Just Drive - Tour America Twenty Twelve

Day 1 – June 19 - Tuesday

We woke up at 5am to get an early start on the road. Despite thunder, lightening, & rain all through Houston, Caleb managed to sleep until almost Dallas where we only took one wrong turn & peaced out an entire container of donut holes.

The drive was uneventful & fast… we made it to the Springs by 6:30pm! Our goal is to take pictures by every state line sign, but we missed New Mexico! But we were ready for Colorado!

Who needs English music when you have Spanish???

After hitting up REI in the Springs for some last minute supplies and dropping our stuff at Rob & Nancy’s (Caleb’s old sponsor family), we met up with some of C-dogg’s buddies for dinner at Chilies.  The day would’ve been perfect if only the Thunder would’ve won…

Day 2 – June 20 - Wednesday

 

Woke up at 5:30 am due to the sun streaming in the window. Went back to sleep until Cabe woke me up at 7:30  to go for a quick 2 mile run. My big talk the day earlier about running 2 miles EASY came back and kicked me in the face when I couldn’t breathe after 1.7 miles. Only a little embarrassing. There is seriously no oxygen up here! Took a quick shower before packing up and heading to the mountains of Colorado for a quick M9 shooting lesson. 

It’s a miracle that Le-ah didn’t fall apart on the incredibly bumpy dirt road there! I won the first competition (consisting of shooting an empty milk carton off a log from 40 ft & then running 20 feet away to the other side of a tree & shooting an empty Sprite can off a branch from 20 ft away), but Caleb soon beasted it with a 10.7 second run. 

He was so busy celebrating his incredible time that he didn’t even see the mountain lion I saved him from! He turned just in time to see me jump in front of him, slide down the slope a bit, and majorly scrape my arm on a rock, drawing the first blood of our trip.  It will be one of those humble victories where no one saw the real danger but me…

After that we headed on up 25 North, aiming to camp at Yellowstone that night.  Along the way, we saw endless miles of blue Wyoming sky and rolling hills & flashing red and blue cop lights in our rearview mirror. 

Thankfully my 6 year no-ticket streak paid off and we made out with just a warning! 

We ended up stopping at Grand Teton National Park, just a little south of Yellowstone, so that we could set up camp and eat dinner while it was still light out. 

We were able to get a free annual interpark pass for all National Parks for FREE (thank you UH-Merica!)! Hollaaa!! We camped at Lizard Creek campsite right off of Lake Jackson… beautiful! 

We found out right after we got there that we had just missed a bear strolling through… bummer! Fun first night of camping… spaghetti for dinner, roasting marshmallows, hiding EVERYTHING in our food storage bin (I might have been a little overly cautious about the bears), and trying to warm up in our sleeping bags (shorts might not have been the best idea). FYI – lemon beer sucks.

Day 3 – June 21 – Thursday

 I woke up freezing & dying to pee at 6:30. Took care of business and then tried to warm my hands up by boiling water on the camping stove to make oatmeal. Seriously, shorts was a bad idea. Finally gave up and went back to burrow in my sleeping bag & sleep a bit more until 7:45ish when C-dogg woke up and we went for a 2 mile run. This morning was MUCH better… didn’t feel like I was about to die at the end! We ate a quick breakfast, took down camp, & headed out for Yellowstone. 

Side note: hardcore bikers in leather jackets think silly pictures by signs are ridiculous. We were happy to entertain them. 

Also, Yellowstone is HUGE! We were able to see: Old Faithful & a bunch of different geysers, Yellowstone Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Lake & the Falls, & all kinds of wildlife (bears, grey wolf, bison, & deer). 

We hiked up Mt. Washburn in a record 1 hr 15 min. Lots of snow on the path and still hiking in Chacos? Of course! (Emily – this reminded me of Lake Tahoe when we did this! Although it wasn’t THAT bad!)

 Caleb’s quote of the day: “I hike like I drive, nobody passes me.” Heard dat! Also, I think half of the mountain heard him shart louder than I’ve ever heard in my life and then yell, “Oh my gosh, did you hear THAT?!?” I haven’t laughed that hard in a lonnnng time!

No blood or broken bones today… just some really sore muscles. We have now been in 5 different states & have dubbed the trip: “Just Drive – Tour America Twenty Twelve”

We arrived in Great Falls, Montana around 10pm to RhiRhi cooking up some amazing lasagne! We stuffed our faces, managed a bit of coherent conversation, took some showers, and fell into bed. My sister-in-law should get an award for how amazingly she hosts! 

Day 4 – June 22 – Friday

We are currently hanging out in our pajamas drinking coffee and taking the morning easy. As soon as Rhi gets home from work we’re gonna hit up the golf course and then hit up the GF tonight too see what all the fuss is about. Ben gets here later tonight and then we head out early tomorrow morning for Glacier National Park for some camping this weekend!

women love to make beautiful things...

My roommate, Marcia, and I were talking about how women have this innate desire to create pretty things, and thanks to pinterest, it has become much easier for that to happen! It's so true, though. I absolutely love to make something from a blank canvas and get to add my own twist or touch to things.  It makes me just awe over the fact that God created every single person uniquely and wonderfully and put so much care and design into the whole picture. How incredibly special we are! I blame my desire to make things on the fact that I was created in the image of our original Creator. 

I've been promising this blog to a few people for awhile to prove to them that out of the 642 "pins" that I have, I actually have made quite a few things!

Here are some pictures of a few that I'm proud of...

This is what I like to call my "jeans wall".  I have this enormously long hallway that connects my room and bathroom and couldn't figure out what to put there to fill up the space!  I decided to put a mixture of ideas together, and this is what happened....

From the other side... 

These are just some of my fav pics with old frames that I painted and modge-podged...

 

The beginning of my collection of wine corks!

I can't take credit for the bird on the branch... that was all thanks to 50% off Hobby Lobby.  But I did get the idea for the other birds and the Mumford and Sons canvas from pinterest. 

A closer pic of the canvas!

I know this is kind of a boring post... sorry guys!  

If you weren't entertained by that at all, then here's a joke told by one of my students. (We're talking about slaves and the Civil War in Social Studies, just fyi)

C: What is a servant that only cleans bathrooms?

Me: Uhhhhhh, I don't know??

C: A butler! Get it?!?! A BUTT (really drawn out and then a really long pause) ler.  And then repeat that line 3 times.

We died laughing at lunch about it!

In other news, I'm doing GREAT with my 2012 goals!  I have eaten at one new restaurant, have signed up for and am currently training for my first 10K, and wrote 3 letters in the month of January. YAY!

friday finds

I love being reminded how exciting and simple life is through the eyes of my 4th graders!  Here are a few notes that I found in desks today....

"and I guess your my friend too, if you want me to"

And this one....

Honestly, the kid's got guts.  And what girl wouldn't want to be told she's hot? haha

a new year...

...a fresh start.

I love the sound of that! January always makes me reflect on the past year and look forward to the year that we now have.  I've never been a big fan of resolutions (because I can never keep them!) so I decided to make goals this year instead. I haven't finished my list, but here's what I have so far!

Suggestions are welcome! And if you want a hand written note... send me your address! haha Maybe I should add "write on my blog more often" to that list.... hmmmmm.

Also, according to one of my students, if you are a white person who is larger than him (a smaller, black boy) he considers you a "B-A-C".  Which, according to him, stands for "big ass caucasian". After sending him to the office for his language, I had a really big laugh over this!!

And if that didn't make you laugh, then hopefully this will...

Happy hump day!

Advertisements for Texas

So this week in Social Studies we are learning about Stephen F. Austin trying to colonize Texas wayyy back in the 1800s.  One of my students' projects was to make a brochure advertising Texas to the cities in the East trying to entice them to move to Texas in that time. Here are some of the examples that I found...

First off... I love the mixing of modern slogans and the 1800's Texas: "Texas back then..."

And, this one.  I don't really know what to say...  But I'm going to honestly say this student is not in my class.  haha But fo real. 

"Here's the best part about the iron. You don't have to use any plugs.  You just make a fire to heat it up and then you press on your clothes."  soooooo trueeeee.  That is definitely the best part.

Yes, there was grilled chicken, fancy restaurants, and bars back in those days.  We really missed out.

Believe it or not, the great state of Texas has enough room for over 3,000 homes! Crazy!

two good things = one really bad thing

So I love coffee. alot.

And I love my iPhone.

And this morning, I was riding in the car with my roommate just chatting away, sipping on my coffee cup and sharing fun ideas that I had found on my pinterest app.  Two really good things, all at the same time.  Sounds pretty good right?  Until those two things decided that the 10 inches between them was just far too great.  Somehow, my phone jumped out of my hand and landed perfectly with a swan dive in the exact middle of my coffee cup.  It definitely would've gotten a 10 out of 10 for execution from olympic judges. All I remember was staring with horror at my pretty new phone as it sat marinating in my hazelnut coffee.  Oh... and Marcia looking over and asking, "Did that really just happen?"

Yes. It really happened.

But don't worry.  The story doesn't end there.  I ended up going to the Apple store to see if they could do anything to fix it, and I GOT A BRAND NEW PHONE! So I took this lovely photo right before they buried my old one.  Seriously, they have caskets for old phones.  Too funny.

Anyways, my math fact of the day: two good things together = one really bad thing.

And also: Did you know that rice dries out moisture???

WHOOP!

I feel like this describes my life so perfectly right now:

1. because I got it off of pinterest, and I'm wayyy too obsessed.

2. I love riding my bicycle. slash I really need to get out and ride my bicycle.

3. the beginning of the school year is always CRAYCRAY!

All that to say, I'm adding just one more small thing to my plate with this blog. :) But I wanted a place where I can type out my thoughts, funny stories, and all those awkward moments that I always somehow create so that I could share them all with you!

sooo...... enjoy!