Spring Break - Monday and Tuesday

Monday and Tuesday of Spring Break came. Brad had to work both of them and my aunt came into town so I went shopping with my mom and Brenda while Brad was at work. I had a good time.

Monday Mom, Brenda and I met up at my house. We went shopping locally so I could get home in time to get dressed for Brad and I's anniversary celebration.

It was our two year wedding anniversary. The NYC trip was in honor of this occasion but we still desired making an extra special evening out of our actual anniversary. Brad and I had a reservation for Veni, Vedi, Vici in Atlanta for dinner. I had a Caprese salad and Veal Scallopine. Brad had a prefixe dinner with three courses including fried clams, a small serving of ravioli and entree of swordfsh. Then we both got dessert. He got cheesecake and I had an apple tart. They presented us with a very impressive dessert display. It definitely made the night more "sweet."

Before we had left for dinner, we swapped gifts. Brad and I wrote similar words in our cards about how much we have grown recently in our relationship and how committed we are to each other now. He gave me the DVD Up and Reba McEntire's 50 song Boxed set uploaded on my Ipod. I got him a dress watch and new brown flip flops. So much for the $20 spending limit.

Tuesday I met (well beat) my mom and Brenda to the Mall of Georgia. We had PF Chang's for lunch. YUM! I love their lettuce wraps and even though it is an appetizer, had it as my lunch. I also ended up leaving the mall with another pair of Yellowbox flip flops. I highly recommend them you guys and they are on sale this week for $19.99 during Belk Days. I then headed home to pack and got in the bed by 10:30. I had to because we would be getting up SUPER early the next day for NYC!!!

Spring Break - Saturday and Sunday

Saturday didn't start off low key but it was a low key day. Why did it not start out low key? It seems that two birds outside of our house did not get the memo that Spring Break is very exciting because people get to sleep in late. They began their week long journey of waking us up at 5:45 in the morning with their songs. Songs that would be pretty and happy at any other hour. Brad couldn't get back to sleep but I did my best to.

When we finally did get up, we watched a movie. We had tried to watch it Friday night but with little success. That is pretty typical around these parts. The movie we watched was The Family That Preys. It was very good. To be truthful, I really like Tyler Perry's movies. Very authentic about the family dynamic and experience.

We got ready to go afterward and went up to the Mall of Georgia. We got our wedding rings cleaned in celebration of our approaching anniversary on Monday and then went into the Mall. I had Chickfila for lunch (YUM!) and Brad got Chinese. We only ended up buying Anoraks at Old Navy for our trip to NYC. Sadly, they did not get packed so they will be going back to Old Navy. And to be truthful, I am sure we did more Saturday but I just can't remember. Oh the pains of being 29!

Easter Sunday came with take two of the birds and their morning song. Grr! Really any other time, I would think they are cute and want to support them in their mission of establishing a home but sigh, spring break. So since we were already up, we went to Early Service at Church rather than our usual 10:45 and attended Sunday School.

Once we got home, we prepared things to take to my Dad's. Then, we were on our way off to the Jefferson/Hoschton area to have a double dose of Easter - lunch with my dad and dinner with my mom. We had a light fare for lunch of quiche, salad, fresh fruit (that I brought) and breadsticks. There was also chocolate cream pie, cupcakes, and haystacks(thought crafted into birds' nests with jellybean eggs). While Jan made the cupcakes, I got to situate them each on their own private lawn of green coconut. After eating, we moved on to the lawn to play bocce ball. I brought our set up there and we had a good time playing. Grandma and her friend Henry would not play but seemed to have a good time spectating.

We (Brad, my sister Suzanne and her friend)left for Mom's after five. At Mom's, we had traditional fare. Ham, potato salad, green beans, baked beans. A special touch to the evening was that Mom found Nannie's strawberry cake recipe and made one for the event. Nannie passed away 13 years ago this June. She was my youngest grandparent and her mom outlived her. I miss touches of her like that strawberry cake, chocolate cake frosting, Christmas, the glue that she was for our family on that side. So it meant a lot that my mom attempted it and it was very good. After dinner, we just hung out. No games much to my dismay but we just chilled in front of the tv talking until we needed to head out because Brad had to be at work the next day. The Easter Bunny did visit us at Mom's though. He brought me Starburst jelly beans and Brach's Malted Milk Ball Eggs and Brad Reese's peanut butter eggs.

So while it was a busy Easter, it was a good Easter.

Back to Work - A lot of Posting to Come

Hello!
We are back from NYC and sadly back to work. It was very hard to get up this morning and I am sure it will be hard to get through the day. But then you will start seeing some posts on the rest of Spring Break leading up to NYC and all the best about NYC. Brad and I had a great trip and really enjoyed the best of the city. Stay tuned!

Spring Break - Day One Friday April 2nd

I had a good first day of Spring Break. After a little bit of sleeping in, I got up and got ready to head to Grandma's. It was a furlough day for the senior center and with my Aunt and Uncle gone on their westward journey, I figured she could use the company. When I got there, my dad was there too. We enjoyed a lunch of Grandma's homemade fried chicken and then got put to work.

My grandfather used to have a major garden when I was growing up. Grandma would prepare all the veggies that Pa could produce for freezing and we would have great meals until the next garden could come around. Some summers while us grandkids were there, we would be put to work snapping, shelling and shucking. It was a neat experience and a memory that I treasure. The year after Pa died we all came together in South Georgia and made Grandma a garden. It was really hard work, tilling and plowing and planting but it meant a lot to do it in Pa's honor. The vegetables tasted that much sweeter that year because of all the labor we put into it. This Friday however, the garden is much smaller, and I really didn't dress for the work but my dad tilled while he made Grandma rake all the dead plants in to the soil. This is what it looked like.

After a good afternoon chat with Grandma, I headed back home. With a detour along the way. There is a Target and Belk in Bethlehem so I stopped there to pick something up for Brad's anniversary present. I called Mom on the way and she met me up there. While I was shopping for Brad, I did buy something for me. Remember how Reason #5 to be excited about Spring Break was flip flops .....well doesn't that mean that I should buy some new ones on Spring Break.

They are YellowBox brand and so cute and comfy . I highly recommend them. They are available at Belk and well at the Shoe Dept at Mall of Georgia.

After my shopping journey was over, I came home and spent time with my husband. We were going to have a California Pizza Kitchen White Pizza Frozen Pizza for dinner, but when I opened it, the toppings all slid off so I saved as much of that as I could . I added some spaghetti sauce, cheese, the remnant toppings and some bell peppers and some turkey pepperoni to the pizza. After that we relaxed. And that is what Spring Break is all about.

6 More WakeUps til Spring Break!

I can't emphasize or express enough how excited I am that Spring Break starts next Friday bringing me ten days off from work. As many of my friends in the blog community can relate to, this is the time of year where kids go bonkers. It is nearing the end of the year, almost CRCT time, the weather is warmer( well that one is still up for debate) and the days are longer. It is hard to keep them focused. But right now, I feel like I am right there with them. Why? This has been a hard year in a lot of ways but lets just say calendarwise I feel like I am due. I have Perfect Attendance for this year and with all the flood and snow days taking out snow make up days along the way, that means I have not had a day off since MLK day. As a teacher, that is a long time. But instead of being really negative about it, I want to focus on the positive. Spring Break is coming !!! Here is the top five reasons I am excited Spring Break is just around the corner:

#5 - Flip flops are going to be coming back out soon. I love feet freeing shoes! I have lavender sparkly flip flops, brown, black, etc. I just love them and the warm weather means they can find their way back to the front of the closet. Yay!

#4 - Easter is coming. I like Easter. Carter will be an active participant in the Dobson Easter Egg hunt this Sunday . It will certainly be fun to watch him go after the eggs.

#3 - Certain candies come available for said easter egg hunts. I love some Starburst jellybeans and the Brach's Malted Milk Ball Robin Eggs. And the latter are hard to find.

#2 - Brad and I will celebrate our second wedding anniversary on the Monday of Spring Break. It is amazing to me that it has been two years. We are in a really good place in our relationship and things get more and more fun. Two weekends ago and we went to the lake and just had couple time. Last Wednesday night we went and saw John Mayer second row. Things are just always hopping.

#1 To celebrate our two year anniversary, we are going to NYC. Four Spring Breaks ago, I went to NYC with my one of best friends and former roommate Nicole while Brad went to Colorado to ski. I am excited to share the city with Brad. We have a plan of events and sites that we want to enjoy when we go. We will be there from Wednesday to Sunday so our actual anniversary will be in Loganville but two days later we are NYC bound.

So there it is my top five of why Spring Break can't get here fast enough. Of course, it should go without saying if you know me at all that I can't wait to sleep in. :0) What are you all excited to see come in with Spring Break? Do you have any suggestions for restaurants in NYC?

Funny Friday

Yesterday I took my first and second grade class to the computer lab. They are learning about the forest ecosystem. Therefore, we were making fact forests. They draw a tree but then it has to either be outlined or filled up with facts about trees. So I had selected two kid friendly sites to research from.

Well, we were the first class to use the lab because the computers were not on when we arrived. So we had to sit and wait through them warming up. I told the kids that the computers were just like them ( and me) and didn't want to get up out of their beds to come to school and get to work on a Friday morning. Most of the children just thought that was funny but one of my second grade students, Anis who is of Bosnian descent said:

"They don't want to get out of their Micro - soft beds!"

Oh the things kids say, but I thought that one was pretty clever!

Mom's Birthday

My mom celebrated her 56th birthday this Sunday. I started that day very early, at 4:45am when my husband woke up to leave on the field trip he is chaperoning for his school. Despite how quiet he tried to be on his way out, I am a light sleeper and I woke up to say "Good morning" upon waking up to the alarm and " Good bye, I love you" when he was walking out. I went back to sleep and slept through church after Brad left.

I then ran a few errands to finish getting ready for my Mom's birthday. I had already gotten her card a week before when Sarah and I shopped at the Mall of Georgia. I had bought her frame during the week. I had ordered the picture for the frame but I had to go pick it up, return a movie that Brad and I had watched Saturday night and fuel up the Honda. Then our fun evening was ready to begin.

To celebrate Mom's birthday, Suzanne, Mom and I got together to go out to eat Chinese. We split sizzling rice soup, general chicken and house fried rice. Then we came home. Mom had bought the ingredients for making haystacks. Haystacks are a candy/dessert that Mom used to make for us around the holidays when we were growing up. I had never made them before and I am in a habit of trying to get family recipes recorded or figured out right now. I have made Grandma do it recently with dumplings and in the past with biscuits. Too many family recipes have gone on with my loved ones and this is something special I like to do. It ended up being a special night of fun too.

Starting the Haystacks ( I am on the phone because Brad called to tell me he got there)

My sister scooping out her first stacks

Having Better Luck with the Stacking than I did with the Cookie Press at Christmas

The Spread

The Birthday Stack

After all the haystack makings were complete, Suzanne went home. Mom spent the night to be closer to work and keep me company. We watched Enchanted and went to bed. It was a good night. Happy Birthday!