playing catch-up: my sister got married

Last month, I flew home to Alabama for a very short weekend to be the maid of honor (matron is such an ugly word) at my little sister's wedding. It was good to see friendly faces, even if only for a few days.

Can you believe I've never been a bridesmaid before? I can check that one off my bucket list!

Don't let the sunlight and dresses fool you--it was FREEZING.  I was sick for the next two weeks. 

my siblings and me

Mom and me pretending to fix her veil

The wedding was at Doublehead lodge, where my family has spent Christmas ever since I went horseback riding there for my 13th birthday.

mi familia

I was so excited to see my high school cheer coach!

my little cousin Daniel, who I refuse to acknowledge is a teenager

And that's all I have for now!  

Sorry I'm short on words, but I'm happy to say that in 19 work days I will be FREE for the summer!!!

If anyone tries to tell me that teachers are "so lucky" to have summers off, I will punch them. 

Teachers NEED summers off so they won't go insane. 

See you on the other side!

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a little chalk art (you can keep!)

Recently my favorite photographer, Christine McGuigan, asked me to do some chalk art for a special bridal photo shoot she was planning. I was excited but nervous because other than writing assignments for my students, I don't work with chalk very often. Luckily it turned out well and her photos are just amazing!

Here are a few I borrowed from her to show off:

 

 

 

As I was finishing up the chalk art, one of the girls at the shoot said that she wished she could hang it in her house.  Wish granted!  I drew up an ink and paper version and it's now available in my shop:

I've decided that Mike and I need our own chalkboard (yes, we're late to the party) so I can play with it a little more.  What do you think about the chalk art frenzy?

that one person

Source

Hello!  It's been a while! My bad. Here's a sappy anecdote from this week to make up for it. 

The other day I was telling my students how hard it was to get on Facebook and see beach pictures from everyone at home on Spring Break. Nebraska is pretty much as far from a beach as you can get, a fact that I didn't think much about when we moved here. My students' reaction: "Welcome to Nebraska!"(which coincidentally is the same thing they said at the beginning of the year when I couldn't believe there was actually a rule forbidding snowball fights in the school handbook).

Then a few of them got confused looks on their faces and asked why I would move to Omaha of all places from that magical place near the coast, so I reminded them that we go where the Air Force tells us to. Then one boy asked if I had to go where Mike was stationed. I laughed and responded that I didn't technically have to, but of course I wanted to.

The same student asked, "But wouldn't you rather live near the beach than here?" I immediately told him I would rather live here with my husband than anywhere else without him, which was followed by a chorus of "awwwww!". 

A part of me wanted to shake them. That's what marriage is!  What love is! To find that one person you would give up the beach for!

They laughed and we moved on to annotating articles, but I'm hoping more than the lesson sunk in.

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mutual weirdness

Don't you love this Seuss-inspired print?

Last week while out having a date night, Mike and I starting listing all the silly things we say when it's just the two of us. Before we were finished with dinner, we had pages and pages of silly songs, cheers, gestures, dances, and ridiculous pet names. Here are a few of my (less embarrassing) favorites:

• Happiness outlet: This one was created right after our honeymoon on the long drive from Alabama to Nebraska. After a mere two weeks together, we had already broken our previous record of days spent together so we were still figuring out how to be together 24/7. Mike was driving and I kept insisting that he keep his hand in mine, on my leg, shoulder, or whatever. Finally I explained that it just made me feel better if we were touching, like I was recharging through a kind of "happiness outlet". Still today, when we are watching TV or going to sleep we reach a hand or foot over and say "happiness outlet!"

• We took a page out of Marshall and Lily's book (from How I Met Your Mother) and started telling each other "I believe in you!" whenever one of us goes to the bathroom. When you get married, you can either be embarrassed by bathroom stuff (like this well-known blogger who even runs the faucet when she has to pee so her husband won't hear!) or you can choose to embrace it.  We embrace it.  :)

• When one of us is sleepy we call each other "baby bird", which started because Mike is so cute and quiet in the morning...like a baby bird??

• We can pretty much quote every line from Charlie the Unicorn (and part 2, part 3, & part 4).

• Whenever one of us (or anyone else) is in a bad mood we say that they are being a "poopoohead". It lightens the mood and makes stuff easier to deal with somehow. Imagine apologizing to someone for being a poopoohead; It's so much easier than saying "sorry I snapped at you/was sarcastic/ate all the fudgsicles when you were being annoying/I had just woken up/I was PMSing" or whatever the case may be. Because everyone's a poopoohead every now and then, you know? 

• We call each other by our nicknames more than any other name (unless of course someone's being a poopoohead). 

• Finally, we like to reenact the best five seconds of Peter Pan when we're really, really excited:

Now I just have to go get Mike's permission to post this!

So please share the weird and/or sweet things you say in private so we won't feel like such weirdos.  :)

something funny and something cool

I have a couple of videos to share today!  First, a clip from my school's game this weekend, where a student made ESPN SportCenter's number one play with an awesome one-handed alley-oop.

Pretty cool, right?  I don't actually know the student, but it's fun hearing your workplace on TV!  Imagine how much cooler it is for him!

And finally, one of my best friends shared this on Facebook and I watched it four times in a row while laugh-crying at the borderline-horrifying hilariousness of it all. 

I give you: Goats and Sheep Screaming like Humans.

You're welcome.

There's a snowstorm headed our way so I'm praying that my next post is telling you all about how lazy I was and how much snow cream I ate during my days off.  ;)