Friday, April 26, 2013

Hill Country Wedding

Allan is officiating a wedding in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas.  Although this is a working weekend for him, it is a great time off for me!  Two days off of school and a fun road trip with my dear husband.

We had a really fun day today.  Lots of driving and seeing stuff.  We love reading historical markers -  lots of brave people who have fought off Indians, missions that could never quite convert those Indians to Christianity, and people massacred by Indians.  Texas has always been a rugged place!  We drove on some of the most beautiful roads I've ever traveled in Texas.  Who knew?

On a whim, I opened up my Flavortown app and low and behold there is a Triple-D restaurant 40 miles from where we are!  So off we go to Mac and Ernie's for dinner!  Very tasty and neat place.  To finish off a great day, Jacob has arrived and is eating our dinner leftovers!

Sunday, April 14, 2013

A Tasty Week

I almost always have an appreciating audience when it comes to dinner-time.  This was an especially tasty week however.  Jacob was over for dinner more than usual, so you know I had some good menus.  On Monday, I made chicken fried chicken thighs, collard greens, mashed potatoes and gravy.  The cheers rang out!  Wednesday, I made ribs baked in the oven and fried the first of our summer squash along with some breaded okra.  I can't WAIT for a summer of fried squash...Yum-my!  I am so thankful for my husband with the green thumb.  I love cooking things that he has grown.  You should see the tomatoes that are on his plants!  Every day I ask him if there are any with a pinkish hue yet.  Tonight I seared some lamb arm steaks and fried more squash and zucchini.  We love the lamb steaks - I stumbled upon them before Easter.  They are super inexpensive and so tasty...we have them once a week.  If I hadn't slept through dinner time last night, it would have been a totally successful week of dinner menus.

I have parent conferences this week...not my favorite week of the year.  We completed our standardized tests last week and I have scored them and now to conference with the parents.  I am always a touch disappointed in how the students perform on these.  But in all honesty, they do reflect fairly honestly what kind of student they are.  But no parent wants to hear, "Your child is right on grade level."  They want to hear that they are super advanced.  Plus we have to ask if their child is returning to our school next year.  Always hold my breath on that one!  I suspect I may have a few not returning...they are such great kids, I hate to lose any of them.

Until next week, have a good one.  If anyone is reading, I'd love a comment!!

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Babysitting Bud

What fun we've had this weekend.  We have had the privilege of taking care of Jacob's dog, Bud.  He is a big 75 pound lab puppy.  We love him!  Our Chihuahua --  not so much.  She might be a bit jealous.  Little bit.  Bud is a hoot and a half.  He can chew something quicker than you can blink an eye. He is not a "curl up in a little ball" sleeper.  Stretched out full body sleeper.  He is also an escape artist.  Yep...found his way out of the fence - not just once, but twice.  We did some reinforcing of the fence and it seems to have held him.  He slept in the bed with us last night...I had about 1/4 of the bed for sleeping.  On the plus side, I'll sleep great tonight.  Jacob should be back for supper, but I'll miss our "little" grand-dog when they go home.


On another note, Allan directed me to another great essay this week.  This one was about the benefits of marrying young.  I was very interested in reading this because we married at 21.  I have always thought it was the best thing to marry young.  I have loved each and every minute of our lives together.  I love that we knew nothing about anything when we took our vows, but learned everything together.  Was it easy?  Of course not!  Was there many times of struggle?  Absolutely!  I look at where we are today, not just financially, but as a couple, and I am so happy that we built this together.  We grew together.  We accomplished things together.  We made a plan and worked it together. I think we would have missed out on so much had we waited until we had everything established individually.  How do you combine two accomplished individuals into a couple that works as a team?  I'm not sure.  All I know is I would not change a minute of my life with Allan.