Breakfast in KC (Stop 4/13)

WHEW!!! It's the last day of April, but I'm making it with my April "Breakfast in KC" post! Better late than never?? I promise there's a real reason though. Here's what happened:

 

On Sunday, April 19th, Ben and I decided we were going to go to one of the brunch spots and try it out. I've said it a million times, but Sundays are just our very favorite day of the week because we are both off and we can get things done, try new places, enjoy some coffee, etc. Anyway, we checked out the list and decided to try Room 39 down in Westport. Silly us didn't think to check if Room 39 was open because, hey, it's Sunday... why wouldn't a brunch spot be open on Sunday?? Well... whoops. They weren't open. So instead, we went to D'Bronx for some [delicious] pizza and spent a little while walking around Prosperos Bookstore. They have some great nooks and crannies, a BRAND NEW level for readings/concerts, and tons of used books to check out. I managed to take a few snapshots of the store to give you guys a peak. How awesome, right?? A reader's dream!

  

With all of this in mind, obviously we didn't get to try our new brunch spot. Luckily, there was still another weekend left in April, so we made plans to go then. The following Saturday, the 25th, Ben had the morning off from the bank (this only happens once in a blue moon!!), so we took advantage and went back to Room 39 to try it out since they were OPEN!

Let me preface this review with the fact that I love midtown, so I was really excited about trying this place. In addition, Ben and I had pegged Corner Restaurant as our favorite (and find ourselves wanting to go back), so I think our expectations were high.

When we got there, there was a short wait. This was to be expected as it was brunch time and I still can't wrap my mind around making a reservation for breakfast... maybe I'll get there some day. Anyway, we of course ordered the bottomless coffee, and then perused the menu for things that sounded yummy. Ben went with the "Croque Madame," which was shaved ham and gruyere on grilled bread with fried eggs and potatoes. He ordered his eggs over easy though. I ended up ordering the "Smoked Salmon Scramble," which was house cured and smoked salmon with cream cheese, scallions, and soft scrambled eggs with breakfast potatoes and toast. Here are the pictures of the food that I grabbed - sorry that my food picture is vertical... for some reason, no matter what direction I turn it, it shows up this way.

  

  

Overall, we had heard good things about this place, but it wasn't our favorite. The food was good, but overall, not the best we've had at the places we've been. I did really enjoy the cream cheese in my scrambled eggs - this is not something I'd ever had before - and I really enjoyed my coffee.

Based on the food and service (waiting for things, etc.) we'd give Room 39 a  6.5/10.

Teacher Talk Tuesday: We Are Marshall

After missing last week, I am back with a brand new Teacher Talk Tuesday! Sorry for the wait!

  

For those of you who don't know, I am a high school Special Education teacher. Working with kids who have needs in English has made me rethink what I need to do to help them learn the concepts we need them to. Last semester, something I tried was this "We Are Marshall" unit. I have a class of six BOYS that need something a little out of the box to keep them all focused, so sports was the direction I went. I, myself, am a sucker for inspirational sports movies, and with this one being based on a true story I saw ways to connect other sources to it.

We started out by watching the movie We Are Marshall (staring Matthew McConaughey). I was pleased to see the guys enjoy the movie/storyline. Some of them didn't know this actually happened, and were really taken aback when they found out. It took us a few days to watch the entire movie with classes being shorter some days, etc.

After we watched the movie, I brought in newspaper articles about and pictures of the crash. I let the boys read through these and look at the pictures, really seeing what truly happened. They didn't find this AS exciting as the movie, but they were still interested!

The next thing I did was buy a documentary off of Amazon for a couple bucks called Return of the Thundering Herd. This was the true story of the Marshall University plane crash, including interviews with coaches, players, people from the community, etc. This really drew the kids back in because they started noticing some of the liberties that were taken when the movie was made. There were differences in the movie from what actually happened, and some of them were really upset that they wouldn't accurately represent the tragedy. We had some great conversations.

At the end of taking in all of these different media sources regarding the same thing, I had them create a three-way Venn Diagram comparing/contrasting the movie, the documentary, and articles/pictures they were provided. This allowed them to really pin point what was the truth and what may have been embellished or exaggerated. Once they had created the diagram, I had them write me a response to the unit. Did they like it? Did they see why we did it? How did they feel about using the articles and pictures? Were they upset that the movie "changed" history? I got some really great responses from them, so I was very happy with how things turned out with this unit.

I will say, I did NOT have the boys take notes while they were watching the movie and/or the documentary. For them, it is hard to watch, process, and scribe information without missing a lot of other things. Instead, we discussed what we had watched the day before each time they came into class for a new day. This helped them communicate their ideas, talk about what they saw, etc.


I know that some teachers are very AGAINST showing movies in class, but what do you think? Can we utilize movies if we tie it in with non-fiction resources? How do you address this in your classroom?

Girls' Night: Belvoir Winery

I've said it many times before, and I'll probably say it many more times, but I've been blessed in this life with some of the greatest friends. I will say that living 30 minutes away from them (they live together), sometimes I feel like I miss out on things... on jokes or stories, but at the same time, I know that not being with them every second of every day doesn't change our friendships. Alas, it does make it so that we have to plan ahead when we are going to spend time together.

Last week, while Ben ventured to our home inspection, he let me miss it so that I could go to a Girls' Night that Belvoir Winery in Liberty was putting on. The event hosted a number of vendors, a wine tasting, and appetizers from a local BBQ restaurant. None of us bought anything, but we did have a good time walking around the (allegedly) haunted grounds, drinking wine, and catching up on life. We have plans to go back and maybe take a tour of the grounds to see how they would accommodate weddings, wedding showers, etc.

       

What have you and your girl friends done lately to relax and catch up? Any good landing spots in KC for us to try out together?! XXO

I Promise I'm Alive

Alright guys, I'm sorry. I'm seriously so, so sorry. When the new year came and I pledged to blog more, I didn't realize how busy life was going to become. I know I sound like a broken record saying that... "I'm so busy!"... blah, blah, blah. It shouldn't be an excuse; I know it's really not. The truth of it is, I haven't done a very good job of getting posts queued when I've got a chance to write a few. WELL, here I am! I'm back with an update on what's been going on here lately!

The biggest thing to happen in KC over the past few weeks was baseball season starting back up! We've missed our Royals these past six months during off season, and man oh man are we happy for the time of year including baseball, beer, and BBQ's to be back! There's nothing like it.

  

Here's a few random snapshots from school recently. Selfies taken on Mrs. Harper's cell phone always make for a fun distraction from what we really should be doing, ya know?

  

Something else kind of cool that we've done lately is go to see the KC Symphony play!! One of Ben's adult students has season tickets, and she and her husband weren't going to be able to make this show so they gave the tickets to us! This was an especially neat experience because my parents' next-door neighbor actually plays the Viola in the KC Symphony, so not only did we see a great concert, but we got to visit with him for a bit as well. He and Ben have bonded a bit over music, so it was a memorable experience.

  

Other than that, here are just a few photos of what's been going on with our fam bam!

  

Our cat Evvy is ever the super model. We've been trying to prepare her for our big move to a new house by telling her she'll have her own room and such... do you think she understands us!?

I also recently got this card from Gap in the mail that had a $10 Starbucks card to thank me for my community service over the past year! This was a really fun surprise; I took Ben out for coffee the next day!

Other than that, days have been filled with house hunting, a winery date with my best girls (post to come), preparing for and chaperoning Prom, and now completing paperwork for all of my graduating seniors on my caseload! Not to mention our state testing starts on Monday! It's crazy, but I'm excited about all of the things coming up. For now, I will take advantage of the quiet Sunday mornings that I depend on to make myself breakfast and enjoy my coffee.

  

What about you guys? What have you been up to? XXO

Cellar & Loft

A couple of weeks ago, one of the teachers that I work with told me about a Groupon online for a cool winery/pizza place in the River Market called Cellar & Loft. I got online and looked over everything and decided to go ahead and buy one. For $17, you got an appetizer and an 18" pizza. On top of that, if you went Monday-Thursday, they threw in a bottle of house wine for no additional charge. Sounds like a plan to me!

I bought the Groupon on a Thursday. When I got home that night, Ben and I were not in the mood to cook anything, so we ended up deciding to go and use it right away that night. We try not to to decide to go out to eat on a whim like this, but it was just one of those days!

When we got to the restaurant (around 7:00p), they were pretty full. We were able to grab a seat on a couch downstairs, which added to the good/cool vibe of the experience. We ordered Garlic-Cheese bread for our appetizer, and decided on the house bottle of Chardonnay.

  

While we enjoyed our appetizer, we took some time to check out the cellar that we were sitting it. They give beer and wine tours (there was one going on), and there were HUNDREDS of types of wine displayed by country throughout the whole place. We saw a number of people come in just to buy wine and leave. When our food came, we were not disappointed. We decided on their meat pizza for dinner. It had Spicy Italian sausage, pepperoni, and regular sausage. I'm not usually a huge fan of thin crust pizza (Ben loves it!), but surprisingly enough, this pizza was delicious!!

  

In addition to the food being good, we were really impressed with the service. Even though they were really busy, every person who worked there made sure to say hello and check on how we were doing. The man who was re-stocking the wine had a full conversation with us while he worked. Good service always makes food seem so much better.

BONUS:
After dinner we decided we weren't quite ready to go home yet, so we headed down to Balsano's Gelato Cafe in Power & Light. We had never been there before, but I've been wanting to try it since I enjoyed my experiences with gelato so much when I was in Italy. When we got there, we were surprised to find out that Balsano's is owned and operated by ONE person - no employees! The hours are sort of funky for the reason, but his recipes make it SO worth working around that. I had cheesecake gelato, and Ben had a mixture of a couple different types. We both really enjoyed what we got, and we will definitely be making time to go back!

  

Home-Buying Process (Post 3)

To be quite honest with you, a lot has happened since my last home-buying post! As I mentioned, we ended up cancelling the contract we had on the house in Liberty. We let ourselves mope that Monday night after the foundation evaluation, and we jumped back in. That Wednesday, I left school a bit early and I met up with Jay to view about six houses. If I'm being honest with you, this was a hard day. I basically hated the first four houses we saw. Whether is water damage, terrible staging, small rooms, whatever... I found myself very disappointed in the options that we had. For example, check out this festive little number that Jay and I found in one of the houses we toured:

The fifth house that we stopped to look at was a much better option. It was a little smaller than we'd hoped for, and it didn't have a basement either, but it has a great screened in porch and a huge garage, so I thought maybe I'd have Ben look at Thursday morning. And then we went to the final house of the night.

I've asked my home-owner friends what it felt like when they saw the house that they eventually moved into. I asked if there was a "feeling." Did you just know when you walked in? I got various answers from various people, but I will tell you... when I walked into this house, I knew it was the one I wanted to live in for the next chapter of my life. Here is a sneak peak of the beautifully done kitchen and the full finished family room/basement.

  

After walking through the home, I told Jay that I wanted Ben to see it that night so that if he liked it, we could put the offer in the next morning. I went to meet Ben at our apartment and we went back to the house to look at it with Jay. We put our offer in Thursday morning and it was accepted on Friday!

We had our inspection done last Thursday. This house had nowhere near any problems like the last, which was a relief. There are a couple minor things we are asking them to fix, but nothing that would prevent us going through with the sale. With that in mind, we've started looking at things that we'd like to furnish the home with. We went to Nebraska Furniture Mart and checked out statement rugs and chairs. We actually ended up purchasing the chair picture below! I love the idea of having a boldly patterned chair in our upstairs living room!

    

We're now going to spend the next few days waiting to hear from the sellers about the inspection report so that we can finalize our closing date! I'll keep you guys posted!

Easter 2015

    

Easter this year was fairly low key for our family. We stayed in KC (this year, my family gets Easter and Christmas, while we'll spend 4th of July and Thanksgiving with the Duvall side), so we had plans to go to my parents. For those of you who don't know, my mom is a critical-care nurse on the night shift. Growing up, we got pretty good at being flexible when it came to meal times on holidays. This year was no different with my mom having worked the night before.

At 26 and 30, my mom is still fabulous and makes my brother and me (plus Ben now!) Easter baskets. This year they just had candy and a gas card in them - perfect! I forgot to snap a picture before deconstructing it to take it home! Pictured above are the baskets I made for Ben and my mom. Ben and I said we weren't going to make each other baskets this year, but I couldn't help it!!! This was a cute, little thing I found at Target. 

The biggest, and most exciting thing about Easter was that my college roommate, Ally, and her husband asked Ben and me to be her daughter, Aniston's, God parents!!! Ben and I are so honored to be asked to play such an important role Aniston's life. Ally and I have been friends for about seven years; we were in each-others weddings, and now this... I am so thankful for this friendship. Ben and I will be traveling to visit them in Warsaw, MO so that we can be present at Aniston's blessing in the near future! I told Ally that this means Aniston is half mine, so all of you guys should be prepared for pictures and posts about her!! :)

Teacher Talk Tuesday: Poetry

I don't have any pictures to go along with our "Soundtrack of My Life" project, but I figure I can talk about it without them. We started out by having a conversation in class about the similarities/differences of song lyrics and poetry. This led to discussing meaning, emotion, rhythm, etc.

I'm a huge advocate of having kids do things in class that relate to them personally. I think this helps ALL students, not just kids who receive services, connect to the content more easily. Plus, who doesn't want to do something creative rather than writing an essay? With that in mind, I had my lab kids make personal soundtracks.  Here were the directions they had:

Here's What To Do

1.   Begin this project by brainstorming 10 major events in your lives. They can be events that have happened already, or events that WILL happen in the future.You can work with others in a group or individually to build a list of any events that hold personal significance. Here are some possible suggestions:

1. First day of school (e.g., preschool, kindergarten, first grade, middle school, high school)
2. A special family trip or vacation
3. A family event or milestone
4. A personal achievement (e.g., first place in a competition)
5. A personal loss

2.   Next to each event, write a short description or related key words.

3.   Record all 10 of your events on your provided index cards.

4.   Using those events, think about the events described and to connect songs to these events. For example, someone might associate a love song with a family member's wedding ceremony.

5.   Be sure to analyze lyrics to assure that song selections are appropriate for all audiences.  You should avoid using music that involves profanity or derogatory remarks towards any race, gender, sexual orientation and/or religious affiliation.

6.   Now, write about why your selected music connects to that particular event in your life. Think of this information as similar to liner notes that might accompany a CD and provide background information on the songs.

7.   Create your own CD cover. You may also add illustrations and pictures to help share your life events in the CD booklets.

8.   If desired, you can burn their own CD with your selected music on them.

I like projects like this because I can create my own version of the assignment, and the kids buy in!

Here are the songs that I had on my list:

1. High School Prom      "Time of My Life" - Bill Medley

2. Attack on Black Culture Center     "Glory" - John Legend, Common

3. College Graduation     "Graduation Day" - The Beach Boys

4. Chiefs Home Opener     "All I Do Is Win" - DJ Khaled

5. Shaving My Head     "Girl On Fire" - Alicia Keys

6. Wedding Day     "All of Me" - John Legend

7. Thesis Defense Day     "I Made It" - Kevin Rudolf

8. First House     "Looking Out My Back Door" - Creedence Clearwater Revival

9. First Child     "My Wish" - Rascal Flatts

10. Funeral     "Satisfied Mind" - Jeff Buckley

This was a fun change of pace dealing with poetry because the kids were writing a lot of poems in our regular English class.

Do you have any fun tips or tricks for teaching poetry??

Home-Buying Process (Post 2)

As I told you guys a while back, Ben and I dove into the home-buying process a few weeks ago. It's definitely been a whirl wind experience so far. Within a day of picking our realtor, he had sent us a pretty comprehensive list of houses that we could set up viewings of, and then two days later we went out and saw six houses in the Liberty area. There were definitely things we liked about the houses we looked at, and there was one in particular that we were interested in putting an offer in for in Pleasant Valley (NKC schools)... unfortunately, the listing agent did not tell our realtor that it was already under a pending contract, so we were back to the drawing board.

That same night, a new listing came on the market in old Liberty (near downtown and Jewel) for a house we thought we'd really like to see. We went to take a look at it on Saturday afternoon, hoping for the best. It was a 4 bed, 3 bath foreclosure and we really saw some great potential in the bones of the house. We ended up putting an offer in for it on Monday morning, and on Tuesday the bank accepted contingent on inspections. This past Monday we had a structural engineer come out to look at the house. I'm so thankful that we decided to have this done because he ended up finding a number of problems dealing with the structural integrity of the house. He ultimately advised us to not go through with buying the home for fear that it would be a money pit. With this in mind, we decided to back out of the sale. We filed our cancellation paperwork this morning.

At first, we were really disappointed that we lost the house. We had honestly envisioned ourselves in this home, decided where we would put what, thought about paint colors, etc. It was a blow. We thought that this process would be easier and less stressful than it has been. Alas, that's the way the cookie crumbles... nothing worth having is easy.

That said, we stopped and re-grouped Monday night. We each had a beer, we complained for a while, and then we went back through listings (finding some new ones that we hadn't seen, etc.), and set up viewings for me to see today. I'll be going without Ben since he has to work, but in his words... "We won't get it unless Kimberly likes it anyway." Ben is off tomorrow morning though, so anything that I end up liking will be put on the list for him to go see with our realtor then.

We're hopeful that everything will fall into place and we will find the starter home of our dreams. :)

Teacher Talk Tuesday: Activities

Hey guys! I apologize for the break in posts after having done so well posting regularly the past few weeks. We had Easter break from school (four-day weekend, YAY!) and I really meant to get some posts queued up for the blog and I just didn't make it. Today's Teacher Talk Tuesday is supposed to be about activities that we've been doing in class lately. Being that we've only had a couple days of school since last week, some of these activities are a little bit older, but I think they're worth mentioning.

I only have a couple of pictures, but I'm going to share anyway. The first one is of a "graffiti" piece that I did on the white board during To Kill a Mockingbird. The point of this was to showcase things that we learn as we transition from children to adults; this is meant to mirror the fact that Scout Finch learns a number of lessons as she grows up in the novel. We spent a class period discussing the different sayings and defending whether we thought they were true or not. Students had varying opinions and it was kind of a fun activity. When we were done discussing them, the students had to pick a couple and summarize their thoughts on them. They seemed to really like this activity! I'll do it again next year if I can!

    

The second picture I have is kind of hard to make out, but it was a fun memory. In LA2 (sophomore-level English), we are talking about parodies in preparation for End-of-Course Exams. We showed a number of parodies - videos, lyrics, etc. - to students and ultimately gave them a couple of days to create one of their own to present to the class. We have a student in this class who is wheel-chair bound (and all-around fantastic) and his group really wanted him to be able to participated so they decided to spoof NASCAR by creating a "NASCOOTER" race/commercial. They brought in an electric scooter and essentially, we went to the parking lot and filmed them racing. We got our Activities Director involved waving the finish-line flag and we all took pictures and videos. It was a fun memory, in addition to them getting to storyboard and execute some sort of project that isn't just an essay.

What are some great things you're doing in class??

Road Trip Essentials!

In the next eight months I plan to drive to the following locations:
                         Bagley, WI     New York, NY     Tulsa, OK     Green Bay, WI     Chicago, IL*

With Ben's family living in Indiana, sometimes our best mode of transportation is to fly, but more often than not (especially with gas prices having dropped over the winter), it is cheaper for us to drive to see them. Additionally, his family does 4th of July in small-town Wisconsin every year, which is normally cheapest to drive to. I guess what I'm trying to say is, Ben and I are frequently on the road to visit one person or another. With that in mind, I have come to think I've sort of "mastered" the road trip essentials to put in my bag!

Obviously these types of lists vary from person to person. Some people can eat in the car, some can't. Some people can read in the car, some can't. Here's my go-to list of road-trip items:

Food or Snacks:                                         Electronics:
     - Gummy Bears                                           - Cell Phone Charger
     - Chips or Pretzels                                      - Kindle Fire
     - Diet Pepsi                                                  - New Play List
     - Water

I think these lists are pretty self-explanatory, but we'll touch on them anyway. I like to have two kinds of candy and two kinds of drinks so that way if I'm in the mood for something salty vs. sweet or carbonated vs. not, I have both options. It saves time (and money) on snack stops.

As far as electronics, I like to make sure I have my phone charger just to keep my phone juiced up. I'm one of the lucky ones who CAN read in the car, so I bring my Kindle (as opposed to books), so that I have more options in less space. I also like to make sure I have new music on my devices so I don't get bored with listening to the same songs.


Clothes:                                                       Misc. Items:
     - Zip-up Hoodie                                          - Chap-stick
     - Socks                                                         - Blanket
     - Sun Glasses                                              - $20 in cash

My list for clothes could be much longer, but I generally try to avoid bringing changes of clothes and shoes by starting in something comfortable like leggings or sweats and I ALWAYS wear slip on shoes or flip flops so when I do need to get out of the car I don't have to waste time.

I also always advise bringing a blanket no matter what the weather is like. That way, if you choose to take a nap, you're protected from cold OR the sun beaming through the windows. I always fall asleep easier with a blanket anyway. :)

The $20 cash is so that if I come across a toll booth, I can easily give them cash and not have to worry about fussing with a card. Driving to both South Bend, IN and Tulsa, OK, the most effective routes require tolls, so it makes it easier to come prepared!

I'm sure that I may be forgetting something, so you tell me, what do you take on your road trips?