Christmas 2010

We had a great Christmas filled with lots of time with family. Below are just a few pics from Christmas.

playing Scrabble Flash

Riley with her toy and new bed

Happy Halloween

Halloween was a relatively low key day. The family came over for football, Sunday dinner and helped hand out some candy to the kiddies. A friend of Richie's also joined us to watch the Chiefs vs Bills game. They made a friendly bet....and he now owes us dinner at the Cheesecake Factory!

Lulu the blowfish and Riley the pumpkin

Halloween Costumes

Riley and LuLu are going to dress up for Halloween this year! Don't they look cute?!

New Fun Learning...Teachers Sharing With Teachers Conference

Today instead of teaching , I was learning. I went to a workshop at the Chase Collegiate School in Waterbury, about 5 minutes from my house. The campus is beautiful and the classrooms and buildings are as well. I took some amazing workshops: Enchated Fairytale Projects, Just Write!, Jazz and Poetry, and Quick and Easy Video Productions. So I came home today and downloaded PhotoStory 3 for Windows that I was told about during the video production workshop. It's fun, easy, and free! I will definitely be teaching my students how to use this program during their computer class! Hopefully our teach guy will download the program to my computers for me.

I also was told about some other great websites and programs that are fun to use with kids of all ages...www.voki.com (you can choose an animated character and have them speak for you), WindowsMovie Maker, Neighborhood Map Maker, and Stationary Studio. Can't wait to use these programs in my classroom!

Trouble 1 and Trouble 2!

Trouble 1 and Trouble 2

Lulu in trouble bc she was digging!
Riley sitting like a good girl

Riley and her dollie (that she has since chewed)

sleeping puppies after a long day of watching football

Labor Day get together

On Sunday, September 5, we had an impromptu get together at our house for Labor Day. Richie's family and friends came by for a day filled with food, fun and good conversations. His uncle made carnitas, which is what is pictured below. We also had homemade guacamole, tostadas, tortillas for the pork and chicken, as well as hamburgers and hotdogs. The day was gorgeous and we had a great turnout of people.

Mystic Seaport

Today Richie and I visited Mystic Seaport for their Seafood Festival which consisted of seafood caught locally. The food smelled and tasted amazing (we had swordfish and New England clam chowder), but there was so much to learn about while at the Seaport. The old buildings had workers that reenacted the jobs from the 19th century that would have taken place there. We saw a shipsmith who reuses metal material and makes candleholders and harpoons and were able to walk onto ships that were docked at the seaport. One ship had just returned from a voyage to Cuba!

This boat was mounted on the ceiling of the welcome center.

One of the ships we were able to climb aboard.

A seagull sitting out on the river.

Richie and I aboard the steamboat...the last one of it's kind that is actually still running.

Lighthouse

Beautiful houses we saw as we were cruising along the Mystic River on the steam boat.

The Charles W. Morgan is the last surviving wooden whaling ship. This ship was built in 1841 in New Bedford, MA and had a successful 80 year whaling career. The ship made 37 voyages which ranged from 9 months to 6 years. The Charles W. Morgan was retired in 1921 and preserved as an exhibit for all to explore. At Mystic Seaport, they are currently 2 years into a 5 year restoration of the ship. Once the ship is fully restored, it will travel from Mystic, CT to New Bedford, MA and back again.

After stopping at the Seaport Bakery and grabbing an ice cream, pumpkin muffin (which I later found out I couldn't eat-it had nuts in it, and M&M chocolate fudge, we head over to Olde Mistic Village which had many unique shops and local vendors. We stopped at a store calling Raining Cats and Dogs and found an I love my puggle magnet, as well as homemade doggie treats for Riley and LuLu.

Overall, we had a wonderful day in Mystic and hope to go back to visit the Aquarium in the near future!

2010-2011 School Year

This school year I will be teaching 5th grade!!! Finally, after 6 years of waiting, a teaching position comes my way. Of course I have paid my dues (3 years as a tutor/substitute at the school). See, sometimes good things come to those who wait...I've just waited a LONG time! Below are some pics of what I have been working on today for my classroom. More pictures of my actually classroom will come as the weeks progress! In picture order: Positive Behavior chart, classroom jobs (not labeled yet), and stars for my Welcome to 5th grade bulletin board.

The Weekend with very sleepy puppies and the fam

Riley (and Lucia) Pic of the Day!

Happy 1st Anniversary!

08.08.10: Our first anniversary was a very low key day since we celebrated the day before with a big cookout. We had good intentions of spending the day at the beach, but that didn't happen. Instead we cleaned up a bit from the party, spent time outside (bc it was beautiful), and had dinner at my parents' house. Then we came home and followed the tradition of having a piece of our wedding cake...

...it actually tasted really good! My mom preserved it really well, even the frosting held up! We were quite surprised :-)!

Here's to our first anniversary and many, many more to come!

First Anniversary Cookout

On Saturday, August 7th, we celebrated out first anniversary early by having our family and friends over for a cookout. We had a gorgeous day and a ton of good food to aid the celebration!

All you can eat tacos!

Strawberry Shortcake (just like our wedding cake) from Luigi's

Cutting the cake

Yes, we fed each other again!

...and had some fun with it!

Us with some of my Villa friends and their significant others

Overall the cookout was a success! Thank you to everyone who joined in us in celebrating our first year of being a married couple. Here is to many, many more happy and healthy years ahead!