Another Crazy Weekend

Last week, around Tuesday Andy convinced me to take a sick day on Friday. Actually, I had been talking about it because it's almost the end of the year and I still have 9 days or so left that will just disappear, so I've been giving myself several 3-day weekends lately. So, Andy helped solidify it this week by suggesting that we go to Atlanta and spend Thursday night with my sisters, and then go to Six Flags with them and their hubbies on Friday. I was so excited about it. A day off at Six Flags was exactly what I needed. So, we headed that way Thursday and went to dinner with Steph and Jose and Erin (Lee was out of town). As we were getting ready for bed we were talking about morning plans and picking Lee up from the airport, and Erin was telling us that we needed to just pick him up on the way, so we got up bright and early and I showered while Andy packed up our overnight bag and we headed out. As we pulled into the airport to get Lee, I noticed that he wasn't out there yet, and there are all these signs that say things like, "No Stopping," and "Active Loading and Unloading Only," so I said something to the effect of, "I guess we should get out and pretend like we're actively unloading," which Andy and Erin were more than happy to do. So, we jumped out and Erin popped the trunk, and Andy started digging around in there, and I thought, "Boy, they're taking this fake unloading thing seriously." Then, I happened to look down and notice a strange suitcase, and said, "Whose suitcase is that?" I got nothing but a sly smile from Erin and Andy, and was then handed boarding passes for a flight to.............NEW YORK CITY! It was a total surprise (I'm pretty oblivious and naive and gullible, which comes in handy at times like these), and we immediately flew to Laguardia Airport (which is pitiful compared to Hartsfield-Jackson, I must say), and by 11:00 a.m. we were in New York City hailing a cab. It was absolutely amazing. We stayed right in the middle of Times Square on the corner of 47th and Broadway. The hotel was equally amazing. It's called The W, or just W. Here's a picture of it in the day and at night. You can see the big W waaaaay up at the top. On the far right of the next picture, you can see the W. This is how in-the-middle-of-everything we were. When you first walked in, the entrance was surrounded with glass walls filled with water, so there was water above us and all around us. We had to take the elevator to the 7th floor to check in, and the lobby was gorgeous. Even the elevators were cool. Our room was on the 49th floor and was so pretty and modern, and we had an amazing view of the city. The first day, I felt like I was walking around in a surreal fog. We walked up and down Broadway and 5th Avenue and took a million pictures, and we found this tiny little pizza place that had the most amazing pizza. We ended up going back for more later. The next morning we got up and went to see the Statue of Liberty, which was also sort of surreal. I have to admit, though, the immense amount of foreign people became overwhelming by the time we got off the last ferry back in NYC. They have a poor sense of personal space. Anyways, after that we walked over to Ground Zero, which is no longer a monument or a tourist attraction, but a huge construction zone, so we weren't that impressed. But, after that we headed to China Town and saw a gazillion knock-off hand bags and sunglasses. Three blocks from there was Little Italy, which we just loved. We ate outside at a little restaurant there and people-watched for a while. Then we headed down the street and tried on some more sunglasses and bought some gelato. I don't know if it was authentic gelato, or just really good ice cream, but it was delicious. After that we headed to Soho and shopped quite a bit, but bought very little. Then, that night, Andy got us tickets to see Wicked on Broadway. It was so good - definitely the highlight of the trip. It was such a good play - very funny. I read about half the book before life got in the way, and the book wasn't near as funny. After that we went to dinner at 11:something and were seated around midnight. We ate dinner, walked around and took a million more pictures, and then headed to bed. We got up the next morning, grabbed a cab, and headed back to the airport where we were so anxious to see the kids. It was a whirlwind of a trip, but SO neat and fun. Most of the pictures are of me because Andy wanted the trip to be all about me. He was so interested in doing everything I wanted to do and made it such a great weekend. He is precious and amazing and I just love him so much!

Day at the Zoo

Today, IBM was having a family event at the zoo in Atlanta (for those of you who may wonder why that's relevant to us, my dad works for IBM). The kids had never been to the zoo before, so we were all really excited about it. Unfortunately, Andy is on call today, which means that if something happens he has to be able to drop everything and leave, so he couldn't go with us, which was quite disappointing (in fact, it's almost 11:00 p.m. and he's at work right now), but that's life sometimes. We still had such a great time. Of course, mom and dad were there, and Steph and Jose and Erin and Lee all came, too.

At the very beginning they had a big, stinky bunch of flamingos, which were pretty neat.

Of course, we saw lots of very cool animals:Drew in front of an orangutan, Dad and Evan in front of a gorilla, Alli in front of a meercat, Me and Drew in front of a zebra, Evan in front of a rhinocerous, and lots more. IBM also had all the free snow cones and popcorn we could eat, which was nice. After we saw all the animals, we went and rode the train. Here's me, Alli, and Evan sitting on the train:And here is a really awesome picture that Jose took with my camera after the train ride. Dad, Evan, and Drew are watching the train go by, and Jose knows way more about my camera than I do, so he did something with the shutter and made it look like the world's fastest train was going by. Pretty cool.After the train the kids rode the carousel with Erin and Dad.Apparently, Drew was getting a little motion sick. The rest of us are a bunch of motion sick wusses (except for Jose who was taking pictures for me), so we watched them ride.

Here's another awesome picture Jose took. This is what the carousel really looks like:

This is what Jose was able to do with fancy camera work (I have no clue who that lady is):
After that, we decided to try to make one more trip to the snowcone/popcorn place, but they made an announcement that severe weather was coming and all outdoor activity had been cancelled, so we started making our way back to the car. Just as Erin was cramming Drew's casted arm into her purse for protection (it was the best we could do in a pinch), the bottom completely fell out and it starting POURING rain. It was pretty funny because everyone started screaming and running, and we were all absolutely soaked.

I'm not sure why Drew looks so miserable in that picture. After the rain died down (it still hasn't really stopped) a really great rainbow came out, which I stopped the car just to take a picture of. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Continuing the Drama

On Wednesday, I was forced to go to a meeting at Central Office for my county. I am the math representative for 4th grade and had to meet with other 4th grade teachers in the county to plan for next year -- a meeting I was absolutely dreading, given I won't even be there next year. While I was there this woman innocently came up to me and said, "A good friend of mine is transferring to Lula to teach 4th grade next year. You should get to know him. He's such a nice guy," and on and on. Pretty much, she was telling me my replacement had been chosen, which my principal had failed to share with me. What a slap in the face, especially because I'm constantly being told that there's a possibility I'll be back since, given the number of students in 3rd grade, they can't afford to completely eliminate a 4th grade class. So, toward the end of the meeting, I got a phone call from the school nurse that Drew had fallen off of some bars on the playground and landed on her back and had the wind knocked out of her, and her wrist was hurting, but they applied ice to her wrist and she seemed ok now. So, I tolerated the rest of a pointless, nauseating meeting, and left early using the excuse that I had to pick up my kids from school. When I got back to the school, I asked the principal about the transferring teacher, to which he responded, "I can neither deny or confirm that at this time." I actually asked him a million questions, and he answered them all well, and we had a good talk, and he explained that the principals had been told not to share that information until after their next meeting, and he's a rule follower, so that's why he hadn't told me yet. He did confirm it the next day after his meeting and said that there were too many tenured teachers at this guy's school, so they had to find somewhere else for him to go, and all of us laid-off people had been replaced, except for kindergarten. Anyways, that seemed like enough drama to do me for the rest of the week at least, and I was pretty exhausted after it all, because the other 4th grade teachers were also pretty upset (or at least acted that way for me) stating that they're breaking up a family and they don't understand what they're doing. That made me feel pretty good, and I do love working with them, which will make the last day of school really hard. But, I gathered myself together and headed home. By the time we got home, Drew was still crying on and off about her fall and her wrist. She could move her hand, but cried whenever she moved her thumb, so Andy looked at it when he got home, and we decided one of us should take her to the emergency room. On a more positive note, the ER up here is just a couple minutes from our house, and is newly renovated, and doesn't have near the nasty people in it that the other one we went to did, so that was nice. We were there for about 3 hours, and, yes, her wrist is broken. At the ER, there wasn't a radiologist or an orthopedist on at the time, so the doctors there said it looked broken to them, but they couldn't give us details, and it's near growth plates, so they splinted it and wrapped it and put it in a sling and sent us home with x-rays, pain medicine, and a phone number for an orthopedist. I called Thursday to make an appointment for Friday (not at all upset that I would have to take the whole day off Friday), and we headed to the orthopedist for more details. After waiting for almost 2 hours, we were taken back to the room extremely irritated, but the nurse and the P.A. were so unbeliveably nice, that I couldn't stay angry. The P.A. told us that she has a classic buckle fracture in her wrist. If it would have been an adult wrist, the bone would have snapped, but because kids' bones are still soft, her's just buckled, so it wasn't too bad, but is still considered a broken bone. She has to be in a cast for 4 weeks, and then a brace for 4 more weeks. The worst part is, it's her right wrist, and she's right handed, so he told her no more softball this season. While we were checking out she whispered to me that she was going to need to cry when we got home, and I told her she could cry right now if she needed to, so the second we walked out the door she let it go and called Andy to cry to him and called her granny (my mom) to cry to her. She's very much like me when it comes to traumatic experiences -- crying is a must and it has to be discussed several times to work through it. She's much better today, but is still really irritated with it because it's her right hand, and our plan for now is for her to dress for her ballgame today and go cheer on her team from the dugout, but I'm predicting more tears before it's all over!