De ja Vu

I teach special education 8th grade math at JJ Daniell Middle School in Cobb County.  CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHO THOUGHT THAT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA?  Because I can assure you, it's not.

My first day I confiscated one cell phone, kicked one kid out, and wrote 7 strikes.  They have a strike system at this school, and two strikes earns a kid a silent and secluded lunch.  I only have 6 kids in the one class I teach all alone.  They talk, laugh, interrupt, whine, disrupt, and do not follow instructions on the first directive.  FUN.  When they are silent, they are bored out of their mind, because, let's face it - middle school math is not the most fun thing to partake in.  I don't even like it.

Then, I get the pleasure of NOT having a duty free lunch.  I have to walk a class of 30 students whom I do not know, into the cafeteria, sit in the cafeteria to monitor them, and then escort these kids back to their 4th hour class.  That is my lunch.  No potty breaks - mandatory supervision. 

My afternoons are spent in the class of Mr. Rowell.  He is a general education math teacher, who is also a high school football coach.  Enough said.

Well that's all I'll say about my new job for now... I'm sure there will be more later. 

Wedding Planning...

Being snowed in for one whole week with Ryan enabled us to get a lot accomplished!

Done

• Videographer
• Created and ordered favors
• Booked honeymoon
• Got registered at two different stores
• Have a violinist for the ceremony music
• Booked a pirate ship party for that night

Have leads on, but no final plans

• DJ
• photographer
• make up
• hair
• My mom and Leslie are coming down (not this weekend, but the next) to go bridal gown shopping with me!

Not done

• Get Ryan's wedding band
• Get an officiant or someone to marry us
• Pick out flowers
• Order a cake or cupcakes or something
• Write eHarmony about our amazing love story and be so convincing that they will want to pay for the wedding =)

Fun Fact

On the way home from Florida, Ryan and I called my dad to let him know that we got engaged.  Ryan asked for my dad's blessing, and King Tom said, "Well... I don't know you very well.  So you have my blessing, for now".  hahahaha

My new job

Ryan's friend Adam, has a sister named Amy, who had a baby over the Christmas break.  She just happens to teach 8th grade special education math.  So I applied for the job, was offered the job, and accepted the job!

I will have one self-contained math class in which I am the teacher.  There are only four students in that class.  The rest of my day will consist of co-teaching with a general education mathematics teacher in his classroom.  I have no home room students, and the first two classes of the day are my preps.  So according to my calculations, I won't teach until around 11am daily.

The school's poverty level is similar to John Young...it's population consists of about 50% free and reduced lunch students.  So it's just below the federal level required in order to qualify as a Title I school.  The racial makeup is different than JYMS though.  This school, JJ Daniells, has about 50% Caucasian, 20% Hispanic, and about 30% African American students. 

This position is a 9-10 week job, which basically takes me up to Spring Break; the first week in April.  The 2nd or 3rd week in April is when the Georgia CRCT's are administered.  This is like Indiana's ISTEP EXCEPT that 8th graders are in an "exit year", which means they HAVE to pass the CRCT in both  math and language arts in order to go on to the 9th grade.  Can you believe there is accountability here??????

I have mixed emotions about starting this job....
Pros
Meeting new people and possibly making friends!
Getting my foot in the door in a school system
Something to do and fill my time with
Cons
Can no longer work at Papa's Pantry
Have to get up early
Teaching 8th grade math again!

I am supposed to start on Wednesday.  But it is snowing here in GA and all the schools are already closed for tomorrow, Monday.  If the schools are closed again on Tuesday, then I can't start until Friday.  There are only certain days of the week that Cobb County will process new employees. 

*******

Some more pictures from when we were in St. Augustine.

This is the bay that Ryan proposed on, and is right across the street from where we're getting married.

Here is a picture outside the Lightner Museum.  Couples can get married on this bridge over the koi pond.  It was beautiful, but ultimately too small for what we were looking for.

And here is a picture of the two of us on New Year's Eve, before Ryan had proposed, but I wore the ring anyway =)

The Fountain of Youth

Bobby and Suzi suggested we check out the Fountain of Youth as a place to get married.  This got us in FREE, which we appreciated =)

The peacocks were impressive....

This is the well that they get the water out of so that tourists can drink from the Fountain of Youth

The water smelled like poop as the water contains heavy amounts of sulfur

But we drank it anyway.  Don't we look younger already?

Wedding Info

The Wedding and brunch Reception will be Sunday morning, May 29, 2011 at the White Room in St. Augustine, FL.  The space consists of an indoor loft, and an outside rooftop.  Here are both halves of the indoor loft.

Here are two shots of the rooftop overlooking the bay

And here is what the facility looks like from the road.

If you would like to see more pictures and you have a facebook account, you can check out their page at:


http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/whiteroomstaugustine?v=wall

Unfortunately, all the indoor pictures on their site are of the ballroom, but that area is not the area we selected for our festivities.  The rooftop pictures are though!

I'm Engaged!

I flew back to Atlanta from Michigan City on Thursday, December 30th.  Ryan picked me up from the airport at noon and we drove directly to FL for the weekend.

Since both of Ryan's parents are deceased, a woman named Suzi is basically his step mom.  She dated his dad for nine years, and even though they never married, she certainly has taken Ryan under her wing ever since.  Suzi lives with her fiance Bobby in Jax Beach, FL.  We stayed with them in their condo on the beach.  The weather was AMAZING...in the 70s all three days we were there!  Bobby's mom, Grace, who is 81 years old, was also there, which Suzi conveniently forgot to mention but Grace turned out to be a hoot!

Bobby and Suzi rented out a room at the Three Forks for about 40 people on New Years Eve.  Bobby and Suzi also happen to own a jewelry store that Ryan and I happened to "stumble" in to earlier in the day.  He ended up buying me a ring on the spot, and I wore it for the rest of the day.  That night, Suzi introduced me to all of her friends as Ryan's fiance, and had everyone look at my ring.  It's a good thing no one asked me how he proposed though, because he hadn't!  So I gave the ring back to Ryan at the end of the night...

The next day Ryan and I went to St. Augustine FL.  Ryan's family used to vacation there every year and at one point his dad moved there for several years.  So the city is very special and meaningful to him. At 5:30pm, we went out on to this dock/pier, and were enjoying the view when I became ready to leave.  So I said "Ok, let''s go" and started to walk off the dock.  Ryan didn't follow though.  Being the funny-man I am, I say, "Come on!  Unless you're going to propose let's go!"  To which he responded, "Courtney!  Why do you always have to ruin things!"  Oooops.  I really didn't think he was going to propose that day, but sure enough he got down on one knee, told me he loves me very much, and asked me to be his wife for the rest of my life. 

Here's a shot of my ring...

So on 1/1/11 I got proposed to in the city in which we will eventually marry.  More details to follow....

Arts and Crafts!!!!!!

Ryan, our roommate Grant, and I had an arts and crafts night.  We bought googly eyes, fuzz balls, cheap-o stockings, reindeer antlers, and glitter glue.  It took me about a week to sync up all of our schedules, but then we all went to town on the stockings.

Here's mine...

Here's Ryan's...

Grant's...

And all three of ours together...

C is for Chef

Ryan is an awesome cook.  It is one of the MANY reasons I love him!  However, it also one of the many reasons I can't fit into my pants anymore!!!!

Here's a typical breakfast he makes me... eggs benedict, blueberry eggo, coffee, hash browns covered in shredded cheese...

Here's a (not so) typical dinner... slamon, pasta with a cream reduction sauce, shrimp, pea pods. 

He does make me eat vegetables, but they are so smothered in butter and/or cheese and/or salt that it's very delicious but not so healthy =)

He also brings me coffee in bed.  Every morning.  He gets up to go to work, but brings me coffee in bed before he leaves.  I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fortunate!!!

Here's the only thing I've ever cooked Ryan...

 

He really doesn't like sweets, but he does like peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses.  I must have made 9 dozen cookies for just the two of us in the month of December.  By this final batch, you can see we ran out of kisses and had to get creative by using bits and pieces of crunch bars, snickers, and reeses, which were equally as delicious!