Asian Art Museum

Lance and I had such a great day today! We decided to hop on BART and head out to San Francisco to go to the Asian Art Museum. Neither of us had been there before, so it was a real treat! As soon as we got there, we found a docent waiting to take a couple of guys on a tour, so we decided to join them. He guided us through the Yoshitoshi and Manga exibits on the first floor. Apparently, this was the first time that they had been shown outside of Japan, so it was really special. After the tour, we headed into the museum's cafe, Cafe Asia, for some lunch. We were surprised at what we found on the menu! We expected regular cafeteria style food, and instead, Lance ordered chicken tiki masala and I had the pork roast. It was delicious! After lunch, we headed up to the 2nd and 3rd floors to check out the rest of the art. The museum ended up being much bigger than either of us expected it to be, so we started getting a little overwhelmed after a while. We decided that we would come back and check out the rest of the art that we skipped over on another day. It was a really fantastic day! I hope you all get to check out this museum sometime.

Here are a few pictures of our trip. They allow pictures to be taken on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the museum, although you're not allowed to use flash. I have a new camera and have not learned how to turn the flash off yet, so I didn't get any interior pictures (aside from our lunch). Maybe by our next visit I'll have that figured out.

Asian Art Museum

San Francisco

Lance's Chicken Tiki Masala

My Japanese Pork Roast

Goofing around on BART on our way home

Silly, silly man!

My Cousins

Last Thursday night, my cousins Linnea and Shirrell drove up from southern California to spend a few days with us. We had so much fun! We went shopping, went to a movie and played Mexican Train at my parent's house until the late hours. They left yesterday morning. I was so sad! I wish we lived closer. I'm trying to plan a trip down to see them sometime in the next couple of months. I hope I get to see them again soon!

Linnea, Me, Shirrell

Back Home

Lance and I had a wonderful trip to Santa Barbara and Solvang! We arrived home last night after spending two nights in Santa Barbara and one night in Solvang. Everything was great...great food, great weather, great people. We ended up doing a lot for only spending two full days away. We hit two breweries, the Santa Barbara Zoo, the beach, two Missions and a museum. And that doesn't count all the eating we did! We ate Hungarian Goulash, Schnitzel, Swedish Meatballs and Crepes...just to name a few! It was fantastic!

I've posted some pictures of our trip. The first three are from the Garlic Festival last weekend. Bre, Jon and Lance all tried the fried Rattlesnake and Alligator. They said it was really good, but I didn't try it.

Enjoy the pictures!

Bre and Jon enjoying some Alligator and Rattlesnake

Lance enjoying his Rattlesnake

At the Garlic Festival in Gilroy

The Firestone Brewery in Paso Robles

Lance VERY much enjoying his beer

I'm VERY much enjoying my water

The Brewhouse in Santa Barbara - Lance ordered a Habenero beer...yikes! Spicy!



The Santa Barbara Zoo was located on the street right behind our hotel



The giraffe with the very crooked neck. Don't worry...she's not in pain! In fact, she's perfectly healthy and actually gave birth recently. What a trooper!

Lance's Schnitzel...yum!



My Hungarian Goulash....sooooooo yummy!


Old Mission Santa Barbara


East Beach in Santa Barbara
I stayed on the beach....


...while Lance had fun playing in the water


The Hans Christian Anderson Museum in Solvang. We picked up some great books here for our little one.


Old Mission Santa Ynez (or Santa Ines)

Downtown Solvang

Yummy, creamy ice cream. It was soooo good!

Simpsonized!

A Fun Little Getaway

So, this week marks my last week at the preschool. I'm pretty sad about it still, but I know I'm making the right decision. Everyone there has been so supportive about me leaving and I have received many really nice compliments from the parents. I told my director that they could use me as a sub in the afternoons if they were ever short staffed. I really hope to keep in touch with everyone.

Lance and I have decided to take a little road trip this coming Sunday through Wednesday. We're both really excited about getting out of town. We'll be heading down to Santa Barbara for two nights and then we will make our way to Solvang for a night. Our plan is to hit the beach, a couple of missions and a couple of breweries along the way. My sister and Jon will be house and dog sitting for us while we're away. I'll be sure to post some pictures of our trip when we get back!

Lance took a really amazing week long class last week. His motivation for taking the class was for professional growth units to bump him up on the pay scale at work, but it ended up being one of the most interesting classes he has taken. It was a class on personalities. It ended up being fantastic because we were able to use what he learned to gain some insight into ourselves and each other and why we are the way we are. Fascinating stuff!

Other than that, there's not much going on right now. We're now just busy getting ready for our fun getaway. We'll be heading down to the garlic festival on Saturday with my sister and Jon for some really yummy grub. I'm sure the car will be quite stinky on the way home!

A Sad Ending To A Great Job

Most of you know that in March of this year, I decided that I would not be coming back to my job in special education in the fall, as I was taking a full-time position at the preschool starting this summer. Unfortunately, for mainly financial purposes, this isn't going to work out for us. Today, I handed in my resignation letter to my preschool director giving her 3 weeks notice. My last day there will be on July 27. I will be returning to special education in the fall to begin my 8th year with my district.

The decision to quit the preschool was a hard one, but one that I know I needed to make. When crunching the numbers, it became apparent that the district was a better fit for me. I will be making $27.00 more per day at the district working 6.5 hours a day than if I worked 8 hours per day at the preschool. So, not only will I be making more money at the district, I will also be off work around 2:45pm and will get off 3 hours earlier than the preschool, which means more time that I'll be able to spend at home with Lance and our little one (once she gets here). Also, it is much easier to get time off from the district compared to the preschool. My preschool director has been fantastic at working with me to get me some time off that I needed, but they have a much harder time covering people's shifts because they don't have a sub pool to pull people from and they have to worry about ratios. With a little one coming hopefully soon, having a somewhat flexible schedule is also a definite plus for us right now.

I talked to my special education director a week or so ago because I wanted to find out what my chances were of transferring out of the classroom I was working in last year. For many, many reasons, it ended up being the hardest and most stressful year for me. I ended up getting exactly what I wanted for next year....to work in our other Transition class (18-22 year olds...we have two classes for that age group) with a newer teacher and an assistant that I've been working with since day one. I am really excited to be working with them next year and I already have a great feeling that it is going to be a much better school year than the last one.

I have really enjoyed working at the preschool for the last 9 months and will really miss my director and the staff. In some ways, I do feel that I'm better suited for special education, but I have really enjoyed learning and experiencing something new over the last 9 months. I do feel that a weight has been lifted and I have no doubts about my decision. I know it was the right choice.

An Eventful Weekend

So, I've been wanting to do something different with my hair for a long time now. I cut a couple of inches off a couple of weeks ago but that didn't entirely satisfy me. So, I decided to color it. Actually, I had my mom do it. I've colored it lots of different shades of browns and blondes before and this was definitely the darkest I've dyed it. It was a little shocking at first, but I actually really like it and I'm having fun with it! It may be just a tad bit dark for my complexion, but it's fun. I think my mom was worried when we first put the color on because it was soooooo dark. I think I'll keep my slightly new look for a while...

Sunday night at our house ended up being pretty interesting. About 8:30pm, Lance was on the couch watching something on TV and I was in and out of the bedroom collecting laundry to finish when I happened to walk by our front window. This first picture is what I saw...a huge hole in the hedge! I was a bit confused at first because normally, you wouldn't be able to see Lance's car parked on the street and when I looked out, the side of his car is clearly visible. If you look straight ahead, you can see what I'm talking about. The second picture shows a closer view. Lance and I went outside to try and find out what happened when our neighbor from across the street came by. It turns out that a couple of people from around the corner got into a fight and began to run down the street when one of them pushed the other one through our hedge. It turns out that Lance and I missed this fight by just a few minutes. This has definitely been the strangest thing that has happened to us since we moved to this house (aside from our patio umbrella suddenly missing from outside...funny thing with that is that the base is still here). The police ended up coming by and we told them what we knew, although Lance and I didn't know much. We did find a wrench and a screwdriver at the base of the hedge where it fell down, so we gave that to the policeman. We're not sure if it belonged to either of the men but we know for sure that it wasn't our tools. It was an interesting way to end our Sunday!

On Saturday afternoon, Lance and I headed to his sister's house to visit with her, her husband and our two nephews. It was so great to see them and catch up! I can't believe how big the boys are getting. It had been way too long since we had seen them. It was a nice visit and I hope that we can get together again very soon.

Lance and I also caught a movie this weekend. We went and saw "Live Free or Die Hard." We ended up liking it quite a bit. It was exactly what I thought it would be and was definitely entertaining. We went today to see "Transformers." I'm not quite sure what to say about the movie other than it was...ok. I didn't hate it, but I was pretty far from liking it. I have fond memories of playing with Transformers when I was little, but I wasn't crazy with the film. Lance liked it more than I did, but even he won't say that it was a good movie.

I hope you all had a great weekend and a happy and safe 4th of July!