Washington D.C.

This year for our vacation we went to Washington D.C. I had never been and Chad had only been for a few days when he was younger. We knew that it would not be a luxury vacation and we would be hot, tired, and have very long days. It turned out to be everything we expected and more! We were HOT, TIRED, and my FEET HURT from all the walking. It was all worth it though to see this beautiful place and learn so much about our nation's history. Here are a few pictures we have to share:

Lincoln Memorial

U.S. Capitol

World War II Memorial

Washington Monument

White House

Our days were jam packed so we could see as much as possible. Of course, I had a strict schedule for us to follow including where we would eat lunch and dinner each day. We did pretty well sticking to our schedule and got to see everything we wanted to, but had to cut some things short because of time. It was pretty impressive overall and Chad and I both LOVED all the beautiful architecture of the buildings and all the natural stone that was used. I had many favorites including the Washington Monument, National Archives, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. Chad love Mount Vernon and the U.S. Capitol. We are looking forward to going back one day to see more, but we are planning on going in the spring instead of summer. :)

Time Flies

Every time I see someone that reads our blog they ask why I have not updated it in a while or when I'm going to update it again. I guess I'm just not as good at this as I would like to be.

We are out of school for the summer and LOVE spending our days together. Everyone always asks us if it is nice having our summer off together and we always respond the same way...Absolutely! It is so nice not to have any worries or stress at least for a short span of time.

We went to Hilton Head with Chad's side of the family in the beginning of June and it was so nice as always. For a few days, the weather was beautiful and not as hot and humid as usual. It is always fun spending time with them! Gramps...you are one reason for this post.

The last few weeks we have been home and it has been REALLY nice! We celebrated our 3 year anniversary at home this year. We traveled on our first 2 anniversaries so we have never celebrated in Birmingham. It was such a nice day just spending every minute together. We woke up early and ran that morning. Actually, Chad ran with Aaron Bishop who lives back in town and I ran by myself, but we ran at the same time at least. Then, we had brunch at a quaint new brunch restaurant in town. I was going to buy Chad some Keen's for our anniversary so we went shopping, but he could not decide on any. We did some furniture shopping for several hours that afternoon...more to come on that later. Then, we had dinner at my favorite restaurant, Cocina Superior. Yum, yum, yum! We never ate the top layer of our wedding cake, so we had some that night and it was actually very good, especially since it was 3 years old.

On to the furniture story. I have been wanting a new sofa for about 5 years now, but we just didn't want to spend the money on it. So, we decided that would be our next large purchase. On our anniversary we went to a cute little home furnishings store in Homewood called At Home. I had been in there before, but it had been a LONG time. Let's just say that 6 days later we walked out of there after ordering a sofa, chair, and new bedroom furniture!! We chose a sofa we liked right away, but went back and forth on the fabric and trying really hard to compromise. Before we even looked at sofas, Chad found some bedroom furniture that he LOVED and once I saw it I did too. We had looked at some bedroom furniture at Pier 1, but Chad didn't love it so we decided to look some more. Well, we found something we both loved for sure! The chair was a complete splurge, but it will be nice to have more seating in our living room that is comfortable. We are so excited because we have not bought much furniture together as a couple and this is something that we picked out and purchased together. The bedroomm furniture will be in by the beginning of August and the sofa and chair will be in around the end of August so look for pictures later.

I also have to give a shout out to Aaron Bishop and Shana Ely Pardue. We had lunch with them last Monday and had such a good time. Aaron lives here in Birmingham and he and Chad have been running together and really enjoying hanging out. Shana has been in town some lately for cancer treatments at UAB. She has Hodgkin's Lymphoma for the 3rd time and is such a trooper. I admire her for her faith, courage, determination, and so many other things. She is such a positive person and always concerned about others that you would never know she has cancer. I'm so thankful for such a wonderful, selfless, and caring friend.

Maybe next time I will have pictures of our furniture!

Almost Back to School

We are back from our last vacation of the summer! We were in Hilton Head, South Carolina last week with Chad's family and had a great time. While there we played games, went on bike rides, got a tan, relaxed, had a luau, and ate some great food.

Now that we are back we have been working hard to get the rest of Chad's paperwork filled out and turned in and trying to get his classroom ready. Tomorrow is our first official workday, so our summer if officially over. It sure was a great one though!

We will be busy the next few weeks with school stuff, but I will try to update when I can!

Costa Rica

We returned from Costa Rica! It was so much fun and we highly recommend it as a vacation destination. It is a 4 hour plane ride from Atlanta to Liberia and then we only had a 45 minute drive to our hotel. It was nice to not spend our whole day traveling and we got there with plenty of time to tour the hotel and grounds before it got dark. There was so much to do in Costa Rica, we could have easily stayed there a few more days. We stayed at the Paradisus Playa Conchal, which is an all-inclusive resort right on the beach on the Pacific side of the country.

The resort was beautiful, had great food, and lots of things to do. All the rooms were suites situated in small villas. We had a sitting area, minibar, bathroom, and our "bedroom" that was up two stairs in our suite. The room was very quaint and romantic.

The resort was spread out and required alot of walking. We didn't mind at all because it was so pretty and we were able to see many "critters" during our walks. We saw iguanas, something that looked like a cross between a raccoon and an anteater, squirrels that looked different than the ones we have here, and a variety of birds.

There was 24 hour room service and many restaurants open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We tried all of the restaurants at least once and we were very impressed. For dinner, there was a buffet open each night, or there were 3 specialty restaurants that required reservations. There was an Italian, Mexican, and Asian Restaurant and all of them were wonderful. We liked the Italian restaurant so much that we went twice. Each restuarant was very "up-scale" and offered many appetizers, entrees, and of course dessert. Since it was all-inclusive, we just couldn't help ourselves! We went a litle overboard a few times, but it was worth it!

The resort also had free activities such as: bike tours, kayak tours, sunset boat cruise, bike rentals, kayak rentals, canopy, exercise classes, dance classes, etc. Even though we wanted to do a few of these activities, we just ran out of time. We did go on the sunset boat cruise though and it was awesome! We also participated in water aerobics class 2 different days while we were at the pool.

We went on two excursions away from the hotel. The first one was an ATV/Canopy Tour. First, we rode our ATV's to the canopy. It was a good introduction canopy tour and nice because we were alone with our tour guides. Then, we rode the ATV's for 2 more hours on dirt roads. It was neat to see the daily lives of the people that live there. We saw some school children walking and riding their bikes to school and 2 boys raced Chad on their bikes. We rode by the beach for a while and got to stop and take pictures. We also saw howler monkeys during that time. There were a ton of them together in several trees and some had babies on their backs. Our second excursion was our favorite day of the entire trip. It was called "Adrenaline Adventure Combo" and boy was it a combo! We were gone from 6:30am -6:00pm that day. First, we drove about 2 1/2 hours to a canopy tour. It took an hour and a half to complete the canopy tour. It was built around a canyon and we went back and forth over the canyon on the zipline. At one point we were lowered down 25 meters into the canyon, did a "Tarzan" swing back over the canyon, and the rock climbed back up the canyon. Also, there was a section where we had to rock climb horizontally to the next line. It was so much fun! I was glad when it was over though because my nerves were pretty much shot! For those that know me, it was very scary for me, but I did it all. Chad was loving every minute of it, he is such a dare devil. Next, we went on an hour horseback ride to a waterfall, where we got to jump off a rock into the waterfall. Then, we had lunch, and we to a "Costa Rican" spa for the rest of the day. At the "spa" we went in a sauna for 10 minutes, took a mud bath, let it dry, and rinsed off in a freezing cold shower. It was supposed to be good for our skin, but I'm not sure about that. Then, we went to a hot springs, where the water is naturally heated from the lava in a nearby volcano. The whole day we had a tour guide that taught us alot about the Costa Rican culture.

While we were there I treated myself to the spa and Chad played golf on the course at our hotel.

Even though we went during the rainy season, the weather was not too bad. When we first arrived, it was very hot and humid and I was worried that the whole week would be like that. Luckily, that was the worst day! It was very warm during the day, but we got at least a short rain shower each afternoon. Two afternoons we got thunderstorms. The resort provided us with an umbrella in our room, which was convenient.

We had a great time! It is so nice to escape the stresses of daily life and refocus, relax, and rest. We hope you enjoy the pictures!

Happy Summer!

We just love the summer, but why does it always go by so fast! We have been busy, busy since the last post so now we have lots to update about. I hope you enjoy the new template, I thought we needed something summery with bright colors for this time of year.

First, I would like to update you on my newest sewing ventures. I took my grandmothers sewing machine to a local sewing machine store and was able to get all the parts I was missing. While I was there, the lady told me about introduction sewing classes for my machine. I was able to attend a 2 hour class a few weeks ago and learn some basic things about the machine that I did not already know. It was wonderful! My newest project is learning how to applique, which was much easier than I thought it would be. I made some kitchen towels with a personalized applique for a thank you gift. I would not recommend starting with the letter "S" because it is probably the hardest one, but I didn't have a choice. I bought some cellophane bags at Michael's and wrapped them up with a ribbon.

That is all I have time for right now, but check back soon for updates on our Costa Rica trip and my new niece and nephew!

It's Over (almost)...

Well, the summer is coming to an end. I'm very sad because it always goes by way too fast and I never get all of my summer goals accomplished.

This past Monday I finally moved all of my classroom items into my new room. I have a really nice big room and I won't even have kids coming in there. I'm excited to be able to spread out and have a nice space of my own. I will go up next week and try to unpack and get organized. The teachers start school next Friday, Aug. 8th, and the kids start the following Wednesday, Aug. 13th.

This week is filled with trying to get some more things done around the house. Today cleaning is on the agenda and so far I have just spent time on the computer, so we'll see how that goes!

Hilton Head, South Carolina

We returned from our annual family trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina last Saturday. That was our last vacation/trip for the summer and it is very sad it has come to an end, but it was a good trip to end on. We always have such a great time with Chad's family in Hilton Head! Some of the fun things we did in Hilton Head include: bike riding on the island, playing boche on the beach, laying out and playing volleyball at the pool, shopping, and flying kites. Here are a few pictures from our vacation:

A beautiful sunset.

Palm trees.

The James'.

The whole family.

Look closely and you will see our kites flying in the sky.

July Fun

Well, as usual July has passed by way too fast. Here are a few updates from this month and what we have coming up:

For July 4th we went to visit my mom and Roland in Big Canoe. My mom, Chad, and I ran the Peachtree Road Race on the morning of the 4th. My mom only started running about a year and a half ago and her goal was the run the Peachtree this year. So, we went to run with her and had so much fun. Our goal was to run the whole thing without stopping and we did it! It was very, very crowded so we had to dodge people and run around people pretty much the whole time. We had a great time and hope to be able to do it every year.

Last week I baby-sat all week. Since I was a sophomore in college I have been baby-sitting for this family. They have 3 girls and when I started the youngest was 2 years old and now she is 11. It's really crazy to see how quickly they grow up. The oldest girl had a leadership conference to go to in the Boston area so the parents decided to take her early to look at colleges since she will be in 11th grade this year. So, that left me with the 11 and 13 year-old girls for the week. We really had a great time and I feel more like I am just hanging out with them than baby-sitting them.

This week has been filled with doctor's appointments and getting some things done around the house. Also, we have started packing for Hilton Head, our annual family trip with Chad's family. We are very excited! We leave this Saturday and come back the next Saturday.

The Monday after we get back from Hilton Head I will move into my new classroom. I have most of my things in my house right now and I'm ready to get them out!

For those of you that don't know...Chad will be a National Team Coach for the Paralympic Games in Beijing. He will be gone for about a month from Aug. 21st-Sept. 19th. This is such a great opportunity and we are both very excited that he gets to go!

Anniversary Trip to Gatlinburg

We went to Gatlinburg, Tennessee June 21st-24th to celebrate our one year aniversary. It was so good to get away, especially after having a rough last few months. Since we have not gotten to spend much quality time together lately, we needed this time to get away and just be together with no distractions. We had such a wonderful and relaxing time and it was definitely worth it! I know Chad is having a good time and is stress-free when he gets silly and he was very silly the entire trip. He needed to get away and not have to think about work for a while.

Gatlinburg is such a quaint little town and has some cute shops! We spent lots of time walking down the main strip and eating at several yummy restaurants there. Our cabin was perfect for just the 2 of us. It had a beautiful view, a hot tub on the balcony, and a pool table (let's just say that Chad was pretty impressed with my skills and he needs to practice alot before he plays me again). We tried to spend as much time there as possible so we could relax and enjoy the surroundings. One day we spent about 5 hours at Ober Gatlinburg and were able to do the Scenic Chair Lift, Alpine Slide (which I remember doing when I was a kid and was VERY excited to do again), bumper cars, and 2 different water rides. On our anniversary we went on a hike in the Smoky Mountains and got some beautiful pictures of the views. Here are some pictures of our trip. Sorry there are so many, I couldn't just pick a few.

Our little one-bedroom cabin.

The view from our cabin.
We ate at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company one night.
Hiking in the Smokies.

Alum Cave Trail in the Smoky Mountains.
A beatiful view of the Smokies.
Another pretty view.

Wow! I think we'll have to hang this one in our house.
Riding on the Scenic Chair Lift.
The Alpine Slide.

Chad loved this ride!
He talked me into riding this one and promised I wouldn't get wet.
Wet Tara after riding the water ride.