Beach Weekend

We watch the season pull up its own stakes

Catch the last weekend of the last week

Before the gold and the glimmer have been replaced

Another sun-soaked season fades away...

That's right friends. We're back from our last little summer get-away. It was a nice relaxing weekend where we simply sat around on the beach listening to crashing waves and enjoyed each others' company. It really was the perfect summer send-off. It was bittersweet, yes, because it means summer is almost over, but we definitely enjoyed ourselves. The place we stayed at (Braemar Towers) was actually pretty nice. We had an ocean-view room with two balconies - one off the living room and the second off of the bedroom Josh and I stayed in. The one off of our room overlooked Coastal Highway (not the most scenic landscape), but the straight westward view made for pretty sunset watching!

Have a looksie at the photos....

Josh's little cousin, Taryn! We adore her :]

Taryn and "her Joshie" going to sleep for naptime on the beach

View of the beach from our balcony

A pretty sunset. It was much more vivid in person but my camera just wouldn't capture the bright redness of the sun. Sorry, friends.

One of my favorite pictures ever of Josh and I :]

Taryn and "her Emmie"

She's such a little character :]

Joshie and Taryn watching a movie - she had never seen Muppets!!

Look at that face - she was totally taken in by Kermit and Fozzie

Boardwalkin'

And there's that. A good time was had by all (I think). We arrived Friday and it was just us and Josh's parents and Jennie and Taryn. Then Saturday morning Nathan, Erin, Connor and Kelly came down. They stayed until about mid-day on Sunday and then went back home. Michael joined us Sunday night and then we all headed out around 1:30 on Monday afternoon.

I'm now trying to enjoy my last few days of summer break. I really can't believe this is it already. But, I guess time flies when you're having fun. I'm slowly accepting the fact that school is about to start again soon. It's very hard to think about at first, but it's starting to sink in.

Yesterday I spent the day being incredibly productive. I FINALLY got my student loan figured out! Can you believe it!? It was a little confusing, but overall pretty painless. I also got my TB test done for the upcoming internship and then got my fingerprints taken care of this morning. Today also included helping Jennie paint her bedroom (did I mention she's moving in with us?), and finishing my final exam for that play therapy class I took last week. I also made a really good dinner - even if the house did fill with smoke... oh well :]

Let me close with 3 positive events!

1. The beach trip was a wonderful success!
2. The student loan is taken care of!
3. I had TWO very productive days in a row!

I'd also like to end with a little song that I learned while at the beach (and have been singing ever since).

Ahem.....

Have you ever been down the water spout

to the very bottom of the water system?

There you'll find a little alligator

who goes by the name of Alfred, if you do.

He's mine.

I lost him.

I threw him down the water spout

and now I'm feeling lonely 'cause he's gone.

I miss him.

The end.

From JHU Once More

Howdy readers! I'm posting from JHU once again except this time it's not during a break. That's right, I am posting this baby directly from the classroom. Hm, several things can be deducted from that fact. 1) I have access to a computer during class 2) I am off-task 3) This class is boring enough that I have exhausted all other interesting web-based options and have decided to go for it and write a blog post! For your reading pleasure, of course.

Well I guess the most exciting thing going on with us right now is that we're getting ready for a weekend at the beach! I know, we just got home from a cruise a few weeks ago. However, Josh's parents got the idea to go away for a weekend at the beach and invited anyone who wanted to go. So we said we were IN! They reserved a condo on 131st street, so we won't be right in the middle of the OC mess, but it will still feel like a nice weekend away. Jennie is going and Connor might be, so it should be a fun little crowd. We're leaving tomorrow evening and coming back on Monday, so it's actually a slightly extended weekend away. I'm looking forward to it.

Next week will be my last week before returning to work. Can you believe the summer is almost over? I guess the season itself will continue for several more weeks, but the summer "break" part of summer is rapidly coming to a close. This was definitely the fastest summer my memory can recall. I think taking three classes may have had something to do with it... just a hunch. Although I am not yet registered for my internship this fall (still waiting on that student loan), I am very much looking forward to having class only ONE night per week, AND knowing that in May I will be finished with my graduate work forever! No more classes! No more papers or homework or exams or student loans! Most importantly - more time with my husband :D I am so excited!

In fact, while we're at it, let me go ahead and tell you why I AM looking forward to this fall:

• Class once a week instead of twice
• My fall purse! (it's purple, and I actually was so excited about it that I've already switched over to it. I couldn't hold off until Labor day!)
• Fall clothes
• Having all honors & GT students
• Football season (first Ravens game is TONIGHT!)
• New things I want to try with my students this year
• Josh's sister Jennie moving in with us!
• Fighting with my friend Leighanne about football teams (she made me say that)

Ok, I'm done with that list for now. I'm sure I'll think of more things later! But my sweet teacher has turned off the video and started lecturing again which means I have to tune back in. Who ever thought a class in Play Therapy could be so ultra boring??? Proof that the teacher makes a difference.

Really quickly before I go though... I want to include 3 events for my positive events log!

1. My in-laws invited us to the beach for the weekend!
2. Evan started saying "Mimi" and "Josh"!!!!!
3. I have completed TWO graduate classes in the past 2 weeks. Go me :]

Don't forget to include your positive events log in YOUR blog posts!! I probably won't be back on until next week when we get back from the beach. But, hang in there, I'll be posting pictures! I hope everyone has a GREAT weekend!!!

8.7.6

Honestly, today rivaled that Friday that was the last day of school. It was just a really great day. Maybe not as great as the last day of school, but close. It was the last day of my group therapy class, so there's always a certain amount of relief and light-heartedness that comes with being done with a class you're taking. Plus since it was the last day there was little instruction going on. Groups were just presenting their projects we've been working on all week. If you haven't picked up, this is a 5-day class. So Monday we began and today was the end.

On Monday we were randomly placed in groups and given the task of designing a counseling group that we would be the "facilitators" of. I use quotes because we weren't actually going to run the group, it was just a proposal. My group (5 girls, including me) chose to focus our project on the "Sandwich Generation." For anyone that's never heard of this, the sandwich generation is people who are of the age where they are caring for both their own children and their aging parents. So we worked really hard this week and each person took on a part of the paper that they would be responsible for. I volunteered to be the editor and put everything together nicely at the end. Today everyone was presenting. As it turned out, our group presented last (there were only three groups). So we all did a great job sitting there in front of the class talking about our program and all the sessions and activities we had planned for these sandwich people and why it was important to have a group to support them, etc, etc... At the end, our professor (one of those guys who obviously commands a lot of respect within the profession) says to the class that he wants to make a suggestion to my group. He hadn't made any suggestions to the other groups so we all started exchanging glances like - "oh no, what did we do wrong or forget?!" He even told the other groups to pay attention to his suggestion and why he was making it. It actually felt kind of embarrassing. But then he tells us he thinks we should submit our work for publication. I couldn't believe it! It was such an unexpected compliment. I'm sure my mouth hung open at some point. He said the reason was that there is already a lot of research on the other two groups' topics (adolescents with social issues, and grief/loss), but that there is very little out there on this "Sandwich Generation." He also recommended that we submit it to the Maryland Counseling Association to present it at their annual conference in the spring. Ahhhhhh! I can't take much of the credit because I was only the editor, everyone else did the research and wrote the body of the paper, but I couldn't help but be totally flattered. We were of course all very excited and all agreed that we wanted to do it. So some people are going to spruce up their work a little bit and then we're going to submit it! How can you not be in a great mood after that?!

To get a little more specific for a minute, I also want to share something that came up while we were collaborating on this paper that I thought was particularly inspiring. One of the girls had taken a course in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and as it's title suggests this type of stress reduction is based on being present and aware. One of the tools that is used in MBSR is something called a positive events log. I tried doing something similar to this with my blog a long time ago when I was still teaching at Banneker and was basically miserable. But what it is is simply a place to keep a record of positive events in your life so that they don't just kind of blur and disappear into the shadows of all the negativity. It's so easy to focus on what stinks or is unfair or annoying and completely overlook everything that is amazing around you on a daily basis. So I felt inspired to start and keep a positive events log, and I decided that my blog would (once again) be the perfect place. I think from here out I'd like to begin each blog posting with at least three positive events from that day or week - and maybe (hopefully) more! I just feel like it's so important in life to take time to acknowledge the positive. Some call this counting blessings, which I am a big believer in. But having a forum for it, like a blog, I think will almost force me to really examine life critically and pluck out some of the tiniest positives (knowing that some days there will seem like there are none). Anyway, that inspired me and I think in a way that moment with my group was a little bit of a turning point for me in that I want to start this positive events log and hope that it will help change my perspective on every day life. Of course, I encourage you to start one as well. Like I said, blogs are a good place. Or you could just keep a little notebook or journal handy and note things down as they happen in your day. Maybe that little tid-bit will help you to change your perspective or focus for the better as well :]

Ok, so as if all this wasn't super fun and warm and fuzzy enough... today is 8.7.9. It's a special day in our house. The original special day was 8.7.6 - the day Josh proposed! It was such a fun day, and I won't run you through the whole story again, but it holds so many happy memories and emotions for me that I can't help but reflect on it and get sucked into all those feelings again. I relived that day multiple times today and know that I must have been staring into space grinning like an idiot a time or two during class today. What can I say, I'm in love! So to celebrate we're going out to a nice dinner at PF Chang's in Towson. As we speak Josh is readying himself to walk out the door, so I should probably do the same.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! And let me know if you start a positive events log! I'd love to hear your thoughts and how it works out for you :]

The Good, The Bad, and The Photos

FYI: This is a long one

We've had a lot going on around here since returning from vacation. Some of it good, some of it bad, and I've been working tirelessly to get pictures ready to share with you. Yes, I care that much. You can thank me later. I'll start with some talking and end with the pictures.

Let's get The Bad out of the way first, eh?

• Ok, well you know my internship for this fall is a big mess. But regardless of all that, there is a class that goes with the internship that you have to enroll in just like any of your other courses. Well if my internship wasn't enough of a hassle, something mysteriously went wrong with my student loan as well. I say "mysteriously" because no one ever contacts you to say there's a problem. I applied in February and by the end of May hadn't heard a word or seen a dollar. So I started making phone calls and found out that the lender was waiting for my school to approve the loan. I'll never understand why the school needs to approve a private loan. I don't owe it back to them, why do they care? Anyway, I called JHU and they said, oh, there's a slip you need to fill out and fax to us. So I did that on May 27th. Shortly before vacation, fall registration opens up. Well I can't register since I haven't paid my tuition yet because I still have no check. So I log onto the lender's website and check my account and it says the disbursement date for my check is the next day. Yay! So I won't get it before we leave for vacation, but it should be waiting for me when I get home. No. Waiting for me when I get home is a letter saying too much time has gone by, we need you to resign this perfectly good promissory note we have and mail it back to us before we'll send your check. In the meantime, an email goes out from JHU that says all interns must register by August 1st. So as we speak, the internship classes are rapidly filling up as everyone tries to register before August 1st. I'm certain I'll get stuck taking the class at the Southern MD campus in La Plata. I did email them to let them know I was still waiting on my student loan, and they just said to register when I get the chance, but by then it's hard to say what sections will be open. Yikes.
• Also, Josh returns to work on Monday morning (as if that's not hard enough) and is greeted with the news that he's been placed on a contract. That is, he has a new job that he has not interviewed for or personally accepted. He had mentioned to his boss that he felt like he wasn't busy enough and was interested in seeing what other opportunities his contract held. So while he was on vacation, the girl who works with him (not his boss) finds him a new job on the contract and accepts it for him. He's being relocated to Ft. Meade to an office built in the '50s that has bugs and mice. After being warned not to put any food in his desk, he's asked to notify them if he develops any health problems. ?!?!?!? THEN, he gets back to his current office and everyone is there waiting for him with a cake, jumping up and down and clapping their hands with excitement and congratulations. WTF. He was totally shocked and caught off guard. The whole thing was so completely weird. The girl who was behind this job change (he has a friend who filled him in on how it all went down), really doesn't like him and as far as I'm concerned took the opportunity to basically get rid of him. The worst thing is that since he had said something to his boss about making a move he can't really go back now and say, thanks but no thanks without looking bad. I'm sure his boss agreed to the switch because she thought it was something he would have wanted. I don't know if any of them realized the condition of the office or how OCPD Josh really is. But what's done is done at this point and he's just gotta make the best of it.

Tired yet? Ok, let's talk about The Good, shall we?

• On the internship front, there is actually a glimmer of hope. I wrote my letter of appeal to the Counseling Department chair and he requested that I come in to meet with him. At this meeting, we went over my concerns and the discussion came down to the fact that I don't have enough time outside of the school day to complete such a large number (400) of service hours. He cautiously suggested that maybe he would allow me to complete these hours at my own school if my principal were agreeable. I didn't point out to him that my principal had called and emailed him saying precisely that, but got no response. So that piece of the internship puzzle seems to be coming together. Thank God.
• Also, there is an upside to Josh's new job. While it's not a position Josh would have chosen himself, it actually holds a lot of potential for what he'd eventually like to be doing. They're going to get him into some very specialized courses that will help him move in the direction he wants to go. If he can survive in the creepy office for a little while, I think this will ultimately be a good move. He also has friends in HR from his time working in that office who have connections and know people at different companies who could pass his resume around if he found that he really couldn't hack it at this job. So that whole part of our lives is kind of blank-slate right now and we'll just be waiting to see how it all turns out. I'm hopeful though. It happened for a reason, and it will eventually prove positive I'm sure.

That wasn't so bad, was it? Those were our major happenings over the weekend after returning home. But I know you're ready to see the pictures and read all about the actual vacation so I'll get on with it already. The pictures aren't totally in chronological order. They're from two different cameras and in chronological order on each. So the first set of pictures are ones we took with the Canon Rebel (which did not leave the ship). The second set are taken with my little Olympus point-and-shoot. I'll explain all the pictures though, don't worry ;] Kay, hold on tight.........

First Set - Canon Rebel (on the ship and San Juan only)

We started our vacation with a chopper ride... juuussssst kidding! This is the channel 11 news chopper that followed our ship all the way out to Ft. McHenry to bid us farewell.

We hung out around the front of the ship while we made our way out of the harbor and down the bay. The wind did a number on our hair. Here's Josh's. We couldn't decide if it was more Edward Cullen, or Wolverine.

What do you think?

More crazy hair as we approach the bay bridge!

A pretty shot of the bridge just before we passed under it

My hair was hopeless in this wind...

... so we pretended I was a supermodel, ha!

Our first formal night - Friday. Some lady offered to take our picture. She was some kind of semi-pro too, she went nuts with the camera.

Land Ho! Arriving in Puerto Rico

Cute cute cute San Juan... Loved it!

San Cristobal - a big fort with many beautiful views

The first thing we saw on our way up to the gate of San Cristobal - amazing!

One of the many dark dungeon hallways -- but, did Josh flash to skeleton in this picture?!?

Me and San Juan :]

Completely candid. All I said was "don't move!"

A rainbow over San Juan! (and my hair doing "The Kramer"!)

Love this pic :]

My favorite building in San Juan. They were all these pretty pastel colors, and then this one was bold and bright. It's the building I would want to live in if I lived in San Juan. I'm not positive what "Se Vende" means, but I'm guessing they have a room for rent?

Me and the Puerto Rican coastline

As we were making our way back to the ship, a storm was approaching. It looked so ominous against the stark whiteness of this church building. I thought it made a cool picture, although we totally got caught in the storm and looked like drown rats by the time we got back to the ship. Oh well.

View of St. Thomas from the ship - indescribably cute!

View of Dominican Republic from the ship. This port didn't have a dock, you took a smaller boat over to the land, that's why it's far away.

The morning we arrived in Haiti

Second Set - Olympus (all of our adventures at the pool and on the islands)

Sitting on the pool deck on Saturday morning

Arrival in St. Thomas

The harbor from some crazy steep mountain road - I have a lot of these pictures at extreme angles because we were on an open bus ride over to Magens Bay where we swam for the afternoon.

Magens Bay - my favorite place of the whole trip <3

Magens Bay

Ok.... send your small children out of the room for this one. This dude walked up and down the beach the whole time we were there - obviously exhibiting himself. People were camped out at the water's edge with their cameras waiting for him to come back by so they could take his picture. I tried to be discrete and took my pictures from the towel where we were sitting, but there was a guy there who had out his professional-quality telephoto lens snapping shots of him from half a mile down the beach. In the larger picture (which you can see on my Picasa page), you can see that he has on blue eyeshadow, lipstick and long pink fingernails. WOW, was all we could say.

And JUST IN CASE you didn't think the front was bad enough.....

Can you believe this?!?!?!? I had to take pictures. A verbal description would have never done him justice.

Back to the pretty stuff.....

Our driver, Gomez, pulled off on a few stops along the way back from the beach so we could take some scenic pictures. This is a view of Magens Bay from up high on the mountain.

Josh and I at another scenic overlook

On to the Dominican Republic! This was us on our boat ride over to Cayo Levantado - a separate island that had a nice beach. We read SCARY things about Samana, the actual port. So we decided a beach excursion was our best (and safest) bet!

Roger. Good choice!

Ahhhh, postcard?

Happy to be at a beautiful beach!!

The water at Cayo Levantado wasn't as clear as Magens Bay, but it was still gorgeous. It's slight cloudiness added to it's bright color in the pictures, too.

My favorite picture from this island

Reading on the pool deck one evening

One of the perils of taking up residence on a moving vessel - you could find your husband's bath towel hanging from your toothbrush. We don't know how.

One of my favorite pictures from the trip :]

Second formal night, and the only sunset we actually saw

Josh climbed the rock wall!

Our last night at dinner.

Me, Nitin our waiter, Josh, Michael and Crystal

This was one tenth of the photos from the trip. You can see all 400 if you go to my Picasa page. There are a ton more that are so pretty from the different islands. So check them out and wish you were me :] Just kidding, of course.

And thanks to everyone who offered ideas for baby shower games!

We're Baaaaaaack :]

We're finally back home from our beautiful cruise! It was a wonderful time! We got back into port around 7am on Saturday and were back in our cozy home somewhere around 10. We spent the day unpacking and trying to relax a little bit. We had to make a trip to Eldersburg to pick up Shep and his sister Zoe (since Amberly left for vacation that morning). Once we got them settled back at our house we decided a nap was in order since we had gotten up so early in the morning. We accidentally slept an extra hour longer than we'd planned, but who cares. We decided on Chipotle for dinner and then drove out to White Marsh to warm Ben and Jenna's new home for them. We didn't get back home until about 1 am making Saturday a rather long and busy day.

Sunday Josh stayed home and caught up on some laundry and another nap. I left right after breakfast to go see my dad and take him to the store. That was around 11:30, I finally got back home at 4:15. Another long day for me. At that point Josh and I basically parked on the couch for the rest of the night and snuggled and cuddled and watched some old episodes of Chuck.

Today it's back to work for Josh and a decent sized to-do list for myself. As you can see I'm dutifully completing my to-do list by writing a blog post.... not. I'll get on it, don't worry. It's just that I knew you were all sitting here waiting for the blog post to come up so you could hear about our vacation. Sorry this post doesn't tell you a whole lot about it, I figured I'd save the details for when my pictures are uploaded so you could get the visual to go along with the story. There are of course tons and tons of pictures. I got all the ones from one camera loaded onto the computer last night, and hopefully will get the other camera loaded today. That doesn't include the time it takes to downsize the pictures so that they don't take eternity to upload into Blogger. For all the technology in the world today, I can't believe that process isn't any simpler. I seriously avoid it because it's such a chore. I'll do my best though. Our once wide-open week is starting to fill up. I have a meeting at noon today with the counseling department chair at JHU to discuss the catastrophe that is my internship. Then I am also attempting to schedule a get-together with two other friends. So again, I'll do what I can with the pictures, unfortunately there seems to be much else that is more pressing waiting around for me to do.

Hopefully you had a lovely week while I was away and you didn't miss me too much! I had a lot of fun reading up on everyone else's blogs, so I'm all caught up on what I missed in your lives :] Before I go... it just occurred to me that you may be able to help me out with one of my to-do list items. I am in charge of researching GOOD baby shower games for a very close friend's baby shower that is coming up in September. I'm not talking about collecting safety pins for saying the word "baby." I mean not cheesy, not boring, cute stuff to do at a baby shower. It doesn't even necessarily have to be a competition, but just a fun activity. So if you've been to any good baby showers or had fun activities at yours, please feel free to share. I'd love to hear some ideas!!! Thanks, friends :]

Pictures to come soon.....

<-- Do You See That?!

Yes, that counter over there! Do you see how much time is left before we depart on our cruise to paradise!?!? I am SOOO excited! Today we shopped for all of our travel-sized things we need and a few other things like new swim trunks for Josh. Tomorrow I plan to physically start to pack clothes and things that I won't be needing before departure. I'm almost finished loading all of our cds onto my computer (the ones I want anyway), so I'll be able to put that music onto the new ipod for the trip! This is going to be a busy week anyway, aside from preparing for 9 days away. You may not see back here before we leave, so here's a quick rundown of what I'll be doing:

• Monday- Errands, nail appointment, load the ipod, charge camera batteries, clear memory cards, pack what can be packed
• Tuesday- Lunch with Mary Beth, more packing/errands if needed, happy hour with Amy & Leighanne
• Wednesday- Visit my dad, drop Sheppie off at my sister's house, last minute packing
• Thursday- get up and get ready, be at the port by 12-1:00pm, depart at 4pm! Hooray!

Hopefully I'll be back on, but if not you are officially informed :] Also, I've decided that I will make a good attempt to finish New Moon before we leave (I'm just past 1/2-way through) and then wait on Eclipse until we get back. I really prefer to own it in paperback and that doesn't come out until August. Plus I have a ton of magazines that I need to catch up on literally from the entire spring and summer so far. Ones that are still in their plastic wrap! It's sad, I just didn't have time to read magazines during the school year. So that's my plan.

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of July. We'll be home on the 25th! :]