the weeks before the wedding...

I know, I know... I have so much to update on!  I'm going to start in chronological order, so be patient- it may take a couple posts to get to the actual wedding.

The beginning of June, Cori and I headed back to Virginia for a crazy wedding month.  Seriously, everything about June was weddings for us, and I don't just mean our wedding.

On June 11, we traveled to Virginia Beach for Mike and Brittany's wedding.  Mike was one of Cori's close friends at Virginia Tech, so we loved the chance to celebrate with them and get quality time with some of Cori's best friends- who are also becoming some of my good friends as well, which is fun.

Then, on June 18th, we traveled back to Virginia Beach for another wedding.  Danny was one of Cori's college roommates and also one of my teammates during my first year in New Orleans, doing relief work with Campus Crusade for Christ. 



When we weren't attending other people's weddings, we were busy working on our own.  We went to every craft store in Richmond, searching for the supplies needed for our programs.  We went to Party City to look for cake toppers and champagne glasses for our toasts.  We met with our fabulous photographer (http://www.rebekahgoldman.com/).  We listened to potential songs for our father/daughter and mother/son dance.  I looked everywhere for the perfect earrings to wear on the wedding day, and shopped for a rehearsal dinner dress and bikinis for our honeymoon. 

Our programs!  Much thanks to Caitlyn, Rachel Bishop, Katie Howe, my mom, and her friend Nancy for helping Cori and I put them together!

I was also so blessed by a surprise bachellorette party from my best girlfriends.

  

   

Next up: bridal luncheon and rehearsal dinner!  Stay tuned :)

showered.

I know, I know.  I am such a delinquet blogger.  Between wedding plans, school wrapping up, and enjoying life in New Orleans, things have been busy.  Busy, but wonderful.

As for wedding updates... I have been thoroughly showered by both Virginian friends and New Orleanians. 

I have to say, I have some of the most amazing girlfriends in the world!  My BFF and Maid of Honor is currently living in Australia and won't be back in the U.S. until she flies in for the wedding, so my Richmond girls immediately stepped up and told me they wanted to throw me a shower.  Wonderfully sweet!  I'll have to post pictures later- I'm at school and don't have access to pictures here- but let me just say, they went all out!  Beautiful invitations and decorations, delicious snacks (Ukrops cake, anyone?), hysterical games (including one where I ended with over 10 pieces of bubble gum crammed in my mouth), and the sweetest of friends who came to celebrate.  It was wonderful!

My other two bridesmaids are my roommates, Kim and Laura.  They went all out for my N.O. shower, cooking shrimp roban, which is one of my very favorite dishes, a Whole Foods cake (seriously, if I could just eat Ukrops and Whole Foods cakes the rest of my life... well, I'd weigh 800 pounds, but I'd be a happy girl!), a word scramble about Cori and I (and it's sad to say, but I lost!), a surprise appearance by my handsome fiance, a question game, and again, more fabulous, fabulous friends.

I can't tell you how blessed I feel to be celebrated by such wonderful women.  Love love love them.

Other than that, we're in details stage... hair appointments, shoe ordering, dress fittings (I go today!), rehearsal dinner invitations, working on our favors, etc.  31 days away and it can't come soon enough!  I am so very ready to have Cori be my husband!

an absence

No excuses for the long time in between updates; I was gone and now I'm back. :)

Life updates, part 1.

School.  I'm currently on spring break and loving the life of a teacher when we get week-long vacations.  It came at a much-needed time; I think every teacher and student was desperate for the time off.  In early April, our 3rd through 8th graders had state testing.  What does that mean for first graders?  Well, we were effectively banished from the school building and went on field trips every day.  The park, the zoo, the insectarium, the Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge, and the movies to see Hop.  If that sounds like an easy week to you, you clearly don't work with children.  ;)  It was a fun week and soooo nice to have a break from the typical week of planning lessons and saying things like, "Sit down," "Pay attention," "I'm up here!" and "Seriously, your pencil broke again?"  Buuuuut it was definitely thoroughly exhausting- constantly counting children to make sure no one jumped in with the lions, trying to maintain the reputation that McDonogh 32 does have decently behaved children, being in the sun, and convincing children that is only 9:30, and while yes, they brought their lunch, that no, it is not yet lunch time.

My amusing story of the week centers around a little girl we'll just call M.  M absolutely cracks me up; she's the youngest in her family and also the only girl, and she's adorable... and knows it.  Earlier in the week, she heard Cori on the phone with his mom, telling her he loved her, and she was ready to pick a fight with him, thinking he was talking to another girl.  She's got Miss Taylor's back. ;)  So here we are, Thursday morning, over halfway through our week of field trips.  I'm rushing around before school starts, making sure lunches and buses and money are all ready for the hour drive to Baton Rouge, when I see M... with a rabbit.  She insists that it is a fake rabbit... and that the poop coming out of it is 'fake poo.'  I almost believe her- because really, what child, even at age 6, brings a bunny to school?  I pick it up, and discover that it is, indeed, a live bunny.  I carry it out into the breezeway, absolutely befuddled over the fact that a student actually brought an animal to school, and wondering what the heck we do with it while the rest of the school is taking their most important tests of the year and we prepare to go on a bus trip.  M spends a few minutes denying that it's her bunny, but finally gives in, insisting that it 'accidently hopped into her lunchbox' and that she 'didn't know' until she got to school.  Please note that this lunchbox is a small tin box with a latch... so M evidently has a very talented bunny.

I know this should have been the moment for a stern lecture, but really, the situation was just too comical.  We arranged for the bunny to stay in a teacher's classroom for the day, and I called M's mom so that she wouldn't worry if she noticed that the family bunny was missing.  Mom picked up the bunny later that day, I don't believe M will be bringing any more pets to school anytime soon.

just like Spongebob

Yesterday, I went to the beach with some of my favorite New Orleans friends.  We had a great time and it was everything a beach day should be- napping, reading, playing in the ocean, and of course... getting burnt.


Ladies and gentlemen, I am red.  Painfully, awkwardly, awfully sunburt.  The kind of burnt where it hurts to walk and where you live for the moments that you slather aloe on yourself. In retrospect, 15 SPF wasn't quite strong enough.


It will be amusing to see my kids' reaction to my sunburn.  Since most of my kids have minimal interactions with white people, sunburn is a new phenomenon for them.  My favorite story was an interaction between one of my kids and a co-worker last year.  This was right after I'd run the Mardi Gras Half Marathon, so I came to school with a burnt face.


Waynetrell: Ms. Holmes, what happened to Ms. Taylor's face?
Ms. Holmes: She was out in the sun, so she got red.  It's called sunburn.
Waynetrell:  Oh.... that happened to Spongebob once!


This cracks me up beyond belief... Waynetrell's only context for sunburn was an episode of Spongebob.  That's right, Waynetrell.  I am just like Spongebob.

note to self.

For anyone that has a glass door:

Do not press hard on the wood frame of your door, even if it is just so that you can get the door to stop sticking so you can deadbolt it.  Your hand just might slip and might go through the glass.  If you are fortunate, you'll just get minor cuts, but you'll still have to pay the maintenance guy to fix it, and you'll be scared for 2 nights that someone is going to realize that they can easily cut through the bag you placed over the window, unlock the door, and rob you.  They won't, but you'll be scared that they will.

I may or may not be speaking from personal experience...

the most wonderful time of the year.

I have so much love for Mardi Gras.

Seriously, it is one of the most fun times of the year.  While it can be sketchy- mainly for the college students and tourists- for much of the city, it's a hugely family oriented holiday involving grilling out, eating King Cake, and yelling, "Throw me something, mister!" in order to get beads and other fun prizes.

Muses, one of my very favorite parades, was Thursday night.  Cori and I went together and successfully caught a shoe, the prized throw of the Muses.  Saturday, we went with a co-worker to NOMTOC (New Orleans Most Talked Of Club) on the Westbank, and while we got soaked, it was worth it- we saw our school's band.

Saturday afternoon, I made a tutu with these lovely ladies.


And Sunday night, I wore it.  A whole group of us went out to Napoleon, made our way to the front, and left with all sorts of loot.


Tonight, we'll go to Morpheus (or is it Orpheus? so many different krewes that put on parades, I get confused.), then tomorrow we'll celebrate actual Mardi Gras day with Zulu and Rex.  Here's to hoping we get a coconut!  Coconuts are the prized throw of Zulu.  I've gotten several in my years of Mardi Gras... here's a throw back with a picture from my very first Mardi Gras.

Between Ken's sign- it says, "We want a lovely bunch of coconuts"- and Danielle and I getting on the boys shoulders, we scored 11 coconuts that year.

Here's to friends, food, fun, and celebrating!  Happy Mardi Gras, everyone!

the one where everybody cried.

As a teacher- in general, but especially in public school New Orleans- I am often faced with situations where I have to choose to either laugh or cry.  Over the past 2 and a half years of teaching, I have chosen to laugh at several situations that could have easily sent me to the fetal position. 

Situation 1: first year teaching.  A child is upset with me because I made him listen to me as I read a test aloud to him (he was a non-reader).  Afterwards, this child is drawing a picture.  I hear him tell his neighbor, "This is Miss Taylor getting run over by a truck."  And if you look at it, sure enough, there I am, getting run over by a truck.  When I called him out for this particular offense, he insisted it wasn't his picture and blamed another student.  Which, of course, could be the case... if it wasn't that I didn't see him draw it, hear him describe it, and... his name was on the truck.  Laugh or cry?  I laughed, told everyone I knew, and was disappointed to find out when my roommate, who was worried about psychological damage, secretly threw it out.

Situation 2: this year, third year teaching.  (I have fewer memories of laughing during my second year... let's be honest, I mostly just cried.)  I come back to my room after car riders duty to find a student (not one of mine) scrummaging around my bookcase, clearly looking for candy.  When he sees me, he says, "Oh, Miss Taylor!  I was looking for you!"  Really?!  Really?  You were looking for me?  On my bookshelf?  Where I keep my candy and snacks for my kids?  How interesting...

Situation 3: today.  Let me set the scene.  Every Wednesday, from 1 to 2:30, I join all the Kindergarten to 3rd grade teachers, plus our master teacher for a meeting.  We learn new strategies to better teach our kids, examine reading scores, and generally try to become better educators.  During this time, my kids are in Spanish.  Let me say that our Spanish teacher is fabulous.  She has my kids singing, dancing, swatting Spanish words with fly swatters, and making shapes in the air when she gives the Spanish command.  My kids love Spanish.  Well, this afternoon, I make my way to the Spanish room, ready to pick my kids up, do a little math, then pack up and head home.  No big deal, right?  Stress free last hour of the day.  Wrong.

I walk into the Spanish room and am greeted by a class full of crying first graders.  Literally half of my class was crying, some full out sobbing.  I think the final assessment was a combination of hurting tummies, needing to go to the bathroom (although we went right before Spanish...), and $5 that had been confiscated.  Honestly, I think these kids are just ready for a vacation from school, from each other, and from sitting in desks.  Thank you, Mardi Gras break.  I can't wait for you!

But back to all the crying children.  I quickly realize that there's no way my kids are going to quietly make it back to the classroom like this, so I do some damage control.  I turn off the lights, and then run across the hall to borrow a book from one of my fave coworkers, Sara.  I explain the situation and the other adults in the room (Sara is a special ed teacher so her classroom often functions as an office) and am told that the crying noises had started about 20 minutes ago.  One of them compared the noise to a nursery.  I couldn't agree more.  So, I get my kids calmed down with a soothing reading of Edwina: The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct, take them back to class, let those who need to keep their heads on their desk do so, and teach a 15 minute math lesson to the class before we pack up.

So laugh or cry?  Well, everyone else was already crying... so I instead I chose to stifle my laughter.  Just another day in Miss Taylor's first grade classroom...