project 365 vol. 37

Sunday September 16, 2012

Last Sunday we headed to a Rangers game with a group of our friends.  We did brunch before, tailgated a little bit, and then watched a great game.  Rangers won!  However, it was raining the ENTIRE time.  #RAINgers...

Monday September 17, 2012

Austin brought me dinner last Monday night after a long day of dance practice, school, and meetings galore.  He knows the way to my heart :)

Tuesday September 18, 2012

Tuesday was our very first football game to perform at!  I was nervous and excited and a little bit scared of some of the people in the stands.  Overall, it was a pretty good game, and most of my girls did really well!  I'm hoping we get better each and every game!

Wednesday September 19, 2012

There have been a lot of rainbows happening around Dallas lately.  I'm not sure if I'm just becoming more observant or what, but I like the view!

Thursday September 20, 2012

I watched the finale of SYTYCD last Thursday.  These two goofballs won.  I was not amused.  I don't know if you noticed or not, but I did not write a post on the finale.  I am on SYTYCD strike until further notice (aka the beginning of next season).

Friday September 21, 2012

Last Friday Austin and I went to Oktoberfest in Addison with a few of our buddies.  There was beer (duh), food (yum), performances (funny), and great people watching.  Also, I got to see my friend Kaway because she was in town for the weekend visiting her boyf, and they met us there.  Good times were had by all!

Saturday September 22, 2012

I get to teach these little cuties on Saturday mornings.  Sometimes they cry, sometimes they don't listen, sometimes they tell you they have to go to the bathroom and then don't after you take them into the stall, and sometimes they look like this.  It's cute.

projects 365 vol. 35 & 36

Well hello there!  How is everyone doing?  It's been a little while, huh?  I thought y'all would enjoy an update, so I'm bringing you a special DOUBLE EDITION of project 365!  So sorry that I have not been on top of my bloggin' game, but school and dance have been running my life as of late.  All that being said, here are my pics from the last two weeks!

Sunday September 2, 2012

A couple of Sundays ago, I was in Tyler visiting my madre's side of the family.  Look at this beautiful rainbow that I saw!  

Monday September 3, 2012

Monday the 3rd was Labor day!  I did not have to go to school, but I did labor.  I cleaned my whole apartment!!  And when I say "cleaned" I mean deep cleaned in all the cracks and crevices with real products and soap and everything.  It was an endeavor, but my apartment was sparkling by the end!

Tuesday September 4, 2012

Austin has a new hobby.  He bought himself a shotgun, and now he goes out and shoots things.  Over labor day weekend he shot some doves.  We put them in little beds of jalepenos and cream cheese, wrapped them in bacon, and grilled 'em up!  Ummm delicious.

Wednesday September 5, 2012

There are so many things I love about this picture.  1) This awesome "kickin' bass takin' names" mug that Austin and I found at our friends Kristi and Jeremy's garage sale (I still can't believe they wanted to get rid of this thing).  2) The Swiss Miss hot chocolate that is in this mug.  3) The marshmallows.  This set up has become somewhat of a routine for me in the morning time.  Hot choco, mallows, an egg, and Boy Meets World.  It puts me in the 6th grade mindset.  

Thursday September 6, 2012

Look at my purdy word wall!  We are learning so many fun words in the 6th grade!  I love acting out the new words that we come across while we're reading stories...I'm pretty sure my students think I'm experiencing some sort of withdrawal because I never fulfilled my 3rd grade dream of becoming an actress.  Oh well.

Friday September 7, 2012

I found this recipe for "chicken with green beans and new potatoes" on pinterest.  If you're a pinner, I'm sure you've seen it.  Has anyone else actually made it though??  I did on this Friday, and it was not a success.  The recipe is so enticing because it claims that you just "stick everything into the dish raw, throw on a stick of melted butter and a packet of italian seasoning, and put it in the oven for an hour".  Um, wrong.  After an hour, the chicken was done, but the potatoes were still kind of raw.  So, I left it in for like 30 more minutes, and by that time the beans were almost burned, the potatoes were still not completely done, and the chicken was overcooked.  What a joke!  Next time, I'll cook the chicken in the oven and the potatoes and green beans on the stove.  Whoever made this recipe needs some cooking lessons fo realz.

Saturday September 8, 2012

I got over my failed attempt at "the easiest chicken recipe in the world" by watching my Aggies on College Gameday!  They ended up running out of time (aka losing), but it was a great game and so much fun to see my beloved College Station on TV!  Yay for football season being back!

Sunday September 9, 2012

Guess what?  The dance studio that I work at (Dallas Powerhouse of Dance) moved to a new location!  We moved in over labor day weekend and the weekend after that.  This picture is of our lovely new staff room...it has an office, a little "living area", a kitchen, a storage closet, and two glorious bathrooms!  I actually put together that chair in the bottom left hand corner.  Isn't everything so pretty?!

Monday September 10, 2012

I won a contest last week.  My prize was that I got to have a free "bridal makeover" with a Mary Kay lady, and I could invite my friends!  I really like the idea of making a girly party spread, so I was excited to get the lady like grub.  You can kind of see everything, but I'll give you the line-up anyway: up top we have some chocolate chip cookies, then a big ol' plate of hummus with pita chips, some olives and spicy mix in the middle, an assortment of cheeses with crackers, and finally a little plate of herb seasoned shrimpys.  Delish!

Tuesday September 11, 2012

This happened in front of my neighborhood on my way to school on Tuesday.  It was weird and kind of stressful.  I'm always worried that if I drive too close to those flares, my tires will melt.  On another note, is it weird to anyone else that my middle schoolers were barely born when 9/11/2001 happened?  A lot of them didn't even know what it was.  That makes me sad and a little annoyed.  My school had an assembly, but only History classes were allowed to attend.  It sucks that it gets less and less meaningful every year.

Wednesday September 12, 2012

Guess where this shower is located?  In the new staff room of our new dance studio!!  How cool is it that we have a staff room shower?  I think at least a 9 out of 10.

Thursday September 13, 2012

My kids completed their first assignment that was worthy of the "Great Work" wall last week.  Their task was to make a "multiple meaning word flower".  In case you're not familiar, a "multiple meaning word flower" has a multiple meaning word in the middle (like freeze, park, hand, snap, etc.), and then each petal has a different definition or a picture.  All of the ones displayed here are A's!  My students are so smart!

Friday September 14, 2012

I know what you're thinking.  And no, I did not skip school to go to brunch that Friday.  I DID look at this brunch menu because we were planning to go here for brunch the following weekend.  Let's be honest though...I didn't get much further than the 99 cent frozen mimosas.  That's all I need to know :)

Saturday September 15, 2012

Saturday the 15th marked the second Saturday of Aggie football!  I was at dance, but Austin and some of our other friends went to tailgate at SMU's campus.  Look who they ran into!  That is Jerrod Johnson, A&M's former Quarterback.  Cool!

project 365 vol. 34

Sunday August 26, 2012

On this Sunday I made some stuffed shells.  Hoooollly yum...they were great!  Next time I'm going to add some beefy beef, and I bet they'll be even better.  The fiance also approved.

Monday August 27, 2012

Here's me on the very first day of school!  I had a great first day, and if you haven't already read about it, you can here!

Tuesday August 28, 2012

Look at what my daddy sent me on my first week of school...some beautiful roses!  I don't think anyone has ever sent me flowers before, so it definitely made me feel really special to have a giant box of them on my doorstep when I came home from school.

Wednesday August 29, 2012

It's the third day of school, and the grading has begun!  I busted out my mean red teacher pen last Wednesday and got down to business.  It made me feel like a real teacher haha.

Thursday August 30, 2012

Woodchuck ciders have become my beverages of choice as of late.  This company makes a couple of different ciders (granny smith, pear, amber, etc.), and I've started to try as many of them as I can.  So far my fave is the amber.  I also very much enjoy the cute little woodchuck on the bottle.

Friday August 31, 2012

While we're talking about amazing products, let's discuss this mac n cheese.  Annie's is amazing, and it's organic!  I'm pretty sure the cheese sauce is the same thing as the one that comes in the blue box, but I feel better about eating this since it says it's organic.

Saturday September 1, 2012

I went to hang out with my madre's side of the family last Saturday, and I got to meet this little cutie...my aunt's new puppy!  I spent a lot of the day trying to get her to pose for my camera, and I think I ended up with a good shot!  I wanted to take her home with me, but I don't think my aunt (or Austin) would've been too happy with me if I had.

sytycd recap: from 8 to 6!

Well we are really getting down to the wire here on SYTYCD, huh?  This week’s show featured the top 8, and each dancer performed a solo and a duet with an all-star. 

Top 8

OH! And Jesse Tyler Ferguson was the guest judge, and he was wearing a bow-tie.  I loved everything that he had to say...he was a ding dong dorable :)

    

We started the night off with a group routine choreographed by this new choreographer named Peter Peter pumpkin eater.  This was definitely not the best group routine I’ve ever seen.  What was with the girls acting Chinese?  The timing was also off in parts.  Bring back Wade!  Or Mia!

Pretty picture, boring dance.

The first soloist was Tiffany.  I liked it, but it wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen.  I loved her costume and her turns though!!  Tiffany danced later in the show with all-star Ade.  They did a beautiful contemporary piece.  All of the lifts and tricks were crazy!  I loved this routine so much.

The first duet featured Whitney and all-star Twitch doing a hip hop routine.  I really liked this dance!!  Whitney reminded me of Chanel from MTV’s Fantasy Factory.  She had some serious swaggggg.  Ok, I’ll stop talking like I know anything about swag now.  Good job Whitney and good job Twitch!  Later, Whitney did a ballroom solo.  I thought it was cute but nothing special.  She looked amazing though!

Will was up next with a solo.  I enjoyed his solo.  I thought he had great musicality.  Again, not the best thing I’ve ever seen though.  Later in the show Will did a hip hop with all-star Lauren.  I liked the concept of this dance, but the song/choreography were a little blah for me.

This picture is weird.  

Cole and all-star Allison did a contemporary dance choreographed by Sonya next.  I LOVED this routine.  Yes, it was beyond strange, but it was just so cool!  The partnering was amazing, and Allison was just ridiculous.  Cole’s solo was confusing to me.  Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I have never taken a dance class where karate chopping was part of the technique.  Why is Cole still here?!?!????

Allison is a freak of nature, and I love it.

Lindsay’s solo was next.  I thought it was fine, but ballroom solos are just so hard to judge.  A few numbers later, she did a jazz routine with all-star Alex.  The choreography was very interesting to watch, and I enjoyed the number overall.  I do have to agree with Nigel’s comment about the performance though…Lindsay needs more going on with her face/her chemistry.

Eliana and all-star Ryan did a quickstep next.  I don’t know a lot about ballroom, but the dance looked good to me.  What I did not enjoy was Eliana’s face.  She always just seems kind of fake to me, especially that smile she had at the beginning.  Eliana’s solo was pretty…I’m just not a fan :/

"I like to pole dance and I have giant teeth, so vote for me!"

Chehon did a solo next, and it was beautiful.  WOW.  I felt like I was watching a little clip of a much larger piece.  I wanted it to keep going!  It was great.  Chehon teamed up with all-star Anya to do a tango later in the show.  I am normally not a huge tango fan, but I actually enjoyed this one!  The music was so great, and Chehon and Anya were wonderful together.  Beautiful! 

Cyrus and all-star Melanie teamed up for the next duet with a Mandy Moore jazz dance.  These two just looked like they were having so much fun!  It was a really cute routine.  Cyrus’ solo was just ridiculous.  I could watch him dance all day long…I love it!!   

Results were up next!  The bottom girls were Lindsay and Whitney, and the bottom boys were Will and Cole.  Finally Cole is in the bottom!!  I was indifferent on which girl went home, but obviously I wanted Cole to get the boot.  Once again, the judges are obviously not listening to me because they saved Cole (BOO) and Whitney.  I blame that stupid balliwood snake dance. 

Bottom 4 

Here are my quick facts for this week:

Favorite girl right now: Tiffany

Girl I want to go home: Eliana

Favorite boy right now: Cyrus

Boy I want to go home: COLE (I will die if he makes it to the final 4)

Best dance of the night: Cole and Allison’s contemporary (I was only watching Allison haha)

Worst routine of the night: the opening number…get that new choreographer outta here!

SYTYCD throwback of the week:

Lacey and Danny doing a Samba choreographed by SYTYCD alum, Pasha!  As you all know, I am usually not a fan of ballroom.  This dance, though...it is so great!!!  I remember going to the tour for this season and waiting the entire time to see this number.  And Lacey's shoes.  I want them now!

Alright, the top 4 will be chosen next time...I'll see ya then!