HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLAYTON!!

Today is my wonderful hubby's 25th birthday!!! He is wonderful- does laundry, dishes, pretty much any cleaning, takes the dog out every morning, and much, much more! We are just sitting here full of mexican food and ice cream cake. But still, good birthday! (Party with our friends to come on the 22nd!) Love you Clayton! (aka "Coach Hall"!)

Friends...

No, not the TV show...:)

So, today I went shopping in Wilmy with my mother-in-law. (So glad we have a great relationship and i love her...) Anyway, while driving to and fro we had some great chats. One of many topics discussed was friends. And it reminded me of one of the things i like least about where i live, here in Eastern NC... my lack of friends. It is the one thing that keeps me from being content with where we live now. All the people i know live at least a few hours away, which is not really conducive for Saturday night wine/game night or quick shopping trips or fun dinner parties, which are all things I really want to do. It is hard to make friends in a place where hardly any young people live. (Ex: Church today- everyone there was over 40 or in high school and younger...) We do get together with friends often- Clayton's friends, all guys, and honestly, i sometimes feel left out and i feel like i know more about how guys think than i ever wanted. I just really want some good girl friends here... but making friends is hard! (especially when you there has to be people to meet first!) I will keep my eyes peeled for 20-something year olds to be my bff's... and see how that works out! ha!

Relationship Quiz :)

Who is your man? the Hubs, Clayton (Ton Ton)

How long have have you been together? 3 years officially next month (but it seems way longer since we were "friends" on his 21st, 5 years ago!)

How long did you date? We hung out for a while during my junior/senior years in college just as friends. We finally started dating officially in May 2007 after I graduated. We got engaged Oct. 24, 2008 and we got married July 25th, 2009.
Who said "I love you" first? Him

Who is taller? Clayton by about a foot!

Who sings better? probably neither... I hope our kids don't want to be American Idols!

Who is smarter? haha, book smart probably me, but I think we are both fairly smart!

Whose temper is worse? We are pretty even. I gets aggrevated a lot easier than he does, but if either of us loses our temper it is not pretty!
Who does the laundry Usually Clayton does...it is true. I hate laundry. Especially folding. But i do help a lot!

Who takes out the garbage? Clayton :)

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Clayton, it is directly under the air vent!
Who pays the bills? Clayton again! (Kinda seems like i don't do anything!)

Who is better with the computer? Me

Who mows the lawn? Clayton once again!

Who drives when you are together? Clayton! (surprised? probably not!)

Who pays when you go out? He does, but it is "our money"

Who is the most stubborn? Me probably

Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? He is is guess!

Who's parents do you see the most? His, because they live in the same town. I love them, but i miss mine too!

Who asked who out? Clayton asked me

Who proposed? He did, at the Old Well in Chapel Hill
Who wears the pants? I think we both do. We are pretty equal and compromise alot!

Dear Blog,

I am truly sorry that you have been neglected for almost 4 months. Many things have happened and they have not forever been recorded in cyberspace :(. Let's do a brief recap:

December: Our first Christmas! Lots of decorating and family fun time! Christmas Eve spent i MA and Christmas day back to W.
New Years: 2nd Annual New Year's Rager at the "Plantation". Great time, great friends! 2009, you will be missed, welcome 2010.January: We got a sweet little puppy named Mia! So cute.

I turned 25 on the 25th! Wow, 25 years old!

February: 2nd annual Dayton 500 party (still being a redneck...ha) Our first V-day married and the 3rd Ski trip to Snowshoe, WV. (Lots and lots and lots of snow...4 days straight and clayton's truck was half buried.
My poor, neglected blog turned 1.

March: pretended that basketball season was over and that UNC wasn't terrible, hung out with friends a lot.
April: Went on a spring break cruise t0 the Western Caribbean. It was so fun and beautiful! What great spring break!

And that brings us to the present. Back on the blogging train for the time being at least.

Christmas movies and chicken tacos by the twinkling Christmas tree.... all i need is a fire and a margarita! ;) Happy Holidays!!!

Dinner...fail

So, for the past gazillion or so days it has been pouring rain. So much so that they have delayed school for 2 hours twice this week not counting no school on wed. for veterans day. It was the perfect time to clean, lay around the house, and to experiment with some tasty dinner meals... I have been reading several blogs that post recipies from time to time and joining the rest of the bloggosphere in reading the Pioneer Woman, so i figured i was ready to venture out and whip up a lovely meal of my very own.

I decided to make a lovely meal of pan fried chicken with some oven-roasted/cooked in a foil pack/what-ever-you-wanna-call-them veggies (aka what was in the fridge). The chicken was, in fact, de-li-cious... the vegatables? Um, not so much. I don't know what happend...either i cooked them too long, or the combo of "stuff" i put on them is not good together, or asparagus really shouldn't be cooked with other vegatables, especially when it may or may not have been as fresh as we would have liked... who knows, but whatever it was-it was NOT good. My portion went straight to the trash. My poor husband had to go half hungry (don't worry, i fed him a snack later!)

I can't say that i have given up "experimental" cooking for good, but i may need to stick a little closer to instructions for a bit longer...my hubby will probably thank me for it!!!

It is pouring rain, just finished a great dinner of stir-fry veggies and shrimp with rice, there is no school tomorrow, and me and the hubs are about to curl up and watch a movie (the proposal), glass of duplin wine in hand. Looking forward to sleeping it a bit tomorrow while listening to the rain fall... :)

After a stressfull couple of days, (parents can be crazy... the life of a teacher...) I am excited for a mid-week break!

Basketball Season...

Well, basketball season is officially upon us... it is 7:02 and hubby is still not home from practice... It is going to be a long, lonely few months... But, there are some pros to go with the cons- at least he does get to come home each night and is not off traveling for business or overseas for months at a time...

What do you say?

Is it wrong to be a little weirded out that the lady delivering our pizza announced "Wow, this house looks soooo diferent than when my ex-fiance lived here... like so different." Um... k... thanks???

football...

Why, oh why, must my football teams stink... if i am going to be forced to watch football 5 nights a week, the least my teams could do is play a little football. I am seriously having quarterback issues. Can Carolina or the Redskins please do a little quarterback shopping during the offseason??? It would do a great deal for my spirits (and my hubby's, which would be especially nice...)

When your husband is an assistant coach for both jV and Varsity Football, you have season tickets to the UNC football games, and have married into a huge Redskins fan family, you have no choice but to learn to love football... even when it breaks your poor little heart... (UNC-Florida State, anyone???) Atleast the Varsity Crusaders have a wonderful 8-1 record and the second largerst amount of points scored per game in the state. thank you HCA for being the one redeeming football team this year...

But, as High School Football quickly draws to a close... I have only one question... Is it basketball season yet???

Yes, I am still here!

Yep, it has been awhile... a long while... but i am going to attempt to somewhat keep up with this, partially because I want to remember the little details, and partially because I want to enter some of the awesom blog parties that are out there.

For some reason, blogging is a little intimidating for me. I have no idea why. And, it seems like the longer I go without writing, the harder it is to jump back in. I guess the feeling of needing to recap everything since September has kept me from posting for awhile. But, instead of going backwards, I am going to just simply start at what prompted me to write today- the feeling of being totally lucky.

I have had a rough couple of days/weeks. Turmoil, so to speak, is flooding the halls of the school i work at as we all attempt to work together, to the best of our ablilites, and do what is best for the kids. It makes for a lot of frustration, and the desire to be professional leaves little room to vent... and I tend to take it out on my husband.

I have also felt a little "homesick". My little house is great and feels very much like home, most of the time, but the long, lonely nights of being a coach's wife (2 sports, nonetheless) coupled with the lack of girlfriends/socialization in my new town and missing my mommy (yes, i am 24 and i still miss my mommy!) have left me somewhat down and the dumps (oh, yes dark, dreary, rainy days and days on end didn't help.) My poor husband... but he is wonderful. Helps with laundry, mows the lawn by the light of the moon, does the dishes when I cook, and never complains.

But today, his school had a holiday (fair day? no fair!) so football was at 8 am and he has been home hard a work ever since. Weeding, cleaning, dishes... and steak for dinner-he's cooking! (and he's a good cook!) Did I mention I love him?

So, my jump back into the blog-o-sphere is to remind me when i forget, that i am, in fact a very lucky girl.
(yes, i did cut my hair-yay locks of love!)

To Cut, or Not To Cut...

School is under way! Full-swing begins on monday when all 19 of my little ones come at once, with a little of that first day shyness worn off! I am looking forward to starting off a great year.





Clayton and I have now been married for over 1 month. To celebrate, we had steak and potatoes with a stir-fry flair and Duplin Wine. (Complemented by candles and bride and groom wine decor.) AND....now that we are to the 1 month mark, I have really been contemplating what to do with my hair. When we got engaged i knew first thing that i wanted LONG hair at my wedding. Mostly down and curled. And that is exactly what i had. Therefore I have been growing out my hair (that was already pretty long) since November. While growing out my hair, I always had donating to locks of love in the back of my mind. I definitely would love my hair to go to help a child who has an illness.



But here lies the deliema...I am attached to my long hair. Some days all I want to do is chop it off. But i have succomb to those "right now" urges before and later regretted it, so i am trying really hard to make sure that a much shorter 'do is something i am comfortable with right now. Some people are saying "don't do it!" other say "it will grow back" so i am on the fence about when, and how short, i am going to go. Wish me luck!

Before:

Weekend Recap

This weekend FLEW by. On Friday Mom came to visit and to bring the rest of my school stuff, and after we dropped it off, we (and Clayton, since his game got cancelled) went to eat at Macaroni Grill in Wilmington. It was soooo good. I haven't eaten there in forever and I forgot how much i love thier bread. Afterward, we were going to go see "The Time Travelers Wife" but it started to late for us working folks to stay awake. Saturday we went to Topsail because Hurrican Bill (who was floating offshore) was making some pretty awesome waves for Clayton to surf. We endned up staying at his aunts beach house and eating out with his parents at Daddy Mac's (delicious!) Today was pretty boring. Drive back, laundry, cleaning, dishes, cleaning, school stuff, cleaning... luckily Degrassi was having a marathon. Yay Canadian teen drama! (Unfortunately, the hubby made me turn it to SportsCenter after 6 episodes.) Tomorrow we have one more teacher workday until the kiddos come and the school year officially begins! I can't believe summer is over!

being a "wife"

Today C came home from school/football practice (private schools started a week before us), and I was just about finished cooking dinner. It was a lovely meal of chicken stirfry and rice. Very delicious. Right after we sat down, Clayton looked at me and was like "I can't believe you cooked dinner and had it ready when i got home from work. That is so cool. I didn't think you would do that."

I didn't know whether to be flattered or offended. I am happy that he likes my cooking and didn't take it for granted. But I also kinda wonder why he thought I wouldn't cook. Could it be that for the last week all I made was pre preped frozen meals or hamburger helper? (hey, some ladies were nice enough to stock our pantry while we were on our honeymoon, I was just using what they gave us!) Maybe he just assumed boxed meals were gonna be the norm. I am happy to say that they will not be. And being appreciated is pretty nice too! :)

WES Bullpup

Tomorrow I start my first day as a Wallace Bullpup (and a Kindergarten teacher!) I am really excited to begin at this new school, but it will be different. For one thing, I don't have my "own" classroom. That's right, nope, not my own. It is a giant room broken down with diveder walls and cabnets into 3 spaces. It will be weird to be so open to other classes. Can't just shut the door to block out noise. Oh well. It will be an adjustment but i think I am up for it. Go Wallace! :)

Internet...finally!

Dear poor, neglected blog,

I am so sorry I have not written in quite some time! Getting married, spending a blissful week in the Mayan Rivera, Mexico, and moving into our new house (with no Internet/cable at first) has taken up much of my free time as of late. Not to mention the job-hunt. Laundry, cleaning, cooking, shopping, unpacking, re-arranging, organizing, and loving my new home has been fun and exhausting. I am, however, happy to report that Martha (Stewart) has come upon me and I have felt very wife-y the past couple of weeks. Tomorow mom and grandma are coming to visit, see the house, and bring me some things! And I should hear back about several job opportunities. Things are falling right into place, I love being married, and God is so good! I love my life! :)

Love,

Casey

Tired and Happy

Well, I am now home, exhausted but completely in love with my life (and my husband!)  We got married last saturday (7/25) and  had an amazing day surrounded by our family and friends.  It went off without a hitch (well, just ONE hitch ;) haha!) Then we jetted off to the Mayan Rivera, south of Cancun.  What an amazing place to spend our honeymoon!  Now, i am ready for some sleep! More pics to come (soon I hope!) 

ONE WEEK!!!

Clayton and I are getting married in ONE WEEK!  I am so excited it is finally here (even though the past few months have flown by!)  The crunch-time countdown is on! :) :) :)

MIA

Yes, I have been MIA for a long time!  But with good reason!  We spent July 2-12 at Topsail Island.  No internet, no TV, just lots of F&F^2 (friends, family, food, fun!)  It was a blast.  As soon as i got back, i jumped head first into wedding stuff i had been neglecting for 2 weeks!  If that is not enough, we had to let our 17 year old doggie Oreo go yesterday, because he was in tremendous pain and had a large, inoperable tumor in his mouth.  We have had him since I was in the 2nd grade.... I am now 24, so he has had a long, good life!  I will miss him though! :(

What day is it?

I have a  problem with being a teacher and summer break... I can never remember what day it is!  Is it Monday?   Wednesday?  Friday?  With no set routine and running around doing wedding errands I really lose track of the days!  I almost always forget about my favorite summer shows because I forget what day it is!  Ahhh... oh well.  Lazy crazy days of summer...