Somebody has a new toy

Taaadaaaa! Tyler is the proud owner of a new Yamaha V Star motorcycle and he is way psyched! And so am I.... I get to accessorize of course :)

He made the leap this summer when he took his training course and got his license. We have been looking into this for awhile and he took the plunge today. Yay Ty!

This week has been pretty busy. We had a rain out Monday, so we went to 7 Saints for dinner with friends and then we had the men's game Tuesday to keep us busy.

Yesterday we went to the U of I for a lecture series on the Hubble Space Telescope. It was amazing to see such wonderful pictures. It is very nice to have such a wonderful resource for all of our geeky endeavors. So a late night was had, but it was so good to be out and about and with each other.

After Hours tutoring started this week, so I am up to my eyeballs in it. My Mom and Court are on there way here as I type for a court date (Miss Courtney) with the traffic court for lil miss speedy. Quiet weekend is on the books for this coming weekend. Ready for a nice rest.....

The Hurricane is Here!

Sure, you might not hear this everyday in Illinois, but Ike has made its way in and is sticking around for the day. We have had a ton of rain today and the temp has finally fallen to lovely chilly temps. I have started to deocrate for fall and am just loving it!

This weekend has been entertaining to say the least. Friday we had Josh and Audra over for tacos and we watched "There will Be Blood." I got what the movie wanted us to get, but it just wasn't great. Daniel Day Lewis was fabulous, but it just didn't do it for us. Saturday we woke up to no rain. This was a relief as we have season tickets to Illini Football and there was supposed to be an 80% chance of rain. We went to the game and saw the Illini just barely sneak away with a win. The neat part was we sat in the New side of the stadium with the sky boxes and it looks great. The entertaining part was two vinyl pannels from the stadium's roof flew off at us and blew water onto the fans. It was a bit disconcerning and showed the stadium still needs some work.

After the game we went to the local motorcycle shop. We are going to be the proud new owner's of a new motorcycle. Tyler got his license yesterday morning and is amped about his new bike. I have to work on calling it a motorcycle as to not confuse Tyler (I just got a new bicycle a few weeks ago) so we have been quite busy. The new hog should be picked out sometime this week I would imagine and in his hands sometime soon. My one requirement was for it to have a backrest so I didn't fly off the back end. He agreed :)

Last night we chilled with Josh and Audra and had Cajun Bayou Chicken Pasta which featured habanero peppers. Apparently Josh forgot to wash his hands after cutting the hot hot pepper and when we used the restroom a certain part of his anatomy became quite agitated. It caused quite the laughs. :) Sorry, Josh! We dressed Lily the Yorkie up in zebra-print ribbons and pink scarf and just had a nice, relaxing night.

This week we have my Mom and Sister coming up for a traffic court date and they are going to stay a night or two, which will be nice. Looking forward to cooler weather, great softball and relaxation.

The Dairy Queen is coming!!!

I had an absolute ball this weekend with my little nieces. They are an absolute riot. I was met with running hugs and yelling monsters when I reached my in-laws this weekend. My little goddaughter was keeping everyone busy with her rapid fire wit and complete hilarity.

A favorite quote from the weekend: From the mouth of a 4 year old.... "The Dairy Queen is coming when I lose my tooth!"

I asked her who she had to pay off to arrange for that? She said "What!?" I get presents!" :)

I asked her if she meant the tooth fairy, and she agreed, "Yah, the Dairy Queen!" Gotta love her!

Mmmmmm.... Beer and Corn :)

Last night we met up with Josh, Virgil and Kristy at the Urbana Sweet Corn Festival. Where else can you get fresh sweet corn, beer and all the usual festival fixings in one place? It was great! We always have a wonderful time, but this year was twice as fun as we met up with people and had a great time chatting and goofing around.

School has started and things are getting to be in full swing. Monday will be my first day with all my kiddos and I can't wait to get to know them better. My little 6th graders are such weirdos, but I just love them to bits. It can't get much better than what I have it. I have been working on getting technology into the classroom more and it seems to be doing a great job. The kids love playing with all of the cool stuff I get to bring into the classroom.

On the homefront, my surgery went well, but the result was not what we wanted. I am being vague here because of the extreme personalness of the topic, but know that I am healthy and doing ok, just dealing with the hardest thing I have ever been through and wouldn't wish on anyone. Hope this reaches everyone well. Have a wonderful weekend!

-L

It's Go Time

Olympic Medal winners at NBC Olympics.com!

Got the Packet

Today I got the prerequisite district packet for the 2008-2009 school year. Still in 6th grade.. still in the Science department :) Love it! It made me start thinking about the upcoming school year, and I am excited. I will most likely have a student teacher and many observers. Penny deals are happening at the office stores. I am now tenure. Get a nice raise. Tyler got a humungo raise not two weeks ago. Everything is looking up.

After commenting on another blog today, I could only think about what a klutz I am in the month or so before school. Sometimes it is something major, sometimes it is just pure holy cowness. It always seems that there is something big that happens in the first days and weeks of school to keep me on my feet.

My first year of teaching, I awoke on my birthday to find a cyst of some sort. I had to have surgery to deal with it and it turned out to be ok. I just have a nice battle scar.

My second year of teaching, I was working in my room the week before school and I was standing on a chair putting up border on a bulletin board. The next thing I know, I am on the floor in great pain. I had a huge indentation on my left side with bad bruising right away. I had landed on an overhead cart that was to my right..... yes, I had done a 180 in the air and landed on the cart on the opposite side. I have no idea who it happened, but a bruised kidney was the result.

My third year was the summer of the knee. I found out that I have significant wear and tear of the kneecap and need knee replacements. They won't do this for another 20 or so years, but I am living it up until then.

My fourth year was uneventful. In fact, I was waiting for something to happen at any moment and it didn't.

So I am hoping I am on the up trend this year. Some of you know what I am going through personally and I am hoping for a huge success to keep with this trend.

Hope you are all doing well. Have a wonderful rest of the weekend. I am off to cook up some buffalo burgers and homemade french fries for the fam.

A long Month...

No Updates for June? Well it has been a busy month. Summer School, our 4th Anniversary, Courtney and Ben moving up for the Summer, Co-Rec Softball... lots of good stuff.

Summer School was a hit. We went for 3 weeks and I had a blast with all of the ankle biters. I am normally with all the hormonal 6th graders during the year, so having every age group in the summer is ultra refreshing.

This year for our field trip, we went to the Children's Museum in Indy. It was a 3 1/2 hour bus trip, but the kids had a blast. There was lots to do and no lack of experiments to be conducted. So overall, a very good trip, minus the psycho bus driver we had, but when don't we have those? :)

This year for our Anniversary, we kept it low key. We went out to Jim Gould's, which is a fantastic place to eat and had a wonderful meal. Then we were off to our softball game. Our anny fell on the same day as our weekly game, so we changed and headed out to the field. the 4th Anniversary is flowers/fruit/silk and linen. I got Tyler a flowering tree for our front yard and he got me flowers and new pajamas with some Jelly Belly's on the side :) Nothing too fancy, but traditional.

I wanted to blog in particular about this past week. Tyler and I have witnessed 3 separate instances of just plain ignorance this week.

#1. At Monday's Mens League game, we were waiting for the guys to play when they heard a commotion and called us girls to attention. A girl was being jumped by 4 others in the parking lot. Car took off, police came, lots of senseless drama.

#2. Tyler and I went on a picnic Wednesday and we go to the pond at the Japanese Gardens. We were done eating, so we were heading back to the car when we saw a girl snap a cell phone in half, a guy running after her and then said girl get into a car and proceed to rev up the engine and almost take out guy trying to block her path. Police show up, end drama.

#3. Old man in electric whellchair dares to move old lady's cart at supermarket only to be told that lady won't move her damn cart if he is going to act like that. You better watch yourself. - I about died.


Other than that, not too much is going down. Last night I was the only sober one in my home with 4 grown adults drunk and playing Rock Band with a freaked out dog, a pissed off cat and fireworks blaring out my windows. Picture this now :)

Today I am dealing with some effects of meds I am on and waiting for surgery coming up this month. Nothing life threatening, just changing. Hope you had a good 4th!