The Walkers

I know I need to get new pictures on here, but we haven't done anything cool lately. And since I don't think anyone wants to look at pictures of Brad mowing the lawn, me reading Eclipse , or either one of us taking a Sunday nap... I got nothin'. But... Dave, DeAnn, Brett, and Matt are coming out to visit TODAY! (Brett's officially a BYU Cougar and Matt's just awesome.) So I'll get some good family activity photos on here soon. I'm so excited to get some quality family time with everybody! It's becoming more and more rare that all of us are able to get together. But any time we do, it's a guaranteed blast. Brad and I spent last night sweeping sawdust off the basement floor to make room for the ping pong and pool tables. Let the tournament begin! (Melinda, you're invited by the way.)

School officially starts tomorrow! I get the feeling that I should be a lot more nervous than I am, given the fact that I secretly don't know what I'm doing. All the other new teachers seem to be freaking out, but honestly, I'm okay. Except for the fact that I can't pronounce half of the kids' names on my roll (mothers of the world, please name your kids phonetically! "Unique" spellings are just confusing). But I'm not super excited either... is that weird? Have I already reached the veteran, near-retirement, bored, dead inside stage? I hope not. Maybe reality just hasn't set in yet. Hmmm... we'll see how I fare after tomorrow. Any advice to get me pumped up?

I think the sure sign that you have "made it" in the entertainment industry is when The Simpsons immortalizes you in yellow. I mean, take a look at the greats... Paul McCartney, Conan O'Brien, Alec Baldwin, Bono, all the N'Syncers. Well, I sent Matt Groening an audition tape, but I don't think he's interested in a high school teacher slash novice karaoke singer cameo for next season. Even if I do know all the words to the Spice Girls' "Wannabe" rap. Needless to say, when I saw the Burger King posters advertising the opportunity for Brad and me to become Springfielders online, I swallowed my Whopper Jr. (and Duff Beer) whole and skateboarded home as fast as I could, racing my whole family to the couch, where something kooky happened to the tune of some familiar music... you know the rest. If you can't resist the temptation either, www.simpsonizeme.com

A few months ago Brad planned a Mexico vacation for our two year anniversary. We were excited because we found a pretty good deal for an all-inclusive hotel, so I rushed out and got a passport and started making plans. Then reality set in. We're trying to finish our basement and the bills are starting to add up. So instead of spending mucho dinero on a needless trip, we decided to buy the rest of our lumber and pay a professional to come install the heating and air (because we all know that if we try to do it ourselves, someone will get electrocuted). Anyway - the money was re-allocated to the basement fund, and our Mexico trip was cancelled. Brad was actually really cute about it... be felt like he was selling me short, but I promise, it was my idea. I hate being a responsible adult! Wow - long introduction... so, we decided to still take some vacation time but do something a bit less expensive. We went out to California to visit Brad's siblings Amy & Frank and Adam & ...

Okay, so Brad and I are big nerds (I think you already knew that), and we have read all the Harry Potter books together. As in - we read them out loud to each other and Brad does voices. So even though The Deathly Hallows has been out for a couple weeks now, we just barely got time to read it while driving to and from California this past week. (Hence the lapse in posts, sorry!) And let me tell you, it's AMAZING! I loved it and I really don't think the series could have ended any better. Everything from the previous books is wrapped up so well... I won't give anything away to those still reading or who may read it in the future (even though it may have already been ruined by my sneaky, read-the-last-page-first sister). I laughed, I cried, I swooned, I panicked, I cheered, and I'm kind of sad that the saga is over.

It took me all morning, but I think I've finally figured out how this contraption works. Notice the buddy list, the music, the wonderment? The sad thing is, that I have all my textbooks in front of me that need to be turned into lesson plans for classes that start in less than three weeks (ahhh!) and I can't stop fiddlin' with this blog! Talk about procrastination! It's actually a classic pattern for me... whenever I have something really important to do, a myriad of before-meaningless projects suddenly gain precedence. So - today I'm blogging instead of learning Debate (those who can't do, teach, right?), and in all likelihood, tomorrow night my house will be spotless but my brain will still be empty. Oooh... unless I get really ambitious and start reading New Moon because I'm dying to find out what happens to Bella and Edward! Not to mention Harry Potter and co. Crap. I'm so screwed.

I totally stole this photo from Laurel's blog but I'm in love with it! Isabel is almost six months old now and she's adorable. She's so fun to play with, "talk to," and show off when I tote her around town. The only problem is, that every time I take her to Smith's, I run into my students who are thick enough to think she's mine. But one girl did tell me she was "like, cute enough to like be in commercials and stuff". Hmmm... what do you think Laurel?