Summer Fun

I figured it was time to change the blog background since it was still Christmas colors.

We have been busy, busy, busy since I posted last. As far as home improvements...we installed our tile backsplash in our kitchen, finished staining our deck (although we have decided that we are going to put one more coat on), installed a new garage door opener, and of course worked in our yard some more. I don't have any pictures right now, but I will try to post some soon.

We have had a FABULOUS summer and unfortunately it's pretty much over! Chad's first day back was today and mine will be on Wednesday. This summer we were busy traveling as always. We went to Hilton Head for a week and stayed in a different house this year that was beautiful. We also went to Destin, Florida with some friends, the Jeffs. I had never been to Destin and it had been a while since Chad had been there. This was the first time we have ever vacationed with friends, and we had a great time! It was so relaxing and we spent alot of time laying out by the beach, eating great food, and got to try paddleboarding for the first time. Paddleboarding is so much fun, but very, very hard when the water is choppy!

For those that don't know yet, Chad has a new job for this coming school year. He is changing school systems and will have an opportunity to coach cross country, indoor track and field, and outdoor track and field. He will be teaching all Biology classes this year. We know this is where God wants him because doors just kept opening for him to have this job. I know he will enjoy it! We have been working hard in his classroom over the last two weeks. The students start next Monday so he has a week left to get ready. He has meetings all week, so not much time to work on his room. Hopefully I can help him later in the week.

I will be in the same position next year at my school. I have really enjoyed the summer, but I'm ready to get back in a daily routine.

New Sofa and Chair

They are here and we LOVE them!!! We picked them up yesterday with Chad's parents help. I know the tag is still on. Chad keeps asking if we can take it off, but I'm not ready to yet. Here are some pics. Chad was sitting in the other chair on the phone so he got to be in some of the pictures.

View from the front door.

View from the kitchen/hallway.

The new sofa! I love the color and thankfully Chad does too. It is so comfy and soft!

The new chair. It glides and swivels and is super comfortable. It's hard to tell in this picture, but it's a herringbone fabric.

Our bedroom furniture is still not here! It should have been here several weeks ago so we are a little frustrated. We were told yesterday it should be here mid-September. We'll have pictures when we get it. I guess we just have something else to look forward to.

One Week Down, Three To Go

As of tomorrow morning, Chad has been gone for one week. It's actually gone by really quickly, but I'm sure I won't be saying that in the last week. I have kept busy going out to eat with friends and doing things around the house.

There was an "exciting" happening in the James household earlier this week that took up much of my time and distracted me from missing Chad. Monday morning as I reached for my laptop bag to take to school, I noticed the strap was wet. As I investigated, I discovered the carpet in our living room was wet all along one of our walls. Lovely, and just after Chad left! Why does it always happen like that? I thought I was done taking care of these things since I now have a husband to do it! Anyway, I had to leave for school so I would not be late, but took half a day off to come home and deal with the situation. Before leaving school, I called someone to come look at it. Luckily, he was able to come by shortly after I got home. We are still baffled and are not sure where the water is coming from other than from under the ground in front of our house. We don't know exactly how to fix it yet, but are talking about our options. My carpet has dried out, but still smells a little musty. I hope it goes away!

After a 4 hour nap...

I feel much better! Wow, I sure needed that. I spoke with Chad briefly tonight and he was telling me about all the clothes and things he got today! It's amazing what all they gave him. He got shirts, shorts, bags, socks, hats, shoes, and much much more. He got the entire outfit that the U.S.A. team wore in the opening ceremony and the outfit they will wear in the closing ceremony. I guess I will have more clothes to wash! :)

Exhausted

Wow! What a week it has been! Let's just say...I'm very tired and I think I will take a nice long nap when I get home from work today.

Since the cross country team had camp this week, Chad has been very busy with all that goes into that as well as trying to do their workouts for while he is gone and trying to get everything ready for his trip. I have tried to help him as much as I can this week, but I will be glad to have a weekend to rest soon.

I tried to get as much packed for him before last night as I could, but it obviously wasn't enough. We went bowling with the cross country team last night and did not get home until about 9:00 pm. Then, we stayed up until after 1:00 am packing all of his things, making sure skype was working, and taking care of some other logistics before he left. Then, we woke up about 5:00 am for me to get ready for school and Chad to pack the car and we left at 5:45 am. We made it to the airport and then I went straight to school.

I know Chad is so tired because he has not slept much at all this week and has been busy non-stop during the day. I am praying that he will be able to get some rest while he is in Colorado over the next few days before leaving for Japan. His flight is about 13 hours to Japan, so hopefully he can get some rest at least by then so that he can enjoy every minute of his trip and be at the top of his game.

By the way...I still don't believe this, but I got my laptop from school yesterday, Wednesday, the day before Chad left! Isn't God so faithful even in the little things?!? It just takes a while for us to realize that has a plan for everything, even something as silly as this. I wasn't really too worried about it because I had come to the conclusion that if I needed to, I would just go out and by a new one this weekend because I WILL be talking to my husband while he is away from me for a month. Well, I won't have to do that now and it's a good thing because that would not be good for our finances. God continues to teach me that He will take care of me in all situations, now if I would just learn the lesson and stop worrying that would be great!

Please pray for Chad and all the athletes and coaches as the travel alot over the next few days especially. Also, pray that he would get some rest and be given opportunities to share Christ with others that he comes in contact with. Thanks!

4 More Days...

until Chad leaves and I'm already sad and feel like I have not seen him enough. The Samford cross country runners are moving in to their dorms today. Chad has been at the school all day working and handing out dorm keys. Tomorrow at 3:00 pm they start their cross country camp and he will be busy pretty much 24/7 with the athletes until he leaves. The athletes will come over to our house on Tuesday night for dinner and games, so I have been cleaning today.

I will take Chad to the airport early Thursday morning, Aug. 21 and he will actually get back a day earlier than we originally thought, which will be Sept. 18th. Last night we set up a blog for him to write on while he is in Beijing. Check it out: it is on the top of my friends list in the left column. The site is http://www.frombirminghamtobeijing.blogspot.com/. He is going to try to keep it updated as much as possible while he is away.

I still can't get Skype to work on our desktop computer!!! It is so frustrating! We are actually borrowing an old CPU from Chad's parents and I can't even get the internet to work on it right now. Also, I can't get the webcam to work and I think I've figured out why. I think it's because the computer has a 1.0 USB port instead of a 2.0. I am supposed to get a laptop at school and was hoping to bring that home to use to talk to Chad, but we have not gotten them yet and I'm not sure we will soon enough. So, other than going out and buying a new desktop computer (which we know we need to do in the near future anyway), I'm not sure what other options I have. Why are computers so difficult?!?

Shopping with Chad...

is SO DIFFICULT! Today we went shopping for some large picture frames for our study and bedroom. We are going to print some pictures that we have taken on some of our trips and frame them. I went the other day to one of my favorite stores-Hobby Lobby-and found the perfect frames for over our bed. Since we wanted 3 frames I was trying to find some for a decent price because I am the thrify one in the family. Well...today I took Chad there to make sure he liked them and decide which size would be best. Needless to say, he did not like anything that I had already picked out, but instead he wanted to get some frames that were twice the price!! Now, you might wonder if he really cares how I decorate our house. The answer is YES! He does not like when I buy things without his approval and alot of times I have to bring them home and make sure he likes them first and then I end up taking many things back because he doesn't like them. As I said on an earlier post, we are learning (or trying to learn) how to compromise. By the end of the day and after checking several stores, we found something we both love, even though I had to give in on the price!! Once we get the pictures printed, I will post pictures of the final product.

Just a side note...we got to have a lazy day today and watch many of the Olympic events on TV, besides our trip to purchase the picture frames, which ended up taking WAY longer than it should have. This will be our last free weekend before Chad leaves for Beijing. Next weekend the Samford Cross Country Team comes in town for Cross Country Camp. Even though they will be staying in Birmingham for camp this year, they will be very busy the whole week before Chad leaves, so I will not see him much that week. So, needless to say, we are having a nice weekend spending lots of time together!

Home Improvements

We finally planted some things in our front flower bed in June and just this past week we lined the flower bed with rocks. We are very proud of ourselves since this is the first large outdoor project we have tackled. The hardest part was deciding which plants to buy. For those of you that don't know... Chad and I seem to have completely different opinons on most everthing, which makes things really difficult, but we are learning to compromise. Also, notice the hanging plant and potted plant by the door. We have a few of those in the back as well, but you will not see pictures of the back for a while because we have alot of work to do. The challenge now is keeping the plants alive and I think we are doing a pretty good job so far. Only one thing has died so far and they were some white annuals, which are cheap, so I was glad it was those and not something else. Take a look at our results:

The second improvement we made last week was in our study. We ordered a desk and file cabinet from Home Decorators on-line. I would highly recommend this company! We ordered the furniture on a Sunday afternoon and it was on our doorstep the following Thursday. We had to put the file cabinet together, but it was pretty simple and we only had to put the legs on the desk. So, we now officially have a study and we love it already. There are still a few other things we would like to do in the room like paint the chandelier, hanging a picture above the desk, etc., but it looks much better already. (By the way...we have not gotten rid of the ugly blue couch yet because Chad just can't let it go. It is out in our garage until we can figure out what we are doing with it.) Check out our new study:

New Classroom

I went up to my classroom yesterday and I will go again tomorrow to try to finish unpacking all of my boxes and arranging my room. It is the perfect location because it is in the main building and basically just up the stairs from the office where I will sign in and out each morning and afternoon. Also, it is right across the hall from a teacher workroom that houses the only copier in the building and the only teacher restroom on that floor. I have enough space in my room to unpack all my things and put them in the cabinets and drawers. Also, I found a nice surprise of 2 brand new Dell desktop computers with flat panel monitors in my room when I arrived on Monday. I had heard that each room had 2 Dell computers already that were not that old and would be getting 2 more brand new ones. Also, each teacher is getting a laptop. Our principal e-mailed us and said they had been ordered. Well, I assumed I would only get the laptop since I would not have kids in my room, but as of now the computers are in my classroom, so we'll see how long they last in there. I'm hoping our laptops will be in soon since they were ordered at the same time. Also, I just recently found out that written into the contract with the newly renovated building was that each classroom would get a smart board. For those of you that don't know what that is it is an interactive whiteboard that you display in the front of the room, most likely by or on the dry-erase board or chalkboard. There is also a projector that is hooked up to your computer and you can either project something from the computer up on the screen or you can use a small hand-held "notepad" to write things up on the board. They are so cool!!! I am doubtful that I will actually have one in my room, but then again I would not use it much, but all of the regular classrooms will have one for me to borrow or use with the kids. I'm so excited about my new school. My old school was really nice and practically brand new when I started working there, so I was very spoiled. I'm glad to be at a new school that is almost just as nice and that has much more advanced technology!

Happy 30th Birthday Chad!!

Chad turned the big 3-0 on August 1st! I had a surprise birthday party for him on Saturday, August 2nd and it was a success! He had a great time and it was so good to see some people we had not seen in a while. Thanks for coming! For dessert we had banana splits, which we also had at our wedding in place of a groom's cake. We all went in together and I made a money tree for his present to start his TV fund. Of course we went shopping for a TV the next day, but we decided we should save up a little more money before purchasing one. Here are some pictures from the party:
Chad blowing out his 3-0 candles on his banana split.

Chad and Tommy. Do you like their birthday hats?

The money tree.

I thought I would share the funny story of me making the money tree. I was planning on making it the day before the party, but ran out of time. So, that night I had to wait for Chad to fall asleep and sneak out of our bedroom into the guest bedroom to make it. I then stayed up for 2 hours making it and snuck back into bed without him even knowing!