Biebs

Next weekend is my birthday. Since we will be tied up with our last soccer commitment of the season (insert Hallelujah chorus here) Ryan made plans to celebrate my birthday this past weekend. I had often spoke of how much I had loved my 30th birthday and I wasn't sure if it could ever be topped.  I guess Ryan took this as a challenge because he told me to pack an overnight bag with warm clothes but he wouldn't say anymore than that.

We dropped Isaac off with his dad and started heading north.  I had tried to do some snooping and I had assumed we were heading for Washington DC, so then I was really baffled and actually kind of freaking out.  I don't like not being in control and not knowing the plan.   We drove along forever and then I finally deduced we were going to New York City.  After it seemed like we had been in the car for an eternity, I noticed a huge billboard for Justin Bieber's concer that night at the Meadowlands and then when we got off at the exit for the Meadowlands I began seriously freaking out. Yes, I may be turning 31 but I am a huge Justin Bieber fan.  I had REALLY, REALLY wanted to see him when he was in Philly, but we couldn't get tickets and I tried to be okay with that.  I was thrilled when I put it all together and was more than happy to join the throngs of purple shirted Beliebers heading into the show.

Through a long series of events, we ended up with FREE tickets in the thirteenth row, right near Govenor Christie's daughters and some Victoria Secret models.  We also spotted Perez Hilton.

 

 

The arena was deafening.  If I would have known better, I would have seriously worn earplugs or some kind of protective earcoverings. Justin started the show strapped to a pair of silver wings and flying out over the audience.  

 

 

 

 

Best iphone shot of the night.

 

 

He played a few guitar songs for the audience from a crane.

 

 

He also wore hammer pants the entire time.  I guess they are making a comeback with teen pop sensations.  Who knew?  The show was excellent, our seats were amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  The only thing that would have made it better was if Isaac was there.  He would have loved it, and I felt more than a little guilty that I was seeing the Biebs without him.

 

After the show we drove into Manhatten and crashed.   The hotel was very beautiful and swanky.  Here is the view from our window.  It has been a few years since I have been up to the city.

 

 

Since we did not have to pay for our tickets to see the Biebs, we decided to spend that money on a Broadway show.  One of the first conversations Ryan and I had was about how he wanted to see the shows Mary Poppins or Spiderman.  So we decided to hop in the TKTS line in times Square to get tickets.   There must have been a hidden camera because we noticed ourselves on a big billboard in Times Square.

 

 

We ended up at the matinee for Mary Poppins. The show was great.  We had great seats there as well.  (Thanks mom and dad for chipping into the birthday fun fund!)  We ended up getting a bit lost and wandering around the city for a while.  We did Rockefeller Center, some shopping and dinner in Times Square.  There was so much we wanted to do, but didn't get a chance to, that we are already planning our next trip back.

 

Thanks for making my 31st birthday so special Ryan!

Undefeated...

He had his last regular season game this Saturday and scored two goals before they put him in as goalie.  One more tournament next weekend and then soccer is a WRAP.

Monday, Monday

NaBloPoMo...  National Blog Posting Month.  You might have seen is blowing up on some blogs you read.  Basically, bloggers hi-jacked National Novel Writing Month.  I am not going to participate daily, but I might steal a few of the writing prompts as they tickle my fancy. 

Today's writing prompt:

If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

Ryan and I have talked about the possibility of moving to New Jersey.   We are both beach people and with me having summers off, we would love to live closer to the shore.  It is also important to Ryan and I that we not move more than a 2 hours or so away from family. 

Ideally we would love to live somewhere right on the the Jersey Shore, like Ocean City, but unless we somehow hit the lottery, that probably won't happen.  

Speaking of the Jersey Shore, I have my own "Tales from the Teachers Lounge" sort of story.  After the worst of Sandy passed over us and we returned to school one teacher was asking her second grade colleague if she had a chance to go and check on her shore house.  One of the second graders piped up "Yeah!  Did you hear?  Snooki is homeless!  Snooki doesn't have a place to live now from the Hurricane!". 

Poor Snooki....

Have a great Monday!

Quickies

I woke up today singing the Gummi Bears theme song. So random! I haven't even thought about that song in ages.

We are finally getting back to normal around here after being housebound for Monday and Tuesday. Power was out in some of the elementary schools, so I ended up being off Wednesday too (Isaac had a 2 hour delay). We weathered the storm by watching a ton of movies, clearing out the DVR, organizing closets, FINALLY catching up on the laundry, and cooking and baking. I was so lucky that I didn't lose power at all as we have during previous storms.  We also got our pumpkins carved (in the living room, so as not to miss any of the NBA game)

We didn't even really have damage to anything either. Before the storm Isaac pointed out that our little tree in the front yard had one little leaf clinging to it. We were definitely tickled to see that it hung on after the storm.

Halloween was a big success.  Ryan agreed to hand out my candy this year, so we didn't have to be the super lame people with a bowl of candy left on the front porch. 

 

 

He even rigged up a whole Halloween scene complete with spooky music and sound effects and a fog machine. 

I was impressed!  My little werewolf Isaac got a whole pile of loot, and as usual, about an hour in declared he had enough and was ready to go home.

 

 

You would think only having to work two days this week would be a piece of cake, but it was a particularly rough day back.  We were supposed to have a potluck lunch.  I showed up with my plate of deliciously decadent cookies, only to discover I had misread the email and the potluck had been rescheduled to NEXT Thursday.  So I had no lunch.  I was forced to go out for lunch (which is always an adventure when you only have 30 minutes), but due to a long series of unfortuneate events I had no access to any of my money, so I wasn't able to buy any lunch.  Also, earlier that day my Albright advisor showed up at school and yelled at me about some paperwork which was really a big miscommunication, but still left me in tears.  Needless to say, I packed up my stuff and pretty much RAN out of the school building. 

I finally made myself go out to Kelli's to stamp last night. I have only been once since the school year started, but after my terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day at school, I decided to go. Look at these cute cards I made!

If you are lucky, maybe I will send you one.

Happy Friday everyone!

 

 

 

 

Favorite EE cards..

I saw a blong link up a few weeks ago where you were supposed to compile your favorite EE cards. I missed the link up, but thought I would still participate.


This card is how I feel every time I am around the PTA mom's at Isaac's school...

Source: mommysavers.com via Lauren on Pinterest

Source: someecards.com via Lauren on Pinterest

 

Source: someecards.com via Brooke on Pinterest

Source: tumblr.com via Brooke on Pinterest

Source: someecards.com via Lisa on Pinterest

 

Source: someecards.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: a248.e.akamai.net via Lisa on Pinterest

Source: someecards.com via Brooke on Pinterest

And my favorite one EVER:

Source: someecards.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Happy Thursday to you!

All Grown Up

Second Grade - East Coventry Elementary School

Teacher: Miss Egan

Favorite Subjects: math

Favorite Special: gym

Least Favorite Subject: Social Studies

Best Friend: Eric

Favorite School Lunch: Wildcat pizza

Favorite Recess Activity: football and baseball

Favorite Snack: Cookies n Cream Hershey Bar

Favorite Thing to Wear: sports uniforms

Favorite Sports Teams: Phoenix Coyotes, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, Chelsea

Favorite TV Show: Sports Center

Favorite Singer: Mindless Behavior

 

Frankenstorm is coming!

So if you are anywhere near theeast coast at all you know it's all about getting ready for Hurricane Sandy right now.  Isaac already has school cancelled for Monday and Tuesday (as usual, my school district is still in session, despite the govenor declaring PA to be in a state of emergency). 

I learned a new fact about Ryan: he is obsessed with being prepared for extreme weather conditions.  He was concerned that I have no flashlights in my house.  Then I remembered that my mom had made me and Isaac 72 hour kits as a Christmas present about 5 years ago and I had only a vague notion of where I had store them and no idea what was in them.  So we drug them upstairs and went through them.

These are what they look like:

I believe most of these things were ordered from a website called The Ready Store.  Like I said, they were a gift from my mom, so I am not too sure about pricing or anything like that. 

 I will show you what we discovered in the kits. 

Panchos, hand warmers, candy (I am assuming to keep your blood sugar up, but the candy in my kit was all melted), little flash light, matches, emergency blanket,  a card with survival tips. There was also water purifiying tablets, but I don't see them in this picture. Then  the top the photo are pouches of drinking water and, this gross block of lard or something that you can break pieces off and eat every few hours. 

SO GROSS.  I would have to be in some serious dire straights to eat that. 

The only thing in the front pocket of the backpack was this whistle.

The other backpack was FILLED with all kinds of supplies.  There was this little tent.  Who knows how to set it up, but I guess if we really needed shelter this could do in a pinch...

There was this candle that burns for 100 hours-- could be pretty handy to have this week as I am sure we will lose power at some point.

This backpack was filled with food...

More candy... tons of MRE in those brown boxes and lots of random little foil packets of foods.  The one pictures above is "fortified snack bread"... whatever the heck that is.  I am sure if I am hungry enough, I would eat it.

Most of this looked totally disgusting... but I was kind of excited about those little squarish packets on the top right.  They are COOKIES.  Does my mom know me or what?  There were also lots of these little kits baggies with napkins and plastic silverware.

 More first aid supplies...

More handwarmers...

And finally, the ever important roll of TP. 

I was feeling rather prepared when Ryan discovered another rolling suitcase in my garage that turned out to be a part of the kit too.  BONUS.

The outside pocket had another roll of toilet paper.  And this is what we saw when we opened it up:



It looked like food we might actually WANT to eat!!!

Unfortuneatly, pretty much all of the food was expired.  This is the pile of stuff we had to throw out: apple sauce, Chef Boyardee, granola bars, juice boxes, cereal, canned tuna and chicken salad. The next picture shows the stuff we were able to save:

Pretty self explanatory except for the little bottle. 

So I definitely need to replace the food that actually looks APPETIZING that expired.  Ryan and I also discussed adding a heavy duty flashlight, a change of clothes for each family member, possibly some cash in case ATMS are down, and some additional batteries.

What do you do to be prepared in extreme weather?