District Champs!

And, one final awesome thing that happened at school this year: my volleyball team tied for 1st place in the district!  It was very exciting, because it meant that the school finally got a banner for the volleyball team.  So, I am leaving my mark on the school by helping to earn the first volleyball team banner that will be displayed in the gym for several years to come!

My Last Day of School

Friday, June 5th, was the last day of classes for me in Austin!  It was really tough to say goodbye to my kids, but we had a great last day together.  We spent two hours in the cafeteria together signing yearbooks, and then all the kids in the school gathered in the gym for the talent show.  (My students are really talented, by the way!!)  My students wrote some really sweet things in the yearbook, and I know that I am truly blessed to have been able to work with them this year, despite the number of challenges we faced together.

The day before, I had all of my classes pose for pictures.  I took pictures of the whole class, and then I took pictures of the kids I had taught for two years in a row.  These kids are really special to me, and I will miss them!!  I am looking forward to coming back to Austin next year to watch my volleyball team play; I can't wait to see how much they improve in high school!  And, I have already had students email me to say they can't wait to see me again next year, and that I had better let them know when I am coming!

So, here is a little tribute to my students for this year:

My boys in this picture are the goofballs I have taught for the past two years.  They are crazy kids, but they are a lot of fun.  They all have great senses of humor and are almost mature, but are still kids at heart.  The blur behind my head is the kid who was a little late to the picture...

This was my first period class....every day this year...sometimes they were asleep, sometimes they were CRAZY.  They were 21 great reasons to get out of bed every morning. :-)

And, this is my goofy 4th period class (they would hate me for posting this pic, but I think it's hilarious).  I would say this was my hardest class to teach, but it was also the most rewarding.  It was also fun because we only had four boys in the class; sometimes when we had really girly conversations about the wedding, the boys would get so bored!!  Also, one of the girls might be on America's Got Talent next season!  How cool!

The girl in the Team Edward shirt is really about five inches taller than I am; she was excited to finally have to squat down in a picture!  And, notice the green dinosaur?  We did a white elephant gift exchange the last day of classes, and that was one of the coveted gifts.

And, my seventh period class, the class which witnessed and participated in Travis' wedding proposal!  These kids will always hold a special place in my heart.  Some of them had to work really hard to do well in this class, and I was so pleased with their determination and progress!

What a great group of kids to work with two years in a row!!

Moving right along!

Today is June 1, 2009, and this is my last official week as a teacher in Austin.  I just finished grading the last set of assignments I will give for the school year, and I have entered all the grades online.  Grades are due on Friday, and I am ready to turn them in now, minus the few kids who still have make-up work to do.  (Crazy! I've never been this on top of things!)  

I have packed my entire four years of teaching into 12 boxes (some huge, some small) and have them all stacked in my classroom, ready to move out on Thursday.  Lucky for me, I have 75 students who will have "nothing to do" on Thursday, so they are going to help clean my room, stack desks, and move all of my stuff to my car.

For the rest of the week, we just get to spend time with the kids in the classroom.  Tomorrow, we are taking the 8th grade on their picnic day, where, essentially, we spend the entire day at the park at the swimming pool, lounging around and celebrating the end of the school year.  Wednesday and Thursday will be filled with packing, moving, and completing the last of the make-up work, while also completing fun math projects that involve coloring. (Yes, my eighth graders love to color.  Apparently, it never gets old!)  Then, on Friday, the students have a half day, which involves two hours of yearbook signing and a talent show.  Then, at noon, all the students say goodbye to the teachers and leave the school, heading off to 9th grade!  We teachers stick around for lunch and meetings, and then we have to show up again on Monday, but the year will be finished!

I have loved teaching in Austin, and I am going to miss these kids that I have been teaching for the past few years.  I have watched them grow and change so much in the past two years, and I wish them all the best in high school.  I love the school where I have been working for the past four years, and I will certainly miss everyone there too.  It's time for things to change, though, so I am looking forward to what is coming next!

Only four more days until summer officially begins for me!  :o)

Laura's Wedding

This weekend, I flew to DC for one of my high school friend's weddings.  It was a beautiful wedding and a fun reception.  Several of my friends from high school were there, and we had a great time catching up and enjoying the weekend together!  This was almost our entire core group of high school friends, and we haven't all been together like this in many years.  Three years ago, we got together in Santa Barbara for Sarah's wedding, but I haven't seen Desiree and Julie in 8 years!!  We will be together again in a few months at my wedding!

Desiree Pipkins, Sarah Nathan, JJ, the lovely bride Laura Watson Racine, 

Brittany Hall, Kavita Rao, and Kate McCormick!

Sarah Nathan, Kavita Rao, Desiree Pipkins, and Laura Stephenson

JJ, Brittany Hall (soon to be Clark), and Julie Steinberg

Outside the church where the ceremony happened

More Exciting News!

My soon-to-be sister-in-law is pregnant with twins (!!!) and went in today for her sixteen week check up.  She found out that she's having a boy and a girl!!  I'm really excited for her and her husband (and the fact that I get to be an aunt!), and I just wanted to share the news! :o)

Our New House!!

Hooray!  I found the cord for my camera!  Where, you might ask?  Why, in the ice chest in the garage, of course!  Where else would it be??  (I have slowly been losing my mind lately, so I'm just grateful I was able to find it!)

And now I can share all the beautiful pictures of the new house with you!  First, a HUGE thanks to my friends Kristen and Kristen, who, with their own amazing blogs, have inspired me to blog as much as I do and who spent the time to teach me how to do all the cool photo collages you are about to see!  Thank you so much for your help!!!

And now....without further ado, the pictures you have all been waiting for:

It is so beautiful!  Travis has been working really hard on the landscaping, pulling weeds and watering the lawn to make it green again.  The house had been sitting vacant for seven months, so everything was pretty much dead, and the weeds were taking over.  Now, the flower beds look AMAZING, and the grass is so green and soft and nice to walk on!

Travis and I spent the weekend together in Del Rio, working on the house and getting a good start on a few of the many, many projects that we want to complete on the house.  The first major thing on Travis' list is to get the fence installed around the backyard so that we can get a dog.  I told him we shouldn't get a dog until we had a fence, so he has been working really hard to get it set up! :o)  Here are some pictures of that work being done (if you are viewing this on my blog, you should be able to click on the pictures to make them bigger):

Travis has hired Jerry, one of the locals who works on the base, to help him with building the fence.  This past weekend, they dug all the holes for the fence posts, cut the poles, and cemented the poles into the holes!  We rented the tool they are using in the pictures, and it took about three hours for them to dig the 21 holes we needed for the fence.  I helped with two of the holes, but Jerry and Travis did most of the work.  (I was more excited about getting the painting done inside!)  We ended up breaking the tool on some of the rocks in the soil, but it happened as we were finishing the last hole, so it didn't slow us down!  This next week, Travis and Jerry will be working on installing the cement border around the bottom and the actual fence itself.  (Travis has promised to take pictures, so hopefully we can keep you updated on that progress!)

Another project we worked on this weekend was repainting the guest bedrooms and getting them set up.   I won't be moving my stuff into the house until June, so things are looking pretty bare.  But, Travis has all of his stuff there now, so I was really excited to help him get that set up.  The first guest bedroom was painted a bright, Barbie doll pink for the little girl who used to live there, so I promptly got that repainted to a nice shade of beige.  That room will be empty for a while, until I move my stuff there.   We are using the third bedroom in the house as Travis' study, so I installed a couple of shelves for him to display his awards from pilot training, bulldog figurines, and books, and I hung up all of his Air Force pictures and certifications.  I am really excited about the room - it turned out better than I thought it would!!  We took down the blue curtains, installed a new ceiling fans with good, bright lights, and repainted over all the crayon and holes that the little boy had put on the walls.  I think it looks great!!  The pictures below include the guest bathroom, and the before and after pictures of the two guest bedrooms:

Another project we did this weekend was to fix up the front door.  We're sure it used to be pretty, but after seven years of wear and tear and then seven months of no attention, the door had faded to a horrible, dirty gray color.  We repainted it to match the color of the trim around the house, and it looks fabulous.  It makes a huge difference having the front door look so good!  We also spent several hours trying to replace the locks on the front door and the garage door, which turned out to be much harder than we thought.  That was still a work in progress when I left on Monday!!  Another project we are going to tackle in the future is refreshing the paint around the entire exterior of the house.  Travis already repainted a small section, and it looks sooooo good.   We may have to wait until the summer is over before we do that project, though, because it is going to be hot in Del Rio!  Here are the pictures of the newly painted front door:

Our house has about 2200 square feet and has three bedrooms and two and a half baths.  We have a gorgeous entry way with dark tile in it, a beautiful kitchen and living room with wood floors, and an enormous master bedroom.  There are big closets in the bedroom and lots of storage space in the bathrooms.  All the bedrooms are carpeted, but we are planning to replace the carpets with something clean, fluffy, and fresh.  Every room has great light fixtures in it (except Travis' study, where we had to replace the awful ceiling fan).  There is a covered patio on the back of the house looking out onto the HUGE backyard.  We are planning to expand the patio, since we want to be able to use the grill without burning down the house!  (That's yet another project we are going to tackle later on...)  Here are several pictures of the rest of the house:

I am really looking forward to moving out to Del Rio!  There are so many things both Travis and I want to do, and we had a blast working together on getting the house in shape.  Travis spends all of his extra time working on the house, and I can't wait to be able to do more with him!  I won't be surprised when the employees at Home Depot know us both by name, with all the projects and ideas we have in mind!

So, the house continues to be a work in progress, and I will keep you all updated with more photos as I can get them.  Travis has promised to take pictures as he continues building the fence, and I will be out there again in June to get more pictures, so let me know what you want to see!

And, one final picture (this one's for you, Dad).  Katie gave me her bedroom set in exchange for my bed frame, so I didn't have room anymore in my bedroom in Austin for a section of my couch.  While trying to sell my house, I couldn't just leave it in the garage or cluttering up the master bedroom, so I decided to take it to Del Rio.  So, I moved it downstairs and loaded it into my enormous tank of a car.  It fit.  I was shocked.  I took a picture:

 My new Honda Pilot...with a giant couch (four feet long, three feet high) in the back.  And I could still see out the back with the rearview mirror.  I closed the door and drove to Del Rio.  I never could have done this with my little Honda Accord.  Nice.  Thanks for the new car, Dad!

Such a bummer!!

I am so incredibly bummed right now because I took all these great pictures of our new house in Del Rio, and I can't find my camera cord ANYWHERE.  And I have looked in every nook and crany of the house, including inside the stove.  I am at a loss and am really bummed that I can't share the pictures tonight with all of you!  I will continue my (desperate) search for the cord and will post the pictures and updates on the house as SOON as I can!