Long overdue

Plano Balloon festival pics.........Clay and I rode down on our bikes and got to see a few balloons. These are our favs.
Yes, it has been a while since I last wrote. I have been so busy with work and cub scouts, gymnastics for Clay, training, training and more training for work and scouts. I am usually so tired on Saturdays after grading papers and doing the home thing. There's always something to clean up, wash, vaccuum, feed, sew, all those things a mom does without thinking. Teaching is going pretty good. I've finally learned 155 students names, who cares about grades and who really doesn't, who likes who, and what to do when they are just driving me crazy! It has been a realy learning experience. I have doubted my teaching skills and then been told that I'm the BEST teacher. What do you do?
The boys are doing good in school. Tristan is enjoying 6th grade, loves his Exploratory classes the most (Theater, Spanish and Life Skills), and Orchestra second. He can actually make some good noises with his Viola. Clay loves his teacher. He was a Music teacher before becoming a 2nd grade teacher and brings instruments to class, that's Clay's favorite time. Ok, have a great week, I'll try to update next week.

Anyone want to buy Boy Scout Popcorn? Gotta sell it--let me know if it's your favorite!

My first week of teaching

Wow, my first week of teaching was great! I was kind of stressed because I don't get to be in my own room the first two periods, another teacher is in there 1st period and then I have meetings with my grade level during 2nd, and I didn't think I could get anything done without being in my own room, but I think I've figured it out. I can get things done, but it takes some planning. My feet were killing me by Wednesday, but now they are much better. I've gotta look for some good squishy shoes. I did have a student taken out of my class on Thurs, he was expelled and sent to special programs school, and two more were expelled for a week. It's sad when your students

make the wrong choices.

Yesterday, we went out to a skeet shoot with some family and friends and had a good time watching the shooting and shooting a little. I took some pics of the longhorns and other interesting things there. Beer Belly? Not on this kid.....Shooter extraordinaire....Please push me, please?!

Last post I totally forgot my birds, top is Charlie, a blue fronted Amazon parrot, I have had him(or her) going on 18 years! Wow, that's a long time! Then Whiskey is below, he(or her) is a double yellow head Amazon parrot. He is older than Charlie, and I got them pretty much the same time. They are really loud, but lots of fun. Singing and laughing and crying whenever I do.
Whiskey.....
Ok, have a great week everyone! I'm only going to update once a week, cause I am so tired after teaching all day I go to bed earlier now.....C YA!

my animals

I thought I would post some pics of my animals. It was fun to take interesting pics of them. Two of my cats weren't as photogenic as my oldest one. So, here's Becka Lee our English Mastiff.

Here's our Molly Sue, chihuahua( Mexican cat terrier). Travis calls her that cause she has many cat like behaviors.Here's Rosie, 14 year old tortie(that's a color) kitty. I gave her CPR when she was a kitten. I found her on the street as I was riding my bike home from work(vet's office) and she has stayed with me every since.This is Oddball, he's just a kitty, but his brother is the kitty below with Molly. Quite the difference!Cosmo with Molly. He has such beautiful blue eyes, but kept closing them when I would take his pic.Our guinea pig, Buttercup. Very friendly and squeals with delight over alfalfa hay.Quentin the tarantula, going to my science class.Comet the corn snake, going to my class also. His eyes are blue because he is about to molt.Oscarina the tortoise. She really has a personality. Comes out when you talk to her..Red the Betta. I know original name, but Clay named him. We also have a Pac man frog that is at science class already. Forgot to take a pic of him. We have had just about any pet you could name except a ferret(too stinky for me), so if you have questions, let me know. Have a great week! We all start school tomorrow, so I know we will have a great week!

Some recipes

Here are two recipes that my family just love and there are some of you that have asked for them.
Leek and Potato Soup
1 pound of leeks, 4-5 medium, cleaned and dark green sections removed, chop in half lengthwise and then chop in little slices.
3 TBS butter
big pinch of Kosher salt plus a little more for seasoning
14 oz Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced small. I have used fingerling potatoes and it works just fine. A small bag of them works well.
1 qt vegetable broth
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 TBS chives

Take your butter and melt it in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the leeks and a heavy pinch of salt and sweat them for 5 minutes. Decrease the heat to med-low and cook until the leeks are tender-25 min or so. stir occasionally.
Add the potatoes and the vegetable broth, increase the heat to med-high and bring to boil. Reduce it again to low, cover, and simmer until the potatoes are soft, about 35-45 minutes. Turn off the heat and puree the mixture with either an immersion blender or pour it into a blender and puree it until it is smooth. I don't have an immersion blender so poured it into my blender and it all fits :) Pour it back into the saucepan if you had to pour it out, and stir in the heavy cream, buttermilk and white pepper, taste it and add more seasoning if you want. Sprinkle chives on it or some cheese and serve it, or you can chill it and serve cold. My family likes it hot and sometimes we put a little bacon bits on it, bacon makes everything better:)

Then for dessert you can make Buttermilk PIE
This is a true Southern dish.
1&1/2 cups sugar
2 TBS cornstarch
1/2 cup butter-melted
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
1 unbaked deep dish pie shell

Combine sugar and cornstarch in a large bowl, add buttermilk, butter and vanilla, mix well. Add eddgs one at a time, beating well after each. Pour into pie shell, bake at 425 for 5 minutes, thenreduce temp to 325 and bake for 1& 1/4 hours or until pie test comes clean. I also put foil strips on the crust of the pie shell so they don't burn until the last 20 minutes or so and then take them off. This is Tristan's favorite pie and usually asks for it for his birthday "cake" or whenever we're frying fish or something else way yummy.

Good luck and have fun!

overloaded with info!

Yesterday was fun, but whew, there was a bunch of info to decompress. It was good that I was at this school for subbing for 7 years cause we were divided up into teams and we had to find different rooms for a scavenger hunt. Of course I got on a team with the new PE teacher who is young and very fit! We ran from one side of the school to the other and back and forth! I knew where all the rooms were and which ones we could cut through to get to the next place faster. Very fun and of course we won GOLD! (I love the Olympics!) We got to choose 3 different prizes from all the ones on the table. Very cool! And then today I had lab safety, lab safety, lab safety for science, although it was very informative and I heard from other new teachers that their class was soooooo boring they were doodling and couldn't understand why they were being lectured to when we are told not to lecture to students but to have them up and doing group work! One day and one week more of training. There is more to teaching than just getting up in front of kids and telling them stuff!
My boys are missing their mommy and want me to quit playing blog, so....don't forget to comment and let me know you were here. C YA!

Things I need to do!

Well, tomorrow is my first day at school, all that wonderful new hire info. It will be a long day of info and more info and more info on how to teach and how to get along with everyone and still do my job! So here's a list of things I need to get done before my real first day on the 25th!
1: Finish my "ME" spiral for class.
2: Go through my big giant binders(3) and make sure things are in order again for class.
3: Get some lettering and calendars for my bulletin boards.
4: Go through the files left by the last teacher, who taught for 25 years, and revamp them.
5: Go through all the misc books she left and figure out what to do with them.
6: Go through all the pictures(3 boxes) for bulletin boards she left and figure out what is still good and what is not.
7: Get a small refrigerator for the room. I know, kinda weird, but I don't want to use anyone else's fridge.
8: Get my son's 6th grade schedule and make sure he has the awesome teachers!
9: Finish my "ME" spiral for class!

So, instead of doing these things I am trying to finish some books, play with the boys, do laundry, get Cub Scout schedule going, Vacation Bible Xtreme, take Tristan fishing with his friend that is a girl, keep Clay out of their hair by taking him to the skatepark, do breakfast, lunch and dinner and clean up from those, do more laundry, take care of the animals(that's a great post!), get the boys to the dentist, check my fav blogs and some new ones, and live life until tomorrow! I guess I should try just a little?

Pics

This is a little late due to the AC going out upstairs where I have my computer and it was two days before it was fixed! Can you say "wow, 98 degrees in the house?!" Anyway, here are some pics.....So, we stopped in the state capitol(Austin) and took a look around. It was pretty cool. This is the floor and then the rotunda from the inside.Here's Tristan in the first of many lazy rivers. It was hard to take pics cause they would go by so fast, no, it wasn't very "lazy", and I didn't take a waterproof camera, so I was kinda stuck at how far I could take it. Schlitterbahn is HUGE! And if you are riding a tube thing, there's not much else you can do.

This was our first time to see Reece. She's 4 months old and quite the cutie!Here are Cade-4&1/2, Payton-7 and Clay(the weird face)-7. They had fun playing in the many pools all around.

Clay and Payton finishing a cool boogie board slide coming down about 4 stories high. They wanted to go again and again!

Here's all the kids. This was the first time they were all together. Reece and Tristan, Cade, Clay and Payton. All with Nana...And of course we had to go down to the Alamo(San Antonio) and see that. Then we went over to the Wax Museum....it looks kinda real--is it Tom Hanks? Tristan was trying to steal the box of chocolates!

We had a grand time. If you plan to go to the Schlitterbahn make sure you have two days to do all the rides, there are two parts to it and the West side has more stuff to do, the East side has some cool rides but it takes hours and hours standing in line for the slides, so be prepared! Have fun!