Happy Birthday to MEEEEEE! :)

Last Wednesday was my birthday. My 29th birthday. Um....when did I get this old??? Everyone knows I love my birthday. :) This is why I have a birthday month and a birthday week. Birthdays are fun. :)

So on Wednesday, September 30, I hit the big 2-9. The day was fairly ordinary. I got up, I got ready, I went to school. Whoopdeedoo. I stood in the hall, I did ELA, I taught my classes, I stood in the hall some more. Yippee. One should not have to work on one's birthday.


After school, I went to the post office to pick up the card that they would not leave at my house the day before. Steve had express mailed my card to make sure I got it in time. :) When I got home I had two boxes on my doorstep. WOOT! I love boxes!!! The first box was some stuff I had ordered from Garnet and Black Traditions. Hooray Gamecocks!!! The second box was a surprise!! From Korea!! KOREA!!!!!! Chalica sent me some fun elephant print shorts and a very cute elephant pillow! I loved my Korean box!! :) The day was looking up. :)

And then things got MUCH better. Steve sent me a text message. The conversation went something like this:

Steve: Are you home?

Me: Yep.

Steve: Ok. Got a bday text for you.

Me: Ok.

And then I received a picture message:

And I freaked out a little bit. :)

Me: When did you take that?

Steve: About 20 minutes ago.

Me: Are you messin' with me?

Steve: Would I do that?

Apparently he decided I was too slow at that point and called. "Come out on your porch," he said. And there he came. Down my street. All the way from New York. He drove to see me for my birthday. Ten hours in the car. For me. :) It was a WONDERFUL birthday surprise. :)

Steve and I went to meet friends at Tequila's for my birthday dinner. Jill, Chris, Michael, Krystle, Tara, Scott, Beezer, and Joel came out for my birthday dinner. Chris brought me this lovely cake. I found it hilarious that they misspelled "Speppy" and had to go back and squeeze the P in. Cake Wreck!!!

We had a lovely dinner with friends. :) I received so many birthday phone calls, cards, and messages! I am very blessed to have such wonderful friends and family! :) :) I think 29 is going to be a wonderful year!!

First Game of the Season!!!!

Saturday was the first home game of the season!!!! WAHHOOOOOO!!!!! Okay, so they played Florida Atlantic University. Wait, huh? Where? I didn't know either. It is apparently located in Boca Raton. I thought that's where the old people were. Oh well...

At any rate, I met Krystle and Mama Childers at the Mizwas' house at 1:30. After a short ride to Columbia, we set up the tailgating tent! WOOT! We put out our chairs and the cooler and sat down to relax. Thankfully, it was not raining, but unfortunately, it was SUPER humid which made it INCREDIBLY hot. Anyway, we had chicken and snacks and cake. Yum. :)

We walked over to where Chris and Lee Ann were tailgating to say hello. Then it was on to the stadium!!! Hooray! :)

Pretty Gamecock! Yay for being able to see the football field in person!!!!!!

They added some great signs in all four corners of the stadium to recognize notable Gamecocks. I like them. I think they're classy. :) The players (or their family members) were recognized during the game with framed replicas of the signs.

Pregame! WOOT!!! U-S-C GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO COCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need this hat. Seriously.

It's Magic Time!! There's Cocky!!!!!!! Best mascot in sports right there, folks. Take a good look.

So the game was pretty fun. The Gamecocks came out looking pretty strong. And then they forgot what they were doing, I think. The first half was a little rocky. All I can say about halftime......FAIL. The alumni band....should stick to donating to the alumni fund. And the band band.....Dave Matthews....for halftime???? Um....I hope that doesn't last long. The second half was much better, except for a few bogus calls from the officials. I'm pretty sure when you catch the ball and take two steps with it and then drop it that it is called a "fumble". The officials, however, called it an "incomplete pass". Um...how complete did it need to be??? Stupid. And the best of all....the "disconcerting signals" call. As if the officials got together and said "Hey y'all, watch this. We're gonna make the stadium go 'WHHHHAAAAAAATTTTTTT????'" Stupid stupid call/rule/whatever. It's dumb.

Next game: Thursday night. I hope I get home from stupid parent conferences in time to see most of it!!! Come on, Gamecocks! Let's beat Mississippi. They have too many double consonants in their name. Just try not to be disconcerting. Thanks! :)

Best. Dog. Ever.

Sadie is the best dog. She is a Gamecock fan. Your dog is lame. :)

GO COCKS!!!

Carolina Football Season is here!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) I was so excited all day!!! I wore all of my Gamecock gear to school. I think the kids thought I was a little crazy. Of course, the Gamecock kids thought I was cool. :)
I stopped off at the College Shoppe after school. It's become a tradition in the last few years. I go there on the first game day of the season and buy myself a present. :) Isn't this shirt cute?!?
I had to rush home and decorate cakes. I almost finished both of them before kickoff. I finished the second one during halftime.
The Gamecocks looked awesome at the beginning of the game. They kinda lost it a bit as the game went on. Our poor defense was tired since the offense couldn't seem to stay on the field for very long. But, a win is a win, and the Gamecocks defeated the Wolfpack 7-3.
Up next: Georgia. YUCK!

The First Weeks of School

Well, I've been back at work for 3 weeks. One week of "workdays" (technically one workday and one day of meetings and two days of sitting at a table at open house, wishing I could get some actual work done), and two weeks with children. The first week with the kids is always pretty boring. I talked about my rules and procedures 25 times and read The Music Teacher From The Black Lagoon 25 times. I like to read that book to scare them. :) Mwah hahahahaha! I was absolutely exhausted all week. And I had migraines. Fail. It didn't help that York Tech started last week too. We had a nearly 3 hour meeting there on Tuesday night and then my class started on Wednesday. I was SOOOOO tired.

Week Two at school was a lot different. I actually got to teach some music. :) Well, I got to teach music every day after I taught language arts on the second grade hall for two hours. Sigh. At least the second grade teachers have been helpful. :) My kids are a lot different than what I'm used to. They are polite and they listen and follow directions. YAY! :) :) :) I haven't raised my voice in two weeks. I'm excited about that. I've used my teacher voice a couple of times on a couple of kids, but nothing too serious. I really used it just to show them that I have it. I don't want them to get too comfortable. So far, I'm actually enjoying being in my classroom doing my thing this year. I hope that continues!!

Here are a few pictures of my new classroom. I like it in there. Except the goofy lack of air conditioning.

My front board area. Rules are above the board, my stereo is there, a calendar, and there's Mr. Monkey in the chair. :) The kids LOVE Mr. Monkey!!!

My schedule. Geezerie. I'm BUSY!!

My monkey behavior chart.

The back instrument/book corner.

Back To School

Summer vacation 2009 is officially kaput. Today was back to school day. Sadie was none too pleased to be awakened before the sun was all the way up. The morning officially started at 8am with the goofy district convocation meeting. Well, technically, the meeting started at 8:30, but for some reason we were required to sit there for half an hour. I hope this is not a sign of things to come...
At any rate, we had our "welcome back, school is cool" pep talk. It was weird to see all of my Park people but not be with them. Then it was off to LES to start my new life there. Or at least to sit in meetings. I am not a fan of the first days of school. I wish they would leave us alone and let us accomplish the things that actually need to be accomplished. But, alas, that is not the way of things. So in the meetings I shall continue to sit. :)
I got to spend a few minutes in my room and managed to get some instruments and books unpacked. Tomorrow will be a MAJOR workday. (When I'm not in meetings, of course...)
I am interested to see how this year will be. I already miss my friends from the Park, but I have friends at LES too. I am looking forward to meeting the children, but not looking forward to having to learn over 600 new names.
I am sure I will have plenty of new stories to share! Here we go again!

Buffalo Steve Was Here

Buffalo Steve made a visit to the sunny (and HOT!) South to see me this week. Here's a recap (I was kinda slack with the camera):

Tuesday: I picked Steve up at the airport. His flight was supposed to be in at 10:11 am, but his pilot was super awesome and got him here about 20 minutes early. Hooray, pilot! We headed to the Thrill to hang out for a bit before Chris's birthday events. We ended up watching Doc Hollywood. :) Then we went on a quest for the Rock Band Country Track Pack for Krystle. We finally found it at Game Stop. Yay! Then we headed to the Mizwas' to wait for Chris. We celebrated Chris's birthday at Chili's with the Mizwas and the Gombars. Fun times! :)

Wednesday: We met Jill, Chris, and Scott (well, Scott was a surprise..he just showed up where we were) for lunch at Hooper's. Then we went over to the Palmetto store at the fireworks store to get a sticker for Steve's sister. Wednesday evening, we met Mom and Colin for dinner at Zaxby's in York, then we went to children's choir, to Sonic for milkshakes, and then to Meredith and Corey's house for Wipeout.

Thursday: Lazy day. We hung around the house watching movies and playing with Sadie. Steve had seen a car on Wednesday night that he wanted to buy so he went to check it out. Thursday night we went out for dinner at Longhorn. Our poor waiter was clearly quite bored. He brought Steve mushrooms and onions for his steak. Steve does not eat mushrooms or onions. (Because they're gross.) Steve had gotten me a very sweet card that was sitting on the table beside me and, since it was 450 degrees out, I was wearing a sundress. Poor Mr. Waiter came over carrying ice cream, being all smooth, and said "I see a card and a nice dress, so I'm thinking birthday!" So smart aleck me said, "Nope, it's just Thursday!" Heehee. So, Happy Thursday, I had ice cream for dessert. :)

Friday: CAROWINDS! We went to ride roller coasters!! I love roller coasters!!!! Woot! It was HOT HOT HOT!!!!! Oy! We started at the Hurler. We tore up all the rides. It was superfun! Best part....Thunder Road. Steve underestimated the power of the coaster just a bit. Hilarious. :)

Saturday: I had to make cakes. Of course. But one of them was for Chris and Steve's party. Heehee to the Red House Furniture cake. After all the cake-ing was finished and the kitchen was clean, we headed to Krystle's Uncle Chris and Aunt LeeAnn's for the birthday party by the pool. Burgers, dogs, cake, swimming, corn hole, and friends. Great party!!

Krystle's parents gave Steve a Carolina hat for his birthday. I swiped it. (I gave it back, though.)

Very serious corn hole playing...

Sunday: I had to stay in the nursery at church. Always an adventure. Sunday evening we went to dinner at the City Tavern with Jill, Chris, Special Mike and Karen and Special Mike's daughter, and Kaddie. Then we went to Iesha and Tadd's for an impromptu party. Definitely not in the plans for the evening, but entertaining just the same. And there was "Ice cream and cake ice cream and cake!" Heehee. Funny.

Monday: Steve's last day in SC. I had to go to my cousin's funeral. Terribly sad day. :( And oy vey, it was hot at the cemetery!!! Clad in black! EEP! When I got back, it was time for saying goodbye and heading for the airport. FAIL. And then I went to buy school supplies because I start work at my new school in the morning. SUPERFAIL. Where did summer go?????

At any rate, I had tons of fun with Buffalo Steve and all of our friends this week. I hope we can visit again soon. Until then, the internet is a wonderful thing. :)