Chris and Carrie

Posted by Carrie | August 22nd, 2010

Chris and I have had a great summer. We are sad to see it end, but we are excited to see what the new school year will bring. Tomorrow is the first day of school with the kids and this will be our 8th year of teaching. Can you believe that? Where did the time go? I will be teaching 3rd grade again and Chris will be the science and math specialist at his school for the second year. For most of the summer I wasn’t sure if I was going to be teaching 3rd grade because I am getting my masters in library science. My district is always in need of librarians so they will hire after you have six hours towards a masters. This summer I completed 15 hours towards my degree and I had a few interviews for librarian positions. Most of the schools wanted someone who was bilingual or someone who had more experience. However, one school DID offer me the job, but it wasn’t the right fit for me, so I turned it down. I am at a great school, and I love the people I work with, so I didn’t see any harm in teaching for another year while I get some more hours and more knowledge under my belt. I am excited and hopeful that the right librarian position will come along next year!

Here are a few really blurry pictures from my phone that I took yesterday as I put the last few finishing touches on my classroom. After eight years of teaching, getting my classroom and everything ready for the start of school has never gotten much easier! I always end up going to school on the Saturday before the first day.

Front of the room.

Some of my bulletin boards. You can’t tell but I made my reading bulletin board say, “I read some GREAT books this summer! Did you?” On each of the little books I put all of the children’s books I read this summer in my children’s literature class. I really enjoyed the class and I read over 20 books, so I thought it was a good idea. When the kids arrive tomorrow I can then erase all the books I wrote (I used erasable marker) and have them write some great books that they read! Let’s just hope they have some! Ha!

Back of the room. I am in a portable — or a trailer as some people like to call it — so that is why my room looks really long. I like the portables only because the 3rd grade teachers’ rooms are all connected and we can control our own AC. But other than that I would rather be in the main building because our portables are old and are falling apart. But that is why we have to work so hard to make it look great on the inside!

I hope everyone (parents, teachers, and students) has a great start of the school year!

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Posted by Chris | August 13th, 2010

Last weekend we were honored to be back in Arkansas to celebrate my parents’ 25th anniversary of service at their church as pastor and pastor’s wife! And for anyone who doesn’t know, being a pastor’s wife is as much a full-time job as being pastor. There was such an outpouring of love from the church family during the service on how much my parents have meant to them over the years. I fortunately have had them in my life for about 9 extra years of service!

We were extra excited to see my sister Kelly, her husband Scott, and of course, the sunshine of my family’s life, Harper! It had been a while since we’d seen her and she’s practically a teenager now. We got her a few books and she really liked this one with a built-in lamb puppet. I decided that’s what I need more of in my own life – books with built-in puppets.

Carrie and Harper

BOW

Harper has the sweetest personality. She loves attention (she better – she has no choice!) and loves making everyone laugh. As soon as she knows she has you laughing, she will take whatever she was doing and run with it. There certainly is a “ham” gene that runs in our family.

Easy! That’s a first-party iPad accessory and thems ain’t cheap! This was Harper no doubt updating her blog. “Today – pooped, slept.” Her blog reads a lot like Coco’s blog. Speaking of …

Someone made themselves right at home.

We had a blast during our long-overdue visit to the “country.” You know you’re in the country – and this is a true story – when you find a tick crawling across the screen of your iPhone. Next time I’m gonna bring an Advantix-treated case.

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Posted by Chris | July 31st, 2010

Out on the wharf.

View from the courthouse tower.

Bath Street Inn

Breakfast, VHS library.

Archway at the courthouse.

Restoring murals inside the courthouse.

Inside the courthouse.

Shopping on State Street.

CrushCafe and The French Press had great coffee.

Somebody’s fun house.

Waiting for tacos at La Super Rica.

Dinner at Olio e Limone.

The incredible Lake Cachuma.

Playing around with the “You Gotta See This!” iPhone app.

Driving up to wine country.

The Santa Barbara mission.

Boats near the maritime museum.

Sunset view during dinner of the wharf.

The original Freebirds burrito!

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Posted by Carrie | July 26th, 2010

Chris and I just returned from a wonderful trip to Santa Barbara, California. We went to celebrate our 2nd Anniversary, and to also get away for a few days. Even though we are teachers Chris has been working this summer and I have been doing nonstop school work for my masters. So we felt that we had earned a few days off! We decided to go to Santa Barbara because we had never been and we had heard that it was beautiful. It definitely was! Here are some of the pictures we took. These are only some of the 300 we shot and they are from my camera so they are not as high quality as the ones we took with Chris’ camera. I will post some of his next time….

When we first arrived we could not check in to where we were staying yet, so we headed to State Street. There are tons of shops and restaurants and it is the place to be downtown. The weather was in the 70′s so the flowers were so beautiful everywhere!

Shops on State Street

We finally got to check in to our Bed and Breakfast. It was called the Bath Street Inn and the rooms were so cute! We stayed in the room called, Susan’s Loft, so we had our own little balcony that looked out into the city. Every morning we sat at the same cute little table for two in the dining room, and every morning we had fruit, granola, and a main entree like eggs or french toast. Chris got a good picture of our breakfast one morning as well as what the B&B looked like on the outside, so I will post those soon to give you a better idea.

The first morning we headed to the Santa Barbara Courthouse. It was a really cool building inside and out.

Looking down onto the city from the tower at the Courthouse.

Our picture from the top of the tower. We look tired. Must have been the time change!

We then headed to check out the harbor and the beach. This interesting art car was in the parking lot. Of course if you wanted to take a picture you had a make a donation! We did!

A view of the water, the mountains, and the palm trees as we walked to dinner. I kept telling Chris that this picture made me feel like I was watching the beginning of the show, “The Hills.” ha!

Sailboats!

For dinner we ordered Spider Crab and we couldn’t resist playing with our food after we were done eating of course! The crab was really good, just a lot of work to break into those crab legs, but worth it!

The next morning we went back to the harbor to visit the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. Very interesting!

We then traveled over to the University of California Santa Barbara’s campus and had to see and eat at the original Freebirds! Chris was so excited about this. It tasted like the one we have here, but there were not as many selections on the menu as ours. Hmmm? Still yummy!

We then took a road trip up into the wine country. It was so beautiful!

Us in front of Lake Cachuma. It was the prettiest lake we had ever seen. The water was so blue we thought were had all of a sudden landed on a tropical island with mountains behind it!

More of the lake…

Our last morning we wanted to check out the Santa Barbara mission. Very Pretty!

Across the street from the mission were the most beautiful houses and rose gardens, with every type of rose you could ever think of. By each patch of roses it had the name of what type of rose it was! I then had to try and get a picture of some of the homes that were near the mission because they were so pretty. It is hard to tell, but the houses were all going up this huge hill. Gorgeous!

So those are really just a few of the pictures we took and just some of the things we did, but I hope they gave you at least a small glimpse into our fun trip. More to come!

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Posted by Carrie | July 19th, 2010

Two years ago today I married the love of my life! I can’t believe how time has flown by, but it has been the best two years ever. In our second year of marriage we have continued to understand the importance of communication and working together and I think we are getting pretty good at it. It does help a little that Chris is the most caring, giving, funniest, understanding, intelligent, and most handsome man I have ever met (just to name a few!) I am so thankful to be married to such a wonderful person.

Here are a few pictures from our wedding weekend

Before our rehearsal

My bridesmaids and me

Chris and his parents

Cutting our cake!

I am excited to see what year three will bring! I love you Chris!

Happy Anniversary!

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Posted by Carrie | July 2nd, 2010

Yay! It is Friday of Fourth of July weekend, and we finally got our new furniture! Try saying that ten times fast! ha! No, but honestly we have some celebrating to do because it all finally arrived! We ordered a new dining room table and a new couch about three months ago and we have been patiently awaiting their arrival. Our new table is so cool because it is long enough to seat six, but then it has leaves you can add on to it that can then let you seat up to fifteen people! It will for sure come in handy with family and friends. We just need to find some more chairs I guess…

New table close up.

And here is our brand new couch! I feel like I sound like Bob Barker from the Price is Right. ha! We love it so much already. The color looks a little off in this picture, but it is a cream color. I plan to get new pillows that will match some chairs we are currently ordering, but these will work for now.  Before this we had a love seat that I had gotten from the Kappa house at TCU, so it had seen better days. However, it went to a good home in Austin and I know they will enjoy it as much as we did.

And look who has already made himself comfortable?! Chris was most excited about finally being able to take a nap and stretch out his legs, and it looks like Coco is excited about that too!

And on another note. Something that has nothing to do with furniture but may interest you for the Fourth of July is this!…

Cotton Candy ice cream! Chris brought this home today and when I saw it my first reaction was, “gross!” But then I tried it and it is sooooo good if you like cotton candy. I mean look at the fun colors inside!  Of course you can’t eat too much of it or it will probably make you sick just like the real stuff! But just thought I would share something that we will be enjoying this weekend. I hope everyone has a safe and happy Fourth of July!

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Posted by Carrie | June 19th, 2010

Our summer has gotten off to a great start! However, as usual, Chris and I are just as busy. I am taking two classes for my masters program this summer and Chris is working for his school district. I have never taken two classes at a time, and in the summer everything moves a little faster so I am busy every day with lots of reading and papers. Chris is working 10 hour days Monday through Thursday so he can have Fridays off. As a result, since we hadn’t seen much of each other this week, we decided yesterday to have kind of a date day and we named it, Fun Friday!  We started our Fun Friday at a local coffee shop that we were wanting to try that was called, The Pearl Cup. It was really good! So we sat, drank our lattes,  had a croissant, and read, Koko’s Kitten. Ha! Not really, but we saw it on a shelf in the shop and we thought it was funny.

Our next stop was to Whole Earth.  I actually did not want to go, but Chris loves it. Once we got there I was so glad because I found the cutest shoes. They are called TOMS shoes and I have seen the flats that they make and I know lots of people like them because they are comfortable, but I was not so sure the flats would look good on me so I was excited to find the new wedges!  What is cool about TOMS is that with every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. Maybe I should have bought them in every color! I love that!

We then found some books that we wanted to read. Or did we just think the cover was super cute?!

Then we found some funny, but kind of scary masks. We had to try them on of course!

Finally we headed to lunch. There is a new burger place that just opened close to our house called Twisted Root.  I got a hamburger and Chris got a hot dog, but they have all kinds of interesting things on the menu. They also have different root beer flavors so Chris tried the Golden Pineapple Root Beer. Personally I think it tasted just like the regular root beer.

Our last stop was to the Dallas Public Library. One of my classes is a children’s literature class so I had to pick up about 17 books that I will need to be reading in the next few weeks. I am excited to read and learn about children’s books in general as I know it will make me a better librarian in the future, but I just hope I can read it all fast enough! It made Chris and I so happy to see the amount of people and kids in the library on a Friday afternoon. We saw young kids getting excited about checking out books, a teenager filling out a college application on the computer, and just people utilizing the local library. It was a great sight to see,  as an educator and as my future career.

Our Fun Friday ended last night at my good friends Lydia’s house where she had a small get together.  It was such a fun day and we can’t wait to do it again next Friday! I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

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Posted by Carrie | May 31st, 2010

Chris and I have had a great Memorial Day weekend. We relaxed, hung out at my friend’s beautiful lake house in Ft. Worth, and had fun with friends. Coco even had fun playing in her new puffer fish baby pool! ha. It has been so hot outside lately so she likes to get in it to cool off some.

We also were reminded this Memorial Day of all the men and women who have served our country, including both our dads, my Uncle Willy, and Chris’ two grandfathers who both fought in World War 2. They are all heroes and we should be thankful for their sacrifices every day.

In speaking of being a “hero,” Chris had an interesting week at school! As some of you already know, I have been bragging on Chris a lot this week because this past Monday he was doing carpool duty after school and all of a sudden he noticed that an old truck had come out of park, and was rolling backwards towards a group of children waiting for their parents. No one but Chris (not even the crossing guard)  saw it happening and he was able to jump in the truck and step on the brake. Thank goodness the door was unlocked! The owner was very surprised when he came out to find his truck in a different spot then where he had left it! So on Monday Chris came home and entered the house singing, “I NEED A HERO!”, and tootin’ his own horn a bit, but the fact of the matter is without his quick thinking someone could have been really hurt. So on Thursday during his morning announcements the city presented him with a certificate for his heroic act. On Wednesday night I told him I could not be there because I had an early meeting, but little did he know that I had it all set up and was going to surprise him and show up while they gave him the award. I wish I had a picture of his face when he saw me! ha! I took this picture from my phone because the night before I had a hard time explaining to Chris why I needed the real camera, and I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it and blow the surprise.  So this is the best I could do. However, another teacher did take pics so I will try to get hers later.

So here Chris is being presented the award.  At his school they do announcements in the science lab and on T.V (Very high tech compared to my school), so everyone was looking towards the cameras in this picture. Little did I know that the principal would then call ME up in front of the camera! I was so embarrassed and I didn’t know where to look, so I just kept looking at Chris. ha! Either way I was so glad I went and I was very proud of my real life hero!

Oh and before I forget, my sister found out this week that she is having A Girl!!! So it looks like we will be the proud Aunt and Uncle to another little niece before too long and we can’t wait!

I hope you all have a great four day week ahead!

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Posted by Carrie | May 23rd, 2010

We have had a nice weekend. I had Friday off so I have had an extra long and fun weekend. Friday night I hosted another Cabi (Carol Anderson by Invitation) fashion party at our house and we all had a great time. I took some pictures but they didn’t turn out so great, so I am sorry I don’t have those to show. However, I thought I would share some of the changes we have made to our front yard in the last month. As I said, we have done lots of yard work, and most of it has happened in our front yard. We laid a new path, made a new flowerbed around one of our trees, and have planted lots of grass. You will see that the grass is still growing in, but if you look closely you can also see how much of it we planted. A LOT!

New path

New flowerbed.

Our other tree in the front yard has a flowerbed as well, so we thought they needed to match.  However, what you don’t see is that this tree has huge roots and before we planted the grass all you could see were the roots and just dirt.  So Chris had to build the soil up everywhere especially on top of the roots. It took trip after trip to Lowes, and bags and bags of soil. But now it is level and looks great!

And a close up.

We are also making some improvements on the inside of our house with furniture, but I want to wait until we are done to give you tour of that.

In other news, I have been dying to report another big change that will be happening to my family come this Fall…

My sister is pregnant!!!!!!!!

I have asked her for weeks if I could share the news and she kept wanting me to wait so I did, but it was so hard! Chris and I are super excited to be an Aunt and Uncle again and they find out this Wednesday if it is a boy or a girl! We can’t wait to know. She or he is due on October 31st and I am secretly hoping it will be a few days late and be born on my birthday, November 4th. That would be an awesome present. I will let you know what they find out this Wednesday!

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Posted by Carrie | May 19th, 2010

We are back!  I know, I know, it has been way too long since I last updated. So much has been going on with us, but none of it has really been blog worthy.  However,  I will give you the gist of what we have been up to. I finished my Introduction to Technical Services class for my masters and was very proud to earn a 95. Yay! In the midst of all of that Chris has been working like a dog sprucing up our front and back yard. He has cleaned out our gutters, planted a ton of grass, planted new plants, made a new flower bed around one of our front yard trees, and laid a stone path up to our door. He is now on a first name basis with the people at Lowe’s. ha! I helped out too and gave a lot of moral support but he deserves the majority of the credit. It all looks so good and I was going to post some pics but I wanted to wait until we were completely done with all of our mini summer improvements. I have been hard at work on sprucing up the inside of our home and I am in the process of ordering some new furniture. So when it is all done, we can give you a home tour.  Fun!

In the meantime we are counting down the days until the end of school! So that means lots of parties. Yesterday was a retirement party for several of the teachers at our school who have been there forever! I truly cannot imagine teaching for 30+ years as some of them have. So of course that kind of dedication calls for a big celebration! The party was at Matt’s, a very yummy Mexican restaurant near our school. It was for 2 kindergarten teachers, and my good friend Jeaneal who is our math coordinator.  I am so sad that she is leaving. I am really going to miss seeing her around school.

Jeaneal and I

Cake table

The gift table. This was early into the party because when I left there were gifts piled up everywhere. ha!

Here were some of the cute teachers at the party!

My 3rd grade team leader, Sue, and Karen, who used to teach music at our school. I love them!

Lyndsey (our PE Coach) and Kelli (4th grade teacher). They are awesome teachers and fun friends!

Lisa (4th grade teacher) and Grace (she teaches 3rd with me). I love these ladies! They are so cute!

Robin (our Librarian) and Joey ( 4th grade teacher)  Another pair of amazing educators!

So in all it was a special time for everyone and we had so much fun celebrating them. Now if we can just get through these next 9 days of school then it will officially be summer! Wish us luck!

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