Summer Break

I mentioned what we do usually, but summer break is a different thing altogether when you are a teacher and a grad student. I didn't mention that Jared is working an internship at Marathon (an oil company) or that I'm tutoring part-time and relaxing part-time. I'm trying to get some much needed school catch up work done and plan next year but finding the motivation is hard. I have to say that when with school out, I've started to realize just how much I like teaching. Because when it is in, sometimes it is hard to tell. The stress is incredible and especially as a first year teacher - everything was just overwhelming. Today I found my flash drive that I thought I lost and found some pictures of my students. A couple of week before school got out all of the 4th grade teachers dressed up as Hannah Montana and lip synced for the Carleston talent show. I had kids asking me all day for my autograph.

All the 4th grade teachers in our Hannah Montana get ups - I'm in the middle in case you don't see me (I know, I look like such a natural blonde :p)

But that is just the beginning, since the beginning of the year I have dressed up as a goose, been in parades, had my kids make fairy tale books to read to kindergarteners, thrown parties, gotten a countless amount of hugs, "flowers" (weeds from the playground), and "your my favorite teacher" poems (these were especially popular when I was teaching them poetry). I have to remember these things for the days when the kids are misbehaving, TAKS days (Texas' infamous state testing), and days when all the politics are making me insane.

My homeroom class and I (if they look like hooligans - it's because they are - and yes, one of them is on my back).

I've decided the reason for summer breaks is mostly for the teachers. I know the kids certainly need it too, but summer breaks give you the chance to start feeling like yourself again enough to want to go back and do it again.

Our New Boat

A little more than a week ago, Jared and I bought a boat. Jared had been talking about boats nonstop for a few weeks and had always been online looking for good deals. Well, he found one from craiglist, so we bought it. It's just a 12' paddle boat now, but I think he wants to put an engine on it one day. The funny thing is that neither of us knows very much about fishing (which is what we will be using it for). Jared has a little experience but when it comes to the bait to use, when to go, or where to go, we are at a complete loss. Our first attempt was at Houston Lake. We got a bunch of goodies and one of Jared's friends came along. However, the lake was huge and we discovered our boat certainly isn't good for paddling - it took forever. Either that or we are bad paddlers, probably a little of both.

Well, we had been paddling to the middle for about 30 minutes when a lake policeman came and told us we didn't have enough life jackets (had 2 needed 3) and we had to go back and get some. So that took another 40 minutes. Well, by the time we got back out, the sun was scorching and the fish had pretty much called it quits for the day. But the worst part was that at most places in the lake, we could put our oar down and touch solid ground. That made the whole 1 and 1/2 hour round trip that much more ridiculous.

Jared and I packed up and ready to go.

Despite all this, it was pretty fun. The hot and humid sort of fun. We did drink lots of lemonade and we found out our boat doesn't leak. I also learned how to paddle - so despite the lack of fish, it was a pretty big success I would say. However, we did decide our next trip would be in the evening.

View from inside the boat.

Crawfish Party

As many of you will know, Jared's birthday was this month and what he really wanted was a crawfish party. So we bought 40 lbs of crawfish (which turned out to be way too much) and mercilessly dumped them in a boiling pot full of spices and veggies. Of course, I was squeamish about the whole thing. Especially when he talked about purging them (or basically making them throw up their guts) before kindly ending their misery and throwing them into the pot. We had a few skirmishes between the crawfish - it turns out they don't like each other very much. They turned out pretty good - actually, I am told that - I don't like seafood. But Jared and his pals enjoyed them and blistered up their fingers trying to eat literally dozens of crawfish.

We then went inside a played a little Wii (we recently got this along with the entertainment center). Unfortunately, this is the only part of the party I caught on camera and most of our guests had already left. But I tell you what - playing Wii golf with 4 people takes almost as long as a real golf game.

Jared pigging out on cake/ice cream while Kenny (Marathon/ UH chum) plays Wii

The cap on the evening was that we still had quite a bit of crawfish left. Well, I couldn't stand to see them just sit there and die and certainly didn't want to boil them when we weren't going to eat them, so Jared and I decided to drop them off in our friendly neighborhood pond which just happens to have a sign about not adding wildlife. So it was pretty exciting slipping down there at midnight and throwing those guys in. I won't worry unless I hear about a mysterious crawfish infestation in the neighborhood. I wonder if those crawfish know how lucky they are...

My First Blog

I've officially jumped onto the blogger bandwagon. Since I am so horrible at keeping in touch with family and friends now that we are in Texas, I thought this would be great way to let everybody know how Jared and I are doing. So here goes nothing. I guess I can give a brief update, but everybody that would be interested in reading this thing probably knows we moved to Texas last year at about this time. Jared is going to school to get his Masters in Geology at the University of Houston and I'm doing something I swore I would never do - teach. Of course, I also swore I would never marry a Willcox boy or live in Texas. Obviously, I have learned my lesson about swearing I would never do something. Fortunately, I love all three. But back to my story - here is our first house.



About 5 months later, we adopted Meowfish. We both thought he was quite the scrapper - there was nothing he liked more than a good fight (mostly with our arms and legs). Within the first month of him living with us, Jared's arms were pretty bloodied and people were starting to worry about what was going on at our house. We asked the vet about this and he said that cats don't know that biting and scratching hurt unless they are socialized. Since we got him when he was really tiny (picture below), we figured this was definitely his problem.

Jared and Meowfish looking "tough".

So in January we adopted our second cat, Abakles, when she was 6 months old. She is a the sweetest cat in existence and has tamed Meowfish down immeasurably (though he is definitely still feisty).

Abakles chilling out.

Anymore of a summary than that will probably bore you to tears and we have to get to the good stuff - like what is going on now. I'll keep the updates coming - and look out for blogs from Jared and the cats (I know they've been talking about what they want to blog about).