I'm a Klutz

Me and my brother (see his recent post on Jei's Japan Network) seem to have both inherited the klutz gene from our dad (sorry dad). Earlier this week my brother hurt his knee dancing at a party. Today I strained my back falling down our stairs. While my brother hurt himself partying it up and having a good time, I wasn't so lucky. I hurt myself rushing to get to work. At the top of our set of 20 steps that leads to our front door one of my heels got caught in the carpet and I fell forward. I tried to catch myself on the railing but both my hands were full and I missed and fell all the way to the bottom. Along with a severe case of rug burn, I also had really bad back pain when I landed at the bottom of the stairs. Fortunately, we only live 6 blocks from the hospital so I was able to drive myself there (Bill was already at work). I am happy to report that I have no broken bones, just broken pride. I strained my back so I will be laying around living on pain killers and muscle relaxants the next couple of days but should be back on my feet (and my high heel sandals) soon. My ER nurse told my I need to put my heels in retirement but when you're only 4' 11" you need all the help you can get!

Last Trip to Yankee Stadium

This week Bill, Mary, Jimmy, and I went to Yankee Stadium for the last time. It was a very bittersweet trip for me. I have a lot of memories in that old stadium and I'm not ready for it to be torn down. When me and J were kids, we went to Yankees games with our parents and Aunt Ricki and Uncle Pat. My Uncle Pat was the lone Red Sox fan in a family full of Yankees fans so we had a lot of fun teasing him. I remember being in awe of the stadium. I thought it was the greatest place on earth. Until I met Bill, Yankee Stadium was the only stadium I had ever been to. Nineteen stadiums later, Yankee Stadium is still my favorite. It may not have the bells and whistles that the newer stadiums have, but it has a history that most other franchises can't compete with. Every time I tell Bill that I don't want to stadium to close, Bill reminds me that Yankee stadium hasn't been the original stadium since they renovated it in the 70s. That is true, but the stadium they are tearing down is my Yankee Stadium. It is the stadium where I saw my first live ballgame, the stadium where me and my family have fun memories, and the stadium where Bill and I sat in the dugout as part of the tour. There are too many memories of that stadium for me to list here. The new stadium looks beautiful and I hope to make new memories there, but for me it will never be the same.

Remembering Gregory

I just got some sad news. Gregory, one of my former students, passed away yesterday. I had Gregory in my class for two years and he was a very special guy. He loved to laugh and joke around with me and my other students. One of the clearest memories I have of Gregory is one day when I was transferring him from his wheelchair to a bean bag chair (one of his favorite places to be) and he bit me. I had some aggressive students that year but Gregory was not one of them. Gregory had been in pain from a condition he had that year and when he hurt, he clenched his teeth. It just happened that when the pain hit and he clenched his teeth on this day, my arm was there. I was so surprised, I yelled out. When I got Gregory into the bean bag chair, the look of remorse on his face was plain to see. Gregory couldn't tell me he was sorry, but the look on his face made it clear that he was sorry. Gregory was like that. What he couldn't communicate in words, he communicated in smiles and facial expressions. Gregory made it clear whether he liked a person he was with by his facial expressions. Fortunately, I was one of the lucky ones that he liked. I will miss Gregory a lot and I hope that he is now at peace. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I've lost a student. In my line of work, it happens frequently. I just hope I made a difference with Gregory while he was still here.

Happy Birthday Baby (and Happy Birthday to me too)

Today is me and Bill's Birthday. One of the many odd coincidences we discovered when we started dating is that we share a birthday (although Bill is, and will always be, two years older). Today was also my grandfather's birthday. I never met my grandfather but he has always been a part of me so I would like to wish him a happy birthday in heaven as well. So Happy Birthday Baby! I hope we have many more happy birthdays together. A picture of us on our birthday last year is above.

My Month in Review

In an effort to avoid working on my dissertation, I decided to write about what I have been up to this month and other random thoughts. I have ideas of what I want to write on my blog almost everyday but I'm either too busy or too tired to actually type them out so here are my thoughts for the month in one blog:

My Parents Visit: In June mom and dad came to visit Bill and I for a week. We had a great time. I took them around Philly and to the zoo, and we caught a couple of baseball games. For pictures of my parents visit, see below:

Mom and Dad at a ballgame

My visit to Maine: When my parents went back to Maine, I went with them for a week. I love visiting Maine because I get to relax, get mom's delicious home cooking and go to all my favorite restaurants that are only in my hometown. I also got to visit with Mandie and Lisa. We had a girls day. We went to Margaritas which was our college hang out and went to the movies to see Sex in the City (awesome movie, by the way). It was nice hanging with my girls for the day. I also got to visit with two of my favorite people, my grandmother and Shellie (she lives at the group home I worked at in college) and my favorite canine (my parents dog, Mindy). I had a great time. For pictures of my trip to Maine see below:

My Parents dog Mindy
July 4th and Our Engagement Anniversary: I got back from Maine on July 3rd and we had a very laid back 4th of July. Mari and Ian game to visit and we went to see the Somerset Patriots minor league game. We didn't even go see the fireworks cuz it was cloudy and we were all too tired to leave the house. The 4th of July is a special holiday for my because in 2006, Bill and I got engaged on the 4th of July at RFK Stadium. For Bill's take on this see his July 3rd blog (I don't know how to make a hyperlink, so you're just going to have to find it yourself). Anyway, if you were able to read Bill's blog you find out that Bill had our engagement planned for a year. Here's our engagement from my perspective: I was convinced that we were never going to get engaged. Just the night before our engagement, I told Bill that I didn't think it was ever going to happen. I should have known Bill better and known that he would carefully pick out the date, location, and people with us when we got engaged. We got engaged during a Washington Nationals game on the 4th of July. The reason Bill picked the 4th of July is because in a weird coincidence, Bill and I both had engagements broken up on the 4th of July. We both kind of dreaded the holiday and Bill wanted to give us a good memory on the 4th of July (It worked, I never think of the break up on the 4th anymore). Bill got tickets for the 4th of July game for us, my parents (who didn't know I was getting engaged), his sister Mary, her fiance Jimmy, and her kids (now my nephews) Jeremy, and Josh. He also got tickets for Mari, Ian, and Sharon but as usual, they were late so unfortunately they were there when we got engaged. Bill had Screech, my favorite mascot, come down and get on one knee as Bill pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him. I was so surprised. Up until I saw the ring, I didn't know what was going on. I was so shocked I forgot to say yes for a few seconds (probably seemed like longer than that to Bill). I did immediately take the ring out of the box and put it on my finger through. I will always cherish that memory and the 4th of July.

Our Birthdays: Bill and I will be celebrating our birthday on Sunday. Bill will be 35 and I will be 33. It will be a quiet celebration compared to years past which will be a nice break from the hectic month we had.

Graduations

I had the honor of seeing two people I think the world of graduate this week. The first graduation was my sister-in-law Hillary's graduation from Dunmore High School. I met Hillary four months after Bill and I first started dating at the end of her eighth grade year in 2004. When I met her, she was a sweet teenager who immediately welcomed me as a member of the family. Over the past four years I have watched that sweet teenager grow into a caring and smart young woman. Hillary has been through more crap than a teenager should have to go through and I am so proud of her for graduating and going on to Penn College in the fall. Congrats Hillary, and as you move on to college remember ...you're Dunmore, it's what you do :) While I was in Dunmore for the graduation, I also got to spend some quality time with my nephews Josh and Jeremy when I took them to see Kung Fu Panda. Taking them to the movie was part altruistic (The boys wanted to see the movie and Mary did not want to see the movie) and part selfish (I wanted to see the movie). However, it was the first time I got to spend quality time with just me and my new nephews and it was really special to me. I also got to see my three month old niece Alanah. She is adorable! I know I'm biased but she is so smart already. Seeing her really got my biological clock ticking but before Bill and I have any babies, we have to have jobs where we can afford to take care of ourselves. Oh yeah, and then there's the small matter of convincing my loving husband that having a baby wouldn't be the worst thing since Nazi Germany. But that is a different blog for a different day...

The second graduation I went to was at Key Center, the school I taught at for four years. I went back to Virginia and Key because when I left four years ago, I said that no matter where I was I would come back to see my student Catherine graduate. Catherine is one of those once-in-a-lifetime students. When she was assigned to my classroom in the fall of 2000 she was 14 years old (same age Hillary was when I met her). Catherine was very shy and barely said two words the first half of that school year. Sometime after Christmas break that year, Catherine started talking up a storm. Now you can't stop her from talking! Her parents gave me a lot of credit after the graduation for Catherine becoming the social 22 year old she is now but I don't really think it was anything I did. I think she was just ready and it happened to be that she was ready when I was teaching her. I had Catherine in my classroom for all four years that I was at Key Center and it was a privilege to be her teacher. Congratulations Catherine! I know the people at your worksite will love having you as a worker as much as I loved having you as a student.

Here are some pictures of the two graduations and my cutie niece:



Hillary



Me, Jimmy, and the graduate



Bill, Me, and Baby Alanah



Catherine

I Love New York!

I have the best husband in the world. On Valentine's Day he surprised me with tickets to the Yankee Stadium tour and we went this Sunday. It was an incredible experience. Bill is the best husband in the world because he hates the Yankee's and still endured the tour because I love them. The tour started in the press box. We got to see where all the sports reporters work during the game. They have a great view of the field. We then went to Monument Park. I had been there before but it was nice to be in monument park when there wasn't hundreds of people milling around. Next we got to walk on the field and sit in the Yankee dugout. It was amazing sitting in the same place where my favorite players past and present have sat. Last, we got to see the Yankee locker room. They did not let us all the way into the locker room to respect the players' privacy but I got to see Derek Jeter's locker and Thurmon Munson's empty locker (from behind a rope) and that was really exciting for me. I was in awe the whole tour. Yankee Stadium has so many great memories for me. As a kid, my mom, dad, brother, Aunt, Uncle, and I went to many games there. We always had a great time. Although the new Yankee Stadium (right across the street from the old one) looks beautiful, it will lack those childhood memories that make the current Yankee Stadium so special to me. Hopefully, I will make more great memories in the new Yankee Stadium. Thank you baby, for giving me a chance to say goodbye to one of my favorite places on Earth! See pictures of us on the tour below:



The New Yankee Stadium



Me with the Babe Ruth Monument



Me on the field!



Bill and I in the dugout