Valentine's Day

My Valentine's Day was absolutely wonderful! The morning was a little crazy with running late to work and having some unexpected surprises with our tours. After work I rushed home and gathered up my stuff to teach my kindergarteners at church. I am absolutely positive that each one of them had 10 lbs. of sugar at school. They were all over the place! While waiting for their parents to pick them up, about 4 of the kids were playing tag in the classroom. I quickly averted their desire for rambunctious activity by involving them in the quiet game. They immediately became enthused with playing this low-keyed game. They had no idea my ulterior motive.

I returned home a little after 8:00 where I waited for Travis to meet me. He called as he was parking outside the apartment and told me to wait in my room while he got some stuff ready. When he told me to come out there on my chair were two beautiful canvas paintings of flowers. In between the paintings was a single red rose. Travis told me that the rose was from my dad. My dad has always given my a rose for Valentine's day since I was a little girl. He had emailed Travis and asked him if he would get one to give me. Travis then told me the paintings were his flowers to me--flowers that would always last. The first painting was of some type of red flower and the other was of some white flowers--I think they are lilies (I'm not good with identifying flowers). What is absolutely fantastic is the paintings match my living room decor perfectly!

Travis then gave me my card--a dvd. It started out with pictures of the two of us including Halloween, homecoming, New Years, and other events. The song "Only God Could Love You More" played while the pictures scrolled through. That song has become one of my new favorites! At the end of the pictures came the messages that took my breath away and caused some tears to fall:

"I give this not in celebration of Valentine's but in celebration of You! This one day is no different from the 364 that follow. My heart and my soul anxiously await the events that have yet to transpire. May the Author and Prefector of our love continue to draw us closer together."

Let me just say that I have watched this dvd many times now! By the time we finished this it was about 8:45 and neither of us had eaten so we ran to Sonic and then watched the movie Pillow Talk. It was a perfect Valentine's.

I took the dvd up to work and quite a few of my coworkers were jealous. One lady asked if her husband could watch it as a hint for next year!

Thank you so much, Travis. I love you!

History Fair

This week has completely flown by! We have been so incredibly busy this week getting ready for History Fair which occurred on Friday. Every night I have come home so incredibly exhausted and hardly any energy to do anything. On Thursday night I didn't leave work until 6:00--we were quickly finishing up stuffing packets for everyone. Than night I went to bed at 9:30 in order to get up early enough to be at work by 7:30.

We had a small problem arise in that we were unable to use a building for check in. This meant we had to redirect 163 students, plus teachers, and about 50 judges to a much smaller area. Luckily it all worked out well. I spent the first part of the morning helping out at the Judges Table along with Amanda who came out at the crack of dawn to help--as did Aaron (fellow A&M Church of Christers that I recruited).

At 9:00 I joined up with my other two judges and we began judging the Junior Individual Exhibits. We had 10 minutes on each exhibit to look at the display, glance over the students process paper, and conduct an interview with the student. The kids were so cute and also nervous. One little boy (the first place winner) wore a suit and in his interviewed used the phrase "cost-balance analysis"...in the right context!

After judging I mainly stayed in the conference center in case any volunteers didn't show up or something happened that needed fixing. From 1-3 I hung out with Sonya (another A&M Church person) at the Judges Table. We also helped set up more chairs for the awards ceremony which started at 3:00. There were these two older men who were representing an organization which donated money to the fair. They asked Sonya how old she was and then stated that they thought she was 13 and that I looked about that same age. Sheesh! I suppose it is nice to know I look younger--but I'd rather hear it when I'm in my 30's.

Once the awards ceremony was over it was time to relax. We set about taking down signs and gathering up all the paper and packets we needed to take back to the museum. I drove back to the museum to pick up the Blinn van so we could load everything in one trip. Before taking the van up to the conference center I went to take down the signs on the visitor center door. After taking the signs down I started a slight jog back to the van which did not end well. Somehow I tripped on my shoe and fell on the concrete. I ate it hardcore. Thankfully the two busses full of students had left moments before. From what I could deduce only one car with a family inside witnessed the humiliating event. I left the scene with some scrapes on my palms and a very nice strawberry on my knee.

All in all the day was a lot of fun and very rewarding!

Monday

I had a rather unenjoyable Monday this past week. Monday is my day off from work and usually a time when I sleep in and get things I have put off done. This Monday was unbelievably tiring and frustrating. It really all started on Sunday night at 11:00. I was watching t.v. when I heard a dripping noise. I went in the kitchen to investigate and I found both sides of my sink full of brown water...and it was slowly overflowing onto the floor! My initial reaction was to call Travis and have him come help. My next move was to call the 24-hour help line for my apartment complex who said they would send over the maintenance guy. By the time I finished both phone calls the overflow had stopped but it had completely covered my kitchen floor with nasty water. It took me 5 rolls of paper towels to clean it all up. The maintenance guy was able to get the water back down but anytime he flipped the disposal on the water came back up. He said he would have to wait until the morning to get it fixed. That meant I had to be up early on my day off. So at 8:00 I rolled out of bed, put my glasses on, and slept on the couch until I heard a knock. It took the maintanece people from 8:30-11:00 to fix the sink. By that time it was pointless to catch a few more hours of sleep.

I then got ready and went to get my oil changed at Walmart which took an hour and a half. When I picked the car up they told me I needed 2 new tires. So I went to Discount Tire Co. with took over 2 hours. By the time I got back home it was after 5:30 and I was so tired. It was such a frustrating day--grrr!

You Know You Can Handle Anything When...

Last night I taught my little kindergarteners about Jesus cleansing the temple. I started off with them singing the "Hallelu, Praise Ye the Lord Song"--they had a blast with that. Anything that involves fast singing and standing is always a hit. To lead into the story I had the kids clean the tables. I had cut up some old shirts for them to use as rags. Then we went over what items were correct for cleaning the tables. I held up sponges, a bag of dirt, glue, water, and markers. After cleaning the tables I told them the story of Jesus in the temple and then we discussed how God lives in our hearts.

Then came the fun part of the night:

While the kids were working on their craft activity, one of the little boys, Sam, cut his finger with the scissors. It wasn't a bad cut, but he was bleeding a little bit. I located the first aid and got down on my knees to put a band-aid on his finger. While putting the band-aid on he was crying a bit so I tried to calm him down. Through his sobs I heard him say "My tummy feels bad." Right after I figured out what he said it happened. He threw up. And because I was on my knees, right next to him it went all over my sleeve and on my pants. Luckily, I kept it together. I was thinking more about getting him cleaned up and near the toilet in case it happened again. While I cleaned him up one of the other teachers went to find his dad and the other started cleaning up the mess. I wasn't able to get it off of me--there was quite a bit.

As I left the classroom when church was over I saw Travis coming down the hall. I immediately told him not to hug me because of the throw up. As we walked down the hall he said he could smell it. So I rushed home to shower and throw the clothes in the wash before he came over for our study. As I drove home I had the car window rolled down and I was literally holding my nose because of the contained smell.

I figure if I can handle having someone else's kid throw-up on me then it will be no sweat when my own kids do it.

*I hope none of you were eating while reading this. :)