Turkeys

Isn't my background cute??? I love it and can totally brag because I didn't make it myself. I mean, its not like I am patting myself on the back, except for the fact that I am a great background finder today! Yay for Thanksgiving! Oh and also, can I just go ahead and plug Shutterfly and all the other wonderful photo websites out there who have photo books. Let me just say they make me happy! I'll post some pictures one of these days of these fun books that chronicle our vacations! Happy Friday and Gobble Gobble!

The most AMAZING husband ever!!

Well folks, I must say that this time I have a GREAT excuse for the time between posts! Why, you might ask?? Because I have the most incredible husband ever! Let me explain... Last Wednesday was our anniversary- 3 years! About a month and a half ago, my husband shared with me that he was going to be out of town in Enid, Oklahoma for our anniversary on business. Well, I was quite sad, but understanding since he travels semi-frequently on business. It was even ok since we wouldn't be celebrating in the middle of the week anyways. So, we started talking about what we wanted to do. We are still in the middle of working on the house, just the outside these days, so we didn't want to spend too much money. Plus we've been talking about our "mission statement," so I thought it would be great to go camping. We talked about camping and Caleb just let me know that he wanted to take care of planning the weekend. Last Tuesday I washed clothes and he let me know that I would need to pack for the both of us for the weekend and should focus on bringing comfortable clothes, i.e. jeans, sweats, etc. So, I got geared up for what I thought would be a weekend of camping. And you must understand that for me, a Hayes girl, I had to get geared up mentally, since the only camping this girl had ever done was in the living room of her house underneath sheets suspended by couches and chairs. In the mean time, my wonderful friend Laura saved the day with an invitation to get massages on my anniversary since Caleb would be gone. Of course I said yes and so on Wednesday I got ready for an evening of fun. I was waiting at home for Laura with the blinds open and peeked outside to see a car that didn't look like Lauras, but didn't think anything of it right off hand. Well, by the time I did a double take I saw my precious husband walking up the sidewalk with a single red rose in his hand. He told me the trip was canceled last minute so we were going out for dinner and that we needed to go. I hopped in the car and was given a blindfold. Well, about twenty minutes and lots of speculation later, we arrived. Caleb got out of the car, came around to open my door, put a book in my hand and told me to open my eyes. What did I see?? Lots of cars... then I looked down at the book to see a Frommers New York City guidebook in my hands! Caleb told me that we were leaving right then to fly to NYC for a long weekend to see Megan and Will (my sis and her hubby) and have fun around town! After lots of questions about work and worry about who was going to cover my meetings (which of course my husband had taken care of 2 months ago--almost half of the staff at my school knew about this and were in on it!). Soo... for my anniversary my wonderful husband absolutely surprised me with one of the best surprises! Stay tuned for pics and details on the fun long-weekend getaway!

Cruise Part 2

So finally, I will give you part 2 of our trip. So fitting seeing as the cold weather has arrived and I can dream and be reminded of the beautiful summer days and nights of our vacation spent on the beaches of the Southern Caribbean..

Gotta have a cute feet picture overlooking the waters... of Barbados!!!

Laura and I in the back of an open Land Rover, about to explore the island of Barbados.. "Off-Roading Style!"

My honey and me before we left for the off-roading trip with our funny islander tour guide!

Just a cool shot I happened upon as we sped through the town of Barbados..

A church at the top of a hill over-looking the back side of the island of Barbados.

The "back side" of the island, where the waves are so big that swimming is not allowed. It was beautiful with all of the huge rocks.

Another angle... All of the rocks are natural.

Teeny-tiny Laura and me underneath one of the rocks. We snuck over there bare-footed and nearly sliced all of our toes open. Because it is so rough on this side of the island, there is no sand, just broken up rock.

Us girls, before dinner one night. Kinda blurry of me, but perfect of Laura. Weird.

Caleb and me, blurry but a cool shot.

The next day, in St. Lucia. We went zip lining through the rainforest, which was an absolute blast! Plus, we got to wear really cool harnesses and hard hats!

Us in front of a MASSIVE tree.

The beautiful hills of St. Lucia as we took a gondola ride down the mountain.

Us.

Leaving St. Lucia... By the way, the "unleaded" beverages were cheaper than the "leaded" ones on the ship, and just as tasty. We didn't actually order both of those beverages, but apparently the waiter who didn't speak English didn't understand our English and thought we wanted two. Oh well. It's vacation and they were quite tasty!

A cool shot of the runway. I'm sure lots of very rich people fly in on their private jets to this runway. I can dream...

Shane and Laura.. so happy they decided to spend a week with us! =)

Us before dinner. Trying to get every couple shot possible. AND, we didn't have to bug a stranger to take our picture and settle for a mediocre one because we didn't want to offend said stranger because their first attempt at taking our picture stunk. Can anyone relate??

Ahh... MY FAVORITE... ANTIGUA!!!!

Just so beautiful. We did an all day catamaran trip where we cruised around the entire island, snorkeled, ate a fresh grilled lunch off the back of the boat, and baked quite nicely in the sun. Fabulous!

A boat slip on the island of Antigua.

Beautiful waves crashing on the rocks.

Us, well baked and tired from a long day of snorkeling and playing.

The mountains and beaches of Antigua. AMAZING!!

Sunset picture as we headed to St. Kitts. Sad to leave such a beautiful place.

The fake happy smile. Love it.

Us girls nearly getting blown over, and struggling for a good picture without our hair in our mouths. This was the best one of about 20. Love the husbands for enduring the photo session.

Us, burned, but dressed for a night of fun... The midnight buffet was this night!

Posey prom pic. Killing time until midnight when we can join the masses for the picture taking, dessert eating extravaganza... Well, we partook in the picture taking, but were still full from dinner and would have to wear a swimsuit the next day, so we abstained from dessert.

The midnight buffet begins. Our boat made out of cheese.

Incredibly artistry with sugar, butter and chocolate.

Watermelon Native American (I am so P.C.) =)

At St. Kitts, being silly girls in the phone booth. But it made for a cute pic!

More of us. We decided to forgo the beaches and just walk around town. We kinda wish we went to the beaches, but had a good ol' time just romping around town and not having a real agenda.

Token pic with the ship.

Our last night. Sunset picture. Memories. Ah.

A random island that is inhabited. It looked like a cool little island.

Enjoying the "unleaded" beverages one last time in the special cups. We saved them, and brought them home, only to find them broken. Oh well.

All in all, we had a most glorious vacation with our friends and are anxiously awaiting the next trip. We have tentatively scheduled our next big vacation. Stay tuned to find out... And I promise it won't be a month before I post again.

The hilarity of teaching elementary school...

Ok... SO here the scoop. I am an elementary special ed. teacher and I teach inclusion. That basically means that to the maximum extent possible, I am in the classroom, supporting and scaffolding for my students so they can be successful and have access to the general curriculum that all other students in their grade level are learning. That means that I get to see soo many students, both those that are "mine" and those that aren't. I have encountered many laughable and memorable moments with kids and I will divulge a really cute story from a favorite student of mine in my building who will remain nameless.

**Name has been changed to protect the identity of the student** =)

Tammy Third Grader: Mrs. Morrith, I have missed you the last few days. Where have you been?
Me: Well, Tammy, I was gone on a trip with my husband. We went to Washington D.C.
Tammy: Ohh, WOW. How cool!! Wathington D.Thee.
Me: Washington D.C. is a very special place in the U.S.A. Do you know why?
Tammy: Yeth. Thpecial people live there.
Me: That's right. Special people do live there. There is one person in particular who is very special that lives in a very important house in Washington D.C. This man is a very famous person all over the world. Do you know who he is?
Tammy: Ummm.... yeth. JESUS!!! Jesus lives in Wathington D. Thee.

Cute huh?? Happy Thursday! The rest of the cruise pics will be up soon! I only have about 10 more pics to upload!

Cruise Part 1

Ok people. So here goes on the first half of the vacation...

SO, we knew that with all of the home renovations that we were going to need a break when it was all said and done. The timing of this vacation couldn't have been more perfect. We kicked off the vacation with the John Mayer and Colbie Callait concert at what is now the Super Pages dot Com center in Dallas. I blogged about that, so scroll down to find out about that. The next morning, we woke up super early (I think we got 3 hours of sleep) to catch our flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Our vacation was not just "ours", but was shared with our wonderful friends Shane and Laura, who decided they liked us enough to vacate with us for 8 days! So, off to the airport we went and after a 5 hour plane ride, a nearly finished book (Marley and Me- AWESOME), the movie "21" and our last Dr. Pepper for over a week, we arrived in PR ready to play!

Us in Old San Juan, posing for a cute pic!

Looking out over the graves and the deep blue yonder, salivating to start our cruise early!!

Another view of Old San Juan and some of the fort.

Vacation Day 2... Waiting anxiously to get on the boat and get the real party started!!

I just could not contain myself with excitement over dinner.

Ok, I got it together. Past the thrill of unlimited food options, momentarily.
At the "muster"... They are smiling because they DIDN'T get in trouble.
I'm smiling because TROUBLE is my middle name... notice the smirk on my husband's face?? That's because I just got a stern "talking to" (more like a yell, but whatev..) by a crew member for not taking muster more seriously. Apparently photos aren't allowed. That wasn't in my Carnival Caper SIR!
DAY 3... St. Thomas, USVI.. On a bus to Magen's Bay, realizing that this trip is going to cost us more than we thought. Mexico and the Southern Caribbean should get together and talk about the whole bargaining thing and what a novel idea it is in tourism.

View of the boat and the cruise terminal in St. Thomas. I think the big (small in the photo) white building behind the ship on the bay of St. Thomas is the Marriott hotel my parents are going to next summer... Can we come???!?

The couples in St. Thomas.

And here it is... (GASP!!!) Magen's Bay! One of the most incredible beaches I've seen. Plus, it was Caleb's first view of true clear blue water. His only comparison is Gulf Shores and Myrtle Beach.. A-MAZING!

In the water between frolicks.. hoping we get the nice "base tan" we forgot to get before leaving so we wouldn't burn.. woopsie!

Who's ready for some board games on board??

Posing before dinner and BINGO.. are we lucky??

That would be a no....

But we learned that Caleb isn't picky over boogers.. He'll take what he can get!

Our cute towel animal... Can you guess what it is??

DAY 3: Dominica, an island that is nearly 100% rain forest and quite lush... Smile if you're ready to hike 2 hours to a waterfall in the pouring rain!!!

In the bus to the hike and waterfall.. shiny!

A banana plantation, one of the major exports of the country. And to answer the burning question, NO there are no monkeys on this island. For real... they would eat all the bananas.

Just a pretty picture at the base of our hike.

We are ready for what was alleged as a 45 minute hike... that took more like an hour and a half! It was amazing, though and worth the yucky hair dos and drenched clothing.

Caleb hanging on to bamboo.. which grows at a minimum rate of 1 inch per day in Dominica.

My tarzan... Isn't he cute??

What our guide says was NOT a waterfall... Yea, he's spoiled.. and obviously doesn't frequent Texas, where the only waterfalls you see are in someone rich dude's backyard that isn't in my neighborhood.

The top of the big mamma waterfall...

The middle of the big mamma waterfall...

And the bottom of the big mamma waterfall, including the pool we couldn't swim in because there was too much rain that day. Sad, but really I'm glad because I lived to see so many other beautiful places on this trip that I may not have had I been pulled under by the current of the falls in the pool. Hm.

Us posing and trying to look cute despite the destroyed hairdos and soaking wet clothes. Oh well, just focus on the waterfall, ok?

Another photo of the "un-waterfall". Incredible, huh?

This is crazy... This is a picture of a Banion Tree, aka Strangler Fig, that grows from the tops of the trees down to the ground, strangling the "host tree" and replacing it once it has died and no longer can get oxygen to survive.

We clean up well after a 4 hour waterfall hike, eh?

Them too...

STAY TUNED... MORE TO COME SOON!!