Rain, Indy Bands and Rollercoasters...

Yesterday I was lounging in bed trying to decide what to do with myself when I got a text from my friend Jami. She had been given two free tickets to Hershey Park and they expired today. She asked if I would come along and of course I agreed. She had to work that morning, so we didn't get on the road till around 3 and then when we got to Hershey we decided to eat dinner first before we went into the park. All we could find was Wendy's, which didn't end up sitting too well while we were in the park. Anyhow, we did the whole Chocolate World Experience and then hit the park. We only rode rollercoasters. It was a blast. I don't know if it was because it is so close to the end of the season, or because the morning had been so overcast and cloudy, but the park was pretty empty. We hardly had to wait in line for anything. We road several of the big rides and over and over, just cause we could. I hadn't been to the park since I went with my Girl Scout troop as a kid. It was a really fun evening.

On the way to and from my friend Jami was playing a live Indigo Girls cd. We are both big fans. When I went home I googled their tour on a whim and saw that they are playing in Philadelphia in a few weeks. Tickets were reasonably priced, so we bought some. I'm pretty excited. I've never been to the Keswick Theater, but I've heard good things.

Friday night I went to the Popped Music Festival, after scoring a half price ticket through Groupon. It got rained out of FDR Park and moved to the Liacorus Center at Temple. I was exhausted from a week of work, it was pouring rain, and I sat in traffic for an eternity to get down to the city and then somehow missed my brother's exit (he was watching Isaac for me). More than once I thought of throwing in the towel. It was worth it though. Even though Becky and I were older than the crowd of jeggings wearing plastic bespectacled hipsters, we still enjoyed ourselves. We got there in time for a decent band, The Hold Steady, then we heard one called Elbow, that I really liked. Next was a weird artist Panda Bear. They were pretty terrible. Then Cage the Elephant and they were awesome! After them The Shins were coming on, but I was so tired I peaced out before they came on. It was fun weekend.

and it's september...

"A quilt is a treasure which follows it owner everywhere"

So I was talking to my mom one day about how I had all of these really beautiful traditional shirts and shorts that Isaac had outgrown, sewn by his grandmother and aunt in Sierra Leone. My mom offered to make them into a quilt. Here is the finished product:

The patch on the back that talks about two grandmas working on this quilt. Isaac's grandmother in Africa who made him the shirts out of the brightly colored fabric and his grandmother here who made them into this quilt. I love how the fish tails are like little pockets.

We went back and forth trying to decide if we were going to do button eyes. I'm glad we did. I love the way they turned out.

Thanks mom, for such a beautiful family heirloom for Isaac!

September is here!

It's been a while! First of all, this happened: My baby is in first grade!! It's been back to school in every sense around here. Isaac is attending first grade, I am teaching an incredibly lively bunch of all new first graders, and I am also taking a grad class as well. It was a bit of a shock to the system to go from the dog days of summer, to the insanity that is September, but we're rolling with it and doing well I think. I actually enjoy the busyness of the school year, but it takes me a bit to settle into it and get into a routine. By Thursday night I felt like I had been run over by a Mack truck, so I was grateful to have Friday off. So on our day off we were about to head out to Leola to see my mom when we discovered this:

(the flat tire, not the dent. That was always there)

There was a huge chunk of metal sticking out of it. My rear tires are almost bald, so I figured better that it happened on my day off from school when I had time to deal with it. We managed to get Firestone to squeeze us in and we got some new tires. I'm learning to live with the driver window never going down, so hopefully this will be our last car expense for a while *knocks on wood*.

Anyways, while we were waiting for the AAA guy to come and change my tire for me (yeah, super lame, I know. I get the steps in the process of changing a tire, but this is what my 40 bucks a year goes towards. I don't have to get down the ground a try to change lug nuts and whatnot.) I decided to clean out my trunk. My trunk has pretty much been a disaster for several years. Just to give you an idea of how long it has been since I cleaned it out thoroughly, I unearthed this:

back there, along with a receiving blanket. Anyways, all of the junk is gone and so are all of the Christmas tree needles and beach sand. It was a productive 45 minutes until the guy showed up.

Anyways, that was only a minor setback and we made it to Leola without any trouble. We slept over and then woke up early to go to Blue Ball Days which sounds gross but it's actually when the whole town of blue ball has a big yard sale! I scored some great deals. Brand new soccer cleat for Isaac for only .50, two Ramona books (I'm always on the lookout for those and Junie B Jones) but the jackpot was the lady who was dumping all of her Stampin Up stuff. A whole table full of stamps. I had to restrain myself. I got an Easter set, two Christmas sets and a invitation stamp. So that was exciting.

So what else? Oh! I won a blog giveaway! I enter them all of the time and I have *never* won. And this is such a cool prize too. Teaching in Pink is sending me this book. After only four days with this new group of firsties, I am open to any and all ideas on classroom management. So I'm pretty pumped for that.

Isaac and I watched a neat documentary series on Netflix streaming called "Circus". I guess it aired on PBS originally. It made both of us long to run away and live life under the big top.

One last thing, I was so excited to see these out on the shelves:

LOVE THEM!!! I'm was excited when we were driving home to see an Amish stand with gourds in it. I'm excited to decorate the house for fall and HALLOWEEN. When is it okay to start putting Halloween decorations up? Thoughts? Well, have a great week.