Spring Break

I think this is the first spring break in my whole 10 years of teaching that I've just stayed home. I LOVED IT! Things have been so busy at school and everything, that I just needed to relax and also get things done around the house.

One of the things I did was yard work. When it came to cleaning out this front flower bed, I decided to get some help so I wouldn't have to haul mulch by myself. here's a before shot of the bed.

I got some flowers and plants for the guys to plant as well as clean things out and mulch.

Here's the finished product. Much better!

Here's a close-up of these flowers that I got. I love them! Here's to being relaxed, organized, and having my house all clean (and my report cards done)!

Rodeo

It's that time of year again in the Houston area!

I don't think there's a bigger event here than the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. I've gone for a lot of the almost 10 years I've lived here and this year was no exception. We headed down to Reliant Stadium.

I was in for a very pleasant surprise during the rodeo. One of the bull riders was Cord McCoy. I never really saw his face because of this helmet.

We were on the other side of the arena from him as well. That's him way over there on the bull.

Most of you might not know who he is, but for fans of The Amazing Race, one of my favorite shows, he's one of the two "cowboys" that are on the show for the second time right now.

He's running the race with his brother Jet (left). I felt pretty famous that I got to see him riding a bull! He took first too!

We met Katherine there at the rodeo. She had her cute little nephew Ty with her too!

Once the rodeo portion was over, it was time for the concert. We saw Martina McBride and she was SO GOOD! That woman has a serious range!

Here's our little group. Jen and Wendy rode with me to and from the rodeo.

Wedding Weekend

My roommate Kristin got married to my friend Jared on Saturday.

Jen did the wedding cupcakes. They did that instead of a cake. Friday she spent a whole lot of time making like 200 cupcakes. I snapped this shot as she was trying out the tier that the cupcakes were going to go on. That night Katherine and Julie came over too and we had a great time.

I did the pictures on the wedding day at the temple. Right after the sealing, I came out to get my camera and saw these jokers so I had to snap a quick picture. Aaron looks so distinguished with that bouquet!

Two of my very favorite people. I forgot to mention that Julie is Jared's sister.

This is Julie and Jared's older sister Jen and her husband Josh and son Alex.

Here's the happy couple after just coming out of the temple. They're so unique. I loved the tennis shoes.

This was a lot of the group that was there.

The cute Martin kids!

Of course they had to do some silly poses with Jared's friends.

This was one of many of these. I had a hard time choosing.

This is a roommate picture along with one of Kristin's mission companions.

Okay, I posted a lot of pictures - just a small fraction, though, but I'm not going to comment on all of them!

We loved this tree and I'm not sure what it's called, but had to get some pictures in front of it.

I think this is my favorite of all of them.

After the wedding, a bunch of us headed back to the Martin's for some relaxation before the ring ceremony and reception.

Jen also made this porcupine cake and cupcakes for Jared's groom cake. He and Julie love to throw jackets on real porcupines to collect their quills up in AK. These turned out so cute.

The "wedding cake" cupcakes turned out great too!

They had lego cake toppers!

The centerpieces were from Edible Arrangements. Delicious!

I had to try a shot similar to the one that Wendy took at Susannah's wedding with the rings and the bouquet.

The 3 Amigas!

Kristin was wiped out!

Jared's buddies really did a doozy on Kristin's car.

Aaron got the garter . . .

Katherine got the bouquet, that was thrown like a bullet, by the way, that almost took my head off! It was a fun night all around!

Family Fun

My cousin Jason and his family came into town last week.

I got to hang out with them last Sunday and he was up to his old antics with this popped balloon. It was pretty funny.

Jason's daughter Abby had her 5th birthday and Jen made her a special cake.

This picture uploaded sideways, but you can see that she made a combination Scooby Doo/Elmo cake. Abby was delighted. She was having a hard time deciding between the two, so she got the best of both worlds.

We had dinner at my Aunt Maylene and Uncle Darrell's house. Dannen and his family came too. It was a lot of fun!

Drums and Air

I had a few fun things happen at school lately that I wanted to blog about.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We got the whole first grade group together for some air experiment demonstrations. Who wouldn't want to teach science to this "excited" of an audience?

We made drums for our Africa unit.The first order of business was to paper mache the big cans we made the drums out of. The kids had a great time tearing up the paper into smalled pieces.

I set things up while they were at recess for them to add the paper. I actually forgot to take an "after" picture, so I'll do it next week when I'm at school. The kids love them!