bad teacher

I jumped on the elf bandwagon. As in Elf on The Shelf.

If you don't know about this rad, awesome little guy,

You can read about it here....

Christmas is my most favorite time of the year and I love to go "Christmas Crazy" with my students. I was delighted that this year we could do Elf on the Shelf, seeing how I teach second grade.

Last Friday, I spit a big game about Elf on the shelf to my class. The kids were beyond thrilled and excited for our visitor. That very same day I marched down to my local Target and purchased my precious Elf and book for a cheap (ha) $30 bucks.

Monday rolls around, I'm feeling sick, but I gather my sick self and all my belongings and head to school. I step in to my room and realize...

Crap, I left the elf!

Mind you, I'm freaking out about 3 things:

1.I live about 35 minutes away from work. I can't go back.

2. I hate not following through, even though I didn't mean to be flake-alicious.

3. My kids' disappointed faces would kill me.

So, I did what any teacher would do, and elf (aka you know who) "wrote" (okay typed) a sweet and silly note, including a picture, Here it is:

Of course, my babies were sad when Elf wasn't there (insert intense guilt), but they lit up when I read his letter and all was forgiven. It made them even more excited. And yes, you bet your bottom dollar I DIDN'T forget him the next day.

Here's lookin' at you Kate...

As a disclaimer, this a random, rambling post. Okay, carry on...

I have been a sucker for Royals. I don't know why. Part of me thinks its because I have loved princesses, glamour, and castles my whole life. Also maybe the fact we have nothing even close to that here.

I cried when Princess Di died, had my high school crush on Wills (yep, nickname basis here), had an awe of the Queen. And of course, how can you NOT love Buckingham Palace.  Then, came Kate.

Boy, do I think she is amaze-balls!!!! Everything about her is stunning and beautiful.

I am obsessed with her hair and clothes, and you bet your bottom dollar I stayed up ALL NIGHT when they got married.  I watched every bit of their wedding coverage. I paid for it the next day, lol!

I like her because she seems normal for the position she is in. Some facts you may or may not know (I'm going to sound like a stalker but I promise you its stuff anyone can read from articles, don't fret, lol!) :

-She does her own hair and makeup.
-they live in a regular, quaint cottage.
-they don't have any help
-she cooks and cleans like a normal wife
-She constantly recycles outfits and buys clothes that a "commoner" could afford.
-they do normal couple things like movie and dinner dates

Okay, I'm pretty sure this equates me in stalker status mode so I'll stop. Imagine my happiness when I heard she was preggo. I was elated. First off their baby is going to be totally gorg and amazing. Plus they will be the best parents. I'm also DYING to see how she dresses her bump. I WILL be taking notes.
Its also exciting to learn that no matter what the sex is, their little baby will be the heir to the throne. RAD .

Congrats you crazy kids!!!
♥

The polish swap reveal

I have a huge love for all things nails. I love love love nail polish. I love getting new colors and experimenting!

Due to that, I was definitely excited to discover through a blog ( http://www.lipglossandcrayons.com) a fun thing called a "Polish Swap".

http://www.lipglossandcrayons.com

  I was definitely excited to meet other fellow bloggers and get some fun goodies along the way!

The premise was to get partnered up,  buy and send polish to your partner. I actually got partnered up with Carly, the author of the blog lipglossandcrayons, and she was also one of the hosts. It was fun "to meet" a fellow blogger!

She sent me two awesome and amazing colors:

I was super excited for 2 reasons:

1. I have been dying to try this polish line
2. I needed gold colors. Especially glitter.   Win win.

I'm super happy with my colors (don't mind my dry hands, lol!):

Thank you Carly, I love my polish!!

If I'm really being honest...

This may be a long post, but it is defintely due. This is keeping me motivated.

So...this is me in high school:


A size 2, 110 pounds.


 I did 2 sports and was super active. I had the craziest metabolism, and I could eat whatever I wanted.

Then, I went away to college and gained weight. I thought I looked huge but in hindsight, I was normal. This was me, at what I thought I had gained a lot of weight (I know, I'm an idiot):

After college,  when I met my hubby, and eventually getting married, the weight was creeping:

After marriage was a big low in my weight. I went up in dress sizes and just didn't feel great physically. I don't know why it got so bad but I think  it was definitely not eating clean (more crap than anything else) and the sheer laziness of not wanting to work out. It is so much easier to stay home than to workout. A few weeks ago, I looked in the mirror and I was so sad at what I saw. I don't know what the hell happened. In pictures, I looked so heavy, and I knew that wasn't me. If you notice, most pics I post on FB are of my neck up, because I hate how I look.  

I knew something had to change. Hubs and I talked about getting a trainer, except most trainers I looked into were the cheapest, $600. We can't quite do that at the moment. However, the answer was glaring me in the face. I needed to use hubs. Hubs is a swim coach and essentially, a trainer. Prior to every season starting, he trains the team in a 2 month intense dryland routine. He shared that he wanted to train me, but didn't know if I could look at him as a trainer instead of my hubs. I told him I wanted to take the plunge.

So we started working out. It hasn't been easy (hubs is a CRAZY trainer) and I even skipped a week and half of working out due to conferences, report cards, and other madness. Eating has been horrible too, as I LOATHE eating healthy because I am always hungry when I actually eat right. However, I know it needs to be done. I  have now found different ways to keep me from being hungry.

Bottom line, things have to change. Now, I don't want to be a size 2 or weigh 110 pounds. However, I would love to lose inches, maybe a dress size or two, and just simply be healthy.

Okay, so here goes nothing! Any encouragement, tips or advice is appreciated, though I will say (for my friends who do shakes) please don't push any shake program on me. No offense =).

British Invasion

For my faithful few readers who read this blog, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving was MAREVELOUS. My heart was full of thanks and love, and it was a beautiful day. I will be doing  a post about that later, as I still have to upload pics from yesterday.

Since I was off this week, I was able to catch up on many shows and especially my girly reality shows. Name any girly reality TV show, I pretty much love and watch it. No kidding, I watch pretty much all reality tv.

Thanks to dear, sweet Hulu, I have discovered that I love British reality tv. Yep, it's pretty much amazing. I have fallen in love with the following 3 shows: 

  These shows are fun and I am IN LOVE with their gorgeous accents!!! The Only Way is Essex and Desperate Scousewives are both a lot like The Hills. Made in Chelsea is the same, except is reminds of the Upper East Side/Gossip Girl feel. I can't even get enough of these shows. They are super fun and beyond addicting. You can find TOWIE (yes, that is the official acronym) and Desperate Scousewives on Hulu. Made in Chelsea is found on the Style Network. 

You're welcome.  

Now go watch!

#starwarsnerds

We are a Star Wars lovin' family. No, seriously, we are hardcore.

-Hubs remembers very clearly seeing the VERY FIRST (Like 1977, when he was 7) Star Wars movie. He remembers standing in line, how he felt, everything. (sorry babe, I just aged you, lol).

-He has toys and collectibles from the 70's-00's that are worth lots and lots of moolah (it could probably pay for our future children's college, lol). Name the toy or collectible, more than 90% likely we have it.

-Hubs has decided that if we have a son someday, he WILL have a Star Wars nursery. NO negotiations. He has decided that he will build him a Death Star crib, lol. No, seriously. He's  looked into it.

-We have met the (legit) actors who have played: Chewy, Darth Maul, the guy who played the young Boba Fett. Here is a pic of Shan and his idol (besides George Lucas, his #1) Ray Park, who played Darth Maul:



I am not going to bore you anymore. I could go on and on about how much we adore Star Wars. Since we have all gotten the "drift" of how passionate we are of the Star Wars franchise, let me present you with this gem I pinned from pinterest, that for sure made my hubs the happiest man in the world:

Yep, Star Wars wall paper. I mean for your actual walls.

Here it is in action:

   I made the mistake of showing hubs, who lit up like a Christmas tree. For the man who owns everything Star Wars, this another thing to add to the madness. The wheels were already turning for how he could add this to his future Star Wars man cave (when we move, one of the rooms will be dedicated to his stuff. For now, we don't have that space. Sadness).  For half a roll, it costs you a "cheap" $75.  I see an expensive purchase in our future, hee hee!!!

p.s. Here  is the site if you are curious... http://super7store.com/new-arrivals/wallpaper.html

The little city of Angels

People have their "things".

Some people like to ride quads, some people like to fish, some people like to craft (I do too actually)

We like to travel. 

If I had millions of dollars, we wouldn't work (well, maybe take a leave of absence), and we would just see the world. Like, every single dang country.

We were blessed to travel to Ireland for 2 straight weeks for our honeymoon, which made me obsessed about traveling. My ultimate goal: Conquer more Europe.Unfortunately, we are teachers and are trying to save for a house... I know we will go and we are determined. So, for the mean time, road trips and in-state vacays are in order.

I can't complain. I love that we can and are able to just "get-away". In the 3 years of marriage, we have logged in quite a bit of miles going to different places and experiencing travels as hubby and wife. I have loved every second of it.
 About 2 weeks ago, we went to Angel's Camp. It's about 45 minutes out of Stockton. Its not a glamorous city (heck, its barely a town) but its filled with nature, crisp fall air, wineries (always a plus), caverns, and surrounding towns that rival movie sets.

Day 1: Checked into our time-share (which I love, but that's another post). We stayed in a cozy, lovely condo that had such a nice view! It was perfect. The weather was so dang cold! I didn't care though, because I LOVE when its cold! We decided to explore Angel's Camp strip (LOL!) and there really isn't any night life. We explored the precious town and kept it simple by ordering in pizza and ice cream (SO HEALTHY, I know!) and watching some Dexter =)

Day 2: In the morning, we did an owner's update, and got a cruise out of it. No joke or gimmicks, Wyndham (the timeshare) treats you well! All we have to pay is our port taxes and our way to the port. YES. After, we headed to Murphys, and boy, did I fall in love with the town! Since I left my camera, I took a pic with my iPhone but it didn't do it justice. Here is a "professional" picture:

 

 

 

 

Even this picture doesn't even cut it close to how cute and quaint it is. It looks like a place that a movie could be filmed at. I loved it! After some brief exploring, we headed to Mercer Caverns, which was discovered about 127 years ago. It was so rad.  We went down 161 feet underground. IT WAS AMAZING! After, we wine tasted in Murphy's, came home, had dinner and then went to the local movie theater and saw Skyfall (so good!). We were curious to try a "small town" theater and it was interesting for sure! The prices are actually cheaper!

Day 3: Our last day =(. Nothing super duper eventful. We checked out, headed back to Murphy's, had some lunch and went to some antique shops. Yes, we lived on the wild side, hee hee.

Overall, the weekend was an amazing success!!!

Celebrating 3

For our 3 year anniversary, hub and I wanted to get away to celebrate.
We thought about it and decided to head over to Windsor, Ca. Where in heck is Windsor, you ask? Its located about 30 minutes away from Napa and is basically part of the "wine country", which is awesome, because we love to wine taste. We also picked it because over a year ago, we purchased a Wyndham Experience package (its a multiple resort timeshare, which  has proven to be pretty cool), and one of the places was Windsor.
I don't know if I could have asked for a better anniversary trip. It was romantic, beautiful, and truly perfect. It was a beautiful weekend to reflect on our anniversary and how much we mean to each other.

Here are some highlights of our trip

Here was our little apartment at the Worldmark Windsor. It wasn't ornately fancy, but super cute and charming. We loved it!!

Day 1: We arrived in Windsor, unpacked and settled in. We then went off to discover precious, little Windsor. It looks like a movie set. Actually, it reminds me of the outdoor set of Gilmore Girls. Cute, little and very charming. After  walking around, we went to Guy Fieri's restaruant, Johnny Garlic's.

  Day #2: We woke up to a beautiful, sunny day. It was also fun, because we were goinng to wine taste! First stop, Ferrari-Carano Winery. OMG. This place is STUNNING!!!!!!!!!!!! You felt like you were in Tuscany, rather than Healdsburg. Hub and I were stunned. It is a huge chateau like mansion, with gorgeous vineyards and rolling hills in the background. Also, there are beautiful gardens and an amazing wine cellar underneath.



After tasting there, we visited 2 more wineries. We ended our amazing day by stopping at Francis Ford Coppola's winery, which was incredible and beautiful. He had TONS of  props, his awards and other stuff from his movies. For movie buffs like us, it was amazing! We enjoyed a romantic dinner outside, surrounded by vineyard and beautiful hills. It was breathtaking!

 

 


 Lastly, day #3....we went and visited Castello Di Amaroso, which is a castle near Napa. The castle was built to be exactly like the castles you would see in Europe. It was incredible! It was gorgeous and beautiful. We did one more wine tasting and took in the sights. This  anniversary trip, hands down, was the best ever!