Solidifying Form

On Sunday, November 28, Bryan and I drove by the "house" since Bryan hadn't seen it converted from weeds to dirt and lumber yet. It must have been perfect timing, because we got to meet many of our neighbors! The family directly across the street seems like they will be lots of fun. They are longhorns (which will be fun!) and they've got 3 kiddos - twins that are 4 years old and a little girl in 1st grade. Next door to them I didn't get a chance to meet the parents, but I did meet their 2 little girls - one in middle school and one in elementary school, though I don't know which grades exactly. Further down the street is a really sweet family (they spent Thanksgiving hunting too) and they've got a freshman (I think) boy in high school, a girl in 4th or 5th grade, and a little 3 year old boy. All of the families up and down the street have lots of dogs that sort of just roam around tamely. We really enjoyed the hour or more we spent visiting and getting to know all of these nice people! (I wrote down the names of all of them I could remember so I wouldn't feel like an idiot asking again, haha).

Bryan's excited! :)



Same place we took it last time, but the scenery has changed a bit!



Thank goodness they're making progress! We're so ready to see the foundation poured!

Yep, it's....

PINK EYE!

Ah, the hazards of working at an elementary school.

The week before Thanksgiving I was throwing up nonstop thanks to a virus running rampant around the school, and now I'm using eye drops 3 times a day. I didn't know I had pink eye, though, and was there all day touching everything. I feel really bad about that, but I emailed the nurse to ask her to anti-bacterial wipe down my classroom before the kiddos arrive tomorrow morning. The doctor told me no school tomorrow - the antibiotic drops need 24 hours to majorly reduce the possibility of it being contagious.

So it's a substitute for my students tomorrow, and I'm working on getting together plans for them right now. I honestly can NOT imagine substitute teaching in a kindergarten classroom! What a nightmare! It's hard enough when you're their actual teacher, so many, many, MANY thanks to you brave souls who substitute teach these little ones! You have my eternal thanks! But be careful, and wash your hands very well because you never know what unsuspecting teacher contaminated the entire classroom with their pink eye, haha. Who knows what student I got it from. I'll have to keep a really close *eye* on them in the coming days... I know, I know, I'm cheesy.

Posts coming soon all about the fabulous Thanksgiving break we had! And of course, an update on the house! :)

Breaking Ground!!

WOOO HOOOO: yesterday (November 23rd) the crew cleared our plot, dropped off the lumber necessary for putting up the form, and started on the form! They also evened the lot up with a ton'o'dirt.

Here are some of the highly exciting pictures (for us) I took:

SOLD! It's officially on the sign to prove it, yay!



This is standing in the back of the "house" facing the street and our across-the-street neighbors. From this angle, it looks huge. And it seems like a lot of dirt!



This is what the form looks like. They aren't quite finished yet, and I'm honestly not even certain what it does, but it looks much more exciting than just weeds or just dirt! :)



Final picture from yesterday: our "backyard." It's going to be pretty small, and sort of 'L" shaped, but our front yard is spacious and on a very quiet and small street, so our *future* kiddos will still have plenty of yard to run and jump and fall down in :)



I'm so glad they are finally started!! You would think after having so many people tell me I would need lots of patience to built a house, I would have really known what to expect. Instead? I just want to tell them to hurry up! I'm so stinking excited, and can't wait to watch the house slowly going up. Now that they've started, believe me, the pictures will keep coming :) Yay!

A&M vs Nebraska

Of course, more football! Whoop! We went to a friend's house to watch the Baylor and A&M game instead of driving to Waco ... but we did travel to CS to see the Nebraska game! (And we are VERY glad we did!)

We happened to a part of a new game attendance record at Kyle Field: 90,037 people showed up to cheer our team on. That is a LOT of people in one place!!

The students actually set a record of their own: 31,005 student tickets pulled. Pretty darn amazing.



Pepsi donated thousands upon thousands of 12th Man towels, which is a tradition to take to games and wave as we yell our team encouragement. With such large numbers, though, it was pretty incredible to watch. I took a somewhat shaky video to show you how cool it was to see the student section especially go wild, but for some reason Blogger doesn't want to upload it! I'll try again when we get back from going to the ranch for Thanksgiving, but after 4 tries it still won't work. Sorry :(

It was a pretty incredible game, fought out almost entirely be defense on both teams. In fact, the only points put on the board by either team were field goals! No one really expected to show up to Kyle Field to watch A&M and Nebraska play and NOT see a touchdown! Nor did anyone expect our Wrecking Crew to show up with such a winning attitude! Way to go, Defense!



9-6 Aggies
Whoop!

The Design Center

I couldn't quite convey what a crazy place the Ryland Homes Design Center looks like with all of their different stations so I took a handful of pictures to show you what it looks like!

Here's Bryan at the desk where we committed to spending lots of money... which would explain his facial expression, haha:



This is an example of a station set up to show customers some of their options for each part of the house. In this case, they show you how you can do your stairs and railings as well as fireplaces. Each station only shows the most popular choices, but not even close to ALL of the options. Most stations had some sort of binder full of photos to show the other choices. This explains why it takes TWO appointments to finish all of this up!



These are the only two kitchens I could get into one shot, but there were actually 6 different kitchens set up around the place to show us different cabinet styles, colors, different types and sizes of tiles, granite, back splashes, etc, etc, etc:



And the most stressful part for me personally was picking out the wood, tile and carpet!
Here are some of the many, many, many stacks of choices. Crazy!



Thankfully we're ALL finished with this part of designing the house! Now, we just wait for it to be built! (Which, read the next couple of blogs ... maybe they're getting started :)

A&M vs Oklahoma

A few weekends ago (yes, I'm terribly behind on posting) Bryan & I traveled up to College Station to see the A&M vs Oklahoma game thanks to some very generous Anadarko employees!

We had AMAZING seats in the Zone, in actual *arm chairs* with a brilliant view.
Check it out:


We of course saw the fly over (one my favorite parts of every game):



The Nationally Famous Fightin' Texas Aggie Band:



Annnnnnnnd after some very cool plays and listening to an intense Kyle Field full of Aggie fans screaming their heads off, the Ags pull of a big W!



Congratulations and well done to the Aggie team and Coach Sherman!
Thanks for giving all of us Aggie fans hope for the rest of the season!!! :)

ooooops, I'm behind

I know I'm extra-behind on posting these days, I'm very sorry about it :( I'm extra-behind on just about everything as a matter of fact. We've done a couple of big things ... like finishing up all the designing decisions for inside our house (phew) and going to the Texas A&M versus OU game (which was incredible!)... and probably other things that I'm drawing a complete blank on right now :)

I have lots to say and I have pictures to post, but my life is a little on the wild side these days.
I've been battling bronchitis and a sinus infection for the last week and half which has NOT been pleasant, especially since I didn't feel comfortable taking a day off. (One student asked me if I accidentally ate a frog... I realize I sound like it, but CAN you eat a frog on accident?)

I've also hit a very LARGE bump in the road at school. Things have been extremely rough, and I'm not really referring to my students. Several things have happened which are a little out in left field, but I'm doing my absolute best to keep a smile in place and carry on. I would like to request your prayers, because it definitely is going to require divine intervention for me to get through this school year.

I'm ready for Thanksgiving break! 1 week and 1 day left! Boy, do I need it. Plus ..... all next week we get to do fun Thanksgiving-y things like Turkey and Pilgrim crafts and reading lots of fun books!! (Yes, this IS exciting if you teach Kindergarten, haha).

Happy teaching shout out: SOME OF MY STUDENTS ARE REALLY STARTING TO READ!!! Plus they are really starting to make the connections between letters and sounds, and starting to blend them together to spell. It's pretty cool to see the progress. These 5 and 6 year olds are really working hard with me to get there. Well, most of them anyway :)

Bryan's job is going well by the way!! yay!