Happy Birthday Chris!

Today is my beloved husband's birthday.  He's never been one to make a big deal out of birthdays, but I always try to make it at least a little special.  He went and ordered himself an iPad as a present, so I just bought him a few little things.

We've come a long way from the teenagers we once were.  We are now to the point where we have been together for more of our life than we haven't.  It hasn't been all a walk in the park, but I honestly love this man more today than ever.  He is the "lighter" side of me and always makes sure that we have FUN in our life, even when it is the LAST thing I want to do.  Happy Birthday Chris!

Just a quick update

I promise a much longer post is coming.  But for now, I will share a few of my favorite photos from our AMAZING trip to St. Lucia.

Our first day in Paradise!

Waterfall at Botanical Gardens

Sunset Cruise... with lots of Rum Punch!

View of Marigot Bay after sunset

Our own private cabin... our little slice of HEAVEN on Earth

Long time NO Blog

It has been some time since I last blogged, hasn't it?  I have been using twitter and facebook religiously and sadly my blog has been neglected.  Thanks to Beverly for giving me the nudge to finally post something!  :)

Summer is nearly over... but I am THRILLED to have several more weeks thanks to a construction schedule at school.  We are getting central air in all of our classrooms which meant taking out all of the ancient plumbing and vents.  We are also getting new shelving along the outside wall.  Can't wait to see it all put back together.  However, I am so grateful to have the few extra weeks this summer.

Our summer has been full of swim meets as always.  Chris loves his job and has been so very busy!  I have tagged along for a few of the big meets.  He is currently one of the coaches for Team Illinois at the Central Zone meet.  After this weekend, he is finally done for the summer and has a break just about until I go back to school.  Usually he gets done just as I have to go back to work.

We did get to sneak away downtown for our anniversary.  We saw Mary Poppins and also took in a Cubs game with GREAT seats.  I used priceline and we got a GREAT deal on a hotel downtown.  We stayed at the Hilton on Michigan Avenue for $79 each night!  (Of course parking was $55 per night!)  It is hard to beleive we have been married 13 years.  We've been together for more than half of my life at this point!

I just returned from a wonderful weekend in New York with my virtual sisters.  The group of us met 6 years ago on AOL through the Scrapbooking message boards.  We've remained close and try to get together every other year.  It was nice to see them all in person and be able to give each of them a hug.  I was able to see New York and Vermont over the weekend and even took a trip down the Alpine Slide.  Ate lots of chocolate, did some shopping, and had some great laughs.  Looking forward to seeing them again in 2011! :)

My newest obsession involves my hair.  I have had a love/hate relationship with my natural curls for my entire life.  I can say that most of the time I currently lean towards the LOVE side.  Yesterday I went and got it cut short again, and I really am happy with the cut.  I was ready for something new.  I have a great stylist that really knows her stuff and always talks me out of doing anything outrageous.  As I was researching the cut I wanted, I visited naturallycurly.com a site that I often check.  I started to read up on the curly girl method of hair care.  I kept reading, and the more I read, the more it made sense.  I won't bore you with all of the detials, but here is a great link: How to Go Curly Girl.  I have been having a horrible time with my scalp in the past few months and I really think my products are to blame.  I have been using the same products for almost two years now. So as of today, I am now sulfate/silicone free.  It is going to take some time until I find products that I love.  It is my hope that I will have it all figured out before school starts!  :)

Grad school is almost done... November 4th can't come soon enough!  I have one more session in my current class and then two weeks off.  Of course I have several assignments I should be doing right now for that class.  :)  Better go do that now...

DeChristmasing/End of Break :(

I really loved decorating the house this year. It was fun and I did most of it over Thanksgiving weekend. I really don't like taking it all down. I had good intentions of working on it yesterday, but we really just lounged around yesterday. I am sad that my break is just about over... today is the last real day of break. I had so many things that I wanted to get done over break and many other things that I *need* to get done. So I am trying to cram it all in today!

The decorations are all down except for the lights on the tree. That is Chris' department and he will do that when he gets home tonight or tomorrow. He is at an all day swim practice today so I have the house all to myself. :-) It's been good that he has had practice and private lessons. This has given us the right blend of together and alone time over break. We even had some bonus time thanks to snow before break started.

One of my Christmas gifts was a small point and shoot camera that I can keep with me at all times. I love my Digital SLR, but it is just too large to carry around. I have wanted to document some of the day to day parts of my life, and this camera will help. I am hoping to participate in Project 365, where each participant takes at least a photo a day. We'll see! So far I am at 100% for 2009.

Off to get some more cleaning done. Can't believe I actually have to go back to work in a few days!

December 6/Christmas Journal Day 5

So I am a little behind. It's already after 8:00 and I only have Day 5 done. Looks like I might end up being behind until the weekend. We'll see!

This prompt was about Advent Calendars and couting down to Christmas. Here is my journaling:

There are 20 days until Christmas Day. Christmas really starts on Christmas Eve, so really there are only 19 days! It seems so far away and yet so soon at the same time. There is still so much that I have to do and so much that I want to do.

I have fond memories of advent calendars growing up. When I was in elementary school, my mother worked for a German company. Her main responsibility was booking the travel arrangements for the many executives in the company, often for trips to Germany. She was very well liked and often received small tokens from the executives when they returned from a trip. Each Christmas, she was given two advent calendars filled with the most amazing German chocolate! There was one for my sister and one for me.

Each day had a little door that opened to reveal a picture and a piece of this amazing chocolate. Opening the day’s door was one of the highlights of each day in December. One year the calendar even had pieces that got larger the closer we got to Christmas! I can almost feel those wonderful bits of chocolate on my tongue as I type this entry!

It has been years since I received or bought an advent calendar. I don’t know why. Maybe it seemed a little too childish for grown adults to get excited about a piece of chocolate. Maybe it was the fact that I haven’t really looked forward to Christmas for the past few years.

This year is different. Although I may not have little doors to open that reveal savory bits of chocolate, I do have a treat each day leading up to Christmas. I can’t wait to see the day’s prompt from Shimelle each day. Opening my email is just as magical as those little doors on the chocolate calendar. In the end, this journal will be my advent calendar. Maybe next year I will invest in some chocolate, too!

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First day with the new hair color. You just have to love middle school boys. More than one of my students said to me today, "What happened to your hair?" :-) One even told me he didnt like it, but maybe he will get used to it. Another suggested that maybe next time I should color my hair pink.

I came home today to a clean house. Chris cleaned this morning before going to work. I am so lucky to have such an amazing man for a husband. That left me more time to play tonight. I wouldn't have even gotten one day done if he hadn't done the chores for me. :-)

Should think about making dinner soon. I accidently bought a jar of MUSHROOM spaghetti sauce. Chris and I HATE mushrooms. Looks like I will be making some from the plain tomato sauce I have in the cabinet!

December 5th

No Day 5 Christmas Journal to share YET. I did the journaling, so I accomplished the one goal. However, I just didn't have time to create the page. It is all done in my mind... just need to get it down on paper! :-)

Decided to go get my hair cut today after school. On Friday night we went out to dinner with one of our High School friends and his wife. We had a great time at a little martini bar in Grayslake. Great food, great drinks, and even great music! Before we knew it, we were closing the place down at 12:30! Chris (not my Chris, but our friend Chris) and his wife, Cori had a great evening with us. Cori owns a salon in Mundelein and she cuts MY Chris' hair. I decided to go in and see her today. I decided to let her color it as well. I am getting used to it. I will try to remember to post a picture tomorrow maybe. I think it is really different, but Chris (my Chris) thinks it isn't that different at all. Tomorrow will be the test. We'll see what my students say! They are known to be brutally honest.

Tuesday is Chris' one night home early. Early being 7:30ish. By the time I got home it was almost 7. I made dinner and then we watched Friday Night Lights. I snuck back upstairs to read email and post this entry. I am not going to break my streak on Day 5!

I am planning on leaving school right after work tomorrow. Planning to get todays entry as well as tomorrows done. I also have orders for about 15 ornaments and an album to get done. I really should get started on that!

26.2

Chris is one amazing man... And he just keeps on setting goals and going for it. Running the Chicago Marathon was one of his "to-do's" in life. I am proud to say he achieved that goal on Sunday! He has been training since April, all while working full time and coaching. He was lucky enough to have a wonderful training partner who also happened to be his coworker. They were able to schedule runs during the day so he could fit it all in.

I was able to play "Amazing Race" and run around the city with my best friend, one of Chris' swimmers and her mom, and Amy's family. We were able to catch them three times during the race. What an amazing adreniline rush on the sidelines... I can only imagine what he must have felt as he ran! They finished the race just as they planned... in just over 4 hours!

My only regret is that I didn't take more photos. I was so caught up in the moments, that I totally forgot I had the darn camera around my neck. :uckily there are some amzaing photos taken by the folks at marathonfoto.com. I will be making a LARGE order with them as soon as they are finished identifying the photos.

Chris is trying to convince me that I should run in the future... we'll see. I am not much of a runner... in fact I am NOT a runner at all!