Halloween Weekend F-U-N!

When Halloween falls on Sunday the celebration and fun starts on Friday! Here is a recap of our Fun Halloween Weekend!

*FRIDAY*
-Woke up and picked out a halloweenish outfit to wear to school. It was a great excuse to wear the yellow skirt I found at goodwill while on our road trip!

-Went to school and was bombarded by so many tasty Halloween goodies and treats from my work pals. My favorite was the "pumpkin poop" from one of our Special Education teachers...too cute!
-Went to Fall Festival at school and had a great time seeing all the kids dressed up! (unfortunately, I forgot my camera so there aren't any pictures of the cute costumes)

*SATURDAY*
-After a workout and thrifting date with Erin I endured the grocery store madness to pick up a spaghetti squash. I've been craving spaghetti squash and figured this would be the perfect weekend to make it.

-Baked some tasty spaghetti squash seeds that tasted a bit like almond roca. I altered the recipe from a few other recipes out there so here it is if you want to try it:

(Oh, by the way, I rarely measure things out so you'll just have to do your best)

A little bit of brown sugar

A tiny bit of olive oil

Some nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon

Mix it together in a bowl then add your clean seeds. Spread out on a pan with tinfoil and bake at 300 for 45 minutes. Enjoy!

-Bought some new fall colored beads and made these earrings (I can't wait to wear them this week!)

*SUNDAY*

-Enjoyed a LAZY Sunday.

-Had TWO trick-or-treaters and one lovely friend who dropped off some ghost cookies for us.

I hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween weekend!

Marvelous Monday....

I'm so lucky that my Mondays are pretty relaxed and easy at work. It makes for a great way to start off the week. Today was marvelous because of....

**A great post-observation conference with my principal (it's always nice to hear that you're appreciated)

**lunch with my hubby (yes, we work in the same school but things are usually too busy for us to get together during lunch).

** A nice little chat with my little exchange student friend.

** A great workout

** Breakfast for dinner! (silver-dollar pancakes, sausages and the best omelet ever made).

** Watching Dexter with the family.

** Thinking that our next holiday wasn't until Thanksgiving break but finding out today that we have Veteran's day, a teacher work day and conferences coming up in November. (I love my job but holidays and days without the kids are always a nice little treat.)
I hope your Monday was marvelous too....

Catching up....lots of rambling and no pictures ;-)

What a week it's been....I've started coaching the middle school girls basketball team so we've been busy with practice every night after school. Each year I forget how little they know and how much work we need to do to be ready for a game. Here are some of my favorites from the girls...
" are we ALL playing in the game?" (after explaining that i'd do my best to give everyone playing time I realized that she meant "are we all playing AT THE SAME TIME?" ...No, all 17 of us will NOT be on the court at the same time!!!)
"check in???? what does that mean?"
"Take the ball out? I don't think I know how to do that..."
me: who are you guarding??!!!!
player: guarding?? what's that?

Yeah, it was an interesting first game...my girls lost but a few of them played really well and ended up suprising me. I know they'll all make improvements during the season and I"ll be so impressed by the last game ;-)

Friday was a busy day at work. We had a dance assembly that I coordinated. A dance group called and asked if they could perform for us and I said yes. It was cute but our sound system was horrible and the dancers only knew a few moves which were repeated over and over through 5 songs. The day was followed by an earthquake drill and fire drill. Lucky for me I snuck in a little nap after school then went swimming with a couple of wonderful girlfriends who always manage to make me laugh.

I can't complain too much because since Terry has been here I've come home to a home cooked meal each night. Having dinner ready for you when you walk through the door is just about the best thing ever. We've introduced him to a few recipe websites and he is in heaven! Last night was corn chowder, french bread and apple sauce cake....yum.

Today will be spent proctoring the ACTs, hanging out with a couple former students, watching my exchange student at her dance performance and catching up on some work for a class I'm taking. Tomorrow will be all about ME...having a nice long workout....finishing some jewelry projects....dinner with a friend from Ketchikan and indulging in my book.

Hope you all have a great weekend too!

Marvelous Monday....

I didn't think it was going to be Marvelous today. I was slightly worried that I'd have to skip my "Marvelous Monday" post this week. I spent the day trying to pay attention to EVERYTHING in hopes of finding SOMETHING worth writing about. Today was just one of those gloomy days in Juneau PLUS I didn't sleep well last night PLUS it's Alaska Day and in my mind I should get the day off too!!!

I love it when things arrive in the mail on just the right day! Today, in my school mailbox I had a Thank You note from my sweet friend Molly. Then, when I got home from work there was a letter from my long-time friend, Charisa. She had written the sweetest card that was PERFECT and just what I needed to hear today. She also sent me a beautiful pair of earrings from Morocco.

So, despite the icky rain and my "bad-attude" (as Adam would call it) I had a really Marvelous Monday.

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Art makes me HaPpY

On Friday we took our little Noah friend to school with us since his mom had a meeting. He decided to make some artwork in my room until school started and this is what he created. He's such a spongebob fan and I thought this was just too cute! Of course, I had to use my creative outlet and take pictures of his artwork.

Here is Original Spongebob...

Vintage Spongebob.... Fat Spongebob....
And Infrared Spongebob....

So stinking cute!

I'll leave you with a painting done by my dad who used one of my photos as his inspiration. Love it!

Marvelous Monday

I know I'm a day late in posting this but it was all part of making my Monday marvelous. This one will be short and sweet...My Monday was marvelous because I had time last night to work out, read a book and watch a movie....ah, the simple things! What was Marvelous about your Monday??

What were you doing on 10-10-10??

I spent the night at the shrine and woke up to this beautiful view. I chaperoned an overnight with 7 high school exchange students at the Shrine. I forgot how funny things can be when you throw a bunch of high school girls together. High schoolers are hilarious but when English is their second language and they are still learning about our customs and food then things are REALLY fun! It was great hearing about their countries and traditions. I loved seeing all the little trinkets, magazines, clothes and maps that they brought from home. There were girls from Sweden, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia and Turkey so spending time with people from all those countries was amazing.

(This is a shoe from Indonesia...they feel just like Crocs!)

It was another busy weekend but it was worth it. I'm hoping that next weekend I can have some down time to hang out with my friends, go to the thrift store and finish my book...ahhhhh....

Welcome, October!!!

Hello lovely October! It's good to see you! The weather you've brought with you is weird and wacky.

Earlier in the week you brought a wind storm. It caused two power outages at school and the kids went nuts! Of course it was right at the beginning of lunch so it was a little chaotic trying to get the kids through the lunch line. My job was to shine the flashlight on the pizza so they could tell if it was pepperoni or cheese (good thing I have my masters degree, right?). Your strong wind also caused my mom to be late to work because she couldn't get off the boat in the morning (and you thought you'd heard every excuse in the book).
You've also brought some beautiful sunshine for us to enjoy. I took a walk with my Stephie friend to soak in all your lovely warm rays.
Since you've been here we've enjoyed lots of dinner dates with friends and recieved our PFDs (that's Permanent Fund Dividends for those non-Alaskans). We've been happily hiding in our house reading and catching up on all of the shows we love.
I'm excited for all the things you have in store for us over the next few weeks. I can't wait till you bring the little princesses, monsters and goblins out to play!

Marvelous Monday

It's hard to believe it's already time for another Marvelous Monday post! The days are flying by way too quickly! I feel like I say that every time I make a post but it's so true! Soon we will be tromping through the snow, passing out candy to trick-or-treaters and drinking hot cocoa to warm up after chilly walks. I love this time of year!
Today was another marvelous Monday because.....
The sun came out to play with us!
The snow is creeping down the mountains.
I was fairly productive at work today and have fewer piles on my desk!
I had some "me" time at the gym this evening.
I came home to a wonderful dinner of clam linguinni (love having the father-in-law live with us!)
And finally....the best part of my Monday was finding some yummy pumpkin cookies in my box from my Stephie friend. Sooo yummy!
Hope your Monday was marvelous too!

A little quiet time

Sometimes we just need to stop and appreciate the people (and animals!!) we have in our life. Our little family has just been hanging out and loving on each other.

What more could you ask for on a cold wet night???

Lovin' our real estate agent...

It's been almost 3 weeks since Adam's dad came to Juneau to live with us and we are loving the extra company. It's such a treat to come home to dinner on the table and a clean kitchen!

We've hired our friend, Gwen at Coldwell Banker , to act as our real estate agent and she has done a great job of marketing our condo. It's been fun hanging out with her and looking at all of the houses on the market. We've fallen in love with one duplex in the "valley". It's an older home that needs a few updates (perfect for the hubby of mine!), has a big fenced in yard (perfect for my pup!!) and the master bedroom is a loft (perfect for ME!! I've always loved lofts). We've put in an offer and they have accepted it. It's contingent on the sale of our condo so we're keeping our fingers crossed that someone out there will want a lovely little condo =-)

It's starting to feel like fall again and as wonderful as the summer was I'm ready to start hybernating, curling up to good books, baking peanutbutter cookies and bundling up in my hats and scarves.

Enjoy the video of our condo that Gwen made ;-)