Saturday, May 31, 2008

5 Months/ Last Day of School

Yesterday, we both woke up tired from chaperoning the school dance the night before. The school dance, by the way, consisted of three rooms of video game systems in addition to the dance floor. Dan and I both played Guitar Hero and rocked it... then we mostly hung out with the other teachers eating brownies and laughing at the kids' antics the rest of the night. It was fun, although we were there from 7-11:15 and were both exhausted by the time we got home.

Somehow, we managed to get up and drag ourselves to work. Dan actually got up on time, which may have had something to do with the fact it was his LAST DAY! I didn't get up on time whatsoever, and therefore did not shower, put on makeup, or let dear Sammie go to the bathroom before I went to work.

I got a phone call from Dan around 11:00. I was in a good mood, because I had just had an assessment with an 18 month old that went pretty well. Dan was in an even better mood, because he found out that he passed his Spanish oral exam! He had to pass this test at Advanced-Low level to get his real teacher certification (he only has a temporary one right now). I know what you're all thinking, that of course he was going to pass. But actually, this test is really hard and a lot of people "fail" it because they get Intermediate-high ranking. So he was really nervous and has been worrying about it since he took the test several weeks ago. So it was such a relief to find out he passed it and now can become a real certified teacher!

I stayed at the clinic until 1:00. But then it was time to come home and prepare to celebrate! I made a homemade key lime pie, which turned out awful so I'm not going to bother to share the recipe. (It tasted like a big hunk of cream cheese, basically). But it was fun to make and looked really pretty. Unfortunately I let it chill before I took the picture, so the wording ran into the icing:

It says "Congrats! School's out! 6 on Test! 5 Months!" The 6 on the test refers to the Spanish test, and the 5 months refers to...our five month anniversary, which was also yesterday! So we decided to open up a bottle of champagne that Matt and Leah got us for our wedding. That's in the picture too.




I also made dinner, "Herbed Salmon with Mixed Greens" from Cooking Light, which turned out delicious. After dinner, of course we watched Lost season finale online. All in all, a great night.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

The Ultimate Sacrifice

Tonight is the season finale of Lost. We have been looking forward to this since forever, because we are Lost fanatics. A lot of the books we read about marriage told us not to have a TV during the first year. Well, we ignored that and did the opposite, flying through four seasons of Lost on DVD and online (we started in January) until we caught up with this season.

Dan does not chaperone high school events. I've begged him to go to some of the dances because I think they'd be fun, some of the fundraisers because I think he would look good if he did, and on and on, but he refuses. He related an actual conversation between him and a student to Julie and me, and we about died laughing, but he was totally serious!

Dan (speaking to the student): You know how you get to see all your buddies during the school day, every day, and then when you guys have dances, you get to hang out with them Friday nights too? Well, I want to have time to hang out with my buddies too and I can't do that if I'm always chaperoning your stuff!

But the kids kept asking, and so he finally agreed that he would chaperone their last dance of the year.

Without knowing the exact date of the dance.

Turns out, it's the last day of school.

Today.

From 8-11.

Therefore, completely encompassing the Lost season finale.

And here comes the ultimate sacrifice part....
I told him I'd go with him and help chaperone instead of watching Lost without him.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

My Child, Get Up!

http://www.crosstieswaco.org/

">Talitha Koum

Okay, I'm not sure if this link works or not, but here is a link to Talitha Koum, which I do a lot of work at. It's a therapeutic nursery that serves the most disadvantaged people in Waco. They work with kids who are infants to age 6 and the goal is to get them ready to succeed in school and in life through what they've learned at Talitha Koum. I do play therapy with one child, and I also lead a stress management group for the teachers there. I also do testing on the kids to see where they're at with their cognitive, language, and motor abilities. It's a great place and it makes me so thankful for the childhood I have. You should hear the words that come out of these kids' mouths (I'll give you a hint - I didn't know them until I was WAY older than 6!) and the ideas they have about how life works. However, it's so neat that we are at least able to help out some kids and hopefully make a difference in their lives. Anyway, I'm actually going over there right now but I just wanted to show you all where I spend my Wednesdays.

By the way, Talitha Koum is an aramaic phrase in the Bible that Jesus uses when he is raising a young girl from death to life. It means, "My Child, Get up!"

Monday, May 26, 2008

Playing with Pictures

Well, I lost my camera's battery charger...I've looked all over for it and can't find it. Dan even looked and can't find it, which means it's really lost. Dan can always find the things I lose, which happens about fifteen times a day. This is only the second time that I can remember that he's been unable to find something I lost. The first time was when I lost my keys and we both searched for them for over an hour...including covering all the apartment complex grass, asking our landlord, driving to my office to see if I left them there.... turns out they were in my purse the whole time. He was a little bitter about that, understandably I guess, but we're both perplexed with the camera charger. Where could it have gone? I always just use it right by my computer.


Anyway, I still want to learn how to put pictures in entries on this, so I guess I'll just practice with a few older ones.



This is a picture of us from Chicago, in summer 2006. This was obviously taken a while ago but turns out we don't take any pictures together except at formal events and since we live in Texas, we haven't really been to many together recently!







Here's Sammie! These are from last weekend, when Julie came and visited! Sammie fell in love with her immediately and would not stop bothering her the entire weekend. This included eating her hair, kissing her face, shoving her toys in her nose...you get the idea. She just went to the vet last week and is 7 months old and weighs 17 pounds! Here's a video of her when she was only 6 weeks and 4 pounds...




Okay, so hopefully these all worked. Happy Memorial Day everyone! We're not "celebrating" at all, although I think spending the day at home just hanging out sure feels like celebrating. I'm going to a movie with Lauren and Camden tonight, and Dan is getting ready to hand out final exams tomorrow to his 9th and 10th graders. 4 days left for him until school's out for the summer!

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Ain't No Bugs on Me...

So you know that commercial that goes "There ain't no bugs on me, there ain't no bugs on me...there may be bugs on some of you mugs but there ain't no bugs on me." I am upstairs sending emails, and Dan has no idea that I can hear him. I can just faintly hear the TV, and all of a sudden I hear that commercial, and Dan starts singing along with it. He always sings along with it when I'm in the room with him, and I figured he did it just to make me laugh. Turns out he just always sings along with it even when he's the only one in the room! So for those of you who ask what I've learned about Dan since we got married...there you go!

The Inaugural Entry

So, I decided to finally give in and create a blog. Dan and I have made great friends down here in Texas, but we also miss everyone from back home and felt the need to somehow connect with all of you better and share our lives with you more than we have been. Instead of embarking on the impossible task of emailing and calling everyone individually, we decided to create a website where we could at least give you a tiny glimpse into our world! I don't know what this will shape up into. Most likely, I (Kristi) will be doing most of the posting, unless you want the details of the latest sports events. I probably will be posting mostly thoughts and updates on our daily life, but also what I'm reading, what we're cooking, and interesting things from the world of psychology. We'll just have to see I guess!

So there we go. I'm Kristi; I'm just about to begin my second year of my doctoral program in clinical psychology. It will take me five years to graduate, no that is not a typo, and I'll officially be a psychologist when I finish. I think I want to work mostly with kids when I get a real job. Right now I go to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, work at the Psychology Clinic Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays doing assessments, therapy, and leading groups. I also do research on couples' conflict, and I'm currently beginning work on how the language we use when we fight affects our happiness. I love to cook, read, and run - although I've been taking a break from this last one since I ran the Austin Marathon in February. I'm not sure if I'll take it up again seriously or not - it's pretty hot down here, and I got really sick of running on treadmills during training!
Oh, I also really like playing the piano and making crafts like homemade cards, which is the newest hobby I've gotten into recently.

Dan is a high school Spanish teacher, who will finish his rookie year next week! Although it's definitely been a roller coaster ride, he was up to the challenge and is excited to go back for a second year. He loves his school and the people he works with, and we still talk about how blessed he is to have gotten the opportunity to work at the school he's at. Dan's current hobbies are watching HGTV in any spare moment he has - I can't wait until we eventually buy a house, because he already has so many ideas and opinions about everything! He's also been really into learning about money, budgeting and finances. He already knows so much and it's amazing how well we're managing with our small income because of his money management skills.

Sammie is the love of our lives (besides each other of course!), our puppy who turns seven months old today! She is a mini-mutt as we call her, but we think she is part beagle, part dachsund, and then there is some poodle/shih tzu in her as well although you would never know it by looking at her. She's already caught one bird and would love to catch another if we let her off her leash again. :-) Sammie is laying by my feet as I write this - she's a very snuggly, loving puppy!

Well, anyway, it's Memorial Day weekend so we both have tomorrow off - yeah! We spent the weekend housesitting at our friend's house, and we watched several movies on his DVR. We watched "A Good Year" with Russell Crowe, which I didn't expect to like but we actually both enjoyed it a lot. We also watched "Ratatouille," which was of course wonderful - Dan and I both enjoyed it, although I think I liked it more than Dan. Finally, (I told you we watched a lot of movies!) we watched "25th hour". Unfortunately I fell asleep about a half hour into it and Dan ended up turning it off about halfway so that we could go to bed. So we'll hold off on our opinion of this, I guess. I would have liked to watch the end but those 2 (3? 4?) glasses of wine captured me better than the TV screen, I guess.

Since we don't have to work tomorrow, tonight we are going to another couple's (Lisa and David's) house to cook dinner and watch the movie "The Kite Runner." I'm excited to watch this, I loved the book. We wanted to have a cook-out but since none of us own a grill (well, besides the George Foreman), we decided to cook dinner instead. Sammie's going to come with and play with one of her best friends, Zoe! I'll try to remember to bring my camera and take a picture of the two of them, they're adorable together. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day!

Love,
Kristi