My dad's birthday weekend--almost three weeks late

Two weekends ago (the 10th-12th), Amelia and I made a quick trip to Florida for my dad's birthday and to go to fish fry that my parents were hosting. I did much better with taking photos this time around. In fact, between me, my cousin Tina, and my Aunt Azalea...well, we were almost as bad as the paparazzi.

Amelia and I got there Friday evening--we left straight from school--and we were both pretty tired. Saturday was a full day, though. Here are some pics:

Here's my mom, cooking up a storm and ready to host.


Here's my dad, also hard at work with food preparation:

Here's my Uncle Joe, wearing an ugly shirt in front of a hideous jeep. :-)

Ah...that's more like it. At least someone in this family has good taste.
Here's my dad and his brothers and sister:

We all had a wonderful time visiting, and the food was great, too! After everyone left, we had some fun outside with some kind of bubble toy that my parents had gotten Amelia. She loved it.


I think Nana enjoyed it, too.

The next morning, we enjoyed some pancakes and sausage and hit the road, but not before I snapped this photo of Amelia and the birthday boy:
His cap was his "less serious" gift. It reads, "RETIRED: Someone tell my wife." Ever since he retired a couple of years ago, he has had a lot of items on his "honey do" list...but I think he fits in plenty of fun, too.

It was a quick trip and I was exhausted when I returned, but it was worth it. We had a great time!

(I started this post almost a week ago, but I had some photo issues with Blogger when I first tried to put this up. Boo.)

Holy Cow

I really don't remember a beginning of the school year quite like this one. My classes have been fine...but once again, I am teaching three preps (meaning I teach three different courses: AP, Honors, and "Regular"). I did this last year, and I was fine with doing it again because I like a little variety in my day. However, I am finding this year to be a little more difficult for some reason, and I have vowed that I can't do the three-prep thing again after this year.

We also had some unbalanced class loads at the beginning of the year--meaning one teacher might have 90 students and another one 135 or more--so many students (and some teachers) had their schedules redone to make things more even. The third week of school, I obtained 30 more students. Score! (When you are an English teacher, you automatically do the math in terms of how many essays you have to grade.)

So anyway, enough of that stuff. This past weekend I didn't work at all, and I've enjoyed the down time with Darryl and Amelia. I truly feel as though I've had a break, and that's a great feeling. As I was uploading some photos the other night, I noticed a few I should share. These few pics are from Amelia's friend Bella's birthday party, which was the last weekend of summer vacation. Amelia's face is kind of weird in the first one, but I think the pic is cute:


I apologize to whoever's rear end is in that last shot. I'm not sure whose it is, but at least it is a small rear end.

The first weekend in August, I went with my friends Tim and Max (and Anna, who is technically their friend, but maybe she'll consider me at least a pageant-attending friend) to see Miss Cobb County. We go every year, and it never disappoints.
My parents came the second weekend in August, and I'm kicking myself because I was not great at taking photos that weekend. I'm going to see them this weekend, though, for a family event, and I will definitely make sure to get lots of good pics.

Here's another fun pic of Amelia, just for kicks:
Speaking of Amelia, she has had some weird nights lately. The other night I was grading at Starbucks, and Darryl put Amelia to bed. Around 9:30 he heard something in her room, and when he walked in there, she had changed her own diaper (!) and had put on her clothes to wear the next day. She did the same thing last night, too, but opted to go bare-bottomed instead of putting on a different diaper. What is up with that?