Tis the Season to be Jolly

We had a wonderful Christmas break this year! We were able to see all of our family and squeeze in a little time for ourselves!

We started out our vacation by making the journey to the Gaylord Ice Exhibit, Merry Madagascar. It was very cool (pun intended)! The tent where the exhibit is held, pumps refrigeration in to make it 9 DEGREES!

From there we had dinner at Patrizios in Highland Park Village. The food was AMAZING…the service, not so much.

I had the Eggplant Parmesan and Jason had the Lasagna…typical.

Next we went to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra, who were AWESOME! The show had great music, flashing and colorful lights, fire and fireworks…what more could you want?!

I'm not sure why the picture of us turned out blurry.

The next day we ventured up to Denton and had Christmas with my family at Josh's house. I'm mad at myself for not taking very many pictures…

Carter and his cousin, Shiner playing tug-a-war with Shiner's raccoon.

Mom and Dad stuffing jalapenos.

We had tamales, fajitas, black beans, and stuffed jalapenos for dinner…amazing Christmas Eve dinner!

From there we made the trek to Austin to visit with Jason's family…again I am disappointed with my lack of photos!

Christmas scratch-offs! Cody was the only winner! 

Cody and Jason got to test out the K1 Racing Track in Austin.

We had such a great time with our family! I am so thankful that we are able to see all of them during our very short break…I go back to work on Wednesday!

26.2

This weekend Jason, our friend Courtney and I completed our first (Courtney's second) full marathon!

The Dallas weekend started off with picking up our race packets and running into one of our fellow Cabin 8ers, Ashley (who stalked us for the rest of the expo)! I haven't seen her since my wedding in May, so it was a wonderful surprise that her and her cousin were running the half marathon!

We run for cupcakes and wine…truth.

Next up, we met our other Cabin 8 friend for her mini birthday celebration at Deep Ellum Brewery. It was a pretty neat place. I would definitely like to go back when I can actually partake in the festivities!

From there we checked into our hotel and watched "Johnny F. Football" win the Heisman! Pretty exciting day for an Aggie!

After that, we met my parents, my brother, my Aunt Jan and her family at Ristorante Bugatti to carb up before the race. I am in love with their eggplant parmesan! It is now a tradition when running the White Rock/Dallas Marathon! We ran the half 2 years ago and happened upon this awesome restaurant due to them being the only Italian restaurant with reservations left.

The next morning we dressed in our cute Santa skirts and zig-zagged around Dallas for 26.2 miles….which was probably the hardest thing I have EVER done in my life!

Though Jason and I's time was not what we had hoped, we finished and met our goal of completing our first full the same year we got married!! I would like to run another (and actually complete our training program) to get a respectable time…we will see if/when that happens! 

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

I officially am a terribly blogger!

Well, October and November have flown by and Christmas will be here before we know it!

Here are some highlights from October and November. I, hopefully, will be a much better blogger this month!

In October, I went undefeated in district coaching my 7th Grade A Volleyball team! Whoop! We only had one loss on the season at a non-district tournament. I am going to miss coaching those girls next year!

Jason completed his first Tough Mudder. 

Everyone asked why I did not participate with him and the answer is…me and electric shock/ice cold water do not get along well. 

Though I was not a participant, I still was part of the action. I purchased a spectator pass and roamed along the course collecting photo evidence of Jason being a BEAST!

November is always fun because it is my birthday month! I thoroughly enjoyed being spoiled by my wonderful husband and friends!

My birthday gift to myself was a girls trip to Florida to run the Disney Wine&Dine Half Marathon. We are princesses in real life, but we decided to dress up as Disney princesses for the race.

From Left: Jasmine (Dana), Cinderella (me), Goofy, Belle (Courtney),  and Pocahontas (Leah)

The coolest part of our race was running through the Osborne Lights in Hollywood Studios!

Finally, November ended with a trip to Galveston for the TAHPERD Convention held at Moody Gardens. Dana and I booked a hotel in Galveston and made a weekend out of the conference where we visited The Spot, The Poop Deck and some other interesting Galveston attractions.

This weekend Jason, my friend Courtney and I will be running the Dallas Marathon clad in tacky Christmas attire. Courtney and I bought some awesome red sequin Santa skirts from Claires that will be sure to make the 26.2 much more fun! I am hoping to talk Jason into wearing a pair of Christmas boxers over his running shorts…we will see how it goes. Wish us luck!!

September in Retrospect

September has come and gone in lightning speed! I feel like we just started school and blink…now its October!

Highlights from September: Free tickets and great friends!

**I lucked out and Amy's husband couldn't make it back for First Yell, so I got to go in his place! I loved watching Robert Earl Keen and the other Aggie performers! Amy also made a rather interesting friend!

This little guy danced throughout the entire show…and was pretty embarrassed of his Florida mom haha.

**Jason and I got to see the Aggies play in their first ever SEC football game from the most AMAZING seats ever…thanks to Trey! The only thing that could have made this day better would have been a W!

**Jason and I were FINALLY able to find some free time in common with the Wilsons! Tara and Garrett had us over for dinner in their beautiful new home! They have been working tirelessly on painting and making the place their own. The before and after pictures are incredible! I can't wait to do this for myself!

Garrett grilled steaks and some delicious veggies while Tara made cauliflower mashed potatoes! Jason and I made sangria and we had quite the feast! It was nice to catch up with these two! I have missed them so much. 

I know that there were more exciting happenings from September, but these definitely take the cake!

Margarita & Salsa + Life Update!

Followers, all three of you, sorry it has been so long since my last post…school and life in general has been getting in the way of my computer time. Plus, lets me honest, writing (or typing, heh) takes effort and I am seriously lacking in that department now that I am back to work.

Lets back up to last weekend--the glorious Margarita and Salsa Festival in Waco! It mixes three of my favorite things…Country music, salsa, and MARGARITAS! (doi!)

The line-up was amazing! Pretty hard to beat Josh Abbott, Randy Rogers and Billy Currington! We went with Ryan and Stephanie and met some of my long lost Liberty Hill friends, Matt & Amelia with their crew in tow.

Check out Whitty in the background…what a photo bomber!

Since this fabulous festival, I have since started school. I am teaching four sections of 6th grade PE, and  I have two athletic periods. I LOVE MY JOB! I will love it even more once we get through volleyball try-outs…we have 60- 7th graders and 26 spots on the team (A&B combined). We have tried running them ragged and only 1 has had the sense to get out!

My 6th graders are so sweet! They are excited about PE (for the most part), listen really well and are sweet to each other! We are doing our first 20 minute run tomorrow, so we will see how long the sweetness lasts. Next week will be fun, we are starting our volleyball unit and they are looking forward to it!

Kudos to school districts that started school this week and planned to end it with a much-needed long weekend! Hope everyone has a wonderful Labor Day!

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

I have logged on several times since my last post, but didn't have the energy to write anything. August is always a busy month for teacher/coaches, but this one is one for the record books!

The first two weeks of August have been crazy! 

Jason and I had several meetings regarding BLAST camp and our involvement with the international students at Allen. When school resumes, Jason and I will be responsible for 15-20 international students for one weekend a month. We are looking forward to the new experience!

Jason and I finally got to try out the new bar that opened in Downtown Bryan, The Proudest Monkey, with our friends, Ryan and Stephanie. We had lots of fun (obviously, judging by Whitty's face)!

The first weekend of August was one of my best friend, Amelia's, birthday and her boy planned a river trip to celebrate. If any of you are familiar with Harlow birthday's, they always are an adventure!

We took the Harlow family's old school limo, that I like to call the gangstermobile to the San Marcos River…and blew out a tire.

We were in the left lane when the tire went, so we had to pull over on the left side of I-35 with our right front tire blown. The boys tried to see if they could maneuver over there to fix it, but there was too much traffic on the road. We tried calling AAA, but unfortunately limos (whether privately owned or not) are not included in the coverage…fail AAA! But we were lucky enough to catch a break in traffic and putt our way to the other side. The boys worked their magic on the tire and we drove the TWO remaining miles between us and the river.

We didn't let the tire blow our good time, we still made the loop of the river…twice!

This past weekend was BLAST camp, which stands for Becoming Leaders And Strong Teens. Jason was asked to put together a leadership camp for students at Allen and I was recruited to help with the planning process and to be a facilitator for one of the groups. For the first annual BLAST camp, it went very extremely well! I thoroughly enjoyed the students and LOVED my group! The camp was held at Camp Cooley Ranch near Franklin. The grounds were beautiful! Here is a picture from the window of the main house were all the girls and I slept:

The past couple weeks have also been Volleyball 2-a-days and coaching inservice out in Caldwell. We have been busy preparing for the fast approaching school year! I am excited for the start and have really enjoyed working with my two AmAzInG MS coaching partners!

Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week! :)