School's Out for Summer!

Yesterday was our last day of school! I'm so happy it's summer! I got up early this morning and went to the gym with Jonathan. He goes every morning at 6:30 (talk about dedication!) and I decided I should go with him over the summer. He's helping me with a workout routine. I'll let you know how it goes! We're going to do weights in the mornings and some kind of cardio in the evenings. This morning I worked on legs and abs. I can just feel the cellulite melting away already...

This afternoon I have a lunch date with Jonathan. Going out to lunch is one of my favorite things when school is out. I always am surpirsed by how many people are actually out and about during the day...who knew?!? During the school year the most I get outside during the day is to walk my students to recess. That's pretty pathetic. Hopefully we'll also go get my new cell phone while we're out. I'll be really excited to be able to hear people when they call me! I dropped my phone awhile ago, and it just hasn't been the same ever since...

Also on the agenda today is to go to the store for a few accessories I need for my camera. Jonathan and our parents got me a fabulous new camera for graduation/my birthday. I'm having fun playing around with it, but there's so much I don't know how to do. I just realized that I don't have the right attachment to be able to download my pictures, so hopefully I'll get that today. There's a camera store near our house that offers great photography classes, so I'm also hoping they have the summer schedule ready. There are three classes I'd really like to take soon. I have so much to learn, and I'm super excited to get started!

Okay I'm off to clean up the kitchen and take a shower. I promise I'll try not to blog about my boring daily activities every day this summer. Just every once in awhile...

Hope everyone has a great Thursday! It's almost the weekend. :-)

Tulsa

Last weekend Jonathan and I headed to Tulsa for a wedding. We thought we'd get in around 7 on Friday night, but after a couple of storms and a problem with the plane, we didn't land until 10. The landing was probably the scariest thing either of us have experienced in a long time. We were so glad to be safely on the ground! Yikes!

On Saturday I was so lucky to get to see several of my good friends from college. Susan was in town for a shower, so Melissa and I saw her for a little bit before she had to catch her flight. I think the last time I saw her was in August...that's way too long! It was so great to see you, Susan! We need to plan our trip to Dallas very soon.

That afternoon we got to see Max and his sweet baby girl, Madelyn. She's grown so much since Christmas! She is absolutely adorable, and Jonathan and I both had fun loving on her. Melissa and I also drove down to Oklahoma City to visit Marianne and Aaron in the hospital. We were so glad to hear great news about Davis when we got there, and it was wonderful to see Marianne. (See the post below about sweet Davis.) After Melissa and I left the hospital we stopped by Sara's house to say hello. It was another very quick visit, but I was so glad to see Sara and her house...it's so cute! Thanks Melissa, Marianne, and Sara for letting me bug you last weekend! It was so good to see you all.

Saturday night we went to Max's sister's wedding. The ceremony was beautiful, and the reception was really fun. We are so happy for Allison and Taras and were glad to be there to celebrate with them!

On Sunday we went to lunch with Mike, Judy and my sister. Then we headed over to Sarah's to hang out for a little while before we had to catch our flight home. The trip was too quick (as usual) but so much fun! Hopefully we'll make more trips back to Oklahoma this summer. Here are some pictures from the weekend...

Max, me, and Jonathan at the wedding

Me, Jonathan, Max & Stephanie

The Teals (all of us!)

At the reception

Lovin' on Madelyn

Jonathan was so cute with Madelyn! I think he's really liking those babies lately. :-)

Graduation and Mom's Day

Dad, Mom, me, Jonathan & Sarah after the ceremony

My family thought it was really funny to try to embarass me with my face on a stick. I thought it was really funny!

My big sist-o (that's how she used to say it when we were growing up)

My other sister, Sarah

Mike, Sarah, me and Jonathan

Getting my diploma

On Saturday, May 9th I graduated from Webster University with my Master's. The ceremony was at The Muny in Forest Park. My dad, mom, sister and Jonathan's dad all came up from Oklahoma. Jonathan's sister also came to the ceremony...thanks for getting up so early, everyone! We missed having Jonathan's mom here. She had to be at a meeting in Houston, and it wasn't the same without her. I felt so fortunate to have so many wonderful people there to celebrate with me. I have the best family ever!

It was fun to walk, but it was freezing cold. So after the School of Education Ceremony, we decided to ditch the "big" ceremony to get coffee and bagels. It was a much better choice in my opinion. Later we all met Dave and Samuel for lunch at a yummy new restaurant. Saturday evening we hung out at home and enjoyed the nice weather. Brian and Mallory stopped by for some s'mores and an entertaining few rounds of "Catch Phrase" with the fam. I will say...I haven't laughed that hard in a really long time! Especially because my dad was sitting next to me and was being hilarious. He really didn't understand the concept of not using gestures and was making all of us laugh. I also had a typical blonde moment when I tried to explain a "man hole" as the thing that soldiers build during war to try to hide from the enemy. Oh well, it's kind of the same thing, right?!?

On Sunday it was Mother's Day, so we got to take my mom to brunch. It was so fun to be with her and tell her in person how much she means to us. Mom and Judy...thank you for being the best moms to both of us! We are so lucky to have grown up with such wonderful examples of what parents are. We love you both!

Prayers for Davis

My sweet friend, Marianne gave birth to her beautiful son this week. Sadly he was born with a congenital heart defect. This is from an email Marianne's mom sent out:

"Davis was born Thursday, May 14 at 11:37 am. He's 20" long and weighed 7 lbs. 12 oz. He bonded with mom and dad and then got to meet family and friends. Mid-afternoon he went to the nursery for his bath and to be weighed, and they heard a heart murmur. It turns out that Davis has a congenital heart defect known as Tricuspid Atresia, meaning he was born without a tricuspid valve, which in turn left his right ventricle underdeveloped. Somewhere down the road he will have a shunt put in to help his heart work more efficiently."

Melissa and I got to go visit Marianne in the hospital on Saturday, and she is so strong! She and Aaron are both in good spirits considering everything they've been through. Lots of prayers have helped baby Davis stabilize, and hopefully he'll go home tomorrow! They have so much to be thankful for but also a long road ahead. The wonderful news is that Davis is going to be a strong, healthy boy. Please keep the Sharpe family in your thoughts and prayers. I know they would appreciate it!

Field Trip

Today we took the 1st grade to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. It was beautiful, and luckily it didn't rain on us the entire time we were there. We finished our Science unit on soil this week, so it was perfect timing to see the plants and talk about how the soil helps them grow. We also took them to a Children's Garden that was so cool. I think I might've had more fun than the kids did. :-) I did get a few picturess, but trying to keep 21 first graders together can keep you very busy!

The one picture of flowers I managed to get...definitely not the prettiest, but at least I have proof that we saw some flowers.

Posing in front of a tree

Okay this picture was just too funny. Two seconds before this they were all playing this xylaphone together. Instead of a nice, cooperative picture, I got the boy on the left grabbing the stick out of another boy's hand...notice how they're all yelling at him! Can you feel the love?!?

An attempt at a class picture

This year is quickly coming to an end. I'm stressed about getting everything finished before the last day, and also a little worried that my students will know everything they need to know before the go to 2nd grade. I know I can't teach them everything, but you always wonder if you've done enough.

My friend Briget has the funniest saying about a teacher's job. When anyone asks her what she did that day, she says, "Oh, you know. Nothing much. Just shaping minds. Changing the future." Pretty much sums up teaching. Plus a dash of stress and worry. But it's all worth it when you see your students excited about school or learning. And the summer vacation doesn't hurt...

Cards vs. Cubs and the Zoo

On Friday Jonathan scored some awesome tickets to the Cards game. They were playing the Cubs, and in case you didn't know, that's one of the biggest rivalries in major league baseball. The game was super exciting...luckily they pulled it off in the end! The weather was beautiful, and it was a really fun date with my hubby. A couple pics from the game:



Mike and Judy are in town this week watching Samuel while Sarah and Dave are in Europe...I'm so jealous, by the way. But while they are here we decided we needed to do some fun stuff around town. On Saturday we took Samuel to the zoo and then grabbed some lunch. It was really fun, especially since Jonathan had never been to the zoo, either. For those of you not from St. Louis...we have a wonderful zoo that is absolutely free. I heard it's ranked 2nd or 3rd in the US. You should come see it! (Shameless plug to get people to come visit, I know.)

One of the coolest things we saw was an elephant who was cooling himself off. There were also some monkeys that were resting right next to the window. I'm not sure how much Samuel understood, but the adults all had fun showing him the animals.

Samuel was checking out the monkey...and licking the glass. Eww!

Samuel with Savta and Papa

Checking out the hippos with Uncle Jonathan and Savta

He preferred to walk most of the time...until we got tired of chasing him.

It's so much fun to watch our nephew grow up. I can't wait to take him all kinds of places and show him stuff he's never seen before. We love you, little man!

Photoshop

About a month ago I took a class at a local camera store on Photoshop Elements. My sister gave me Elements as a Christmas gift, and I had tried playing around with it a little on my own. I kept getting frustrated since I didn't know much about it. The class turned out to be really fun and I learned a ton. In some of my spare time, I've been playing around on Photoshop. (Notice the new blog header!) The first thing I did on my own was to design a "logo" in case I really get into this and start designing lots of stuff. Important, I know. :-) But here's what I came up with:

Who knows what will come of it, but I think I'll start working on Christmas cards. Maybe by the time December gets here, I'll know what I'm doing!

It's Spring!

It's spring here in St. Louis...finally! We've been busy lately but have found time to do lots of fun stuff outside. A couple of weekends ago it finally got into the 70's on Saturday. We went to the wineries with Brian, Mallory, Dustin and Lindsay. It was a beautiful day, but a little chillier than we expected in the shade. Luckily everyone had a jacket or sweater. Afterwards we went to Dustin and Lindsay's for a cook-out. We loved being outside after a really long winter!

Jonathan and me

Brian and Mallory

Dustin and Lindsay

The whole gang

Last weekend was Missy's birthday. We went to a Cardinals game...the first one for us this season! Unfortunately Jonathan wasn't feeling well, so he missed the game. But once he was feeling better he came and met up with us. We saw a great game...Albert Pujols hit a grand slam AND another home run! And we had a blast hanging out and celebrating with Missy. Here are just a couple of pictures:

One of Albert's homeruns (picture courtesy of Brian Snyder...he had fun playing with my camera during the game and found out how to do a lot more than I'd figured out!)

Amy, me and Missy - the birthday girl!

The girls

The next day we celebrated Easter. Dave, Sarah and Samuel came over for dinner. We had fun hanging out. Samuel is definitely on the move these days, so it's hard to get a good picture of him. He's turned around or looking the other way in all of the pictures I took, except the one below. He is just the cutest 1-year-old in the entire world! We love him bunches.

Sarah and Dave brought a yummy cake for dessert

Sweet nephew!

We used some tulips for the centerpiece...I thought they were so pretty! I love flowers!

Work is keeping both of us very busy. We're on the countdown until summer at school! Yipee! The only sad thing is that I absolutely love my class this year, and it's going to be hard to let them go on to 2nd grade. I also finished a class I was taking this past week. It was a Reading Recovery theory class, and I learned a ton about teaching struggling readers. I spent yesterday afternoon writing my case study, so hopefully I'm completely finished with class for a LONG time!

I had lunch with Jonathan at his office this week before I went to an appointment, and I'm always impressed by how hard he works. Even when it's his lunch break, he's constantly helping people and taking care of things. I admire him for everything he does for his company and our family. I am so lucky to be his wife!

Lola has also been very busy. Yesterday she went on a long run with Jonathan and then spent a few hours outside helping us with yard work. Here's a picture of her in her favorite place in the backyard:

Right before I brought the camera out, she was laying down with her feet in the air. I supposed she was just working on her belly tan. Spoiled, you ask?

March Madness...

...has officially taken over our house. On Friday we went to one of our favorite sports bar/restaurants to watch OU play with a few friends. On Saturday we went to another restaurant with some more friends to watch other teams. (By the way, who was playing?) As you can imagine I enjoyed visiting more than the actual games. It's always fun to spend an evening or two with good friends, yummy food, and LOTS of laughs, even if basketball is involved. Now it's Sunday afternoon and guess what we're doing...yep, you got it. Watching OU play more basketball. It really is exciting, though, to be in the Elite 8. Hopefully my Sooners will make it all the way! I think that's wishful thinking, but a girl can dream, right?

Jonathan likes to take close-up pictures of himself (and others) on the camera. These are some of the funny ones I found when I just downloaded our pictures from Mexico...

Self Portraits

Puerto Vallarta

We returned from Puerto Vallarta this past weekend. Our trip was incredible! We stayed at a wonderful resort and ate lots of delicious food. As usual, I probably gained 5 lbs. in guacamole alone. Oh well, it's totally worth it. We enjoyed hanging out together and getting away from everything. We agreed that it was even more fun than our honeymoon, mainly because we know each other so much better now than we did back then. And, in true Jonathan style, we made some friends and had fun hanging out with them one night. Turns out that I knew one of them from my days at Pumpkin Shell Preschool in Norman! Too funny...

Some of the highlights of our trip: Both of us got a massage on an outside terrace overlooking the beach. I also did yoga on the beach a couple of mornings...totally relaxing! And the best part was...swimming with the dolphins. Neither of us had ever done that before and had always wanted to. It was amazing!!! If you ever have the chance to do it, I definitely recommend it. We got there a little early and watched some of the trainers play with the dolphins. The dolphins each had different personalities, which was crazy to see. One of the trainers stopped paying attention to a certain dolphin, so it jumped out of the water and landed on its' belly on the sidewalk trying to get her attention...three times! It was really funny to watch. (See the pictures below to see what I mean.)

After such a wonderful vacation it's been hard to get back in the swing of things. Things at school have been super busy this week, and I'm embarassed to say that I'm already ready for the weekend. (Yes, even after having 10 days off of work! Pathetic, I know.) And on a sad note, Jonathan's grandmother, Bube, has been in the hospital and isn't doing very well. Jonathan went with his sister to KC to visit her on Monday. On Tuesday she was feeling much better and even had some of her old "spunk" back. We are so thankful that she's doing better, especially because we're not quite ready to let her go. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers!

Puerto Vallarta Pictures

I was told this weekend that I haven't been good at keeping up with the blog. So sorry! I'm sure you've missed hearing what's going on with us. :-) We've been very busy lately, so I have lots of updates and not a lot of time to write them. I tried to get the important stuff down before we leave in the morning...for Puerto Vallarta! We're so excited. I hope you enjoy the updates, and I'll be sure to add more when we get back next weekend. Hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of Spring!

Bube & Zayde's 65th Wedding Anniversary

This weekend we went to Kansas City to help celebrate Bube and Zayde's 65th Wedding Anniversary. (Bube and Zayde are Jonathan's grandparents, for those of you who don't know.) Wow! 65 years! I can't imagine. They have had a wonderful, wonderful life together, and it was incredible to be a part of this day. Kay and Izzy hosted a beautiful lunch, and they also put together a neat slideshow of pictures from throughout their lives together. It was such a great day!

Zayde and Bube

With their children

With their grandchildren

With their great-grandchildren

Joanthan and his Bube