Have yourself a MERRY little Christmas!

Sending love to you and your family! Merry Christmas!

Prom

Every year Fuqua puts on a prom. It is a blast! We all get dressed up, have a preparty, take busses to the event, shake our groove thing, and have a wonderful time with our friends. This year did not disapoint. It was a masqurade theme!

Sam's Quick Shop

This is our new find! We have driven by this place hundreds of times, but have never once even thought to go inside. Fortunately a kind bartender from Alivia's told us about it. From the outside it looks like a dirty, old quick stop. BUT...looks can be deceiving, the inside is the beer mecca. It has just about every beer imaginable. Chad's new favorite is Bell's Two Hearted.

GOTR 5K

December 11th, I ran the GOTR Reindeer Romp 5k with some of the girls in my class. One of my students asked me to be her buddy runner; I was honored! It was a crisp morning, a perfect day for a run. I was one of 1, 500 people who participated. 600 of them were girls ages 8-12. I was so impressed with the determination of these young ladies. I would have never wanted to run 3.1 miles when I was 10! The girls we all smiles and pushed themselves to run the whole time. Fortunatley we finished just in time, it started to rain just as I got in my car to drive home!

Snow!

The first weekend in December, we had our first dusting of snow. It was a truly magical day! Chad and I laid on the couch with the Christmas lights on, watched Christmas movies and drank hot chocolate. It was such a perfect day. It really got me excited for the Christmas holiday.

As you can see, I was really excited for the snow, but Chad was not as interested in taking pictures...
It only snowed a few times last year, in Durham, but I loved it. I had never had a "Snow Day" in California. I was lucky enough to have three consecutive days off; it was such a wonderful surprise. The funny thing was that the snow was not that bad, maybe just a few inches. Unfortunately the town is not equipped to handle the snow, so the schools close down.
I was hoping for snow this year, and I've been a little lucky so far. Last week, I missed one day of school due to the snow. Apparently the Head of School does not like to close down the school for snow days, so I was soooo happy we lucked out! It is such a wonderful feeling to wake up in the morning and check your email to find out that school is closed for the day. I hope we have a few more. :)
Wondering what I did on my last snow day? Well, I scrubbed the shower, cleaned out ALL of my drawers and cabinets, rearranged my closet, cleaned our apartment, did laundry, went grocery shopping, did a little holiday shopping, and made some yummy enchiladas for dinner. I think I was a little too excited to have an "extra" day!

I can't wait for our next snow day!

Pat's vs Geno's

Have you ever seen that show man vs food? Although it can be pretty gross, we watched the episode on Philly cheese steaks right before we went to Philadelphia. The guy ate a cheese steak from Pat's and Geno's and picked a winner. It inspired us to try it for ourselves.

I got a cheese steak from Pat's and Chad got one from Geno's. We tried both and there was definitely a winner...

...hands down PAT'S! It was also the winner on Man vs. Food.

I definitely recommend trying both when you are there. And get it with Wizz!

Philly

Philadelphia.

The city of LOVE.

Wick and I headed to Philly (a few weekends ago) for a fun weekend getaway. We had a great time enjoying the beautiful fall weather and historic sites.
The trees were absolutely stunning! We were in awe as we walked 10 plus miles around Philly on Saturday and even more on Sunday. It was so nice to wander around with nothing planned. I am usually such a planner, but instead of planning out all the details, I decided that we'd get to the spots whenever we get there. If we were to move to Philly I would definitely live in Society Hill. It is such an adorable area to walk around. I loved this cute house, so I decided to pretend as if we lived there. Thankfully the owner did not come out as I was awkwardly walking up their steps! One of my favorite spots in Philly is Betsy Ross' house. I am in love with American Flags and her house is just adorable!
We also took the Pat's vs Geno's challenge. I'll post about that later...
I can't wait to go back one day.

P.S. We didn't check our flight before we headed to the Durham airport Friday night. Unfortunately our flight had a two hour delay, so we had a few hours to kill. We decided to head to the airport bar to have some libations. I got a little bored and started to do a photo shoot on Wick. He was really embarrassed, but I just think he's so HANDSOME!

Thanksgiving 2010

We decided to spice things up this Thanksgiving and head to Asheville, NC. We had a beautiful drive on Wednesday morning. When we got into town, we dropped off our items at the hotel and went to explore the downtown area. It reminded me of Berkeley; it's a college town and had a ton of art and craft shops.

On Thanksgiving morning, we got ready to head to the Asheville Estate (America's largest home). It was built in the late 1800's by George Washington Vanderbilt, and boy is it beautiful. We walked around the house, explored the gardens, drove around the land, Later that day we headed back to the hotel to relax in the hotel before we headed to dinner.

Although it was a wonderful trip, it didn't really feel like Thanksgiving. We decided to pack up early Friday morning and head back to Durham to make a real Thanksgiving dinner. It was the first time I cooked a turkey with out my mom's help.

As the turkey was cooking, we decorated the house and then relaxed. It was LOVELY!

The turkey turned out delicious! We were pretty proud of ourselves.

But it still didn't feel like Thanksgiving since we weren't with our families!

Arizonza

This week I was given a wonderful opportunity to go to Arizona for work! I was part of a team that went to a summit on Professional Learning Communities. I learned a lot and had a great time listening to the gurus of the fields.


Not only did I get to enjoy the summit, I was also able to get out and explore Phoenix as well.


We got in Tuesday afternoon and checked out the area around our hotel.


Wednesday night we had a blast a the Sun's game.

Thursday I met up with Cheryl and the three Willis' boys and we went to a park to play.Jaden, Me, Colton, and Brady Colton (6 months) That night, Cheryl and Ryan met up with some of my coworkers and me for dinner and drinks.
Now I'm in CA visiting my mom!

Love Day!

For Valentine's Day, we went to Minneapolis, Minnesota to visit some of my favorites:Chad had an interview for a summer internship there so we decided to make a weekend of it!
We had great time catching up and spending time with Jocelyn and John as they showed us around town; one of our potential homes for the summer. I was quite hesitant of Minnesota, but they did a nice job of selling us on the place.
While we were there, we all went to a hilarious comedy club where we watched:

I would suggest this show to anyone who plans on going to Minnesota soon...

This year, my pink gift for Valentine's Day was...Fantastic pink shampoo and conditioner from Pureology, and I have become a huge fan. I would definitely recommend it to others!

On a side note, I am going to try to be better about blogging! We will see how long this lasts!