A List

What I've been up to since August:

1.  Teaching 21 Kindergarteners 5 days a week for almost 16 weeks.
     As you may or may not know I was hired four days before school started in Auguest.  As panicked as I was, I was even more over-joyed that the job search was over and all of the self-doubt and sweating could stop.  AND even more than that, I was pumped to finally have a job doing what I love to do with a group of people I really wanted to work with!

2. Staying at school until 5 or 6PM almost every week night.
    It's just part of the job.... especially at the beginning.  Yes, it's kindergarten, and I'm not studying the content that I will be teaching (b/c I know my letters and numbers;) or grading papers.  BUT I am still working on organizing my room just how I want it... and mostly trying to meet my students' needs.  Kindergarteners change a lot in a course of a couple of weeks and I'm always trying to see where they are academically so that I can push them a little farther.  It's been really fun watching them grow :)

3.  Celebrating friends' marriages.
     Seems like we are just at that age.  Everyone we know is getting married.  We've been to so many bachelor/bachelorette parties, wedding/bridal showers, rehearsal dinners, wedding ceremonies, and wedding receptions I think we could do it all blindfolded and spun around a bat 10 times without a hitch (no pun intended).

4.  Traveling... duh.
     We are just always on the go as a couple.  Since August we have been to Atlanta twice, Florida once (for fall break), Lexington 3 times, Nashville twice, Louisville 2 times.  AND all of that, with the exception of Florida, had to have happened on the weekends since we are both working.  So I'll let you do the math on how many weekends we've spent at home doing nothing between trips and weddings :)

5. Cakes
    It goes without saying I'm still doing cakes.  I love to do wedding cakes/cupcakes for friends... so you see where that fits into this story.  Not to mention other cakes I had booked for August and September, not knowing if I would have a teaching job or not.  I've cut back since then because of my work schedule, but I'm still doing it when I can!

Hope this catched me up on blogging... now that I've settled into my new job I think I might come back to this :)

A Kindergarten Haiku

No time for blogging.

Kindergarten is my life.

Happy but sleepy.

Firsts

So I have a semi-huge announcement...

I GOT A JOB!!!

Can you believe it?

Me neither.

I am officially a kindergarten teacher and it has been the best whirlwind I've ever experienced.

So, that means...

I got my first teaching job ever at the school that was my first choice.

I got my first keys to the school and my first very own classroom.

I'm a part of my very first team and experienced my first team lesson planning.

And today, I had my first day of school with my kindergarteners who truly had their first day of school!

I feel beyond blessed.

Sooooo...

who wants to see pictures?

Don't yell out, just raise your hands.... oh wait.  Sorry, teacher mode.

Here are the before and afters.

BEFORE

(this is what I saw when I first walked in the door)

AFTER

(this is what my kindergarteners saw when they first walked in the door)

BEFORE

(this is the view from the front of the room)

AFTER

BEFORE

(This is is the view from the back of the room)

AFTER

That ends the BEFORE and AFTER rendition but here are some more pictures of my class!

(calendar math and morning message area)

(reading center) 

 (carpet area and my desk)

(front of the class)

So, there's your first glimpse of my first every classroom!



Cats on a Shelf

Travel Tuesday-Our homes in Europe, Part 2

When we left off last time I had shown you all our "homes" while we were in London and Paris.

I forgot that we did stay one night in a hotel in Paris.

This is what happens when you change your itinerary after you've made all your reservations :)

You end up with a random hotel stay...

but it worked out because we got to see another part of the city.

Our hotel room looked like this

and the bathroom looked like this

It had a bathtub (no shower, but a handheld nozzle) to the left as you walk in.

That thing hanging by the mirror is a hair dryer... it was cool and not like any hair dryer I've ever seen.

This was the beautiful view out of our window.

I don't remember what it was called and I don't remember how much the one night's stay cost us.

BUT I will say that it was nice and we enjoyed it.

Just goes to show that there are reasonable hotels in Paris b/c you know we were on a budget!

 

 

 

The last leg of our trip was spent in Rome and Ireland.

We were really happy with the places we stayed in both of the cities!

In Rome we stayed in the Hotel Chicago.

Yes, a lot of their hotels are named after cities and states in the USA.

I'm not sure why.

But I do know they are obsessed with anyone from Chicago. So, if you are from Chicago and you travel to Rome... be sure and mention it and you will be their new favorite person.

Our room looked like this.

It had this super nice built in cabinetry for storage of our clothes and bags!  The door beside the chair is a fridge as well!  We were very excited about that.  Me especially because I LOVE cereal and I had been craving it for a while.  So we bought some milk & cereal...... we also bought Oreos :)

The pic below is of the bathroom.... also very nice.

Notice how the toilet doesn't have a tank.  I thought that was interesting.

That button above flushes.  It has two seperate buttons for the two seperate things that could go into it... ahem. 

Guess which one is for which.... because we did!

Just like hotels in the U.S., they would come in and clean each day and give us fresh towels.

Everything was included except air conditioning, which we splurged for because it was SO hot.  It cost an extra 10 euros a day... which ain't cheap.  I promise it's worth it though for that time of year.  They have different rates on different types of rooms that you can find on their website.

They also require cash for payment, and unlike here, you pay when you check out.

We got lucky and they didn't charge us for the air conditioning.

I'm not sure why... they either liked us or felt sorry for the dumb Americans ;)

Our next stay was in Cork, Ireland.

We tried the whole hostel thing again. 

This is the street view of our hostel... it's the one that says hostel ;)

When you walk in, it looks like this.

Hence the name Bru Bar and Hostel!

If you walk down past the bar and to the left you will find the staircase to the rooms.

Our room looked like this.

Okay, so obviously this is a three person room... but we wanted a room to ourselves this time.  It's a little bit of an extra cost, but if you want the privacy then it's worth it.  We used the top bunk for our backpacks and all our junk.

Here's the bathroom.  Directly ahead, sink.  Directly Right, toilet.  Directly left, shower.

Here is the water control for the shower.

That's right... it's a push button. 
Not only that, but note the color on the push button.

That's right... it's only red. 
Not only that, but you couldn't push it until you were inside the shower because of shower door setup.

That's right... it started out super cold and then proceeded to turn to a nice scalding hot.

It was quite an experience.  Needless to say... fastest showers ever taken.

Outside of that we loved out hostel stay in Cork, Ireland.

Bru Bar and Hostel is top rated by hostelworld.com.

The people working there were super nice.

It was clean.  They offered free wifi and continental breakfast (cereal & toast).

It was a good hostel experience.

If you want to know more about this place their website is right here.

The room we stayed in costs 48 euros a night OR 16 euros a person if you were traveling with two friends.  I think this place is a sweet deal for your own private room and private bathroom.

So there you have it!

Now you've gone on our trip to all of our European stays!

This is definitely one of the ways we kept our trip economical.

Oh man, I almost forgot!  We stayed in a yotel one night in the Heathrow airport in London.

It's a tiny compact hotel type thing in the airport.  It's small, but super futuristic.

We felt like the Jetson's.

You have to go to this link and look at pictures!

Enjoy!

Travel Tuesday-Our homes in Europe, Part 1

Want to see the places we stayed in Europe?

Hey, I'll even tell you how much they cost. I'm a good friend like that... plus it's not like you couldn't find out yourself.

Maybe it will help you in planning your own cost-efficient trip :)

And away we go...

We will begin our journey in London, UK. Welcome to Picadilly Backpackers Hostel. Come on in.

Below is our four person hostel room. We shared it with another couple from Spain. There was not a lot of communication. They were very nice though and I think we lucked out for multiple reasons.

Dustin was not crazy about sleeping in a room with strangers... I didn't really mind.

See our sleep sacks?

Here are our lockers. We brought our own combination locks. They were very spacious and we felt like our stuff was safe and secure when we were away.

This place had no AC and was kind of warm, had communal bathrooms w/showers, you could pay for wifi and it also had an internet room with lots of computers, and it was very centrally located in London. You can read all about their amenities on their website.

It was your basic hostel experience in a big city and you get what you pay for.

Speaking of paying... a 4 bed share room like this is $25 per weekday per person and $29 on the weekdays per person.

The braver you are, the cheaper it is. Meaning, if you are brave enough to sleep a room with 10 other strangers, the rates go down even more!

Check it out. Here is their website.

After London we went to Paris.

I don't have pictures of the actual room, BUT I do have a link.
The up-side to this is that the pictures on the website look EXACTLY like what we saw when we got there. So be sure and check it out if you want to see our room.

The website we used was airbnb.com. If you use this website be sure to check reviews. The guy, Etienne, that we rented from was awesome and had lots of great reviews. He spoke English and was very helpful and available when we needed him!

This one room apartment didn't have AC either, had a sink and a shower in the room, the toilet was down the hall, had free wifi, and you had to walk up six flights of stairs to get to it (we were definitely aware of this before booking). It was very nice and clean, had a metro stop at the end of the street (very important), and we could see the Eiffel Tower in the distance from our windows!

It was $71 a night... which is very affordable for Paris! We didn't want to do the hostel thing all the way through our trip... and this was a great switch up for us.

With all that said, we loved our stay in our little one room apartment in Paris :)



More on Italy & Ireland coming soon.

To be continued...

Today

Everyday last week I spent my time at church camp praising God, playing games, doing the Interlude dance, playing sports, swimming in the creek, watching 13 baptisms, watching people be sent around the room at lunch, getting to know amazing kids, and studying God's word.

And today?

Well, today...

I had my first interview for a teaching position!

Today...

 I set up a meeting with a local chef who wants me to sign a contract with them as their go-to cake artist!!

Today...

 I was offered a free horse!!!

I guess when it rains it pours...

and when you've had a drought, rain is a good thing!

:)



Blackberry Cobbler

My absolute favorite summer dessert is warm blackberry cobbler with a big scoop of cold vanilla ice cream.

Yum!

I found the simplest recipe so here it goes.

You will need:

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 cup of self-rising flour

1 cup of milk

1/2 cup of butter - melted

3-4 cups of fresh blackberries

Prep:  Blend together 1 cup of the sugar, flour, and milk; stir in melted butter.

Grease a 12 x 8 pan and pour in the batter.

Sprinkle in blackberries.  I usually add as many as I can fit.

Sprinkle remaining sugar over the top... to be honest I probably use more than 1/4 of a cup.  I just keep sprinkling until I'm satisfied with the coverage.

Bake at 350 for an hour until golden brown and bubbling.

It's almost too easy.

Here is a before picture

You can see I didn't sprinkle the sugar on top evenly... but it didn't ruin anything!

Also this gives you a good idea on how many blackberries I use!

After

Oh my goodness... it's so perfect. 

Don't forget the ice cream!

So there you have it... now you can have the perfect summer!

*Side note: I have found that when I use store bought blackberries they do not rise to the top when baking... I'm not sure why.  It's still good... but not AS good.  I would recommend using home-grown blackberries if possible!  We always pick ours at Dustin's grandma's house :)

Happy picking! 



Travel Tuesday

When you travel as a pair

almost all

of your

 

 

pictures will

 

look

 

like

 

this

 

UNLESS

 

you decide to bother a stranger who you hope speaks English

 

 

to take a picture of you

 

like this.

 

Guess how many times we did that!

birthday boy

Today is my husband's 29th birthday.

He informed me that he will now age backwards.

So I told him "Happy 27th Birthday!"

This is us when I was 18 and he was 22.  We were newly-daters.  He smiled sideways on purpose because he thought it was funny.  This was taken with a disposable camera.

 

 

This is us again when I was 18 and he was 22.  We had been dating about 5 months.  It was 2004.  He was wearing gaged earrings and I was wearing a hemp necklace & bracelet.  Signs of the times.  This was also taken with a disposable camera.

 

This is us when I was 21 and he was 25.  This was taken a couple of months before we said,  "I do."  This was one of our official engagement pictures taken by Kent Bryant Photography.

 

This is us when I was 22 and he was 26.  This was our beautiful wedding day.  We were brand-newlyweds... just minutes into our marriage.  We will be married 3 years in September.

I couldn't find the baby pictures of him that I wanted to post for his birthday, so I went with these.

I'm so glad he was born 29 years ago so that he could grow up and be my husband.

I love you Dustin!

Happy 29th 27th Birthday!

xoxo

Yes.

Yes.  That is our mailbox.

Yes.  That is duct tape.

Yes.  That is all that is holding our mailbox on for an indefinite amount of time.

Yes.  I broke it.

Yes.  I was wearing my pajamas, glasses, no make-up, with un-brushed hair.

Yes.  The mailman drove up and saw me.

Yes.  We had a conversation with me in my pajamas.

Yes.  I akwardly started confessing to him that I broke it, with duct tape in hand.

Yes.  I'm sure he thinks I'm crazy too.

Yes.  I went into my house to never come out again.

Officially a Hermit,

Amanda



Back To Reality

Since we've been back from our 15 day backpacking trip through Europe, it's back to reality for both of us.   And reality is that my husband has to go to work and I have to try and find a teaching job!  Four days before I was walking around London, I was walking the line at WKU.

For graduation, since this was my second time, we kept it low key.  My family ate dinner at my parents' house before the graduation and then afterwards I went to bed.  I know, it sounds wild.  In reality, it was perfect and it was fun to share it with our families.

Like I said before, my reality is that I need to find a teaching job.  I've been hoping and praying and will continue to do so until God puts me in the job and school I'm supposed to be in.  It's harder and more stressful than I had anticipated... but I'm taking this as an opportunity to work on being patient.

For now, I'll just have to look at my sweet graduation gifts

Don't you agree that I need a classroom so that I can hang up this adorable sign?

My sister-in-law, who is also a teacher, hand-made it for me!  I love it!

She also got me some classroom supplies and decor :)

Jekels was ready to learn!

 

Can you tell what this is?

 

It's a Pandora charm for my bracelet from my parents!



It's a little apple with a worm in it.

It's also cute.

Now all I need is a classroom!