What a Day!

Well, Sam and I are suppose to be here:

Instead, we are here:

All because of a little:

Yes, it's true. Sam and I were suppose to fly to Maryland to visit my parents for Christmas, but Mother Nature had a change of plans for us. We arrived on Saturday at the airport 2 hours before our flight was suppose to leave, only to find out that it had been delayed an hour. So, we checked into our flight, dropped off our luggage, went through security, had a bit of lunch, and then waited in our terminal.

15 minutes before we were suppose to board, there was a message over the intercom that stated that our flight had been cancelled because of the massive snow storm. By the time that we were able actually able to talk to someone from the airline, all of the flights in the next few days had been booked. The next flight that they could get us on was on Tuesday (mind you, this was Saturday when this all happened). So we booked that flight.

Then came the dilemma of getting home. Sam's parents had dropped us off at the airport. They had JUST gotten home when we found out our flight had been cancelled and it's a 2 hour drive just to this airport. So, we decided to just rent a car until Tuesday and drop it off at the airport when we flew out. We waited an hour for the shuttle to take us from the airport to the rental car company. We got our car, headed home, and arrived 2 hours later. We were SOO exhausted when we got home and then we realized that we had thrown out all of our food before we left that morning because we didn't want it to spoil while we were on the trip. So, we had to take a trip to Target, pick up some food, and then head home. By the time that we actually got home, it had already been a 10-hour day!

So, we're unexpectedly home this weekend, and we'll TRY to fly out (again) on Tuesday. Hopefully it'll work this time! :). Merry Christmas everyone!

Oh Where oh where have Sam and Marcie Gone?

You can always tell how busy things are for us judging by how clean our house is. And right now, our house looks like a tornado blew through it! Hahah! We've both had finals this past week. I've had report cards, Christmas programs at our school, and everything else in the world! It's been a VERY busy month! I've been waiting to do this post because I wanted my house to look clean so that I could take pictures of all our Christmas decorations. But, I don't know when our house will look clean again! So I'll just post about what pics I do have.

Well, the past few weeks have been very cold and stormy! This just puts me in the mood to cook! A few weeks ago I made Sam's favorite recipe, my Pumpkin Swirl Bread. Yummy! You can see a pic of it here!



It's SOOO yummy and it makes our house smell SOO good! It just puts me in the Christmas spirit. It's kinda a lot of work, but it's WELL worth it! Here's the recipe:

Pumpkin Swirl Bread

1 (8oz) cream cheese, softened

1/4 c. sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 3/4 c. flour

1 t. baking soda

1 1/2 c. sugar

1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. nutmeg

1 t. cinnamon

1 egg, beaten

1/3 c. water

1 c. canned pumpkin

1/2 c. margarine melted

Combine cream cheese, sugar and egg, mixing until well blended. Set aside. In a second bowl, combine dry ingredients. In a third bowl, combined pumpkin, margarine, egg, and water, mixing just until moistened. Add this bowl to the dry ingredients. Reserve 2 cups pumpkin batter; pour remaining batter into greased and floured 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. Pour cream cheese mixture over pumpkin batter; top with reserved pumpkin batter. Cut through batter with knife several times for swirl effect. Bake 350 for 1 hour 10 minutes, or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes; remove from pan. Makes 1 loaf

A few Saturdays ago I not only made my Pumpkin Swirl bread, but I also made homemade potato soup. (You can see Sam, as he's modeling his soup. And you can see our Christmas tree in the background! So cute!) This is my sister-in-law, Valerie's recipe. HOLY COW IS IT GOOD! It makes A LOT, so I cut the recipe into 4ths, and it made about 4 servings. Here's the original recipe:

Cheese-N-Potato Soup

4 c. water 4 chicken boullion cubes

1 c. celery, finely chopped 1 c. carrots, finely chopped

3 large potatoes, cubed 1 small onion, diced

6-8 strips bacon, cooked

Cook all these ingredients (minus bacon) 20-30 minutes until vegetables are tender. While the veggies are cooking, cook bacon and set aside. Then add to the vegetables:

2 small cans cream of chicken soup

1 lb. Velveeta cheese (cubed) then stir until melted

Crumble the bacon and add to soup.

The finished product! SOO yummy! Especially when you dip bread into it! It's even good cold or reheated! Enjoy! Merry Christmas everyone and happy cooking! :)

Please help my class!!

I entered my class into a video contest. I had to make a video of my students. They're singing Christmas songs, but that's only half of them (only the ones whose parents signed their permission slips to be entered).The top 20 classes will get $500 gift cards for Staples. They're really cute and so please vote for them! You can vote as many times as you'd like, you just have to refresh the page. Please help my class out!

Go to: www.cashforclasscontest.com/view_vote.php
Then go down to the bottom and look for :

1st grade, Evans
Riverside Prep

Thanks so much! My kids REALLY want to win (and so do I! :) )

OMG! I'm Famous!! :)

I had quite a shock when I walked into work today! One of my coworkers told me that a few of my Masters program buddies and I were in the newspaper. We saw the newspaper reporters and photographer in our Masters class on Thursday, but we didn't think much of it. Then, lo and behold, it ended up in the newspaper. Noted, it wasn't the front cover, but I've never had this kind of publicity! Hahah!

The newspaper article was about how our superintendent developed his own Masters/Doctorate programs that use more of the projects-based learning that our school heavily focuses on. In this pic, the superintendent gave us each a map of Greece and told us to identify various cities/regions within the map. However, the maps were all in Greek. Kinda interesting! So, that's what we're doing. Wow, the newspaper today . . . People Magazine tomorrow! Hahaha! :)

BTW- this is Sam's commentary of the pic (which he emailed to me!) Too funny!

" I would agree that she has the best hair and outfit out of the whole room, definitely. Her scarf is simple yet elegant and it is tied in a double Parisian neck bow, just like the fashionable and stately ladies of France used in the late 1700's. And her green top reminds us each that summer has ended and fall is upon us. You can also see that she is about to say something profound that will undoubtedly amaze and inspire the whole group. The camera probably could not capture the beauty of her voice and they wisely chose a picture that was taken before her melodious thoughts were majestically uttered." -Sam

Halloween Answer

Dang! You guys are good! Yes Tiffany, you're right. . . I was Miss Viola Swamp from the book "Miss Nelson is Missing". Here's the pic I tried to copy for my costume.


Pretty convincing, eh? I originally bought green striped tights. . . the package said and showed green tights, but once I opened the package it was red. Oh well. I know it's hard to tell, but I'm also wearing MASSIVE fake eyelashes as well as loads of blue eye shadow. My students sure LOVED my costume and most of them didn't recognize me. It was pretty fun!

I was pretty sick on Halloween, but Sam and I had a fun day carving our pumpkin and passing out candy to the one trick-or-treater who came by. It's ok. It left more candy for Sam and I! Hahha! Hope everyone else had a great Halloween! :)

Halloween Time

Ok, this'll be a quick post because I really should be getting to bed. I've been sick with a cold all weekend and so I need the extra rest. Anyway, on Friday my school had their Halloween celebrations. We had a schoolwide parade, filled with Halloween music. We did Halloween centers and of course we had our party. Well, everyone was told to dress up like a character from a book. Does anyone know who I picked to dress up as? *hint* It's from a popular kid's book. I'll reveal the answer later! :)

Ahhh, Disneyland! :)

Tis that time of year! Time for our annual Disneyland visit. Since I was on Fall Break, we decided to go on Wednesday to avoid the crowds. Ha! I guess lots of other schools have Fall Break too because it was kind of crowded. We still had fun though. Here Sam and I are at the Haunted Mansion, as it's all decked out in Halloween decor! So cool!

Sam TOTALLY spoiled me this year. He made reservations for us to eat at the Blue Bayou Restaurant, the one inside of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Holy cow was it fun! Even though it was inside of the ride, we couldn't hear the ride. It was so peaceful and very romantic!

Here's cute Sam at the Blue Bayou Restaurant. The food there was AMAZING!! Holy cow! Sam ordered the Tesoro Island chicken and I ordered the Monte Cristo sandwich. *drool*drool* I had read reviews online about how good the Monte Cristo was, and it sure lived up to it. It was to DIE for, totally unhealthy, but to die for! The outside was so crispy and the inside was so soft. Then they had this awesome jelly to put on it. Yum! Then Sam and I ordered the creme brulee. Oh my gosh! Heavenly! We are totally coming back to the Blue Bayou. Yum yum!

After lunch, Sam and I had fun riding the rides. We first went on Space Mountain, which they had changed to Ghost something or other. The ride was MUCH faster, darker, and it had this ghost that was chasing you. It was pretty fun! We were able to ride all the usual rides, but Indiana Jones was closed for maintenance, Splash Mountain & the Jungle Cruise were both down for a few hours for repairs. It was frustrating for a while not being able to ride some of the good rides (which clogs up the other rides), but we were able to ride them eventually!

Cute Sam as he's cleaning his glasses. We had to take a break to eat our yummy churros. Gosh, I realized that we sure do eat a lot while we're there. I guess we burned up so many calories walking around the park though!

Me giving the thumbs up on Disneyland.


Tom Sawyer's Island. Doesn't it look so peaceful?!


Looking over by the Haunted Mansion area.



I LOVED that everything was all decorated Halloweeny. Usually Sam and I go between Halloween and Thanksgiving, so there are more Christmas decorations up. It was fun to see how things were decorated. I LOVED the Mickey jack-o-lantern in the back of this picture (in front of Main Street).


Ok, this is Sam's famed picture. The first time that we went on Splash Mountain on Wednesday, Sam was trying to make this ugly face at the camera as we went down the last drop. But, he wasn't able to hold the face. So then the next time we went on it, Sam decided to be a muscle man. He kept practicing on all the smaller drops so that he'd be prepared for the big drop. And, he WAS able to hold his muscle man pose for the camera, although I think his face looks HILARIOUS! It's kind of hard to tell, but he's making this face that's like "HURRY take the picture because I'm getting scared!" Then when we saw his picture, we fell in love with it. We usually don't waste our money on expensive pictures like this, but this one was too good to pass up. All the other people in our log were laughing too. Too funny!!

Well, we had a BLAST at Disneyland this year! I can't wait for next year!! :)

Oh I LOVE Fall Break!!

So now that I'm off for fall break, what have I been up to? Well, yesterday was my first day off and I went shopping, of course. I also ordered our Christmas cards (Sam is so determined that we need to have our cards out at Thanksgiving, and that is only next month! WOW!) on Shutterfly. As for today, I cleaned the house all day (boy did it need it).

Then I made some mini-pumpkin bites. I found the recipe at http://www.bakerella.com/ . Hers turned out MUCH cuter than mine, but they still taste pretty awesome. I know it's hard to tell, but the pie crusts are actually in the shape of pumpkins. My drizzled chocolate turned out a little blobby because I cut the hole too large in the baggy. I also got some cute fall decorations and so now I'm in the fall spirit! Anyway, here's the recipe for them! They're pretty fun to make!!

Pumpkin Pie Bites

2 refrigerated ready-to roll pie crusts
8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter

Optional: 1/2 cup chocolate morsels

vegetable oil

re-sealable plastic bags

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.Use cookie cutter to cut 12 pumpkin shapes from each pie crust. You will need to roll the dough thinner than it comes out of the box. Press dough shapes into a 24 cup mini muffin tray. (Make 12 at a time, alternating cups to make sure pie crusts don’t overlap each other.) Apply egg whites from one egg to the top edges of each pie. Mix cream cheese, sugar, canned pumpkin, remaining 2 eggs, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice together until thoroughly combined. Spoon mixture into each pumpkin-shaped pie crust. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Remove pies to cool and repeat with second pie crust. Place the muffin tray in the freezer to cool it quickly for re-use.
Makes 24 pies. Keep refrigerated.

To decorate, melt chocolate in a heat-proof bowl in the microwave on medium. Heat in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until melted. Add a little vegetable oil to make the chocolate more fluid. Transfer to a re-sealable plastic bag and cut the corner off. Drizzle or draw faces on pies.

Note: The cutter I used was 3 3/4 inches wide, but if you don’t have one, don’t worry. Just use a round cutter around that size or slightly smaller to cut circle shapes out of the dough. Then make stems with the scraps. Press each stem over the edge and down the side of the dough before filling.

Pumpkin pie spice is a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice.
Enjoy!

Where's the Time?!

Ok, what happens when 2 people work and go to school full-time? Their blog gets forgotten about! Yes, it's true, our poor little blog. No, Sam and I haven't disappeared from the Earth, but we have been SWAMPED! My new job is going pretty good. But when I have 29 first graders for 8 hours a day, I do occasionally lose my sanity. My first graders are the cutest thing though! I've also started my Masters program. It'll be a 2 year program, and I have a new class every 5 weeks. So far I've completed 2 classes!! Woohoo! I've also been put on the college board (heaven knows why). Sam's been pretty busy too. His company opened up a new store, and it's kept him pretty busy (isn't that right Kyle?). Needless to say, we haven't had any time to breath let alone do anything on our blog. Our poor house is the dirtiest that I've ever let it get. I only have about a week and a half, and then I have a little bit of time off for fall break! YES! I will try to be better about blogging. But honestly, nothing else has happened aside from work and school. I guess we're pretty boring!

BTW-isn't the picture funny?!?! It's totally untrue at our house (Sam does more cleaning than I do), but I thought it was a good laugh.

Challenges of Life

Marcie and I found a really good article that explains our thoughts and feelings as we pass through a peculiar episode of our lives. For a few years we have been confused as to why things happen the way they do and why things happen to certain people at certain times of their lives. Although we would not wish this challenge on anyone, we have felt a lot of peace and grown much closer as a couple through understanding and facing the reality of this challenge and all of the associated feelings and struggles that it brings. This article explains better than we can in our own words the feelings that are associated with this struggle. -Sam

http://www.resolve.org/site/PageServer?pagename=lrn_ffaf_ie

Mammoth, Here We Come!

The week after I got back from Kentucky & Maryland, Sam and I decided to take a little vacation together. We drove up to Bishop Wednesday night and we camped in Bishop. We've stayed at this campground before. It's a really cute campground with a little creek that runs behind the tent. So CUTE! The not so cute part was that 50 French teens were also camping there. Talk about clogging up the bathrooms! I felt like I was back in France again, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the heck they were saying!!

On Thursday, Sam and I drove to Lake Sabrina, just north of Bishop. Sam had been planning this trip for months and he was SOO excited to get back into the mountains! So Sam had planned this "moderate" hike up to Blue Lake. It was only suppose to be 3 miles, or 2 hours. Well, 2 hours into our hike, we were getting low on water, we were WAY out of shape, and other hikers were telling us that we were only 1/3 of the way there. We quickly abandoned the thought of completing that hike, hiked back down to our car, and then spent the rest of the evening in Bishop.

Sam and I as we're resting on our hike to Blue Lake.

Lake Sabrina. How beautiful!

Another view of Lake Sabrina. That night, we ate dinner in Bishop and then roasted marshmallows and Starbursts. We had fun!



On Friday, we drove up to Mammoth Lakes. I was pretty happy to be away from the French teens! :). We hiked up to Arrowhead Lake, which was this gorgeous lake that was completely untouched by humans! It was a good 2 hour hike and it was well worth it! The mosquitoes weren't as bad and our bodies were better prepared for this hike. What a beautiful lake though!

After we made it to Arrowhead Lake, we decided to return to our car because it started looking pretty stormy. So we decided to drive to the different lakes in Mammoth (I believe that there are 7-8 main lakes there). This was taken at Horseshoe Lake. I just love the color of the water!

This is Lake Mary

More lakes in Mammoth

Lucky for me, Sam was kind enough to let us stay in a condo in Mammoth Friday and Saturday nights, since I had endured 2 nights of tent camping with our French friends. This is the view from our condo. How beautiful!

On Saturday, we decided to hike to Rainbow Falls in Devil's Postpile. I did this hike as a child and I remember that it was so beautiful and full of trees. Unfortunately a few years back a big fire came through and destroyed most of those trees that I remembered. You can see in this pic how barren it is!

We finally made it to Rainbow Falls! It looks so tiny in this pic, but it was a good size waterfall!

One of the rivers around Rainbow Falls. Once we reached Rainbow Falls, we were both feeling pretty good. So we decided to keep hiking to Lower Falls.

I saw this tree at Lower Falls and I fell in love with it! I'm not a tree hugger or anything, but I was so fascinated because by all reasons, this tree should be dead. But it trudges on and is barely hanging on. You can see most of its roots. How amazing!

Lower Falls. I totally thought that it looked like something from Disney's California Adventureland. So pretty!

After the falls, Sam and I decided to hike to Devil's Postpile. On our hike, we found a deer! I was pretty impressed! For those of you who see cute wildlife all the time, how lucky you are! It's amazing to see these animals in their habitats. What a treat this was for us!

Once we made it to Devil's Postpile, we decided to hike to the top of it. This is the view from the top!!

This was also taken at the top of Devil's Postpile. I love it because you can see the hexagonal shaped rocks! Fascinating!!

Here's our FABULOUS condo! I was totally in love with it! It had a cute kitchen with granite countertops, a fireplace, a king-sized bed, a pool and jacuzzi. After a full day of hiking, this was SOO worth it! On Sunday, Sam and I went to church and then we headed home. We had a good little trip and it brought my short little summer to a close! I'm sure that more trips are on the way! :)

Fourth of July

I know, I haven't posted in FOREVER. I'm slowly working on it. Here's the rest of my update from my Kentucky/Maryland trip the week of the 4th of July.

For the 4th of July, we headed into Baltimore to visit Fort McHenry, where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner. I guess I'm not historically inclined, because I had the story all mixed up before we got there. It was interesting to hear how the song came to be and it was better just to be there! Valerie and I standing near the front of Fort McHenry.

I know the pic is fuzzy, but here me, Em and Jeremy are hanging out in a war bunker (built after the War of 1812).

They had a pretty big celebration for the 4th at Fort McHenry. They had a parade with people all dressed up in time period costumes and they gave us a bit of history.

Then they got out one of the original flags and the audience helped to unfold the flag. They also got out a current flag, which people also helped to unfold. I was happily content to take pics instead of helping! :)! They were unable to put up the flags because it was so windy, but it was cool to see it just the same!

Ok, so I am a HUGE fan of the show "Ace of Cakes" on Food Network. Since we were already in Baltimore for the 4th, Valerie and I agreed that we HAD to visit their bakery. Of course it was closed, but we were excited to just to be there! WE LOVE YOU DUFF!! (He's the head baker)!

That night, Dad, Emily and I decided to be brave and head into D.C. to watch the fireworks. We were just walking over a bridge in Virginia (I think) when the fireworks began. It was REALLY crowded, even on that bridge, but the fireworks were spectacular. You can kind of see the Lincoln Memorial on the bottom right. Afterwards, we had to head into the WAY crowded subway and head back to my parents'. We didn't get home until about midnight, but it was worth it!

Valerie, Jeremy, Em, me, Dad and Mom in front of the Washington D.C. temple that Sunday. What a huge and gorgeous temple it is!

The Washington D.C. temple. So pretty!


On Tuesday Mom, Emily and I went into D.C. to do some museuming! :). Of course we went to the Smithsonians and we had a blast. We saw Dorothy's shoes from the Wizard of Oz.

We also saw Kermit the Frog. Look at how cute he looks!

We also went to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. This pic just looks like it belongs in the Night at the Museum! :)

Our last stop was to see the largest diamond in the world, the Hope Diamond. This diamond put my wedding ring to shame (sorry Sam! :) ). We had a good time. On Wednesday, Em and I flew home. We almost had to fly home on Thursday because our original flight was delayed and so we were going to miss our layover in Atlanta. After waiting in line for 1 1/2 hours (NO JOKE!), they finally put us on another plane, and they gave us first class! Wahhooo!! We ended up getting back to San Diego at about 11:45PM and I was SOOO happy to see Sam!! I had a really good trip, but it was REALLY hard being away from him.