done with winter

that's it! i am done with winter!

the weathermen have finally been right in my area - we've gotten about 2 feet of snow over the last day and a half. and we also had some slushy snow wednesday too. so total this week i've worked for 2.5 days. and i am done with winter.

i was not happily expecting this storm, i really didn't want school cancelled for 2 days. i want to be done in june, not going extra days. and i don't want days taken off my spring break in april. while shoveling this morning which took about 3 hours, my mom and i were talking how we haven't gotten a storm like this since i was a kid. when we used to get at least one of these 2 footers each year. but it has been a snowy winter here. especially in february!

and i wanted to be productive these 2 days. i brought home a stack of grading 6" high and i have lots of powerpoints to create for notes on the civil war and the civil rights movement. but i have a hard time being productive at home. so i'm now sitting at the kitchen table and i told myself i have to work until 5. and then i should be getting a phone call from a cute boy with our plans for tonight. since it has stopped snowing and the sun is out! maybe it might melt the snow?

and also having the olympics has also made it hard to concentrate! my skiers haven't done well the last 2 days, but the final event mens event - slalom is tomorrow. and the canada-US women's hockey game was good. and i'm excited for the men's US game with finland today.

and i was sick earlier this week, but falling asleep when you get home at 4.30 and then sleeping to 7am the next morning is the easiest way to feel better! (yay for a delay wednesday morning) until your students get on your case about not having anything graded. oops, sorry guys.

oh and i saw something yesterday that reminded me i was in italy a year ago now. so last night i went through all 700 of my italy photos and laughed about the fabulousness of that trip.

and i'm going to end this because it isn't making any sense. hope you had a good end of the week! any fun weekend plans? i'm not doing anything this weekend and it makes me sad :(

the house and alll the snow at 9.30 this morning

up the road at 4.30 on thursday afternoon

our silly dog just relaxing in the snow this morning when shoveling

where in the world.... wildwood, nj

It's Wednesday and that means it's time the lovely Jess over at Classy in Philadelphia's , Where In The World Wednesday!

If you participate, please take the button the fabulous Feris made to use in your post!

The idea of WITWW is to post a picture of you in someplace in the world...it doesn't have to be somewhere foreign or tropical. Just a picture of you somewhere that you consider traveling

This week I'm at one of my favorite places in Jersey - Wildwood! It is almost at the bottom of NJ (a few miles from Cape May) I've been here almost every year since I was a baby for a week each summer with my family and I just love it. Sitting along the ocean and reading allll day long and talking long walks on the beach. My favorite! I just loooove the Jersey Shore!

my first time at the shore in 1986

the rowboats

wildwood sign - this is newish

huuuuuge beaches in wildwood :)

all these photos from 2008

so participate with where in the world wednesday and go over to Jess's blog - Classy in Philadelphia and share your link :)

i'm really short...

uggh, so even though this week was a 3 day week it seemed to drag by! i had a million things going on and lots of confusion. but it was a good week. and an even better weekend. and lots of skiing!

school was rough this week, not sure why. but i was having a hard week and the kids also didn't want to be there. and it seems like time was just standing still. and i was spending more time than usual in guidance dealing with a few issues. but i'm hoping that this is a regular week things will be better. oh and my students totally made fun of me and my kansas history weekend when i showed them a few pictures of me and history of what we'd been discussing in class.

it was a crazy week with skiing. the meet tuesday was postponed to wednesday and it was our final league meet. our boys were in the last spot to make it to semis and as long as we held where we were we'd be ok. the boys all had great first runs but the second not so much. so we were a little concerned, but it turned out we ended up tied with another school for the last spot in the semis. or so we thought. thursday morning coach finds me in my prep and goes we're racing today, turns out the first race had some timing issues that he only found out about that morning. so we didn't make semis. so that was disappointing. so we thought the race was normal time. until i'm teaching and one of my skiers is in that class and gets up to leave. race is at 3 coach... umm, since when. since other coach saw me before class. ok... so i drive up after school and they did well there. and i'm excited for next year - there will be a few great boys coming back and hopefully we can find some girls. and the one girl raced on friday in the semis and she qualified for the state championships this week! yay! so that is awesome. so my season is over. i'm sad that it is over, because i really have loved coaching, but glad at the same time because well getting home at 7.30 every night and 9.30 on race nights is exhausting. and i've been kinda slacking on some of my school work, so now being able to stay at school to get work done will be good.

and it was a good weekend :) ran a million errands friday night and then dinner with erin. and pretty much fell asleep watching the olympics at like 9.30. and then saturday was a family affair in the morning for my grandfather's 81st birthday and then i was off to penn for the charity ball with matt :) had a great time with him, i met his parents this weekend and i think it went well. talked a lot with his mom at the event, so now he just has to meet my parents... and here we are

and looking at the photo i realize i how short i really am! i'm wearing 3" heels here. and i'm still like 9" shorter than he is. so we had a fun time at the event and then just hanging out this morning. watched the best movie ever this morning- mighty ducks. and then i've been olympic watching all night. the canada-us hockey game! which was pretty intense. i love hockey!

and let me just discuss my love for the us ski team, as anyone following me on twitter must know. i am so proud of them this year! we've medaled so far in every event for both men's and women's alpine so far. and i can't wait to see the gs and slalom races later this week. between bode's 3 medals (finally got his gold today) and lindsey vonn and julia mancusco tearing it up for the women's team. i'm in my heaven just watching them race. looooves it.

and this weekend was birthday ball, sadly i wasn't in maryland this weekend celebrating george washington's birthday this year with everyone at my undergrad. but i was thinking about it and i will be doing my own toast to george on tuesday!

anyway how was your weekend? watching the olympics?

where in the world....rome, italy

It's Wednesday and that means it's time the lovely Jess over at Classy in Philadelphia's , Where In The World Wednesday!

If you participate, please take the button the fabulousFeris made to use in your post!

The idea of WITWW is to post a picture of you in someplace in the world...it doesn't have to be somewhere foreign or tropical. Just a picture of you somewhere that you consider traveling

last year i went on a 6 day trip to italy in february as a present to myself. i spent a few days in venice,florence and rome. i loooooooved it! so here are a few of my favs from roma. ugggh, i miss europe so much.

monument to vittorio emanuele II

my fav picture

at the trevi fountain!

so participate with where in the world wednesday and go over to Jess's blog - Classy in Philadelphia and share your link :)

kansas is the new europe

i had an AMAZING weekend in kansas. it was full of adventures, t.swift, basketball, alcohol, food and history. and i'm so glad i decided to have this weekend despite the complete disaster getting home was.

so friday night i arrived at 11pm into kansas city, missouri and promptly jumped on patricia and then the car ride we rocked out to t.swift and reminisced about the summer and driving back from bwi with a coworker awkwardly in the backseat of the car as we sang loudly to t.swift. let's just say airports drives and t.swift go together.

so the rest of the weekend i'll do in bullet points, because i'm too tired to do more.

saturday

-slept in as we did stay up until 2am (3am my time talking)

-explored lawrence kansas where i did get the amazing presidential campaign button puzzle poster

-decided kansas was the new europe as we drank a bottle of wine with lunch

-went to the kansas/iowa state basketball game which was awesome!

waiting for the game to start

throwing the confetti as they announce the kansas basketball team

at the game

-went to an awesome local brewery for dinner

-went out and enjoyed pretending i was in college again

sunday

-went to this incredible breakfast place where we ate ourselves into a food coma

-decided to go on an adventure to lecompton, kansas. the heart of the pro-slavery kansas when kansas was a territory and under the kansas-nebraska act got to decided by popular sovereignty if they wanted slavery or not. which led to the summer of 1856 which was referred to as bleeding kansas. because they pretty much fought a civil war that summer over slavery.

-while in lecompton i became bff with the historical society people working there once we started talking and then i started talking to a guy who was the head of brown v. board of education park site.

at the constitution hall in lecompton, kansas

-so then patricia and i headed to topeka, kansas where we visited the brown v. boe site. and i totally recommend going there. really awesome and information on the civil rights movement is incredible. and made friends there too and was given lots of info on teaching this!

brown v. boe of topeka,kansas

-we went back to lawrence and had our valentine's date going to see valentine's day. i thought it was cute. no love actually (fav movie) but i enjoyed it. a few surprises and i LOVED the t.swift high school part. made me laugh, because i see kids like that on a daily basis at school.

monday

-decided to be lazy and stay home while patricia went to class, decided to check on the status of my flight. around noon, oh shit. my flight is cancelled. quick call to continental and i'm booked on a flight tuesday morning.

-patricia and i head off to kansas city, missouri for some fun. we drive around on state line road. going one way you are in kansas, going the other way you are in missouri. so cool!

-see sign for oregon trail... oh yea, that started in independence.. that's only like ten minutes away.

-head off to independence and stop at a welcome to missouri center. where i remember my 2nd favorite president is from independence, missouri. so we head off on a harry s. truman adventure. and we visit his house and library and take some pics with the statue. sadly everything was closed because we got there too late.

harry's house in independence, missouri

statue of harry

-continue trying to find the start of the oregon trail but were defeated.

-go to this fancy burger place, where we eat an intense dinner. i had a bison burger, patricia had a kobe burger and we also had truffle fries and adult milkshakes.

most amazing meal eveeeer

-watch the ku-texas a&m basketball game

tuesday

-wake up and see flight is still on schedule. yes!

-drive to airport making a few stops for last minute photo op

-airport fun, a few minutes before supposed to board. flight delayed until 12.

-fly home and read "stones into schools" by greg mortinsen the author of three cups of tea. omg, if you haven't read either book do it. and have to wait 30 minutes after landing to get to gate at 4.30

-get to car parking lot to pick up my car around 5. they can't find my car. find out somehow my car has been towed from the lot. wait 2 hours for them to go get my car from the impound. freak out a bit, yell a lot. generally in a super pissed off mood. i finally get my car around 7.

-get home at approx 8pm.

so it was an adventure to say the least, but it was so much fun. i was supposed to get in around 11pm monday night and instead get home at 8pm tuesday.

and luckily tomorrow is wednesday already. so 3 days of work this week. and i'm super excited to talk about my history filled weekend. as in US1 i just talked about bleeding kansas last week and in us2 we did brown v. boe on thurs/friday. so seriously it was some perfect timing. and i am fully prepared for them to laugh at me.

let it snow...

so we finally got our snowstorm in western jersey. about 15 glorious inches of snow fell wednesday. and i greatly enjoyed my day off school yesterday and the 2 hour delay today. i love delays, seriously they could happen a bit more. school starting at 9.30 instead of 7.30 is amazing. getting up when i would be at school already is brillant! it was a highly unproductive snow day, which was nice, but it means i need to do work this weekend now. i enjoyed sleeping in, watching some millionaire matchmaker, reading a book, a few cups of tea and also watching some trashy movies on nexflix instead.. and going on a walk in the snow with my parents and dog and shoveling out my car twice. so all in all a productive day right? but i've had enough snow for the year, so it can be spring now. kthanx weather gods :)

i leave my kansas tomorrow night! yay :) just have to get through tomorrow and i have a faaaabulous 4 day weekend. which 3 of those days will be spent singing along to taylor swift, seeing valentine's day, going to a KU basketball game, drinking, reminiscing about team westpark, making a million jersey shore references and having an ammmmmazing time with patricia! if only the 3rd member of our posse wasn't busy working in dc. booo. but i am SO excited. i realllly miss going on adventures. i've been back in the states for almost a year now (seriously time is flying!) and while i've loved going to visit friends in dc/md/ct/pa/nyc... i just miss hopping on a plane and going to italy or london or spain or somewhere fun in europe. so hopping on a flight to kansas kinda reminds me of my european life. which i miss pretty much every day.

and the silly snow has really messed up things with ski team, but hopefully it is all figured out. and fingers crossed the team makes the semi-finals to maybe make states? but practice today... ommmmg - was incredible. i forgot how fabulous it is to ski on powder... usually we have ice. so it was real skiing today, not ice skiing. and we just told the kids to have fun and ski. so i did about 6 runs myself and just tore it up. i am going to be sore tomorrow, because i haven't skied like that since m and i went skiing. usually i do like 2 runs and just stand around. and it made me remember how much i love skiing :)

anyway it is late and grey's/private practice are almost over and i'm ready for bed. and i graded the quizzes i gave today and my lesson plans are done for next week :)

what are your plans for the weekend?

where in the world.... ellis island

It's Wednesday and that means it's time the lovely Jess over at Classy in Philadelphia's , Where In The World Wednesday!

If you participate, please take the button the fabulousFeris made to use in your post!

The idea of WITWW is to post a picture of you in someplace in the world...it doesn't have to be somewhere foreign or tropical. Just a picture of you somewhere that you consider traveling.

this week i went with one of my favorite historical places. ellis island. for the immigration historian in me this place is my favorite. i've talked about my love of ellis island before. and a few weeks ago i had the statue of annie moore in cobh where there is one of her at ellis too. and i've been here a few times. my first was for the 5th grade class trip, but most recently was summer of 2006 when i spent 3 days researching at ellis island for my undergrad thesis. i was up in the library listening to oral history recordings of irish immigrants and it was just incredible. so i took a few pictures when i was there of ellis island and its neighbor the state of liberty on bedloe's island.

entrance of ellis island

ellis and statue of liberty from ferry

lines for the ferry - this reminds of of what it looked like in the 1900s

me with nyc in the background

bff annie moore!

favorite photo from ellis island. the great hall empty. this was where people were questioned. it was so incredible and spooky to be here at 8.30 when ellis opened and the only one in the room.

weekends go by waaay to fast

sunday again... i hate how fast the weekend goes. and i'm putting off doing work that i need for tomorrow to write this. and i also need to do some baking. how was everyone's weekend? things here were different than they were supposed to be. with the epic snowstorm that hit the east coast, they were not sure how much was going to hit my area.. so our estimates were anywhere from 1" to 6".. and because of that my sorority stuff was cancelled and moved to monday and the ski meet was postponed for 2 weeks. so i had a completely free saturday and guess what... NO SNOW! so i was pretty happy with the no snow. because i'm sick of winter. but apparently they are calling for snow on wednesday... but i wouldn't mind a day off school :) but it was crazy where there was snow because about 10 miles away had about 1-2" and down by m they had about 6". so i was highly unproductive on saturday and besides cleaning, didn't do any work for school. instead i read and watched about 5 episodes of the first season of how i met your mother. and then drove to pennsylvania to see m. where instead of heading out to dinner and drinks, we decided to stay in and order pizza and watch movies. so it was relaxing and quiet, but still fun. i just really enjoy spending time with him. (sorry em, still no pictures... i'll have some in 2 weeks, when we go to the charity ball)

went with erin on friday to see dear,john. and i liked it. i love nicholas sparks books, and i knew going in to expect change and just take it as a movie. and i really liked it. it was different from the book but amanda seyfried (i still picure her as karen from mean girls) and channing tatum had pretty good chemistry and i cried like i hadn't cried in a movie since the first time i saw the notebook. i recommend seeing it. and i can't wait to see valentine's day next weekend!

and i also can't wait for next weekend in KANSAS!! just have to get through this super crazy week first.

and my family is crazy... come to dinner at my house when all 5 of us are home and it is a highly entertaining meal. you never know what is going to be said...
exhibit a-
dad: erin are you a trisexual?
me: what is the tri?
dad: likes to try sex?

exhibit b- my sister wearing a baby blanket on her head and after me asking her why and telling her she looks like a pilgrim she goes, ohh, it is still on my head?

exhibit c - sister: it is for my baby in like 5 years... wait make that 7. but i don't want to be old.
mom- i was married when i was erin's age
dad - no, you weren't
mom - i was 23
dad - no, you were older
mom - 1981 was when we were married.. you do the math

and the hitler video that i showed is from the movie Der Untergang (The Downfall) which is about Hitler's final 2 weeks in the bunker. and there have been countless spoofs with this - my favorites being hillary loosing the democratic nomination, taylor/kanye at the mtv and the cork football strike...

i'm watching the super bowl and i don't care who wins, and so far the game hasn't been that exciting. and the commercials haven't been that fabulous... what was your favorite commercial?

where in the world.... sunrise mountain, nj

It's Wednesday and that means it's time the lovely Jess over at Classy in Philadelphia's , Where In The World Wednesday!

If you participate, please take the button the fabulousFeris made to use in your post!

The idea of WITWW is to post a picture of you in someplace in the world...it doesn't have to be somewhere foreign or tropical. Just a picture of you somewhere that you consider traveling.

this week i picked one of my favorite places in new jersey - sunrise mountain. it is along the appalachian trail and offers a nice scenic view of the local area. my goal is to one morning actually get up there for sunrise, because i drive up in the area every day and the sunrise is gorgeous from the roads, so i'm sure actually getting to see it would be ammmazing!

i come here at least once a year, but i guess i don't always take photos, because the good ones i can find are from summer 2005 when my friend becca and i did a tri-state adventure.

the pavilion - built in the 1930s under the CCC

me and my ever favorite appalachian trail!

pic from summer 02 with a camp group at sunrise

so if you are participating go over to Jess's blog - Classy in Philadelphia and share your link :)

crazy crazy crazy

crazy crazy crazy, that is what february will be. the next 20 days are pretty insane. but i am super excited about most of it!

i have a usual week this week with ski practice until 7 m/t/th and a meet wednesday. friday night is out with erin. saturday is another ski meet/zta recruitment. monday is a ski meet, tuesday is zta recruitment until midnight, wednesday is a ski meet, thursday is more zta recruitment until midnight and friday - monday is kansas! wednesday/thursday are ski meets and saturday is the ball. and either harrisburg,pa or conn the weekend of the 27/28....

ahhhhhh! but it is going to be a lot of fun! so just get me through the next 20 days and i'll be fabulous. because ski will most likely be over the 18th, because i don't think we will have anyone making it to states. and the usual crazy of work. but i love being busy and i'd rather be busy than just coming home and not doing anything.

last week was good, but the week seemed to draaag by. maybe because it was the end of midterms and then wed-fri were normal days of school but neither myself or the students wanted to be in school, so wed/thurs were horrible. like they were just djsjfjsfjsdjfsjfjsgjd and off the wall, like the worst behavior i've had all year. but they were much better today.so here's hoping the rest of the week will be good and the days will go by fast like they usually do. today sure sped by and they were good. and it was hilarious to see a few of my girls reaction to the new german exchange student... i had to bite my lip to stop from laughing...

had a fun weekend though, met my college friend jclark in princeton for some bonding. we had a great time walking around the town and the university in the freezing cold! and the highlight, we snuck into an academic building and took pictures of ourselves. haha! what dorks we are! and then i went to pa to see the boy and his new house and met a few of his friends. so it was fun and relaxing and like usual went by waaaaay too fast.

and saw this today and i was laughing so hard. i know these are like so two years ago, but i still laugh and love them. so here is hitler's reaction to the jersey shore being relocated for season 2.

and yay for tswift winning 4 grammys! i must say though i was highly disappointed with the performances though. the lady gaga/elton john was fabulous, but after that i was like wtttf?

happy february to everyone and hope that punxutawney phil doesn't see his shadow tomorrow and spring will be here sooner!