A Letter to the President

President Obama,

I would like to voice my 1st Amendment right and voice my opinion on your decision to address every student in our country's schools this next Tuesday. I also have some questions for you, regarding your decision to give this speech. This is all I will say about this event. Once I've said all I have to say, I will respectfully step down from my soap box.

1. Why did you decide YESTERDAY to give a speech to every student this next TUESDAY? Your administration said that you want to simply encourage students at the beginning of the school year. I'm sure you are aware that the school year begins around the same time every year, so why not give the school administration and teachers more time to plan for such an event?

For the record, I don't really believe this was a spur of the moment decision. I believe that this was highly calculated. It is so convenient for you to plan it for this Tuesday, and not tell the districts until Thursday afternoon, with most teachers not finding out until late in the day.

So the district has to scramble as they are getting irate calls from parents, prompting them to send a letter home allowing parents to opt their children out of the broadcast.

The letter goes home today, except that a lot of students forget them in class. It is a holiday weekend and a lot of families are traveling this weekend and will get back late Monday night. It will be very easy for them to forget to sign the paper that will opt their children out of it. This is happening Tuesday, so there won't be another day for students to bring home the form that their parents might want to sign. This also doesn't take in account the students who were absent today and unable to bring the letter home.

Very clever, but you are not as sneaky as you think you are. You remind me of my students who try to use their cell phones in class, thinking I have no idea what they are doing. I do, they are blatantly obvious, as are you. If this was simply a motivational speech, why not give everyone a heads up earlier so that everyone could be more prepared. Now, lessons plans have to be changed at the last minute, tests have to be pushed back. I'm sure you don't think that taking 4 minutes out of my morning classes to accommodate your speech is such a big deal, but the truth is, 4 minutes is a LONG time when it comes to class time.

2. Is this how you plan to "unite" the country?

When you were running for the office that you now hold, you said you wanted to unite this country. However, with this one move, you have failed. Parents are opting their kids out of watching your speech, some will probably keep their kids home. A lot of people are quite passionate and outraged about this.

A typical day in a high school has enough drama as it is, was it really necessary to add more drama to one day? Now on top of all the regular drama, we have the drama that will surround your speech. Kids will be fired up on both sides.

Any person on my facebook friends who make a comment have started a mini-debate in facebook world. This does not make for a very united country.

3. Why not do an evening broadcast so that students can watch it WITH their parents and discuss it with THEIR PARENTS? Which is who they SHOULD be discussing it with.

Some people make the comment "Well, not all kids have parents to discuss this with." That is very true, some kids don't, and that's a sad thing. But what about the underprivileged schools who don't have the means to show your speech?

Those are all the questions I have for now. I'll end with saying that I just really don't appreciate you taking over my school. You and your administration have your hands in enough cookie jars as it is. By all means, encourage our kids to get an education, I'm just asking that you please leave my very valuable classroom time, and my school, alone.

Sincerely,

Angela W.

Back from the BAHAMAS!!!

Boo. 5 nights was not long enough.

We just got back from the BAHAMAS about 2 hours ago. Since I'm pretty bad about keeping up with this whole blog thing, I figured I'd better go ahead and take care our BAHAMAS trip recap before I get really busy and decide not to write one.

I also took a trip to visit my fam in Ohio, but that's another blog for another day that should've been written two weeks ago.

I'm going to write this blog on a day to day recap because its easier to remember everything that way.

SATURDAY, JULY 4

We woke up pretty early to catch our 10am flight. I was concerned that Nathan's bag might have weighed too much and wanted to give us time to rearrange things at the airport if we needed to. Thankfully, his bag was juuuuust UNDER the weight limit, 48.5 pounds, whew! We breezed through the whole check-in process and had enough time to grab some breakfast tacos from Pappasitos before making the long hike to our gate. Our gate that was at the very, very end of the terminal. We worked off those breakfast tacos.

The flight was pretty uneventful. I had checked in online (LOVE THAT!!) and was able to change our seats to an exit row. No one had the window seat next to us so we got the whole row to ourselves, that was really nice! They served us a rather yellowy looking green salad, and a knockoff bbq turkey hot pocket thing. Nathan declined, but I decided I was hungry enough to actually brave the airplane food. The salad was salad, the hot pocket was ehh...the meat inside it was actually pretty decent but the "pocket" seemed a little doughy and not very tasty. Unfortunately, I didn't think to just eat the meat out of it until I was mostly done with the whole thing. Ah well.

We arrived at the airport in Nassau a little early, but had to wait on the plane for a good 15-20 minutes because they didn't have a gate for us. That was slightly annoying, but hey, we're in the BAHAMAS!!!

Thankfully, none of our luggage was lost, we checked in at the Sandals desk, found our shuttle bus and were the only people on it. Private shuttle, all right!! LOL!

Check-in was easy, and our room was ready right away. We had a little tour and were taken to our room. Two words. AWESOME.VIEW!!! We were on the top floor of the Windsor building and had a full on ocean view. Other than that the room was pretty average, nice, but nothing too exciting. But oh the view. I will definitely miss that.

We got to the hotel around 4pm and it had just rained, so we didn't really feel like jumping in the water at that point. We decided to go to the Orientation that they have twice a day. When we first got there it was pretty intimidating, everything was big and colorful and you're like "What is all this?" The tour they gave us wasn't that helpful, but it did give us a better idea of where everything was at.

We went back up to the room and changed clothes and went down to dinner. We decided to go to Kimonos (think Benihana's type place). I had read in some reviews that this is a good first night place because you can meet people. The reviewers were right, we met 3 really cool couples. One from New York, one from Pennsylvania, and one from South Carolina. Unfortunately, they were all leaving within the next day or so, booo!! But we had a great dinner with them and ended up chatting with them long after dinner and dessert were over. I really wished we could've hung with the NY couple a few more days, they seemed like a lot of fun.

We went back up to the room, changed into our swimsuits and hit up the hot tub that is closest to the beach. We got a drink from the bar and watched an amazing fireworks show. Apparently, you don't have to be in the United States to celebrate July 4th. They did a really good job with the fireworks and it was so cool to be able to watch it from a hot tub right off the beach.

At this point I would like to make it known for everyone that I did fully finish my alcoholic drink. Those of you that know me well, know that I don't drink. So this was kind of a big deal. Ha!! It was called a Goombay Smash and I had them add cranberry too it. I have no idea what's in it, but it was pretty good. My sister had told me to ask for a Malibu punch. They didn't have that but they gave me that Goombay Smash with cranberry, so there you go.

SUNDAY, JULY 5

We woke up around 8 am. This is actually pretty early for us, since we really like sleeping in during the summer. I had read reviews that said the good chairs get taken early, so we grabbed some towels and saved 2 chairs under an umbrella at the Manor Pool on our way to breakfast. The cool thing is that no one messes with your stuff when you do that. The Manor Pool is the really laid back, quiet pool.

We ate at the breakfast buffet. They had a lot to choose from and it was fairly tasty.

We spent half the day at the pool, lounging in our pool chairs, and floating around on the pool floats. I drank ANOTHER Goombay Smash (I know you all are SO proud of me), although for the record these are like small 8 oz dixie cups.

They have a pool/beachside pizza oven. The pizza was SOOOO good! We ate it in the shade while looking out at the ocean. After our pizza lunch we went out to the beach, found a couple chairs to dump our stuff and chilled in the ocean.

The water was SOOOO pretty and it felt really good too. Around 3 pm we had enough sun and headed back to the room for a little break.

We went back out to the Windsor pool (this is the crazy, loud pool) and played some ping-pong. Nathan totally kicked my ass, but we had a good time trying to keep the ping-pong ball from going into the pool. We were successful about half of the time. Thankfully, everyone was pretty nice there (at that point, most of the people in the pool were tanked, they were having a GOOOOOD time, ha!) and threw the ball back to us.

We jumped in, Nathan got us another drink and played some pool basketball. Nathan beat me at that too. At one point my bikini top came untied. I was jumping for shot, Nathan grabbed at it to mess me up and OOPS!!! No one was really around and it didn't happen until after I was back in the water, so I don't think anyone noticed my wardrobe malfunction, but it certainly gave us a laugh.

We went back up to the room to shower before dinner and found that we were a little "well-done". Or actually, I guess I should say medium to medium-rare. That last dip in the pool got us a little toasty. DOH!

We ate a Cassanovas, the Italian place. They had this really cool antipasto and salad bar. I ordered the lasagna and Nathan had the spaghetti and meatballs. They were both pretty good! The dessert was just okay, nothing exciting.

We went back up to the room, chilled for a bit and then decided we were hungry again. So we went to Cricketeers Pub where Nathan had a burger and I had some potato crisps. Basically they were like English nachos. Fried potato crisps (think potato chips) and they had this white, kinda blue cheese tasting sauce on them. They were quite tasty!

MONDAY, JULY 6

We had breakfast at the breakfast buffet again and then took the boat over to Sandals private island for our massages on the beach!! Although, for the record, a massage overlooking the ocean is slightly overrated because you are face down most of the time. But it was very cool, and I'm glad we did it. The massages felt really good too. And we scoped out the perfect place to come back to the next day.

We decided that today would be a good day to go into downtown Nassau and do a little shopping and check out Atlantis. Nathan's shoulder's were still a little crispy and we figured this would be a good way to keep them out of the sun a little.

We took the #10 bus to downtown Atlantis. Nathan got a t-shirt and I found my mom a really cheesy souvenir (she collects them). We then took the water ferry over to Atlantis.

I can sum up Atlantis in a few words. Big. Loud. Expensive. Way too many obnoxious kids running around. We didn't really explore Atlantis for very long for the above reasons.

We did however check out the casino. Neither of us have ever been in a casino, or gambled before (unless you count SNAP in which I totally owned the blackjack tables my junior year, the dealer, a friend's dad, was awesome and always busted and gave us "hints", good times), so we thought we'd try it out.

It took us a few minutes to figure it all out. I'm sure we stood out like a sore thumb trying to figure out how to get chips. After watching a guy at the blackjack tables just hand over some cash we figured it out. There was only one spot open at the cheapest table, $15. Nathan decided that I was probably the luckier one and let me have at it.

Since the minimum bet was $15 I handed over $60. I figured this would give me at least 4 hands, and if I lost all 4 hands, then we were done for the day. I think I lost the 1st hand, but then came back the next hand. It kept that way for a while. I had a pretty good pile of $5 chips at one point. I have no idea how much because I kept remembering Kenny Roger's advice "You never count your money, when you're sitting at the table, they'll be time enough for counting, when the dealing's done".

Plus, since I was a newbie I was trying to make myself look not so newbyish. Nathan told me I had a pretty good poker face. Don't get me wrong, when I got that first blackjack I was dying to whip out my camera and take a picture of it, but I kept my cool.

Towards the end, I decided to go against Kenny Roger's advice and put $60 worth of my chips to the side. I played, and lost a couple more hands and decided to leave the table. I won 10 bucks, woohoo!!! :)

I really should've have stepped away from the table sooner and probably would've won like $30. But it was a fun time, and my goal was to gamble, and come out ahead, which I did. We went in with $60 and came out with $70. I wish I could've been the guy next to me, who came in $400 and left with $700...yeah...that would've been nice. But alas, I'm happy with my $10 gain.

On our way out of Atlantis we stopped by their cigar shop and Nathan bought his first Cuban cigar. We hopped back on the ferry and were entertained by the ferry tour guide person. He was really funny! He pointed out Nicholas Cage's house (although quite honestly, we all just took his word for it because all you could see was a bunch of palm trees). We also learned about the meaning of the colors on the Bahamian flag, how spending money in the Bahamas is like recycling because they import about 85% of their food from the United States, and how their most famous fish dish, Conch (pronounced conk, this was also news to me as my entire life I've pronounced it phonetically), so Conch is apparently good for your sex life. Who knew?! And as if we hadn't figured it out already, our tour guide told us "In the Bahamas, we do everything SLOWWWW, because there ain't no where to go." That is the truth! If you ever go to the Bahamas, don't be in a hurry, and just relax, because they really are super slow.

We got off the ferry and hit up one of the liquor stores to buy some rum, because, well, that's just what you do when you can buy it tax free right? Ha! And then we went by the infamous Straw Market. Its this market where you can buy straw items (imagine that) and knock off handbags. I am not really into handbags and the ladies are like WAYYYY aggressive, calling out to you to come check out their goods. I knew I wanted a straw fan, because I had seen a girl with one on the ferry and thought it looked pretty cool. I took one look inside and saw how teeny tiny the aisles were and decided it wasn't a place I really cared to go. There was a lady selling the fans right out front so I bought one off of her. We were told you are supposed to haggle with them, but I'm not really a haggler, and my fan was only $5, and I could hardly see myself saying "Uh how about $4" when the lady had to give me change for my $20 bill anyways. Anyways, I could say that I actually went to the Straw Market, check that off the list.

We got back on the #10 bus, along with like 20 other people, some of whom, you could tell had not bathed in a while, and headed back to the hotel. It was nice to be back where there were no screaming, obnoxious kids.

We ate a the Crystal Room. It was kind of a jazzy, real classy type place. Our waiter, Duke, was awesome. Nathan had the salmon, which was really good, but I wasn't really impressed with my prime rib. I was however, in complete awe of our dessert, the chocolate volcano. WOW...sooooo good!!!

We went back to the room and chilled on our balcony. Nathan smoked his Cuban stogie. I was just looking around and noticed a guy on his balcony. He didn't have a shirt one, no big deal right? And then he turned around and bent over and I saw his bare butt!!! NO JOKE!!! I was like "Nathan!! Look!" We had a good laugh and figured that was the end of it when the guy went back inside and the lights went out.

But the show was not over yet. Oh no, he came out again, this time with his girl. She was blindfolded...yep, BLINDFOLDED!!!! Craziness! They totally went for it on their balcony!!! It was nuts. No pun intended, ha! Our balcony light wasn't on, but surely, SURELY they could see us right? Or maybe they just didn't care. Either way, it was highly entertaining for us.

TUESDAY, JULY 7

We decided to skip the pool, because well, we have a neighborhood pool at home. Granted, said pool does not have a bar, or awesome chairs, or no kids around, but all the same, its a pool. We had breakfast and then caught the first boat over to the private island.

The day before when we were there for our massages we found this perfect little tiki hut that had padded cushions on it, overlooking the water. Being the over analyzer that I am, I remembered which side of the boat got off first over at the island. We conveniently let everyone else get on the boat first, and then we sat down, right where we knew we'd get off first. We got off first and high-tailed it to our spot.

It was pure awesomeness!! We were in the shade the entire time, so we didn't get burned that day. The beach on the island isn't as nice as the one at the main hotel. It was however, great for snorkeling. We had brought our own snorkel gear and checked it all out. We found a little reef off the east side of the island that had tons of fish in it. We didn't see anything exciting like a sting ray, just lots of colorful fish and spiny sea urchins. There were a LOT of those. Some little, and some really big ones. The big ones were a little intimidating. Thankfully, they don't move much. Although I just thought for sure when we were snorkeling in the shallower water that one was going to jump out of the coral and get me. I'm not going to lie, it made me a little nervous.

We spent the entire day at the island and took the last boat back to the mainland at 5 pm. We ate dinner at the Italian place again.

The resort had a chocolate buffet at 10:00 that night. We got their at 10:10 and all the plates were gone and the buffet was almost gone! It was crazy! So we had a couple chocolate things, it was dark so you couldn't really tell what you were eating until you bit into it. I tried one thing and couldn't figure out what it was until Nathan tried it. It was a grape. A chocolate covered grape. Pretty good actually.

There was a singer on the other side of the resort by the Manor Pool. So we hopped in the Manor Pool and swam around a bit, and then got in the hot tub.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8

It was our last full day, (tear) and the night before we were trying to decide how to spend it. Go over to the island and get the little tiki hut thing again? Spend it at the pool? Try to get an umbrella on the main beach? We decided on the main beach, and I got up early and staked out our spot. I had our magazines and beach bag strewn across 2 chairs, and then put a beach towel through the the spokes in the umbrella. Most of the chairs under the umbrellas were reserved by the people in the butler suites, so I was way excited to find such prime real estate that hadn't been reserved yet. I went back to bed for about 45 minutes and then we got up and went to breakfast.

No one messed with our stuff, so we chilled there for most of the day. Rearranging our chairs when the sun moved and spending a lot of time in the ocean. We got to witness a bunch of Italians totally snake a butler suite person's umbrella and chairs. They were quite proud of themselves in all of their speedo wearing glory. I was really hoping for some really big dude to come down to his reserved spot only to find the Italians in their speedos had taken them, and then a hilarious confrontation would ensue. But the rightful owners never came to claim their spot and the drama did not happen. Boo.

We went back up to the room to get out of the heat, and then went to dinner at the Crystal Room again, because this was our favorite place. We asked for Duke, our really fun waiter from the other night, but unfortunately he wasn't working. Bummer.

I had the salmon this time, which was yummy, and Nathan had some kind of chicken dish. And of COURSE we got the chocolate volcano again. So. Good!

TODAY, THURSDAY, JULY 9

The day we left. Boo. They were picking up our bags at 10:30, and we had to leave at 11:30 to go to the airport. That didn't leave us time to really go to the beach or pool, and we didn't want to mess with trying to pack a wet swimsuit. So we slept in, went to breakfast, got one last tropical drink from the bar and then headed to the airport.

On our way, the shuttle driver had to stop for a motorcade to drive by. It was the Prime Minister, no joke!

Customs was a breeze, and had we known that they wouldn't actually check our bags or ask what we were bringing back we would've bought another bottle of rum.

The airport was pretty lame. There was one cafeteria style cafe, we took one look at the options that looked like food poisoning on a plate and decided that wasn't a good idea. So instead we got raped by the Dunkin' Donuts. We spent $23 on 2 sandwiches, 2 drinks and a dozen munchin donut holes. They charged me $6 for a dozen donut holes!! If we ever get back to the Bahamas I'm going to make sure we eat A LOT before we get to the airport.

We were on a little plane this time, the kind that has 1 seat on 1 side and 2 seats on the other side. It was not a comfortable 3 hour flight. We were jammed in, and there was a baby screaming every 5 minutes. The iPods were mostly helpful in drowning that out, but you'd still catch it, especially during the landing when you weren't allowed to use your iPods.

Once again, both of our bags made it. Nathan was most concerned about my bag, because it was the one that had the rum in it, LOL!!

Pictures will be posted soon on Facebook. We took a bunch of pics with an underwater camera, and those will be a little later in coming as we actually have to get those developed.

We had a GREAT trip! Hopefully we'll be able to get back their agin someday.

Random Sayings from the Madhouse - Day 1

I'm in Ohio visiting my family. When we are all in one place together it is truly a madhouse. I feel bad for the people who live below my parent's apartment. 

Here are some random sayings from the day:

Gracie Mae: "Bonk bu donk" - My 2 year old niece trying to say "Badonkadonk". Classic! Reading it in black and white just does not do it justice. 

Mom: "I like watching your butt when you do that" My mother said that to me as I was showing my mad skills at the table tilt Wii fit balance game. I'm a champion...at the ADVANCED level. 

Joshua: "UNDERWEAR!!!" My 5 year old nephew says this at the most random moments. Its his favorite word.

Joshua: "Aunt Cathy is WIERD!" - Joshua whispered this to me after my sister Cathy "raised her eyebrows" at him. 

Zachary: "Oh my gosh! This is the coolest toy that just came out!!!" - My 9 year old nephew, Zachary, said this after I handed him the Hot Wheels color changers car and ramp that I got him. That's right, I know how to pick out the BEST toys.

Zachary: "She is REALLY good at this!" Said after Zach and Hailey had been looking for me for a good 5 minutes during our impromptu hide and seek game. Consider we are in a small 3 bedroom apartment playing this game, I'm quite proud of myself for finding such a good hiding place.

That's all for now. Stay tuned, you never know what will happen next!

Earlier today I updated my status and made a comment about Weird Gym Guy. Some of you, may not know about WGG, so feel free to read along and let your imagination go wild.

On second thought, your imagination doesn't hold a candle to what WGG actually looks like. I've posted my previous blogs and notes from Myspace and Facebook, for those of you who may have missed it the first time.

November 8, 2006
The weird guy at the gym. I've seen this guy before. But now that I'm "officially" blogging I just have to write about him. (This is when I was blogging on myspace.)

Okay, so this guy is a pretty tall guy, he's in pretty good shape and pretty thin, but he's one of the weirdest looking guys I've seen. He's got bleach blond hair that comes down to about the middle of his face. His head kinda looks like a mushroom, that's the best way to describe it. He ALWAYS wears these big sunglasses. They are the Oakley ones with the radio attached. But note, we are INSIDE, its not that bright. But maybe he has really sensitive eyes, but my guess is he's just trying to look cool.

Now you're probably all thinking, that's not so weird, right? Well, this guy's shirt looked like mine. I was wearing one of those work out tank tops with the racer back and the built in sports bra (I've probably lost most of the guys by now, but my point being, its a definitely a girl's shirt). Well, he was wearing the same thing essentially. It didn't have the racerback, but it was definitely not a tank top I've ever seen on a guy before. And it only came to about the middle of his stomach. Nice... Now like I said before, he's not fat so its not like he's got a huge gut spilling over. But seriously, if a guy wants to show off his abs, they usually just take their whole dang shirt off.

Now to his pants. They were suck tight black yoga pants (once again, probably lost the guys). And the top of the pants around the waist was the same color as my tank top. My tank top was black and this light bluish green color, not a color that should be on a guy's pants. Now not only were these pants suck tight and well...girly, they were really, really low on his waist. And I mean REALLY low, like I'm almost seeing something that I REALLY don't want to see, low. Its really quite disgusting, but at the same time, quite comical.

So that's the weird guy at the gym. What is really funny is to see people react to him. There was a couple on the elliptical machines in front of me. When he went to get on the elliptical machine in front of them, the guy nudged the girl and said something I couldn't decipher (I was rocking out to Family Force 5 on the treadmill) and then the girl looked over to the weird guy and then back at the other guy and smiled. And then there was this other lady who noticed him and then turned around and looked at everyone as if to say "Am I really seeing this?!" Ha! Quite entertaining.

June 18, 2008
I now have an update. The weird guy is still there...and even weirder.

Last week, I went to the gym without Nathan because he was going to go play tennis with a buddy. And this was the first time in over a year that I've seen this guy. He was wearing a tank top, that was made out of super thin material and ripped so that the only thing that was covered by the tank top was his chest. Like if he was a woman, where his boobs would be. He was still sporting the super tight, ultra low (gag me) yoga pants, but he had a new addition...a slut sticker...or tramp stamp, whatever you want to call it, but a tattoo, right there on his lower back, right above his butt. Not that I've seen a lot of bare backed men, but this was the first one I've ever seen with a slut sticker. I kinda thought that was a 'girl' place to put a tat, but I could be wrong, please gentlemen, correct me if I am.

So I am absolutely giddy at this point because I think this she-man, himshe, shim, whatever, is absolutely hilarious. I mean, it puts a little excitement in the daily workout. Everybody notices this guy, and its quite fun to see the reactions. So I really wanted Nathan to see this guy. And today he saw him.

The weird guy was wearing those short cotton shorts, they have a brand name, soffe, like what cheerleaders wear. They were a melon color, kinda pinkish orange. He was also wearing a white sports bra.

Now you're probably saying to my blog "But Angela, I didn't know they made sports bras for men." They don't...it was a WOMAN'S sports bra top. You're probably wondering how this can get better? Oh, but it can.

Along with the melon shorter than any man should be wearing shorts, and the not made for a man sports bra, he was wearing...wait for it...5 INCH PURPLE HEELS. In case you didn't get that...5 INCH PURPLE HEELS!!!! And these were like platform heels.

He was walking out of 24 hour fitness, and I would've missed him but Nathan bumped me out of my iPod induced 'zone' and asked "Is that the guy?!" Oh yes, yes it was. There were 2 really big buff guys standing by the door when he went out and from what I could tell they were laughing after the guy left, and they actually went out the door to see the guy again. Words cannot describe this guy. So if you want some entertainment while you work out, let me know and I'll tell you when and what 24 hour fitness to go to. You will not be disappointed.

TODAY, Monday, May 4, 2009

Weird Gym Guy is now sporting a super long, blonde hair extension. In a pointy tail mind you.

I saw him as I was getting on the treadmill today. And I literally almost busted out laughing. I'm serious, I spent a good 10 minutes trying not to laugh or smile. I'm sure people who looked at me thought I was nuts, because you know you always look like a total goof when you are trying not to smile and failing miserably at it.

I also had the pleasure (or lack there of is probably more correct) of having to see him in the reflection of the mirror when he was doing his arm moves. He was taking a big barbell and raising it high over his head and stretched back really far.

You can only imagine where this brings the top of the front of his super low, suck tight yoga pants. DANGEROUS TERRITORY my people, dangerous territory.

At one point I was quite certain his pants had slipped to the point of no return, but thankfully, it was just a shadow on the lower part of his abs.

I'm sure you are all thinking to yourselves "But Angela, why not just look away?!"

Are you serious?! YOU CAN'T JUST LOOK AWAY!!! Its like a train wreck, or trying to eat just one Lay's potato chip...not possible. I'm pretty sure I did more reps than I meant to because I lost count on more than one occasion by this distraction.

So stay tuned to my little blog here. I don't blog about EVERY time I see him. Just when something new pops up.

Pursuit of Honor...

...is the title of the new book by this man here (in the black jacket of course):

His name is Vince Flynn. He is AMAZING! This was at a book signing for his last book he published this past November.

He writes about top secret CIA, black ops kinda stuff. A friend of mine describes Flynn as similar to Tom Clancy but 10 times easier to read. Basically if you like to read about a badass who goes around torturing and assassinating terrorists in the name of keeping the good ol' US of A safe...this is your man. And you all know how much I enjoy reading about terrorists being tortured and assassinated. Mitch Rapp is his badass. If Mitch Rapp were a real person, he would totally be my "Get Out of Marriage Free" card. 

Unfortunately he's not a real person, so I'm going to have to stick with The Rock or Vin Diesel, or maybe Mark Wahlberg. 

Anyways, so yes, Vince Flynn's new book will be titled "Pursuit of Honor". It comes out October 13th. That's a little under 6 months away. It might as well be an eternity for me.

If you think Vince Flynn and his character Mitch Rapp sound like your kind of fun, you should pick up his book "Term Limits" or "Transfer of Power". 

"Term Limits" is his very first book, but it is somewhat hard to find. It is more like a prequel to his Mitch Rapp series. Its good if you can read it first but you can get by without it. "Transfer of Power" however is a complete must. Do NOT read any of the other books before it otherwise you'll ruin other parts of the books before it. 

My personal favorites of Flynn? Probably Memorial Day and Executive Power. Although his newest book, Extreme Measures was really good too. I got a friend of mine hooked on them and we both started reading it at the same time. We were constantly texting each other "Have you gotten to this part?" or "Oh my gosh! It gets SOOOO GOOOD!!!" It was quite fun. But honestly, all of his books are pure genius, suspenseful, an awesome good time. I read them in like 2 days. 

Here is a little excerpt from Memorial Day...quite possibly one of the best lines of all time.

Quick little background - Mitch Rapp (CIA guy, basically he goes around and assassinates terrorists...like I said, my kind of guy) is in this meeting with a bunch of overzealous liberal bureaucrats. Meanwhile, there is a credible threat that a nuke has made its way into the Washington D.C. area, set to go off on...Memorial Day! 

On a side note, CIA if you have stumbled across my blogs because of the terms "nuke", "terrorists" or "assassinates" or "nuke in Washington D.C." I would love an intel analyst job. I'm just saying...its an option...I'm sure you know how to find me. 

Okay, so here is Mitch Rapp telling off one of the liberal bureaucrat ladies...

Stealy stood so she could face Rapp eye to eye and started to lecture. "You have no idea what you're talking about. We can't simply deport American citizens and hand them over to the CIA for torture."

Rapp cut her off with a booming voice that was almost a full blown yell. "The debate portion of the evening is over. You are an idiot! You have no idea what you are talking about, and you have no idea what it takes to wage this war. Now sit down, and don't interrupt me again or I will throw you out of this room by the scruff of your neck."

Seriously...I laughed out loud when I read that. I just pictured this big bad ass guy saying that to the likes of Hilary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi...awesomeness.

That is all the little tidbit that I am giving. Trust me, once you get started, you are completely hooked. Its better than Twilight. I've never actually read Twilight but seriously...teenage vampire love or bad ass terrorist assassin? I'll take the bad ass terrorist assassin any day. 

Vince Flynn = Mitch Rapp = AWESOMENESS

Go check him out while I start a countdown for the book release.

A Sobering Experience

It was a somewhat dramatic day at school today. No, my kids weren't obnoxious, nobody came to school with a gun (at least that we know of) and I didn't catch any kids going at it in the back stairwell. (I've never actually witnessed that, thankfully, but I do work with people who have...yikes...).

Today my school had a program called "Shattered Dreams". Apparently this happens every other year as they didn't have it last year. 

All seniors, juniors and those sophomores who have a parking permit were called down to the band parking lot during 3rd period where they witnessed a mock car crash. They didn't actually see the cars crashing (obviously) but they saw the aftermath of a drunk driving accident. 

I didn't get to see it but during Advisory (don't get me started on that, its a post for another day) we watched the video of the last time they did Shattered Dreams. It was probably the best Advisory period we've had all year (which isn't really saying much, but I'm looking for the silver lining in the Advisory period they came up with this year).

I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty intense. One car was upside down, there were "dead" and bloody students strewn about. Once was even coming through the windshield. 

They had cops there, a fire truck complete with the jaws of life and parents wailing. 

One student left in handcuffs in the cop car, one in an ambulance, another in a helicopter (yes, they really had a helicopter!), and one in a hearse. The blood and everything looked fake, but when you add all of the other stuff into it, it was rather realistic. 

Then starting at 10:30 they have what they call the heartbeat. Every 10 minutes a heartbeat comes over the loud speaker and then flat lines. You actually hear it flat line. The after the heartbeat a cop and the grim reaper come into a classroom and take a student. 

That student's face gets painted white and they stand in the hall for the rest of the day. It is supposed to symbolize the statistic that every 10 minutes someone dies from a drunk driving accident.

Thankfully the grim reaper didn't visit my class. Too be honest I'm not really sure I would have handled it that well. I mean, I know its all drama and not "real", but the video alone from the year before of the grim reaper going into classes was enough to make me tear up. And I'm not really that sappy of a person and rarely cry at movies. I'm sure I would've been fine, but I'm glad I didn't lose a student. Especially in my 6th period, because I really like my 6th period kids.

One of the hardest parts of the video they showed was when a parent was waiting at the hospital and their child didn't make it. You saw him hearing the news from the doctors and they went into the room and lifted up the sheet to look at his son.

Like I said it was pretty intense. Especially hearing the heartbeat those first couple times, talk about freaky! Later on in the day, it got slightly annoying, especially while I was trying give directions for the test during 6th period, but it still made you think. I wish I could upload the videos, but A- I have no idea how to do that with this blog, and B-I'm sure I'd be violating all kinds of school district policies.

Some of the kids took it hard, some didn't care, or at least didn't seem too. But overall, for me at least, it was a pretty sobering experience. I just hope that it  really makes the kids think twice about drinking and driving, especially since this is right before prom. I would love for it to make the kids to think about drinking PERIOD, but I think that's probably a long shot. 

I don't know if they do this at other school's other than mine. I've never heard of it before, but it is definitely something that EVERY student and really every ADULT needs to see. 

The right motivation.

This summer, Nathan and I were really good about working out. It was really easy. We didn't have school, and really didn't have a whole lot to do, so we worked out. 

I truly enjoyed it, and of course enjoyed the results of working out even more. 

Then school started up, and we still did okay. We didn't work out as much as we did in the summer, but we were still consistent. 

Then Ike hit and everything went to crap (including our kitchen, but that's a post for another day).  

Well, we are going to the Bahamas in July (yippee!!!) and I want to make sure I have somewhat of a bikini-worthy body. You'd think that would be enough to inspire me to get back into the gym...but alas that has not been the case. We booked our trip in January, and we didn't start getting serious until about two weeks ago.

So I have two little items that have inspired my trek back to the gym. 

An iPod Shuffle. A pink one to be exact. 

All of you know about the love affair I have with my 80 gig iPod. But I found that the 80 gig iPod wasn't a very good workout partner. It took up my whole arm, and really its kinda heavy for a jog. The arm band I used made it hard to adjust the volume, and I lived in constant fear that the constant jostling would make the iPod stop working all together. And as attached as I am to my whole music library, did I really need 6200+ songs during a 30 minute workout? Not hardly. 

So I purchased my Shuffle back in February. I filled it with my workout playlist and it sat on my desk collecting dust until a few weeks ago when I got these...

Best. Running Shoe. Ever! Nathan and I had gone to the Nike outlet where I found these. I tried them on in the store of course and loved how they felt. Plus I'm a big fan of the air bubbles. I'm sure there is an industry correct term for those, but I'm just going to call them air bubbles.

My last good pair of running shoes had them. Recon ate them, and I was stuck with my every day Nikes. They were okay, but I felt every step on them and my legs always felt sore after running. They didn't have air bubbles. 

Maybe its just all in my head, but I truly believe that the air bubbles make a huge difference. And they did not disappoint me on my first run. Of course I hadn't really run since before Ike, but man, you wouldn't know with these shoes. 

Seriously, I felt like I was running on pillows! I was so giddy I almost started giggling while jogging on the treadmill. I've been running with these shoes about 3 times a week for 2 miles each time I run and my legs feel great afterwards. Now I really look forward to going to the gym and running. 

And I'm now running a 10 minute mile! Not too shabby considering I start out just two weeks ago running a 12 minute mile.

Now I'm just trying to keep my workout playlist updated. I have songs on there that I've been working out to for the past 4 years. They are great songs, but they get a little boring after hearing them so many times.

Here are a couple of my favorite running songs. When these songs come on, regardless of what speed I'm already running out, I always kick the speed up a few notches.

1. Girlfriend - Avril Lavigne
2. Cross My Heart - Marianas Trench (you've probably never heard of this band, and had it not been for emusic.com, I probably would've never heard of them either)
3. Single Ladies - Beyonce
4. Impossible - Manafest (This song inspired me to run an extra 1/4 mile after my 2nd mile and I was running at 6.5, which I think equates to about a 9 1/2 minute mile)
5. Fighter - Christina Aguilera
6. Ignition - TobyMac
7. Breathe Today - Flyleaf
8. Break the Silence - Thousand Foot Krutch
9. Boom - P.O.D
10. Your Still The One - Roper (This is a super fun punk remake of Shania Twain's song)

Feel free to share your favorite workout songs. I can always use more!

I am not my Grandma

I'm giving up on Gobs. Maybe for a very long time...maybe just for a couple more weeks, I don't know. I just know that I don't want to see the gob recipe or batter for a long time.

For those of you who don't know what a GOB is, its this delightful treat that my Grandma makes quite perfectly. Basically you have two soft chocolate cookies with a fluffy vanilla filling in between. Similar to an Oreo Cakester only much, MUCH better.

I made them WITH my Grandma back in March when I went to visit her for spring break. Then I got back to Houston and decided to try them on my own a couple weeks later. I like to bake sweet treats for my work peeps and I thought this would be the perfect new treat.

Wrong.

The cookie part turned out perfect, I mean, absolutely beautiful. I was so proud that my first Gob minus Grandma experience was going so well.

The came the filling...oh that bastardly filling. (I don't know if "bastardly" is actually a word, but I like it, so its staying in my post.)

The filling is supposed to be nice and light and fluffy. Mine was nice and sweet and RUNNY!!! Ugh, I went ahead made them that way, and wrapped them up and took them to work anyway. They are a lot of work and I couldn't just toss them. And really, they tasted pretty good, the filling just wasn't the right consistency.

Nathan ate two of them that night, and one of my mentor teachers ate a couple that next day, and then took a bunch home to his wife. So I mean, really, they were okay. But just OKAY.

My mentor teacher told me that it was a good thing I didn't get it perfect on the first try because then I wouldn't be trying it again and bringing more in a few weeks.

So it is said mentor teacher's birthday on Thursday, and I thought what better way to show my appreciation than to make him some gobs.

So tonight, I started making them again. It must be a sophomore slump or something. But this time the cookies part didn't turn out quite right. Terrible or bad? No...but just okay. And I don't like to make things "just okay".

Now onto the filling part. I had called my Grandma after that first batch and learned that I hadn't cooked the milk and the flour long enough. So I was determined not to make that mistake again.

Well, I don't know if I cooked it TOO long this time or what, but now the filling is too THICK and it just doesn't look or taste right at all.

And my hand mixer broke. I think I ran the poor thing into the ground trying to beat that stupid filling to death.

So I think its a sign folks...no more gobs until I can get back to Grandma's for another lesson. My Grandma thinks the reason its not working out is because I'm supposed to come visit her again! :)

On a funny note, when I called Grandma I told her "Grandma, I giving up on gobs." She doesn't hear very well, and she thought I said I was giving up on GOD. HA! Oh I love my Grandma, she is the coolest! :)

So Don, if you're reading this, I tried. You'll just have to make do with one of my other cookie options. :)

512 MB? What?!

I got a new computer on Friday. It...is...AMAZING!!!

I've had my old laptop for about 3 years now, which isn't really that long, but in computer years, it might as well be a decade. I was definitely past due for a new one.

You all know how crazy I am about my music, and you all know that I have LOTS of it. My iTunes library currently has just over 6200 songs on it. No, I did not add an extra zero, you are reading correctly. 6,200 songs...six thousand, two hundred songs. Actually 6,206 to be exact.

Well, all this music was really starting to bog down my laptop. So much so that it was practically unusable. It would take a good 5 minutes to boot up, and then another 5 minutes to open a program. And then another good minute or two trying to switch between programs. It was maddening, MADDENING I TELL YOU!!

There were several instances where I wanted to throw my computer out the window. Fear of losing my entire iTunes library kept me from doing so.

So I was curious as to how big my hard drive was...512 MB. WHAT?! 512 MB? Are...you...serious?! But it was true, staring me right in the eye. It was then that I decided it was time for a new one.

So I did my research and found this little dandy at Best Buy.

It is a Toshiba Satellite laptop and I LOVE IT! It has 3 gigs, GIGS for ram, and 320 gig...GIG hard drive. Its almost ridiculous how much bigger it is from the old laptop.

I'm still getting used to the speed. I turn it on and its boots in like 5 seconds, and then when I log in my desktop pops up...immediately. This is new to me since I was usually able to put a load of laundry in the washing machine, unload or load the dishwasher, etc in the time it took my old laptop to boot up.

It also has a really long battery life, which is great because my old laptop would last for about 30 minutes on the battery...yeah..not pretty.

I'm sure there are lots of people out there wondering why I didn't go with a Mac. Trust me, I would have loved to have a Mac, but to get the same specs with a Mac would have set me back a good $2500 and I got my Toshiba for less than a grand. Awesome.

And a big thanks to my sweet husband, for letting me get it!!

An Update on Reading the Directions

If you have not read the Reading the Directions post I posted earlier, go read that first.

Update:

Yesterday we revieved for a columns and tables test in BCIS. They had a handout with instructions and when they were finished they had to raise their hands so I could check their work and give them immediate feedback on what they did right and wrong.

OH MY FREAKING GOODNESS!!! Apparently threat to their lives for not reading directions had worn off. It was ridiculous.

So by 6th period I finally came up with a great idea. Bribery.

I told my 6th period that whoever raised their hand, and I checked their work and they had it perfect the FIRST time, would get a cupcake next week. They were ecstatic.

Student: "So is it like the first one who gets it done gets a cupcake?"
Me: "No! The whole class could get cupcakes. Its not a race, so take your time and make sure you READ and FOLLOW ALL of the DIRECTIONS!"

Student: "Okay, so Mrs. Wilcox, if we ask you a question, will that disqualify us from the cupcake?"
Me: "Absolutely not. As long as you are still working and if you have a question, that's great. But once you raise your hand and say you are done and that you want me to check it, that's it."

They all eagerly went about their assignment. And pretty soon hands starting going up for me to check it. It was actually quite comical because its like they were all feeling suspense...will I get a cupcake...did I do everything right?

So when I checked a student's work and got it right I would yell out "(Insert student's name here) is getting a cupcake!" I was nice enough not to yell out the kids who didn't get a cupcake.

We'll see how long this lasts.

Read the Directions

Reading the directions. It is such a simple thing really. You need to know how to put something together or how to bake a cake, all sorts of things require directions. And being able to read and follow the directions is such an important skill.

A skill in which, my dear students, have yet to learn. If my students leave my class at the end of the year, and know nothing about computers, but are perfect at reading and following directions, I will feel like I have succeeded as a teacher.

Okay, not really, but you get my point. Reading and following directions is important!

Knock on wood, but I have really good BCIS (Business Computer Information Systems -we're talking Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc) classes this year. Haven't had any major discipline issues, a couple dumbasses that shall remain nameless, but really, besides those two nameless students, my classes are great. They are fun kids, they get their work done (most of the time) and they don't talk when I am talking.

But there is one thing that they are really, REALLY bad at. Reading and following directions. Oh you could verbally tell them "Insert a section break before the paragraph and format the paragraph into two columns" and they could do it right then. But there must be something with putting it on a piece of paper, in a nice, concise, numbered list, that totally throws them off. It truly boggles my mind.

In reality, my students should all get 100's on their daily assignments, because if they aren't sure how to do something, they know that they just have to raise their hand and I'll come bounding over to help them with whatever problem they are having. And 9 times out of 10, the directions tell them EXACTLY where to go and what to do.

This is a conversation that I typically have daily:

Student raises hand.
Me: Yes (insert name of student here) what do you need help with?
Student: I don't know what to do here (gestures at the handout)
Me: What do you mean by 'here' (as I gesture at the handout)
Student: Well, just all this (and gestures at the paper again)
Me: Have you read the directions?
Student: Well...no...but...
Me: READ the DIRECTIONS

Some days, its not so bad. But the past week, I don't know if its been a full moon or what, but they have been terrible!

We started columns and section breaks on Monday. I showed them on their computers how to do it, then as a class we all practiced it, and then they started the assignment. Their assignment included detailed directions and even a picture of what the document should look like when they are finished.

20 minutes later I have 6 or 7 hands in the air. I start making the rounds and these kids have got the assignment totally screwed up. Its like they just pick and choose what directions they feel like following. Regardless, it is probably one of the most annoying things about teaching.

This proceeded throughout the end of the day. During our practice time, while I was verbally giving them instructions, they were great. They open the book, and it all goes to crap.

I have 4 BCIS classes in a row, my conference period, and then my last BCIS class. You can imagine how frustrated and exhausted I was by the end of the day.

So Wednesday rolls around and I decide to give my students a "Come to Jesus" talk (as my mom would put it) about reading the directions. This is exactly what I said, in my super serious teacher voice (those of you that know me better, yes, believe it or not, I do have a super serious teacher voice).

"You need to READ and FOLLOW ALL of the DIRECTIONS in the order that they are given. Some of ya'll, if your lives depended upon reading AND following ALL of the directions in the correct order, half of you would be DEAD where you sit."

They all kinda looked at eachother and giggled, but I think they got the point, because they all did really well on that day's assignment. Now some of them still didn't read the directions, so when they raised their hand, and I saw that they were confused because they skipped a step, I said "(Insert name of student here) you'd be dead right now. And I would never get to see you again and that would be sad!" They laughed at me.

So there you go, threaten the kids with their lives and the will read the directions.

Top 10 Things I Learned at the Rodeo

In honor of the Rodeo coming to town soon, I thought I would repost my blog "Top 10 Things I Learned at the Rodeo". I originally wrote this blog on March 15, 2006. We had gone to rodeo with our dear friends James and Christie (James is Nathan's best friend since he was THREE years old, and James lived down the street from my family in Alaska...yes, I do have some stinkin' cool history, not gonna lie.). We saw Corey Morrow and Larry the Cable Guy. Never heard of the Corey Morrow guy before, but Christie was nice enough to lend me a few of his CD's before the concert so I could fake it while we there. Ha!

So anways, without further ado, here was list of things I learned that night.

Top Ten Things I Learned at the Rodeo Last Night

10. You can wear crotchless denim underwear in public and not
get arrested (aka super super short denim mini skirts)

9. If you are female under the age of 18, the required rodeo
uniform is crotchless denim underwear, a barely there top,
and cowboy boots. Bras and underwear are optional.

8. Body weight and the size of your gut does not disqualify you
from wearing crotchless denim underwear.

7. Parents probably have no idea their daughters are wearing
crotchless denim underwear.

6. If you are a female under the age of 18, wearing crotchless
denim underwear and cowboy boots does not make you look
older, more sophisticated or like Jessica Simpson. It makes
you look like a prostitot. No, that is not a typo, I said prostiTOT
– aka a 10 year old hooker.

5. Wearing crotchless denim underwear will get you extra koozies
at the Ford tent.

4. When I was in high school, our Rocky Mountain jeans may have
been suck tight, but at least our ass was covered.

3. Prostitots wearing crotchless denim underwear always travel in
groups, never solo.

2. Our daughters (should we have any) will not be allowed to wear
crotchless denim underwear if they want to have a social life.

1. I've seen enough crotchless denim underwear to last me a
lifetime...and longer.

Time to Brag

I am a big stickler for customer service. I've worked in the customer service industry since I was 15 years old.

It started with Chic-fil-A. My very first job. My mom wanted all of us to have a job in fast food at least once in our lives so that we would know we didn't want to do that for the rest of our lives. It worked. Although truly, Chic-fil-A was a pretty good place to work. Nice managers, flexible schedules and NO SUNDAYS!! But after about 9 months, and when I turned 16 it was time to move on to bigger and better things...RANDALLS!!

Oh how I loved worked at Randalls. Seriously, it was just a fun job. And I was dang good at it too. I was super fast at checking, and very polite to all of the customers, my managers loved, LOVED me! Even the very cranky polish manager, Ms. Wieladek, who hated everyone but I softened her up. And I actually see the beloved Mr. Foligino at the HEB by our house every so often. Its always fun to see him.

Then came a couple teller jobs at credit unions, the motorsport job, where you had to please even the most ridiculous of sales reps, and Total/1 where my title was "Customer Service Rep". Wasn't totally crazy about the job, but I absolutely loved the people I worked with there.

And now I'm teaching. One wouldn't think of teaching as "customer service" but in some ways it is. You have to please a lot of people. Students, you have to come up with something interesting so they'll learn it, parents, well they want to make sure their kids learn, and the administration, enough said.

With that incredibly long introduction, I'm going to brag about a couple experience in customer service that I have had. Like I said, always big on customer service, so when someone goes out of their way to help me, I like to let people know.

Continental Airlines. It seems like people either love them or hate them. And their have been times I have hated them. Like the time we were supposed to leave at 8am to go to Pappaw's funeral, and our flight didn't leave until 4pm. But that is all in the past. In the last couple weeks Continental has done some things that have made me VERY happy.

Take a couple weeks ago. I was trying to book our flights for our Bahamas trip (YAY BAHAMAS!!). We were planning on using our miles and I had found a good deal on some flights. The departing flight was for half of the mileage that it normally takes to take a trip, and the return flight had the First Class seats as less mileage than the Coach seats! Made no sense to me, but hey, who am I to argue right?

So I'm going along, picking the flights, and it keeps giving me an error when I try to fully complete the process. So I get on the phone with Continental, tell the guy what's going on and he starts to research it. He tells me that the return flight is a little plane (he used more professional terminology, I'm paraphrasing here) and that there is no first class, so it was not possible to book that mileage fare.

I explained told him that I really didn't care if I was in first class, I just wanted the cheaper mileage. He told me he would see what he could do to book the flight. He put me on hold for a few minutes, came back on, and had booked the flight for me, and for even LESS mileage that we had planned. The flights I was trying to book would have cost us 90,000 miles, and he booked us for 70,000 miles! I was so pumped and he was so nice through the whole conversation.

So there is the first thing that really made me happy. Now here's the second thing.

Nathan and I have different spring breaks this year, bummer, I know. And for those of you that really know me, know I can't just sit around and do nothing. I get bored off my butt. So I thought I would go visit my Grandma. She's 92 years old, still living BY HERSELF, and she's truly amazing. We still had credit on Continental for a trip we had to cancel last summer, this would all be perfect.

So I call her Grandma to make sure its okay that I drop in. I didn't think she would turn me down, but I didn't want to book a flight only to find out she would be visiting someone in another state that week. She's ecstatic, even told me that I "made her day". Awesome! This will be fun!

I hop onto continental.com and it won't let me change my old ticket. So I call to figure out what's going on. I thought I had a year from the departure date to use our tickets, apparently, as I so learned last night, you have a year from the date you BOUGHT the tickets, which was January 20, 2008. DOH!!!!!!

Now I'm really freaking out, because I did NOT want to call my Grandma back and tell her I couldn't come. She would've totally been bummed out.

So after talking to 3 other customer service people, some woman was kind enough to give the number for their customer care line.

I was connected to a very nice man and pleaded my story. Not going to lie, I did totally play the 92 year old Grandma card. But I was being honest, its not like I played the grandma card and then booked a flight to Cancun.

He was a little hesitant but said he would see what he could do. He came back on the line and said he could reissue my credit, less the $150 change fee. YOU ARE AWESOME MR. CONTINENTAL MAN!!! It wasn't the same amount as we originally paid, but it was enough to cover my ticket to Grandmas, AND it was certainly more than I had 30 minutes prior.

So anyways, maybe those two things don't seem like much to you, but they were a big deal to me. And airlines always seem to be getting a bad rap, (not that they are entirely innocent however), and I thought I would throw Continental a bone. So here's to you Continental, thanks for making my day! And please don't delay my flights this time.

Get to know Nathan and I!

I swiped this off of Leslie and Danielle's blogs. It was a cute survey, so I thought I would do it to. "Real" blogs to come later, I promise.

What are your middle names? Marie and Thomas.

How long have you been together? We started dating the summer of 1999, but we have known each other for literally our WHOLE lives. Our dad's worked for the same oil company, our parents started a church together, I'm quite positive Nathan's mom changed my diaper on more than one occasion. We had always just been friends, despite my mom telling me on a regular basis "YOU are going to marry Nathan Wilcox because I want beautiful grandchildren!" At the time she was saying that Nathan had this weird hair thing going on, and I said "Gross. He's like my brother". Well, he came to visit us the summer we started dating. He was about to start his junior year at JBU and cut his hair because he was in ROTC. Not gonna lie, when he walked off that plane I was smitten...he was hot. (And still is of course). We flirted shamelessly the entire time he was there. We kissed. I knew I was going to marry him. He proposed in the fall of 2000, I'm a little ashamed to say I can't remember the exact day...doh! And then we married June 9, 2001 during Tropical Storm Alison. It was nuts, but ask anyone who was there, it was also a blast. So that's been almost 10 years that we've been together as a couple.

How long did you know each other before you started dating? Wow...I totally just answered this question in the one above. Yes, our entire lives.

Who asked who out? We were talking one night while he was visiting that fateful summer (lol). There was a lull in the conversation. He asked me what I was thinking, I tried to get him to tell me what he was thinking, he wouldn't budge. So I told him I wish he didn't call me 'sis' all the time. And then he told me he was thinking about kissing me. WHAT?!?! So I said what any girl would say when the prospect of kissing a totally hot guy presents itself..."Uh...you could sleep on it?" We still laugh about that to this day. You could sleep on it? What the heck Angela? Thankfully, he didn't sleep on it, he kissed me.

How old were each of you when you met? I was probably about 6 weeks old, he was 3 years old.

How old are each of you now? I'm 27 and Nathan is an old man at 30.

How long did you date before becoming engaged? It was a little over a year. But like I said, I knew I was going to marry him that first night he kissed me.

How tall are each of you? I'm 5' 3" on a good day, I think he's like 5' 9", just kidding, he's 5"10, I just asked him.

Whose siblings do you see the most? Nathan is an only child, so that would be mine.

Do you have any children together? Not yet. Although random people seem to like to tell me that I need to have a baby. We probably will sooner than later.

What about pets? Camo, she's a black/lab boxer mix. We got her a year after we were married. She is hands down, the coolest dog...EVER! And then Recon we got 2 years ago. He's a yellow lab/shar pei mix. He's very cute and very sweet, but he is NOT smart. Bless his heart...

Did you go to the same school? When we lived in Alaska we both went to Grace Christian School and even had the same first grade teacher, Mr. Morgan.

Are you from the same hometown? We're both from all over, and of course lived in Alaska at the same time. But his family is originally from Oklahoma, and mine is from the Northeast, although I've never been there. So I claim my hometown as Houston and consider myself a true southerner. Drives my mom nuts.

Who is the smartest? Nathan would definitely say I'm more book smart, but that he is more street smart.

Who is the most sensitive? That would be me, hands down. Which is just fine with me, because I don't really do sensitive men. The real sappy ones get on my nerves. But that's me...

Where do you eat out most as a couple? We LOVE to eat out...but probably Texas Roadhouse.

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? We went to Kauai, Hawaii on our honeymoon. AMAZING!!!

Who does the cooking? That would be me. Thankfully Nathan is really easy to please when it comes to the kitchen. I love that some of his favorite dishes are the ones that are easiest to make.

Who is more social? It used to be me, but since all of my really good girl friends are all scattered about the country, it is more Nathan. He's become quite the social butterfly these past couple years.

Who is the neat-freak? Me. Although Nathan has his moments. Like the other day, the clutter in our closet was driving him nuts, so he CLEANED THE CLOSET!!! I was standing there wondering who the man in my closet was and what he did with my husband. It was a nice surprise.

Who hogs the bed? That would also be me. I'm really bad about it.

Who wakes up earlier? Once again, Me! My school is a good 40 minute drive from the house, he only has a 15 minute drive. I used to get up at 5am, last year when I was a first year teacher and thought I needed to get to school an hour early. I have since grown out of that phase and now wake up at 5:40.

Who has the bigger family? Me. He's an only child.

How do you spend the holidays? We usually go to Nathan's parents for 4th of July, and at Thanksgiving because we don't have as much time and we can take the dogs up there. And then we trade off at Christmas. Except this year we will be in the BAHAMAS!!!! for the 4th of July.

Who is more jealous? Definitely Nathan. He's not the overly jealous type. I've got some close guy friends that he's totally cool with. He's just very big on being proper when it comes to that kind of stuff. And he is very protective of me.

Do you have little pet names for each other? I usually call him Babe, and he switches from Babe and Hottie for me. Although if someone were to ask him "Is your wife hot" he would tell you I'm "cute" because it really annoys him when people say "Oh man, my wife is REALLY hot" and then they really aren't that hot. So Nathan would rather say I'm cute, and let other people decide if I'm hot on their own. He's funny like that!

How long did it take to get serious? I knew right away that I was going to marry him. It really is a "you just know" feeling. I told God before Nathan came to visit, that if He wanted me to marry Nathan, He had to make something happen that weekend. He kissed me. That's all the writing on the wall that I needed.

Who eats more? Nathan. It doesn't take much to fill me up.

Who sings better? It is definitely NOT me.

Who’s older? NATHAN!!! By 3 years, which is cool because when I was little, I always said I wanted to marry a guy who was 3 years older than me. Not sure why I picked 3.

Who does the dishes? ME! Every so often Nathan will help, its kinda like Vince Vaughn's line in the Break-Up "Why would I WANT to do the dishes".

Who snores? Neither of us snore. Maybe once in a blue moon if we are really sick or something, but not very often.

Who’s better with the computer? Me, hands down...I mean, I teach a computer class every day. Although he can perform all sorts of magic when it comes to World of Warcraft. He's got a Level 80 paladin or something like that. I have no idea what it all means, but apparently that's really good.

Who drives? I do. Because we will always get their faster if I drive.

Who kissed who first? Nathan kissed me first.

Who eats more sweets? I...LOVE...CHOCOLATE!!! I don't know, we're probably about the same when it comes to this.

Why Not?

So, a lot of my friends have one of these nifty blogspot blogs. Especially my married friends. I've decided its now time for Nathan and I to have one. So here it is.

This is going to be a boring first post because I'm still trying to figure everything out. I'm a quick learner, so bear with me.