Travel

Today we went on a few adventures...

Ace Hardware was giving away free quarts of paint. We went to the Ace right near us, but they don't sell Clark and Kensington brand paint which was the brand that was giving away paint. We started to venture over to the Ace in Clear Lake. On the way there, we passed the place Manny gets his haircut. We stopped. He got his haircut so I could see how to do a medium fade. Oh man it looks so much easier than a high fade. I so got this!! 

We continued on our way to Ace. When we got there, I had to figure out what color I wanted. Too many choices!! I initially wanted a teal color, but then I had to think about what I was going to use the paint for. We have nothing teal in our apartment, so hmmm... I looked at red, but it didn't feel right, so I just stuck with my original color. It's a really pretty teal! It's called Eastern Shoreline. (And yes, water on the East and West Coast is really blue, not the nasty brown like Galveston. I feel bad for the people who think Galveston is a real beach. Nasty.)

So I got my paint, two little paint stirrers, and a paint can opener. Yay!

We continued on our adventure by picking up Manny's dad and going to Mexico!!

In Mexico, they hang flags and pinatas everywhere! Haha jk so this isn't really Mexico, it's Mi Tienda. We went here for lunch. It's a restaurant and a grocery store. Since I was with Manny, the people there just assumed I spoke Spanish. No big deal! I'm fluent! 

After lunch, we went to Sam's club. The line to get in was long and we still wanted to go see the puppies at PetsMart. We left to go see the puppies :-) but boo!! PetsMart only had kittens. Of course they are cute too, but I can't get one.

We left PetsMart and headed back to Sam's club. We determined that Sam's club isn't really cheaper than a normal grocery store. Everything is in larger quantities, so it's a little cheaper BUT you have to pay for a Sam's Club membership, so in reality, it's the same price as Kroger or Wal-Mart. Sorry to burst the bubbles of all those avid Sam's club shoppers. Maybe a few cents is important enough to you, but to me, it doesn't matter that much. I find enough spare change in parking lots to make up for my loss :-)

Well now I will continue to look at Pinterest while Manny studies :-) I have to figure out what my next project will be!!

Freedom

Today I had the opportunity to babysit my nephew :-) We had a lot of fun. I was trying to get him to crawl... We're getting there. Haha!

I went to Olive Garden with my mom and sister for lunch. We were celebrating my oldest sister's birthday. She is an old lady now!!! I love you, Megan! Haha 

I ordered a calzone at Olive Garden which means "underwear" in Spanish. When I told Manny I had underwear for lunch, he wanted some too. So for dinner, we went to Mario's and got some underwear. Yum! I didn't think he would be hungry because we went to the mall and got samples from the food court. They always have lots of samples. All those people on the streets begging for food should just go to the mall for free samples :-)

...After Mario's we drove over to Sam's club because Megan said they are having an open house. I googled it and the open house is all this weekend. SWEET! By the time we got to Sam's, it was closed. We will try again later. 

We got home and made s'mores with Reese's (How can we have some more when we haven't even had any? haha). Since we have an electric stove, we just heat up the marshmallows in the microwave. If you've never done that before, I highly recommend trying it. It's a good experience. I'll give you a glimpse of what you're missing out on...

Look at how big that marshmallow is!!! 

This is an up close picture of the marshmallow in the microwave...

Taking up close pictures of something in a microwave doesn't work so well, just in case you were wondering. Haha!

I don't have anything super insightful to say today, just a simple thought. The name Joshua is Hebrew for Jesus (they come from the same Hebrew root word). So Joshua helping the Israelites fight the Amalekites and Joshua leading the Israelites to the Promised Land, were both pictures of what was to come with Jesus. Jesus just did it on a much larger scale: He saved the whole world, not just God's chosen people. Any thoughts??

Change

Today I went shopping to buy a birthday present for my mom and oldest sister. My oldest sister told me not to buy her anything because then she'd feel bad about not paying me to babysit. I told her that one day she will babysit my kids for free so she shouldn't feel bad. She said "True, but still..." I couldn't not get her something for her birthday!!!

I went shopping at Walmart and they are having some pretty amazing back to school sales:
Crayola Crayons 24 ct for 50 cents
Spiral Notebooks for 17 cents
Filler Paper 150 sheets for 88 cents
Plastic Prong Folders for 50 cents
Paper folders for 25 cents
Glue sticks for 25 cents
The list goes on...

I bought a few notebooks, but I will probably need to go buy a few of everything on the Kinder school supply list since there are always a few kids who don't bring school supplies.

After dinner, we watched G.I. Joe Retaliation. Manny got it all ready and I walked over to the couch to find this...

A tupperware full of ice cream with two spoons and a box of cookies. I laughed!! 

The ice cream is in a tupperware because the tub it was in broke. We didn't realize it was broken which is probably why it was on sale for 99 cents. Psh! A half gallon of butterfinger ice cream for 99 cents!?! Who can say no to that??

G.I. Joe Retaliation was a pretty good movie. *Spoiler Alert* Channing Tatum gets killed off right near the beginning. What I find humorous is that his character's name is Duke which is his character's name in the movie She's the Man. 

After the movie, we went to Lowe's because Manny needed a bolt to fix the strut on his truck. I was also looking for something for my next project :-) (Lowe's didn't have what I needed, but Home Depot did. Luckily both places give military discount. I take Manny with me places just to use his discount. HAHA! Totally kidding.) 

Ok so I saw this picture and I asked Manny what was wrong with it. He couldn't figure it out...

Which side of the gate is the mom on?? Manny said that is the norm nowadays. Parents don't watch their kids. How sad! This company that makes the gates is encouraging locking your child in a room so the parent can do whatever. Manny said "Those used to be for dogs, now they're for children." Hahahaha!

Alright well insight for the night from Exodus 17... The Israelites were fighting the Amalekites and as long as Moses held his hands up in the air, the Israelites would start winning, but when his arms and staff went down, the Israelites would start losing. This shows that as long as we keep praying, God's power will keep working and flowing through us. But when we stop praying, that's when things get bad because God's power has stopped flowing through us. We've stopped letting Him work through us. People, that is when it gets dangerous and scary. Don't stop praying!!! Let God use you! He wants to :-)

Hope

Today I went over to my sister's house and I drive past a local elementary school on the way. It was quite depressing to see all the cars in the parking lot... NOOOOO!!!! I am not ready for school to start.

I returned the fourth season of Friends (I am trying to watch all ten seasons before summer is over) to my sister and we went to Hobby Lobby. She needed to buy a picture frame and I needed some velcro. This year I plan on velcroing my kids' name tags to the tables. This will make rearranging table seating 
so much easier and it won't leave a huge sticky spot like tape does. I will post pictures of that once it is all set up in my classroom.

Last night I used this app called Sleep Time. It keeps track of your sleep patterns such as how often you were awake, in a light sleep, or in a deep sleep. I found it quite intriguing. Just as a glimpse, I will post my measurements from last night. (I use my iPod not my iPhone so it doesn't drain my phone's battery).

As you can see, out of my nine hours of sleep, only about half was deep sleep or REM which is when you're in your most relaxed state. I can't wait to use this app again tonight. This is interesting data. This app has an alarm that is supposed to wake you up at the most optimal time. You can set your alarm, but it might wake you before your alarm because you will feel more rested. It's cool though :-)

Tonight my husband requested that I make him a smoothie for breakfast tomorrow. I enjoy using our awesome wedding present. It's a Ninja!!

The first smoothie I made with it tasted exactly like the Banana Berry smoothie at McDonald's. The second time I made a smoothie it tasted like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a cup. Not sure how this time turned out, but yum!!!

I adore these cups my best friend gave us as a wedding present. Perfect for smoothies!!!

As a final thought for today... This morning I was reading in Exodus and one verse really stuck out to me... 

Exodus 15:26 He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you."

God doesn't want anyone to suffer. He longs for everyone to be healthy and whole (that doesn't mean you won't ever get sick, but there is hope when you do). God says He will heal us if we obey Him, but beyond that, He sent Jesus to die for us and by HIS stripes we are healed. We do not have to live with any type of pain--physical, mental, spiritual, etc. God is reaching out saying "Ask me to heal you and I will!!!" He is ready and willing. Are you ready? Are you willing to ask? Step out in faith.

Tahoe

Manny and I went to Lake Tahoe for our honeymoon. On the plane ride there, we saw two famous people lookalikes and I wanted to share them with everyone.

First we saw a guy who looked like Clark Kent...

We also saw a guy who looked like Linguini from the movie Ratatouille...

I guess we were creepers taking pictures of random people on the airplane, but we had to do it :-)

I wanted to give a preview of what Lake Tahoe looked like. It was gorgeous!!! 

We had to wear a jacket pretty much everyday. It rained two days that we were there. One of our rainy days we stayed in and watched Netflix all day. The second rainy day we braved the rain and went hiking. 

We went parasailing on the lake and jet skiing. The water was sooooo cold! One of the people there said the water was probably 55 degrees (it's all snow melt).

We went to a soda pop shop, Manny got some root beer and we bought some taffy. We saw these hilarious mustaches...

A mustache for everyday of the week! Haha

We walked around town a lot and went to an art gallery. We saw some pretty paintings. I liked the Disney ones the best :-)

The hotel we stayed at, The Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel, had a restaurant on the bottom floor. Our waiter is a professional skier, but during the summer he works at the restaurant. I thought that was pretty cool. Apparently that is true for most of the employees, working at the hotel is just a summer job.

Manny and I are hoping to go back to Tahoe in the winter so we can go skiing.

Excitement

I must not have gotten enough sleep this weekend since I didn't get up until 10:30! Usually by 10:30 I am already at the gym. Oh well...

I went to the gym late today. I'm not sure if someone was sweating buckets or what, but the gym floor was covered with water. Hmmmmm... I went around the small ponds to get to the treadmill only to find a dollar. Sweet!!! Getting paid to work out. The whole time I was running, I was thinking about what if I had found more than a dollar?? I determined I wouldn't feel right about keeping it and I'd have to turn it in to the office even if the office people just keep the money themselves. I'd feel good about my decision.

Alright enough of my honest Abe mentality... Last night I had more school dreams. I was completely unprepared. We were 20 minutes late for lunch and I messed up entering my kids' pin numbers so they could buy their lunches. I made the lunch ladies mad. To top it all off, I had one of the kids from last year in my class and I couldn't figure out why this kid wasn't in first grade. But all my kids were angels!!! Oh man I hope that's not just a dream.

In order to avoid being unprepared for the start of school, I have been working on some crafts. I created a door mat so my students can choose how they wanted to be greeted in the morning. Last year I stood at my door, shook each child's hand, and greeted every child by name. Time to change it up!!

I bought a table cloth from dollar tree and cut it to the desired size. I then squared off four sections with a sharpie and wrote "Welcome" at the top. Each of the four sections has a different way to be greeted...

The four ways are: high five, heartwarming smile, wiggly handshake, and bear hug. 

After outlining the drawings with sharpie, I started painting. Once the paint was dry, I put a layer of Mod Podge. After that, I sprayed it with a layer of clear acrylic. And here is the finished product...

I am so excited to get to use it!! I will probably put it out each morning and then put it to the side once everyone has been greeted. I am not sure I want it to get walked on all day long. But anyways... Yay!! Each student will one-by-one get to stand on the square of how they wanted to be greeted. I think this will make the morning greeting more personal and make each child feel unique and loved. I want them all to start the day off in a good mood :-) Can't wait to test it out. I will post pictures once my kids have used it and let you all know their reactions to it.

Food

Yesterday we had my parents over for dinner. Manny grilled some burgers and I cut up fruit. We went to Kroger to choose fruit earlier during the day. Manny just wanted a cantaloupe, but people who know me know about the time I ate half a watermelon. Yum! Manny let me get a watermelon :-)

We were knocking on the watermelons trying to choose a good one. I found one that had a nice deep thud only to get home and discover it wasn't any good at all. It wasn't even pink!!!! I was very disappointed. I went out to Manny who was grilling on the patio to tell him that we had bought a dud watermelon. He later came inside to see the watermelon...

Apparently there are different color watermelons! Yay! I knew it tasted like watermelon, it just didn't look right. You can see in the picture where I dug out pieces of watermelon with my finger to taste test it. Haha! I was very excited it wasn't a dud.

We had a discussion later that night about picking a good watermelon. My dad does the knocking method, but my mom picks one that looks pretty. My dad said his dad would look for bug tracks because bugs know sweet watermelons.

Also, for dinner Manny picked a cantaloupe. It was perfectly ripe!

 And we had appetizers Mexican style!

My amazing husband made half pound burgers and apparently one of them was bigger than the rest. He had his eye on it, but unknowingly, I picked it. Haha oops! Hopefully he forgets about that :-)

Dinner was great! Good food and wonderful company. Parents are awesome!