Belated Valentine's Day

As I sat and looked through my current blog posts, I realized I never ACTUALLY did a recap of my Valentine's Day. Things have been really crazy around here since the new year. Valentine's Day weekend serves as a fun few days to stop, relax, and celebrate love. :)

At school I got a few gifts from students and coworkers. Anything chocolate -- SIGN ME UP! And how cute are these cookies that STUCO sold as a fundraiser? They ordered them from a local bakery and I think they ended up being a hit!

 

Saturday night, we were really craving seafood and tried to hit up Jazz... unfortunately for us, there was a TWO HOUR wait when we got there so we said heck no and left. We ended up deciding on Ameristar's buffet because they were having a seafood special. We had to wait in line for about an hour, but it was SO WORTH the wait. Here are a few snap shots. Hello, all-you-can-eat crab legs!

  

Gift wise, things were simple and I got the #muglife coffee mug that I wanted filled with my favorite chocolate, accompanied by my favorite flowers - orange tulips! My day started with delicious donuts from Donut King too. Following breakfast, we headed to Alamo Draft House and saw "How To Be Single." I love Rebel Wilson and this movie was pretty funny. Plus, they have really good loaded cheese fries. :)

 

For dinner we headed back downtown and went to Yard House. If you haven't been, I'd highly recommend it. They have TONS of beer on tap and the food is really great too. We were really happy with our experience on Valentine's Day because we had a great server too.

 

As you can in the pictures above, I had a beer flight so that I could try a bunch of different brews. We started out our meal with the Lobster, Crab, & Artichoke dip [four cheese blend, chips, baked pita]. For dinner I had the Vodka Shrimp Pasta [chopped shrimp, angel hair, vodka tomato cream sauce, parmesan]. I didn't get a picture of anything else we had. Trying to enjoy the experience and what not...

 

Overall, it was a really laid-back Valentine's Day weekend, but still so much fun. The way to my heart is definitely my favorite flowers or beer... so...

Until next year's day of love! XXO.

H5F 02/26/2016

This was a really busy week for me, so some of my H5F brags are little things. That's okay though, right? Shouldn't that be the point - to highlight the little things? Anyway...

1. On Sunday night, with the weather being so great, we grilled out burgers for dinner. We chopped up bacon and mixed it into the patties, and got some yummy vegetables to top them off - avocado, tomato, and mushrooms. They were delicious!
2. Tuesday after school I had the final IEP meeting for one of my senior students. This is a really great kid and really enjoy their mom, so I'm getting kind of bummed that it's almost time for these seniors to leave. This year's graduation means the graduation of not only my kids here, but of most of the kids I taught my first year teaching. It's bitter sweet to hear their college plans.
3. On Wednesday, I attended a production at Winnetonka High School called the Women's Empowerment Project. They put this production on every four years and it was a night of poetry, monologues, songs, dances, and spoken word all focused on women and women's issues. Everything was written, directed, and performed by the women in the theater department. It was really neat. I'll have a post about this in more detail later on.
4. I redeemed my rain check for a free burrito from Chipotle. I'm happy to report that I'm alive!
5. I am currently in Tulsa for the weekend to see my long-time friend, Shelby. I'm going to visiting her 1st grade classroom and then hopefully trying some good food and hitting the town. Be on the look out for a travel post!

VJL

Riding together since 2001. Until forever.

 

 

 

  

1000 Words

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words -- so for fun, I'm going to do a photo survey. Why not give you guys 10,000 words if it's really that easy?

1) Current Facebook Picture


2) Picture of yourself from a year ago


3) A picture that makes you smile
 

4) A picture of you when you were little


5) A picture with someone you love


6) A picture of you with friends


7) A picture of you with family


8) A picture that you hair looks nice in


9) A picture of you with pets
[I don't have one... so here is Evvy in all of her glory.]

10) A picture of you hugging someone

Breakfast in KC (Stop 11/16)

Alright.... I know that is has been a while since I've done an installment of the 13 Best Breakfasts in KC tour. With all of our life changes, brunch wasn't really a regular thing that worked with our budget and schedules. THANKFULLY, things are a little more normal these days and we went and tried our luck at Beer Kitchen over the weekend!

Sunday is the only day of the week that Beer Kitchen actually serves brunch so we had to take our chances with the line. We went early - about 10:00am - hoping to beat the crowds. When we go there, we only had to wait about 15 minutes, so it wasn't too bad. They have a pretty neat system where they ask you your phone number and then they text you when your table is ready in case you want to walk around Westport while you wait. We didn't choose to leave the restaurant, but I still thought it was a cool idea.

Once we got seated, we started out by ordering an order of their Drunken Doughnuts! [Mini-powdered sugar doughnuts with grand marnier hot chocolate]. These were delicious and a great pairing with our coffee to start off the meal. They have a number of breakfast cocktails and such, but I decided just to stick with coffee this day.

  

 

As far as food, we had a great experience. We ordered The Breakfast Stacker [cholula butter fried egg, smoked bacon, black forest ham & chipotle white cheddar on toasted brioche bun; served with brunch potatoes], which is on the left, and The Classic Benny [black forest ham, poached eggs, hollandaise on english muffin] on the right. Both meals were prepared well and were delicious. I was impressed by the breakfast potatoes, and I was really impressed by their Whisky BBQ ketchup! I found out that they sell it by the bottle, so if anybody needs a gift idea for me... there it is!

Overall, we really enjoyed the food, but with it being SO busy it was quite loud and we had a hard time having a conversation with each other. Also, with Sunday being their only brunch day, it left our server very busy so we felt like the experience was lacking.

We would give Beer Kitchen a 8.5/10.

H5F 02/19/2016

1. As you may have noticed, I took a much-needed break from blogging this week. While 4-5 posts may not seem like a lot to a reader, it's a lot from my end. This week, I took some time to live in the real world -- it has been nice.
2. Venesia interviewed for and was offered her FIRST JOB on Monday!! She is really excited. Now, we're just hoping to get copies of her SS card and birth certificate so that she can go through the processing and actually start working. Without those documents she won't be able to take the job. Keep your fingers crossed for us.
3. Last night I was able to attend the Cameron basketball game. They played Chillicothe IN Chillicothe so I was able to watch senior night! So much love for the kids that I got to teach while I was there.
    
4. I am currently obsessed with the song Rise Up by Andra Day.
5. I was showered with love for Valentine's Day this year. Crab legs, chocolates, a movie, + more!
    

H5F 02/12/2016

1. This week marked the three-year anniversary of shaving my head. While I wrote an entire post on it, I feel like it merits mentioning here because it is such a big part of this week and really, my life. Here are some shots of my hair this week:
    
2. I had my summative evaluation with our SPED director this week and ended up getting some good feedback from her. She told me that I am doing a great job and I was recommended for re-hire. YAY! Always nice to hear that your efforts are being noticed!
3. It is Courtwarming week here in Cameron, which means SPIRIT DAYS. Spirit days are the teachers' dream because it gives us an excuse to wear jeans on a normal day. Our spirit days included: PJ day, Beach day, Neon day, Dynamic Duo day, and Favorite Team day.
    
4. With Valentine's Day this weekend, different clubs have been selling various things at school to raise money. STUCO sold these cookies and I lucked out in getting one. :)
   
5. This weekend is going to be AWESOME because we don't have school on Monday! Looking forward to relaxing and working on Aniston's YEAR ONE book!

TBT: Color Guard

I got some really good feedback last week regarding my #TBT post, so I decided that I'd throw you guys another one this week. I want you to know that I seriously considered doing another Mizzou throwback because I've been feeling especially nostalgic about my college days, but instead, I'm going back even further. Today, my friends, you get to re-live my high school color guard days.

Not many understand what color guard is by my definition. When most think color guard, they think military, and that is not what I speak of in this instance. Color guard at Truman High School was actually flag corp. We danced, spun flag and rifle, wore full hair and makeup, and were part of the marching band.

During my time in color guard, I:

• Marched 3 seasons with the band
    
• Competed in 3 seasons of indoor Winterguard competition
   
  
• Spent time with my best friends
• Met great new people
• Attended Bands Alive! marching camp at Missouri State
  
• Was a captain my senior year
• Traveled to Seattle/Mt. Rushmore my sophomore year
• Traveled to Hawaii my senior year
   

These memories don't account for the numerous hours of band camp, early morning practice, or Friday night football games. It was the best of times... it was the worst of times... but I'm so glad it was part of my "times."