A much needed get away weekend!

Michael has been AMAZING lately. He has been extremely helpful. I have been extremely stressed out with the start of school. (This isn't odd... if you ask other people who teach they will tell you that the beginning of the year is over-whelming!) So I guess I must have been looking pretty haggard because my husband suggested that we head to Omaha to go to the Henry Doorly Zoo. He sent me a text which I got at the end of my day on Friday. I called him and suggested we go to Omaha on Friday and spend the night in a hotel so we could check out the Old Market. He agreed, which shocked me and some of my friends. For any of you that know Michael you know that he is extremely aware that we have our first house payment this coming week. He has been pretty concerned with how this will affect our lives. So you can imagine my surprise when he agreed to pay money for a hotel!
So I came home and packed my bag. I also started checking out hotels near the zoo. I found a couple and we decided that we would just drive to Omaha and find a hotel. We got on the road around 5:15 and made it to Omaha around 7. We drove around looking for a hotel near the zoo and the Old Market. We finally decided on the Comfort Inn that is less than a 1/2 mile away from the Zoo. After checking in we headed to the Old Market to eat. I had talked to my mom and sister earlier in the day to let them know that we were going to Omaha. They went together last summer and told me about this ice cream place near Spaghetti Works. We wandered around for a while and then found Spaghetti Works. We had just sat down and had ordered our drinks when I saw RON HOWARD! Yes, that's right I saw Opie! I quickly whispered to Michael and he looked. He agrees that it was Ron Howard. I just wanted some confirmation that I wasn't crazy and seeing things. He was walking pretty quickly with his head down with a small group of about five people. About a minute later, while Michael and I were talking about if it was really him or not, a group of girls walked by and were talking about him. So we knew we weren't crazy. After that I had to call my mom and let her know! Then we had our WONDERFUL dinner. I had manicotti and Michael had Shrimp Scampi. Then went for a walk and found the ice cream place, Ted and Wally's. They make homemade ice cream that is to die for! It was soooo creamy! After another little stroll we headed back to the hotel.
This morning we got up and headed to the zoo at around 8:30. We were there until right around 4 pm. It has to be the best zoo I have ever been too. Granted I haven't been to a lot of zoo's (Kansas City, St. Louis, and Minneapolis). I got to see orangutans, gorillas, various types of bears, birds, cats (tigers, lions, pumas, leopards, etc.) and soooo much more. The only thing that I really didn't appreciate were the snakes. They just give me the willies! We also got to see several babies. We saw a baby sea lion, gorilla, and aardvark. I felt soooo bad for the baby gorilla. He fell and broke his arm a couple of weeks ago so they had to separate him from his mother. He is being cared for during the day by a zoo keeper. At night he gets to hang out with the other gorillas for a while. The mom was sitting on the other side of the fence trying to see her baby. She looked so sad.
We rode the train and the little ski lift thing. They were both a nice break from walking. My feet were definitely hurting by the end of the day but it was totally worth it.
After the zoo we decided we needed to eat something before we came home... that's where our trip had a detour. Neither of us know our way around Omaha so we were kind of guessing where to go. We literally drove for and hour in various loop around the Omaha area before we finally found an Outback Steakhouse in Bellevue, Nebraska! It was worth it thought. The food was delicious!
We're home now safe and sound. We did see some deer on the side of the road when were headed back but we got lucky because none of them decided to jump in front of our car. :)
Tomorrow is the All School Mass at church. All of my students come to Mass and sit up front with me. It's a really nice way for us to start the school year together especially since there families are in the backs of the church. It really makes it feel more like a community rather than just a job.
I better get to bed. I'm pretty beat! I'll try to update periodically.

Getting into the swing again...

I'm trying to get back into the swing of school. So far I have been at school everyday by 7:00 am. This is a major improvement over last year. Last year I would make it a couple of days and then I wouldn't get to 7:15/7:20 and we're supposed to be there at 7:15. I am hoping that I'm able to keep this up. I'm not sure because it's not fun getting up at 5:30 every morning but I'm gonna try.
So far the house ROCKS. I soooo happy that we found it and have made it our own. I just feel like this is the right place for us to be. It truly feels like a home. I'm just hoping for some pitter pattering of some baby feet soon so that we can have a family here. That would just make this house complete... to have our family here. We're going to continue to hope that we get lucky and get pregnant. We're also going to keep saying lots of prayers!
I better go to get ready for school.
Have a great TUESDAY!

Day Two

Day Two down...
I got up early so that I could make it to school for our first meeting. Got a lot of information to help me get organized. I also got some stuff done in my room. My goal is to finish my room tomorrow. It will help a lot if I can finish tomorrow so Thursday I can relax before Open House! :) I am going to make myself a To Do List to hopefully help me get a little more organized!
Well, I better go so that I can work on some more stuff for school.
:)
Hope everyone has a great evening!

Day One

Well, I'll be at school in about an hour... I am AMAZED that it is already time for me to be back in school. I tried to enjoy my last weekend before the chaos that is the first week back to school. Next Tuesday we actually start but today all of the teachers are heading back! This week I have to get my room in order, no small feat, before Open House on Tuesday! I'm amazed that it's already that time of year. The positive side is that this time last year I was living in an apartment and now... we're in a house! It's a great feeling to be in your own home. I can't even explain how much different I feel about this house versus the old apartment. We'll I need to go and get ready for school. More updates to come later.

Getting ready to head back to the daily grind...

So tomorrow, my "regular" life starts again. I am going to go into my class and work to get everything ready for this school year. I am excited to put my new stuff into my class and start working on my classroom. I hope that everything turns out the way I envision it. I don't know if it will or not but I'm going to hope for it.
Michael and I had date night again tonight. It has become our Sunday ritual on Sunday nights to eat supper together and then watch True Blood on HBO. We LOVE it. It is so action packed and funny. It's rare that we find a show that both of us like. It's a really nice way to spend an evening together!
Today, before date night, Michael and I rode around with Flem and Beanie. We went on a Sunday drive. You need to know that this wasn't a normal thing for me in my family growing up. We didn't just randomly drive around without a purpose, at least not very often. However, Michael's family frequently did this growing up. This is a major difference between our families. It isn't a big one it just shows a way that we were brought up differently. Back to my story, we ended up being in three different states in one day Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. We ate at a restaurant that overlooks the Missouri River. It was really nice to eat and watch people boat and jet ski. Then we did some more driving. It was nice to go for a little drive. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. I try to make sure that I am willing to go on these little trips. I know how important it is to Michael to be able to do this.
Well, I need to go so I can get up early (earlier anyway) to get to school.
Hope everyone is doing well!