Happy birthday to me!

First off, happy birthday yesterday dad!

It has been quite the birthday weekend! I decided a while back that I was going to make my own 4 day weekend for my birthday, so I took Friday and Monday off. Friday I did the closest to nothing as possible! We headed down to St. Augustine to meet Lisa, Erik, Kayleigh and Brian. Jim and Shirley let us use one of the 2 bedroom condos at their time share. Their room was right below ours and they had us down for dinner Friday night and for breakfast this morning. They also watched Kayleigh and Brian Saturday night so we could go out to a nice adult dinner. Saturday Matt and Erik went to play golf while Lisa and I took the kids to the outlet mall for a couple of hours. After lunch, the boys watched the kids so Lisa and I could get pedicures. We were right next to Great Clips, so I got my hair cut, too. Then Lisa and I headed back to the outlet mall, though we did not have any luck. :(

We were disappointed to find out that there is not a Cheesecake Factory in St. Augustine and we were not up to driving to Jacksonville to go. I had heard good things of Conch House from friends, so we decided to go there for dinner. We opted for outside dining and were able to get a tree house table. They look like little huts and they are over the water. All of the fish know they can get free food, so there were a ton in the water that we could feed. We started with a banana pepper calamari appetizer, Lisa and I both got twin filet mignons, Erik had the grouper and Matt had the Cracker Combo, a mixture of fried seafoods. The waitress brought us a huge piece of key lime pie. I also ordered a piece of chocolate cake. That was my favorite part of the meal!

After breakfast, Lisa and I opened up our cards and our gift from Jim and Shirley. I also got Lisa a 30th birthday gift. I had the idea a while ago, so I was ready to give it to her! Later, we got subs from Publix and had a picnic in front of the fort in St. Augustine. Kayleigh loved running up and down the hills at the fort. We all took turns running with her. After lunch we walked by all of the horse carriages. While Kayleigh liked looking at the horses, so didn't want to pet them or go up to them. We parted ways after that.

When we got home, Matt set up a scavenger hunt for my birthday gift. The first hint lead me to the fireplace mantle. The second to one of the maps we got in Charleston. The third to the bookcase. The fourth to my pillow and the last to my gift!

We're going out to dinner to a Japanese steak house tomorrow with our Bible study tomorrow night, so we went to Mellow Mushroom tonight. It was still a treat!

Happy birthday Lisa!!!

Lisa's birthday gift:


My birthday gift:

Happy birthday to me!

Is it Labor Day again?

I only ask because we did the same thing today that we did on Labor Day: cleaned out the garage and finally hung the shelves we painted months ago. Other than that we haven't done much of anything and that makes it a perfect day.

The space where we'll put mom and dad's old refrigerator.


Just ignore the exercise bike (it's going to Matt's mom) and the bags of garbage.


Our painted shelves are finally up!!



On a more serious note, we are so thankful for the men and women that risk their lives to keep this a free nation. We are so blessed to live where we do.

Fan/Not a Fan

Simba is not a fan of cold weather. He was sleeping on the bed yesterday and I wanted to make it before Matt's cousin came over. After I pulled the sheets over Simba, I uncovered him and he buried himself back under the covers.



I am a fan of the dice game LRC. Our friends had a group of people over last night to play. We each brought $3 and the winner got to take home the pot. I was the winner! We played a second round, but just with chips for fun and Matt won that game. I was kicking myself for not wanting to play for cash again! I tend to have horrible luck, so for Matt and I to both win we were seriously considering going to play the lottery last night or making a quick trip to Vegas! :)



The stack of ones I won.

Hello November!

It's November 1st and it finally feels like fall here! We did have a few cool days before, but last week it was back up into the 90s. I'm really excited about November because it is such a short teaching month. I only teach 3 1/2 days this week, 3 days the next week, 4 days the 3rd week, then it's Thanksgiving week so no students then, then there's just one more teaching day of November (the 30th is a Monday). Of course, November 15th is always a good day, and I am taking a 4 day weekend in honor of that special day.

I had fun on the last day of October as well. Matt and I went to our friend's house to watch the first half of the Gator game. We came home at half time so Matt could grill steaks for dinner. The problem was, we were out of propane, so we just went up to Chick-fil-a. (Mom, how's that for a new excuse to get out of cooking?!?!) We had trick-or-treaters for about 1 1/2 hours, though it wasn't very constant. We'd have a couple big groups, then maybe just one or two kids come. We didn't even give out the 1 bag of candy we bought. I took a couple of pictures to show our set-up in the dining room that the people saw that did come. I'm sure glad they don't come in the house! We didn't put out all of our decorations this year. Matt said he's just saving his decorating energy for Christmas. He'll sure need it!!

Our table decorations. Everything but the placemats are from Yankee Candle.


The lit candles.


The chair that held the candy we handed out and the rest of the decorations.