Finding the balance.

If there's one thing I look forward to more than anything during the Summer Olympics, it's Women's Gymnastics.
I've been so fascinated by it since the very first Olympic games I can remember watching, which I think was the Atlanta games in 1996, when I 9. Possibly even Barcelona when I was 5.
Anyway.
My favorite rotation in gymnastics is the balance beam.
Hands down.
Its amazing to me how these girls can not only balance, but perform amazing spins, jumps, and flips on a four inch wide beam.

Then I think about my life.
If there's one thing in life I'm extremely proud of myself for accomplishing, it's becoming a teacher.
I've wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember, since way back when I played school with dolls in my bedroom.
I had some other short-lived career dreams (vet, optometrist, small business owner), but it always came back to teaching.
Last year was my first year teaching.
I love my job, and truly poured my heart and soul into those children.
I did the best that I could, and am proud of the results I saw at the end of the year.
My kinders grew and learned so much.

BUT.

For 10 months, that was basically my only focus in life.
I would work 10 hour days, then come home and continue to work.
I would research, make centers for them, try to find fun projects, create assessments, etc.
I often worked until it was time to go to bed.
And then I would go to sleep, get up, and do it all again.

I don't want to do that this year.
I still want to put 100% into my job.
These kids need me, and I want to give them my absolute best.
But I also want to maintain some sort of sanity as well.
I was constantly stressed last year, but I didn't realize it until this summer.
Once summer break came, I felt my whole body relax.
I even felt my blood pressure decrease.
I need to learn how to find a balance between work and life.
I can love my job, and pour myself into it, but I have to find a time to stop and be me.
Ty keeps telling me to find a hobby, but I always say that I don't have time for one.
This year I want to make time.
I'd like to set a time each night when I STOP WORKING, unless I have some sort of deadline, like report cards or something.

I want to find time each night to be myself. Lisa...not a teacher.
 I want to cuddle with my husband.
Play with my pets.
Read a book.
Exercise (what?!)
Have dinner with friends.
Watch a television show for more than one episode in a season!

I need to realize that I can be a good teacher without working 24 hours a day.
And now that I'm going into my second year of teaching and I feel like I have  a little more of a clue about what I'm doing, I need to try to find that balance between "teacher Lisa" and "life Lisa."

If gymnasts can balance on a four inch beam...
certainly I can balance those two parts of my life.
Wish me luck.

xoxo, wife.

Sunday Day Date...There's an actual goat in this one!

Thanks to my mother and grandmother,
I now feel like an idiot.
In my last post, I called the animal a "goat" but it was really a "donkey."
Ha Ha Ha...ok ok. That's enough.
Sorry to any animal I may have offended with that comment.
(And it's probably good that I don't have to teach about farm animals in Kindergarten.)

ANYWAY.

Last night, I had this whole date planned out where Ty and I would go to the zoo and then to dinner.
Apparently, zoos around these parts are only open til 5.
Who knew?
Not me.
So by the time we figured that one out, it was too late.
So we decided to make it a day-date today after church.

This camel was laying down and all we could see were his humps. 

Then when we were about to walk away, he stuck his head up above the fence so we could snap a pic!

 Alpaca...NOT a llama. Ty would get angry if you called it a llama, because he showed llamas for a couple years at the 4H fair, and apparently, there's a big difference.

This cute little barn owl with his one little leg made me so happy!

Look mom! A GOAT! He's not really dead...he just kinda looks like it. It was pretty hot out.

This little guy apparently didn't want to share the food with any of his friends.

 I like to be extra cautious ever since a tiger almost sprayed me last year. Not sure I've ever moved so fast in my entire life. So now I like to stay on the side of caution.

But it's ok because they were sleeping anyway.

This one made me laugh with his tongue hanging out :)

 In case you didn't know, zebras are my favorite animal.
Not that you care what my favorite animal is.
But if you do, now you know.

 If you care about what my favorite animal is, you might also care about what my LEAST favorite animal is.
This guy.
Emu.
Although I hate ostriches too...
I don't like to discriminate between large birds.
So I just hate them all.
Except flamingos.
Now those pink guys, I love.
Which...now that I'm thinking about it, I realize that we missed that exhibit. Dang.

Then we went to the butterfly exhibit, where Ty proceeded to take pictures of every dang butterfly that was in there. I'm not even posting all the pictures, just enough to give you the idea.

Prairie dogs come in close second to zebras.

Unfortunately, it was lunchtime, so they weren't doing much besides eating.

Ring-tailed lemurs might come in third on my animal love list.

Or sea otters.

Didn't take any pictures of sea otters though.

They weren't really in a showing off mood today.

I though this guy was cute though.

Although he kinda looks annoyed that I was taking his picture.

You can't see it very well in the picture,

but the monkey on the right is grooming the monkey on the left.

He kept biting things off the other one's face and it was too cute!

Or weird.

But I'm gonna go with cute.

I spy a monkey on top of that log.

It was a wonderful day for a day-date, and I had a lot of fun.

We will now spend the rest of the day lounging around, relaxing and watching some Olympic gymnastics later on.

xoxo, wife.

baby nieces and baby goats...or, i don't have any clue what to call this post.

This past week, Ty's brother and sister-in-law came to town to go to the county fair.

We have one of the largest county fairs in the country, so I guess its a big deal.

I just like the food.

Anyway, these are some of the happenings while the fam was here:

Ty and I both got some much loved cuddle time with baby Lydia.

She even fell asleep in my arms that night, which I have to say...has NEVER happened to me before.

I might be good with kids, but I've never been great with babies, so I think this was {maybe?} a step in the right direction.

To illustrate my point about not being that great with babies:

My only job here was to watch her while my sister-in-law got her bottle ready.

As I'm sitting on the floor taking pictures of her, she proceeds to fall over face first into the couch cushion...

I quickly put her back upright while laughing to myself...but not before both my sister-in-law AND mother-in-law saw.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm NOT ready to be a mother yet?

Now THIS cutie I could probably keep upright.

When we headed to the fair the next day, I was totally smitten with this little guy.

I wanted to buy him and take him home.

Hubby said no.

Dang.

He must have figured out I'm not good with babies.

Then I had a convo with a horse.

Now, this is the first horse I've even come CLOSE to since my adventure with one on our honeymoon 2 years ago.

Maybe I'll tell that story sometime...maybe I won't.

I'll just say that it was traumatic.

And that now I have a fear of horses.

They're kind of...really big.

And strange looking, if you think about it.

And I haven't wanted to get close to one since.

And in the spirit of facing fears, I braved a couple fair rides for the first time since I was probably 16.

I gotta be a cool aunt, ya know?

I won't mention that my palms were sweaty, my heart was racing, and I felt like I was going to toss my cookies before the rides even took off.

This little guy was happy, and I guess that's all that really mattered.

Until next time,

xoxo, wife.

going to the chapel

A good friend of mine from college got married this past weekend. 

(She caught the bouquet at our wedding, so it was about time!)

Since we've graduated, we all usually only get together about 4 or 5 times a year.

So it was good to get the gang together to celebrate such a happy occasion.

My dress...

And the nails I painted to go with the dress.

The lovely bride and groom during their first dance.

My hubby and I.

There was good food, good company, lots of laughs, lots of yelling over the incredibly loud pre-dinner music, a nice slow dance with my love, delicious cake, and many memories made. 

Looking forward to the next time we all get together.

sometimes when i'm bored...

I put oreos on my husband's face while he's sleeping.

And take pictures of it.

No big deal.

Then I laugh when he wakes up and yells, "Why'd you put an oreo on my face?!"

Then he eats it.

Wife of the Year, right here.

guardians.

Its nice to know that when I go out to get the mail after dark, these two have my back and watch out for me. 

Thanks kids. 

now we know what hell feels like...

I've mentioned the heat.

And probably that I HATE to get hot.

But the heat's not so bad, because I can just stay inside and relax in the air conditioning, right?

WRONG.

Not if your air conditioner is old.

And not if its directly in the sun outside.

And not if its 102 degrees with a heat index of 110.

And not if its 145% humidity.

And not if it hasn't rained in 83 months.

At least that's what the air conditioner man told us after he charged us $100 just to come out and take a look.

The other day, our air conditioner decided it was just too dang hot to cool off the house. 

So it quit working.

Amazing how a house can go from 73 to 90 in about 2 hours.

Who knew?

After those first two hours, this is what my poor pets looked like:

So I put ice in their water to help cool them off... but this literally lasted all of 5 minutes before it all melted away.

And in case you've ever wanted to know what I look like when I'm hot and sweaty, here you go.

Keep in mind, this is still early on, the first day. I won't show you a picture of what I looked like the next day, when I was nearing a heat stroke and in a TERRIBLE mood.

When Hubby got home from work, he set up all the fans we had, and then we took advantage of them.

We have more than that, but they're not pictured.

Poor thing was miserable.

I happened to be walking to the bathroom when I saw this:

When its almost 100 degrees inside your house, you begin to wonder if this might be what hell feels like.

So Abby and I did the only thing we could the next morning:

Went to my mom and dad's to cool off in the air conditioning.

We've spent the last few days sitting in front of fans, eating popsicles, sleeping in the basement because its 3 degrees cooler down there, taking ice cold showers for relief, and trying to stay as far away from each other's body heat as humanly possible. 

I'm tired of being sweaty.

But on a positive note, its down to 87 in here right now.

And the high is only 86 tomorrow, so we're hoping it cools off some.

But in the meantime, I'm off to sit in front of a fan with my pup.

Eat a popsicle for me.

And go to church tomorrow.

Trust me, I've caught a glimpse of hell, and you DON'T wanna go there!

baseball, sweat, and fireworks.

Well it was hotter than...um...something really, really hot last night.

But we enjoyed some baseball and fireworks. And food.

Can't forget baseball food.

We drank LOTS of water.

And my mom won a flat screen tv. Of the 6,000 people there, SHE won.

She was pretty pumped about it. Thought she was pretty cool :)

2012

I'm not the biggest fan of Dip n' Dots anymore. I wanted regular ice cream. But ALL of the regular ice cream at the whole stadium was melted. And it was so stinkin' hot out, that I had to have something cold. So I settled for some cookies and cream Dots. 

My mom and I were trying to convey just how hot it was outside. And it was dark at this point.

You know its hot when you walk to the car at 11pm and you're still sweating.

My dad's pretty cute, huh? Not that you can see him with the glare of his neon orange shirt in your eyes.

Happy 4th of July. God bless America :)