A Very Boughetto Thanksgiving...

For those of you who don't watch Real Housewives of Atlanta, #1-you need to get on that, its hilarious and #2 "Boughetto" is a combination of bourgeois and ghetto.    Heres the video so you can watch for yourself...

Anyway, we weren't quite as bad as Phaedra's baby shower but I call our Thanksgiving that because we still don't have a dining room table that sits more than two people so Mary Kay and I pulled in the table off of the porch, covered the setup with a sheet from the linen closet, and then set the thing with crystal candle holders and goblets.  Lol.

Todd carved the turkey and we had all the usual items.  It was a great meal!

Of course the dogs (all 5 of them) had to get their Thanksgiving dinner also!

Charley, Barkley, Nigel, Marley, and Gibbs had fun hanging out together all weekend...they did alot of this

Todd also had one of his life long dreams finally realized when he and Chad went to Wal-Mart at midnight and waited in line for this porch TV.  They installed it and watched the Redskins game out there on Sunday.  I think it was the best day of his life ;)

Of course you know we are not going to let someone come and visit us without putting them to work.  Especially Don!  After the big meal on Thursday they got to work Friday putting up crown moulding in both guest bedrooms and trimming out five windows. 

  

Before

After

We already had trim around this window but we took that down and put up some that is bigger. This post is way too long already for me to put in anymore before pictures but trust me, it looks alot better. 

It's official...

I stink at blogging!  For some reason I find the whole process of transferring pictures to the computer, uploading them, etc. etc. to be way too much to handle during the work week.  I am going to try to be better though so I guess I'll just dive in with some updates on what you've missed!

My two best friends from high school came to visit the weekend of Halloween.  Mary flew in late Friday night and Jamie drove up Friday afternoon from Salem and surprised me!  Mary didn't know she was coming either so when I went to pick her up at the airport Jamie hid in the way back of the Jeep and popped up and scared her while we were driving down the highway.  It was fun :)  We walked around dt Charleston Saturday and went out to dinner with some friends Sat night.

I wish everyone would just move here and live down the street so we could hang out all the time :)

Happy Anniversary!

Wow!  I can't believe it has been a whole year since the wedding already.  Time definitely flies and we have done alot in the past year.  We kept it low key for this anniversary (since we pretty much just went on our honeymoon and it was a Monday night and all).  Todd got me some gorgeous hydrangeas, he actually remembered that we had those at the wedding!  I was really impressed :)  We went out to dinner at Basil which is one of our favorite restaurants.  Before we left we tried to get a picture but it didn't turn out so hot.  For some reason I look surprised (or scared?) but we were balancing it on the couch and trying to get it to take before it fell over and then the battery died so its the best we could do this year!

Attempt #1...I said, why do I look so surprised? Let's do it again.

Attempt #2...with the exact same weird expression.  Terrible.

After dinner we came home and ate our cupcakes we had frozen from the wedding and had some champagne.  They were still really good actually!

It was a great year!!

Porch party

We are deep in the throes of a porch makeover this weekend. Hopefully I will have some pics to post soon...if we ever get it finished!

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Flash Mob

Last night we went downtown to see the first chucktown flash mob. It was pretty mediocre, but hopefully the next one will be better!

Flash mob vid

I'm not sure how to insert it in here so you have to click on the link. A friend of mine is a member of the chucktown flash mob Facebook group so that's how we found out about it. Of course with my stellar geographic skills we realized we were in front of the wrong building at 6:59 and it was supposed to go off at 7. So we then had to run through the streets of downtown charleston like maniacs but we made it just in time!

Sidenote: by we I am referring to a couple of girlfriends, not Todd and myself. I'm pretty sure I couldn't have had him racing down market street so he wouldn't miss the flashmob.
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Labor Day

We had a great Labor Day weekend!  We flew up to DC to see Todd's dad and brother.  We got in late Friday night and had dinner with everyone.  Then on Saturday morning I got really brave and drove Todd's dads car to Baltimore to see my friend Sarah who just had a baby on the 18th of August. I was definitely nervous to drive up there but I got lucky and didn't hit any traffic coming or going!  I will have to post pics later because I had to use my phone since I forgot my camera :(  Chanel and Jamie drove up that afternoon too so it was great to be able to see the girls for a little bit.  Baby Helen is the cutest thing!!

On Sat. night when I got back we went to a Nationals game.  

Sorry if this pic looks weird, I was playing around with Picnik (googles photoshopping software).  It is pretty neat, but their "free" site takes forever to use so after a few pics I gave up.  It is only 25$ for the year though to get the premium version.  

Anyway, the new Nats stadium is pretty neat.  It has all these different restaurants and open seating areas.  Also after the game there was a free Lifehouse concert so we stayed for that.  They haven't really done much for the past 10 years but we did get to hear "Hangin' By A Moment" ha.

I don't know what is wrong with my camera but it has been taking really terrible pictures lately.  I think it might be time for a new one!

Then on Sunday we took a ride on the boat.  In typical Potter style, we didn't get going until around 3:00 but we ended up staying out on the boat until the wee hours.  

Chad and Ash hanging out on the dock while we were experiencing some technical difficulties.

Jonae had to take the dogs for a swim!

Brianna and "Dubs"

It was a great day!  

We didn't fly out until late Monday night so we took a little trip to the Woodbridge Wal-Mart to get some Redskins gear.  

We (mainly me) got some great stuff on the cheap.  Unfortunately it was the day before school started there so the Wal-Mart was INSANE.  We had to cruise the parking lot forever just to get a spot.  Then, once we got inside you had to look both ways before crossing the aisles.  At least we're ready for football season now...Go Skins!  (fingers crossed)

Summer Lovin'

had me a blast.  Unfortunately thats over, and now I'm in school mode.  School mode consists of going to bed between 9:30 and 10, getting up at 5:15 and generally being too tired to do anything else.  It also means that there may be a tiny little bit of teacher talk showing up on this blog, so if that is completely uninteresting to you, don't bother reading this post.  This is what my classroom looked like when I walked in on Aug 10th.

What a MESS!  As you can see, I have a huge classroom which is kind of a blessing and a curse.  These pictures were taken as I'm standing on a ladder trying to figure out what to do with my fabric panels (which line one wall) that they had come in over the summer and painted baby poo brown.  It was awful. There was no way I could look at that mess all year, so my assistant and I spent 3 days covering the panels with fabric and then hanging them all back up.  After two weeks of work it now looks like this...

This was as close to the same view as I could get without standing on a ladder.

This is the view if you stand in the back of my classroom and look in.

Reading/writing center.  Someone donated this great pop up tent.  I think its supposed to be one of those ball things but I am using it for a reading nook.

Woodworking center.

toys and games area

Kitchen...everyone's favorite center of course and yes, I painted that house on the wall myself.  I never claimed to be an artist so please don't judge me.

My fabric wall panels and my birthday board.  Our school has a bee theme so I made a beehive for each month and put a little black bee next to their name and birthday.

My new place to hang student work (inspired by Pinterest!) I hotglued clothespins to my new fabric panels and hotglued some ribbon and bee foam stickers I got at Michael's onto the top.  Michael's gives 15% off to teachers all the time which is awesome.  As for the fabric panels and clothespins, I am pretty much an expert at ghetto sewing.  Ghetto sewing = the use of hotglue, staples, velcro etc. in lieu of needles and thread.  All of my curtains in my room I made this way too.  I'm thinking of trying it out on the house sometime ;)    

A place for everything and everything in its place.  That should last for about 5 minutes!  Today was the first day with all of the kids at the same time and so far it seems like they are a pretty good group.  It is crazy starting from scratch...you forget how little they are in the beginning.  Today we worked on sitting on our bottoms.  And that's pretty much it.  For an entire day.  And we'll probably be working on it all day tomorrow too.  

This is my new behavior chart (also inspired by Pinterest!)  They are going to be "building rainbows" so everytime they do something good (i.e. sit down for 16 seconds) they get to add the next color.  When they get all the colors they can choose something out of the treasure box.  There are also gray clouds with sad faces on them to be used if necessary.  Cloudy day for you=no treasure box.  We'll see if it works!

Family Time

When we got back from our honeymoon, my sister and her family were here with my mom.  Even though we only got to hang out with them for a few days we got to do some fun stuff and it was great to see them!  I took a few pictures...

Rockstar Baby

Love it!

Good Vibes

We are back from St. Lucia!  It was a fantastic trip.  We did alot of relaxing by the pool and we ate at some great restaurants.  We took a few excursions while we were there...we went on a boat ride that took us snorkeling, then to see the famous mountains in St. Lucia (the Pitons), then up a volcano to a hot spring, and back down to a waterfall.  We also took a taxi into the capital city (Castries) one day to do a little shopping in the market.  One night we had a candlelight dinner on the beach...I felt just like a contestant on the Bachelor. Complete with the rose.

Todd on the beautiful beach behind the resort.

Us at the top of the resort.

Yummm.  If you haven't discovered coconut water yet, I highly recommend it.  They just whacked off the top of these coconuts and stuck straws in them. A.Ma.Zing.  I'm thinking I might see if Todd can lop of the tops of some coconuts for me...it has to be cheaper.

Our candlelight dinner.  I felt just like Ashley.  Which would make Todd JP.  Ooh-la-la. ;)

The Pitons.  Our guide told us that the one on the right is actually taller, it is just a trick of the eye.  He also told us that these are "St. Lucia's boobs".  Later in the tour he proceeded to show us her "buttcrack" and her "_______" as well.  No, I'm not making that up. 

Apparently the Pitons are on Oprah's list of things to see before you die, so we can check that one off of the list.  

Mudbath!  This was so much fun.  After caking on the mud you climbed in the natural hot spring to rinse it off.

And it was HOT.  115-120 degrees.  Definitely stung at first but it ended up feeling really good because it was raining a little and kind of chilly.

Out at dinner.  

In Castries checking out the market.  We had a really nice cabdriver who ended up taking us on an impromptu backroads tour because he had lost his cell phone and was driving around to his friends houses looking for it.  It was a little scary, but interesting to see where the people live.  St. Lucia is an extremely poor country.  Our tour guide told us that there are 7 women to every 1 man.  Apparently it is something to do with the potassium in the banana that causes more girls to be born than boys.  Todd has now sworn off bananas for the rest of his life. Ha.

These were the cliffs that surrounded the whole resort.  That blue house that you see is not part of the resort, we were told it belongs to the St. Lucian equivalent of Judge Judy.

And the pièce de résistance...this is the picture that we paid Sandals $16 for.  Yes, I said $16.  What. A. Ripoff.  I mean, its a decent picture, but for $16 I would expect them to get on some photoshopping techniques that leave me looking like a cross between Jennifer Aniston and Marisa Miller.  Oh well.

It was a great trip.  I would highly recommend St. Lucia and Sandals.  Loved it!