl, Lily. Katie & I got to hang out with her and Lily on Saturday! We went to Bennigan's--a favorite from college and then came back and played at our house the rest of the day. We had so much fun laughing and looking at pictures from our 4 years in college together! Isn't it neat to have great friends?!
Well, I got out lucky once again! Today I was summoned to jury duty for the 3rd time. I sat in a room packed with about 500 people for 2 hours and when they finally started calling names of people to go into the court room, I started to get nervous. (being on jury duty intimidates me) I know the odds to get chosen as an actual juror are pretty slim, but I kept thinking it was probably my turn. BUT--they didn't need about 150 of us and I was one of the lucky 150! So, once again, I got the rest of the day off to run errands, do some things around the house and enjoy the pretty day!
I just got back from a short trip to New York City. I was just up there for a night doing some wireless stuff for a client. I managed to find some free time while I was there to walk around. I haven't been to NYC in 15 years so it all felt pretty unfamiliar. 15 years ago I just followed my parents around, but this time I had to navigate the subways and streets myself. I'm still not sure I understand the subway but I managed to make it back home somehow. I was staying in Midtown East.
The first afternoon I wanted to get in as much sight seeing as I could. The main thing I wanted to see was the Ground Zero. So I hopped on the subway and rode down there (trying to not make eye contact with anyone :) . I was expecting to see more, but basically it's a VERY large concrete hole in the ground. There's a 15 foot fence around the perimeter of the site and lots of plaques telling different things about the WTC. When it came time to head back up town I wasn't sure how to get there. I thought I could just hop on the uptown version of the train I took previously, but I couldn't find it. I wanted the E train, but everything I found said A&C. So I hopped on the A and then got off near
42nd street to go see Times Square.
Times Square was quite a site to behold. I don't think I've ever seen so many advertisements at one time. Blinking lights and video screens. Everything beckons for your attention. There was also a couple of black guys on a PA preaching hellfire and brimstone. I snapped a few pictures but they don't really do justice to the visual onslaught. Continuing on back to the hotel I ran into a couple other landmarks. Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Somehow I remember Rockefeller Center being bigger.
The next afternoon I headed down to Chinatown to find some good bargains. I was disappointed because most of the stuff they had was for girls. I really wanted to buy a cheap watch but couldn't find any that I liked. After about an hour of walking around I got on the subway to head to the Empire State Building. I wanted to go to the observation deck, but not for $16. (I'm cheap). After that I really didn't know what I wanted to see in the couple hours I had left so I just kept walking and walking and walking. I decided to go try to find the UN Building which was a long ways away. I never found it. :( Since there wasn't much else I could think of to do, I went and got my bags, hailed a taxi, and headed to the airport.
I had a good time on the trip, but I think it would have been more fun if Halie had been with me. ALSO! There are more pictures in the Gallery.
Sorry it's been a while on posting. The latest news is that I woke up this morning with a yucky cold AND pink eye! No fun! I am thankful it is the weekend though, so I don't have to do sub plans or be at school sick. There has been a pink eye outbreak at our school and 4 of my kids had it this week, so I guess I was the next lucky one! :) Right now I am on the 2 hour waiting list to get into CareNow for some eye meds. Wish me luck!
On Monday, Sarah and I went to meet Angie & Todd's new baby girl, McKenna. She is just precious and looks just like her Mommy! We had so much fun visiting together and passing sweet McKenna around. Just a little background--Angie, Sarah and I grew up together at church. We've nown each other since 2nd grade and now we're all married and they both have babies! I guess I'm next! ;)
OK, not really, but if we were, he might look like this. About a year ago Halie and I went to Dave and Busters and paid to find out what our child would look like. She thinks he's ugly, but other than having one giant ear, no eye lashes, and minimal eyebrows, I think he's a chip off the ole block. What do you think? Should we be allowed to reproduce?
Our friends Andy and Michelle joined us for dinner last night then came back to our house to play some Spades. We have a long standing battle between the boys and the girls. The girls have had the hot hand as of late, however, Andy and I were spot on last night. Though a well fought game, in the end the best spades players prevailed!! (That would be Andy and me).
Soon after the the thrashing, Michelle and Halie reduced themselves to a huddle mass of sorrow and pouty lips.
We met Laura & Alex's sweet baby girl, Lily, for the first time in December! They flew down from CT and had a little get together for everyone to meet her. She is just precious! Katie and I decided we would team up to change her poopy diaper. What great Aunt's we are! :)
Well, Cindy is going to be excited--I'm joining the world of bloggers!
I'll post more later--just seeing how it all works. Happy Friday! It's the weekend!
I've been working to integrate a blog into our webpage. Instead of having to edit the HTML directly, the webpage can now be updated by adding a post via blogger.com. And magically, it gets posted on our website! That means Halie can post now! A lot of Halie's friends have blogs and they've been wanting her to get one of her own. Now she has no excuses. :)
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