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On Monday I had yet another of my gracefull episodes. Yes, I fell. Luckily this time I did not land on my face but rather my knees. That's what I get for wearing big-girl shoes (platforms). I was on my way in to work, stepped on a broken piece of pavement, my ankle twisted and I went down on my knees. Ouch. I may have stayed there for a minute, but 1, there was a delivery truck RIGHT in front of me and I was mortified that the driver saw me go down and 2, I was afraid the curtains were open and my students saw me which I would never live down. The driver jumped out to make sure I was ok (nice guy). I went inside, but boy did it hurt! My left knee has an ugly bruise on the inside of the calf under the knee, my right side however was bad. I landed on my kneecap. I finally broke down and made an appointment to see my dr (after everyone who saw my knees said "OOOOOHHHH! Get that looked at!" I had x-rays and I am glad to say my kneecap is not broken, only bruised.
Alison and I went to a new church today. Last year (school year) we were going to the church I grew up in, but I wasn't very happy there. Ali did have a great Sunday School class, but there was nothing there for me. There wasn't anyone there my age and any suggestions or ideas that I had seemed to fall on deaf ears. Then I read an article in the local paper and one of the people quoted in it was a lady who attended my church when I was little. She was in charge of the acolytes and she was also my confirmation teacher. When she was ordained she moved to a new church and I lost touch with her. This article mentioned that she is now the minister at a church a city over from me, so I decided to try that. It was wonderful! Everyone there was extremely welcoming, Alison had a ball in her new Sunday School class. I was able to talk to the minister briefly and reminisce a little. It is such a relief to have a new church!
Last weekend Alison and I headed out to NY for my sister's NY baby shower. We had a great visit. The shower was wonderful, she received most of what she had registered for (well, what was left) and enough money to get what she didn't receive. Ali was a huge help with opening and throwing away away paper while I sat in the back and chatted with her friends. The next day I helped Julie organize everything and pack it up. They bought the co-op last Tuesday, so hopefully they will be moving in the next few weeks.
Julie looks amazing. From behind you can't even tell she is pregnant. No stretch marks yet, and she is at 30 weeks with twins. She is going to kill me for this, but here is a picture from last weekend. We had a great time feeling the babies moving. Ali loved it. Julie was very sweet in sharing her tummy with us!
Julie had a dr. appt this past week, you can read all about it on her blog. The babies are doing great, Lily is now bigger than Mia. Julie is doing great.
School has kept me busy. I am definately holding myself to a higher level now that I am a "veteran"teacher. I know what is expected of me and I want to exceed it. I have been doing better organizing everything which really does make a difference.
Ali's dad has a blog from Afghanistan. If you are interested in what he is up to, you can go to it here: pain-in-my-butt. Yes, yes I know it is silly making that the link, but what the heck, simple things for simple minds.
I have to get off of this computer and go through the winter coats, I think Ali is going to need a new one. She has gotten so tall this year!
I started back to school the week before Labor day, it seems like yesterday, and now I realize that I have not updated this in a long time! The entries I imagines all about our vacation are not going to happen, so I decided to just include two of my absolute favorite pictures from out travels. The first is Stacey and I rocking out at Hard Rock Cafe in Boston. I had such an amazing time with them. I haven't seen them in almost three years, but it was like only a day had passed. That is the sign of true friendship!
After all of our time in Wisconsin and Illinois visiting family and friends, Ali and I had one more trip. Just the two of us. We were going to be driving near Niagra, so I asked Ali if she wanted to go. I figured I would get a resounding "NO!" I told her we would be near a famous place where there is a pretty waterfall and we could go if she wanted. She did and I am so glad we did! We spent about an hour there, but what a great hour it was! So here is Ali and I on our last day of vacation at Niagra Falls. This is my favorite picture from vacation.
I have decided the best way to chronicle my vacation is to start at the begnning. My last day of school was Wednesday, the 16th. That night my friend Stacey and her family came out to visit for two days.
Stacey was my best friend in Florida. Her son Kyle was 5 and Ali was about 18 months, and we did everything together while our husbands were out to sea. At that time, Stacey was pregnant, she had Ryan a week before I moved to Maine. We kept in touch through e-mails and phone calls. Her husband Nick has been transferred to Great Lakes, but while they were moving, they were coming up to MA for her sister's wedding. Perfect time for us to get together! Here is me and Stacey and Ryan, the newborn, our first night.
Thursday we had breakfast in Salem and then headed to Boston so I could give them the "Lisa's tour of the best of Boston in one day"
We hit the "Make Way for Ducklings" statues, here is a picture of the kids on them and the whole Lutze family on Mrs. Mallard.
Next was the Swan boats. After the Swan boats we headed down Newbury Street, admiring all of the shop windows on the boutique end, laughing at the tee shirts in the French Connection UK store, then we went to Hard Rock Cafe. Here are some pics of the kids with guitars and Nick eating lunch.
After Hard Rock, we went over to the Hancock Building to get the best view of Boston from the observation tower (not to mention a moment of weightlessness if you jump just as the elevator starts its' descent) only to find out it has been closed since Sept 11th 2001. Bummer. Guess I haven't been there in a while!
We continued on down Newbury street and I introduced them to some of the the classic Boston stores such as Newbury Comics where I found a perfect pin for school. It says "Gangsta Nerd" on it and I can't wait to wear it tomorrow. We then stopped for Ice Cream at Ben & Jerrys, here are the kids at their table eating.
As for my funny story for the day, well the Cow Parade is in Boston. They have all of these life sized cows (ceramic? porcelin?) around the city painted and decorated. The kids had fun pointing them out. At one point, Nick said (to himself) "What's with all these fu**ing cows?" Of course, Ali heard it, and the next cow she saw, she said "Look Nick, another fu**ing cow!"
We are back!!!
We had a great vacation! We went through 7 states, visited with 11 relatives, 8 friends, I got together with 1 friend from college, talked to another on the phone and visited one natural wonder.
I have many stories to tell and lovely pictures to post, but I also have to unpack and run a million errands before school starts tomorrow. I will be posting all of our vacation adventures soon!
Yet another amazing Sunday. The weather was wonderful and I really wanted to go for a nice bike ride. I called my step-father and had a discussion, we decided to head to Topsfield and try out the state park there. My sister Katie unfortunately fell after about 10 minutes, so that ended her and my step-father's day there, but Ali and I continued on. First, we found this lovely stone house and gate.
We actually stopped and took quite a few pictures here, I will try to show more later.
Here is Ali on the back of my bike trying to look scared from all of the noises in the woods. (Such a dama queen) I think she was getting sleepy and did not want to fall asleep, so she decided bike riding there was "spooky."
Luckily while were riding, we found a "Fairy Arch" For those of you that do not know what a Fairy Arch is (which is everyone but me since I think I invented it), it is where bushes grow together to form an arch over a path. It is where Faries get married. You can go uner them to make a wish. Ali was all too happy to run over and make a wish. She also looked for fairies. She did not see them, but we think we heard them giggling a few times. 
After our fun at the fairy arch, we finally headed back to the car. We took a "wrong turn" pulling out of the park (there is never wrong turns, just adventures) and found our way to a neat little farm stand. Right after we pulled in to take a look, two ladies on horses rode in. Ali and I decided to go and ask them if we could pat the horses. Not only did they let us pat them, one of the ladies offered to let Ali ride her horse!!!! Ali had a nice little ride around the parking lot on a beautiful horse. Of course at the time I did not have my camera on me, but here are the horses a little while later grazing on some grass.
While patting the horses, we noticed pigs! What was really funny was that one of the horses was terrified of the pigs. His eyes were huge staring at them, and he was trying to pull back. And the pigs were behind electric fences! 
Despite the smell, I found them quite cute. They had these wonderful enclosures, big areas with lots of food and shelter and tubs of water. There were two seperate enclosures with a path going down the middle. They were rooting around in the dirt and mud and snorting like crazy. I have never heard such vocal pigs! I have to say, their faces and floppy ears were quite endearing!
What a perfect day!
It has been a few days since I blogged, mainly due to the heat. Wednesday it was 101. 101. WIth the humidity it felt like 115. I could imagine that in Florida, but in MA?? Thank goodness Ali's babysitter has a pool, she was nice and cool all day. Unfortunately for me, it was a long time in a un-air conditioned building. Some rooms are air conditioned, but not most. Of course I felt lousy by the time I got home. Thursday was cooler, and sometime in the afternoon the temp broke and went down quite a bit, but not in our building. Once again I went home feeling lousy. But now the weekend is here and the weather is supposed to be beautiful. We are going to yard sales tomorrow. I will be sure to post all the wonderful details. I think in the afternoon we are going to get a few of my students and take them to my grandfather's house to do yard work. He has had two surgeries this summer and has not been able to do any sort of yard work. I think it would be nice for the boys to do some community service, and I think it would mean a lot to my grandfather and his wife. Sunday we are either going to the beach with my aunt or we are going to an Animal Planet thing going on near here.
Today we went a toured a new preschool for Alison. We loved it. They have a nice fenced in play area outside, they have big windows and a pretty open building. The teachers were nice, they kids looked like they were having a ball, they have a pre-k curriculm, they serve meals and they are only $20.00 more than we were paying that the other place. I am very happy. We are going to register her there and she will start in September.
We lost power yesterday, apparently around 2:00 in the afternoon. It did not come back on until after midnight. Apparently a phone pole had been rotting and just snapped and fell, the weight of it bringing down the two next to it that were also rotting. Luckily my step-father told my grandmother, so when I went to pick up Alison (she stays with Nana on Mondays) she told us to stay put and avoid the heat. Thank Goodness for Nana!
It was an interesting end to an interesting day. I had called it my "no-good-very-bad-day" much to Alison's delight, but have since changed my mind. When I arrived at school I realized that I had forgotten to pick up the movie "The Outsiders" that I had promised one of my classes I would get. We had just finished reading it, and we were watching it next. Then a quick phone call to the preschool down the street that I had been hoping to enroll Alison in revealed that the opening was gone. At lunch when I stepped outside to run and get the movie a nasty little wasp landed on my hand and bit me right between the knuckles. I had to go back inside and make sure I didn't have an allergic reaction, then head back out (more cautiously) to get the movie. At the movie place, I realized I was a dollar short, then realized that my debit card was sitting at home next to my computer. I ran out to my car to get the change, grabbed the movie and headed back to work. As I pulled into the parking spot, my car stalled; I had run out of gas. The mailman helped me push the car into the spot, and I used the half full gas can the house uses for the mower to power me back up so I could get to a gas station. Then I found out there was no power. As I sat on Nana's couch I realized it really was not a terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day afterall. I mean, there are always other preschools, I didn't have an allergic reaction to the sting, I had the change in my car, the mailman helped me push the car in, I borrowed the gas and container from the school AND I stayed at Nana's to avoid the heat. I think I was actually pretty darn lucky.
And on a completely different subjuct, I just finished reading a great book. It is called "The Pilot's Wife" by Anita Shreve. Supposedly it was made into a movie, but I guess I missed that one. I actually grabbed it by mistake. My friend Deborah has amazing taste in books. She once recommended "gods in Alabama" by Joshilyn Jackson on her blog, I read it and decided I was definately going to follow her recommendations from now on. Recently in her blog she mentioned she was reading "The Time Traveler's Wife" and I filed it away in my mind. At a yard sale over the weekend, I saw "The Pilot's Wife" and was very excited that I had found one of Deborah's books at a great price. It wasn't until I was home looking at Deborah's blog that I realized the error of my ways. However, the book looked good, so I read it. It was great. I don't want to give much away, but after reading some in class (I know, bad me, but the boys were finishing The Outsiders) I was suddenly disappointed, even a little angry. I didn't want to read anymore. It wasn't until this evening when I was home that I realized that I was empathizing with the main character, which showed me the true brilliance of the book. I ad been so caught up in it, I was angry at it! I highly recommend it!
I leave you all with this.... "Do it for Johnny!"
What a perfect day! I slept in (a little), then called my aunt. My Aunt Sue, Alison and I then went
The beach! Nahant beach to be specific, where we had a great time swimming, playing frisbee, catching some sun and
Ali drew a picture of her daddy in the sand. What a sweet girl.
We had to head back from the beach fairly early because Aunt Sue had to take Uncle Bruce to the train station so he could get to work. Back at home, Ali played in her pool while I did some work around the yard. Then I stretched out on what is one of the best yard sale finds I have ever made
A hammock. We LOVE our hammock. I have been working on the yard this summer, I made a brick patio (not real even like a professional one, but still great), got some chairs and made the table you can see in the background to put the herbs on (so the groundhog doesn't eat them) and hang flowers under. This hammock made the area complete.
But I digress....
I was laying on the hammock reading a book and talking to Alison, when I looked up and saw this
And this
Our neighbors were eating outside, they had music on quietly, it had a nice beat to it, down the street some kids were out playing, the birds were chirping and every time the breeze blew, my wind chimes around the yard made music. I realized it was a perfect day.
Ohhh... My first blog entry. I have wanted a blog forever, but Deborah's blog has driven me even more. Although she lives half a country away, I feel like she is still right around the corner. Each day (more or less) and I can sign on and read what she and her family have been up to. Since I have friends and family all over, I thought this is definitely the perfect idea for me! Of course, the Julie started a blog to chronicle her pregnancy and I was green with envy. Actually it was a good thing, it pushed me even harder to stop thinking about it and DO it!
I am at a total loss as to what I am going to do this week with the boys. With the weather hot and no AC in my classroom, I have to keep it very interesting and preferably make it so they don't realize they are learning anything new. I want to do this great lesson plan I read about using toys from then they were growing up. You spend a class period letting them play with the toys the have them write an essay (five paragraph, probably narrative) about the toy they like the best. Unfortunately that entails getting the toys from when they were younger, which means going on eBay, so that is going to take some time. I have been bouncing around an idea of having them make some sort of advertising campaign for different parts of speech. For my higher-level students I may have them come up with a campaign for grammar rules. That would definitely help them grasp the different rules and parts of speech. It would also segway nicely into another lesson plan I have been forming in my head about grammar. I would like to take songs they know, print out the lyrics and have them go through and edit them to make them grammatically correct. That would be so much fun.
I am doing the weight loss thing. I know how to do it, I just needed the motivation. Well, the company that owns the place where I work is sponsering a "Summer Weight Loss Challenge," so it is on! I had to first check and make sure I could join the team since I don't actually work for that company, but after the OK, I signed up. The weigh-in was Thursday, *ouch* I have let myself go. But hey, it just means it will make it easier for my team to win. The finaly weigh in is in December and the prize is a $50.00 gift certificate for each member. I started right back up with the way I did it last time, journaling everything I put in mouth and measuring amounts. Today I signed up on fitday.com for a journal and journaled yesterday and today, and I was pretty impressed with how I did. I have also started working out with dumbells and doing crunches as well as going on bike rides. Hopefully I will see an improvement! I have a feeling I will lose a bunch at first, then even off, then lose slowly.
And what is the best way to end a pumpkin carving night? Why baked pumpkin seeds of course! Ali was asleep before they were done, but I am sure she will be trying them when she wakes up! Yummy.......
Of course, Alison had to dress up to go leaf hunting. I mean, you can't be 4 and go leaf hunting in what you wore to school!
Nature's first green is gold, 
Julie looks amazing. From behind you can't even tell she is pregnant. No stretch marks yet, and she is at 30 weeks with twins. She is going to kill me for this, but here is a picture from last weekend. We had a great time feeling the babies moving. Ali loved it. Julie was very sweet in sharing her tummy with us!
After all of our time in Wisconsin and Illinois visiting family and friends, Ali and I had one more trip. Just the two of us. We were going to be driving near Niagra, so I asked Ali if she wanted to go. I figured I would get a resounding "NO!" I told her we would be near a famous place where there is a pretty waterfall and we could go if she wanted. She did and I am so glad we did! We spent about an hour there, but what a great hour it was! So here is Ali and I on our last day of vacation at Niagra Falls. This is my favorite picture from vacation.
Thursday we had breakfast in Salem and then headed to Boston so I could give them the "Lisa's tour of the best of Boston in one day"
Next was the Swan boats. After the Swan boats we headed down Newbury Street, admiring all of the shop windows on the boutique end, laughing at the tee shirts in the French Connection UK store, then we went to Hard Rock Cafe. Here are some pics of the kids with guitars and Nick eating lunch.
After Hard Rock, we went over to the Hancock Building to get the best view of Boston from the observation tower (not to mention a moment of weightlessness if you jump just as the elevator starts its' descent) only to find out it has been closed since Sept 11th 2001. Bummer. Guess I haven't been there in a while!
As for my funny story for the day, well the Cow Parade is in Boston. They have all of these life sized cows (ceramic? porcelin?) around the city painted and decorated. The kids had fun pointing them out. At one point, Nick said (to himself) "What's with all these fu**ing cows?" Of course, Ali heard it, and the next cow she saw, she said "Look Nick, another fu**ing cow!"
We actually stopped and took quite a few pictures here, I will try to show more later.
Here is Ali on the back of my bike trying to look scared from all of the noises in the woods. (Such a dama queen) I think she was getting sleepy and did not want to fall asleep, so she decided bike riding there was "spooky."
After our fun at the fairy arch, we finally headed back to the car. We took a "wrong turn" pulling out of the park (there is never wrong turns, just adventures) and found our way to a neat little farm stand. Right after we pulled in to take a look, two ladies on horses rode in. Ali and I decided to go and ask them if we could pat the horses. Not only did they let us pat them, one of the ladies offered to let Ali ride her horse!!!! Ali had a nice little ride around the parking lot on a beautiful horse. Of course at the time I did not have my camera on me, but here are the horses a little while later grazing on some grass.
While patting the horses, we noticed pigs! What was really funny was that one of the horses was terrified of the pigs. His eyes were huge staring at them, and he was trying to pull back. And the pigs were behind electric fences! 
Despite the smell, I found them quite cute. They had these wonderful enclosures, big areas with lots of food and shelter and tubs of water. There were two seperate enclosures with a path going down the middle. They were rooting around in the dirt and mud and snorting like crazy. I have never heard such vocal pigs! I have to say, their faces and floppy ears were quite endearing!
Ali's favorite was the black rasberry with chocolate chunks. She declared it "The best ice cream ever"
We were even lucky enough to have Will out visiting before his deployment to Afghanistan, so he was able to experience the Scooper Bowl at Salem Common!
Ali drew a picture of her daddy in the sand. What a sweet girl.
A hammock. We LOVE our hammock. I have been working on the yard this summer, I made a brick patio (not real even like a professional one, but still great), got some chairs and made the table you can see in the background to put the herbs on (so the groundhog doesn't eat them) and hang flowers under. This hammock made the area complete.
And this
Our neighbors were eating outside, they had music on quietly, it had a nice beat to it, down the street some kids were out playing, the birds were chirping and every time the breeze blew, my wind chimes around the yard made music. I realized it was a perfect day.
