We're still here...

It's been a fairly uneventful month or so, but I thought I'd jump on here anyway. Work is keeping us both busy. Anna is continuing to have a great school year and is doing awesome with her class. We spend probably a good hour every day when we get home from work talking about each others' day. Usually starts in the kitchen, then we make our way to the couch to see who has the most interesting stories. This year Anna is the chairperson of her school's Social Committee, so she's also been busy planning and organizing the Christmas party. After work on Friday, she (along with the school principal and a few other teachers) went shopping for gifts for the party...

Of course, we've been playing a bit of Guitar Hero. When we purchased Guitar Hero 5, it came with the not-yet-released Van Halen edition (had to wait for it to come by mail, though). We are not "gamers" by any means (this is pretty much the only game we'll play on occasion), but if you like GH, you gotta get the Van Halen edition. Just for kicks, I even took our standard guitar controller and painted it like Eddie's famous "Frankenstrat" guitar. Yep, my wife thought I was nuts.

Anna blazing up and down the fretboard...

Me...

Here's my favorite move of Anna's. The must-do move of all rock gods/goddesses. The "shake-the-head-to-the-left-and-right-when-you-mess-up" move...

What it looked like before...

During...

After...

One of Eddie's real guitars...

The Rock Goddess, herself...

And for my busted-knuckle, gear-head readers out there, here's a little car project I just got finished with. Overall, I was happy with the factory exhaust tone, but was wanting something a little bit deeper. I ended up settling on a system from a company in England called Larini (only about 2,000 Elises get exported to the U.S. each year, so there aren't many aftermarket exhaust makers to choose from). The tone is exactly what I was after...

The old...

The new...

U2

This past weekend, Anna and I traveled to Raleigh, NC to see one of our favorite bands, U2. We got tickets way back in the spring and had been looking forward to the show for months. Luckily, the weather was perfect, as the show was outdoors at Carter-Finley Stadium (where NC State plays football). Just like all their shows, this one was sold out. I've been to quite a few concerts (this was my 2nd time seeing U2 live), but I, nor Anna, had ever seen so many camera flashes at a show as we did this one. From the time they hit the stage until their final curtain call, the cameras never stopped. You can see them going off in all the videos below.

All in all, it was a pretty good show, but the ending was the worst I'd ever seen. They finished things off with "Moment of Surrender"????? It's a slow song off their newest album. Instead of blowing everybody away with one of their major hits as the encore (like a band is supposed to), they put us all to sleep. Plus, they never played my all-time favorite song (and one of their biggest hits ever), "Pride". Despite that, they were still worth seeing this time around. The stage set was perhaps one of the most outrageous ever. As you can see in the pics, it took up about half the football field.

Anna says "hi"...

"Beautiful Day"...

Cell phones and cameras lighting up the stadium...

"Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"...

"Mysterious ways"...

Crowd singing "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"...

what we've been up to...

I've been reminded that we haven't updated the blog lately... so this is for you Rachel.

We've both been very busy with school but here are some pictures of some things we've done on the weekend lately...

We bought ourselves "Guitar Hero". The first few nights we got it, we played until our fingers hurt. Kirby spent a good part of the night and the next day getting it hooked up to the surround sound too. It's just like we are at the concert! :)

Now that Kirby is working at the middle school, we've become more interested in the football games. Kirby works with the middle school football coach, so we went out to support the team last week at the first "B team" game of the season. They won!

My grandparents and aunt and uncle came to visit for the afternoon last Sunday. We had a great time playing Wii bowling, Guitar Hero, catching up at dinner, and seeing my classroom at the primary school. I'm glad they made the trip- It was so nice to see them!

Bird Island

Last weekend, some friends of ours invited us to Bird Island for the day. We had never been there before, which shocked everyone. We hear it's a busy summer place for many locals to take their boats out and stay for the day. That weekend though, we had almost the whole island to ourselves. Hurricane Bill was out near us and had the waves kicked up! The boys brought their surfboards and had a blast in the water. The girls and kids played games, gathered sand dollars, and relaxed in the sun.





















We had to take cover for 20 minutes or so until the storm passed us. We were troopers and stuck out the storm for some more beach time.

...Having fun being a "photographer" :)

No more summer vacation

Things are starting to get busy around here. Summer vacation is over and the school year has begun!

Kirby has moved to NMB Middle School and loves it. He's been looking forward to the new change and seems to be settling in well.

I am still at NMB Primary School. I will be teaching first grade again this year.

The teachers have already figured out my love for pictures... or my obsessiveness... you decide.

Group shot of the 1st grade teachers. :)

Part of my classroom so far...

Germanchokolatekake...

It was great getting to hang out with Brenda, Amber, Luke, Sharon, and Jim. They all came down from the Baltimore area to vacation here in North Myrtle Beach this week. They stayed on the beach at a nice condo on 17th Ave South (only about 2 miles from our home). They stayed there last summer, as well, when they came down for our wedding.

Brenda and Amber are former students of mine back at Harford Hills Elementary in Baltimore. I also taught their sister, Allison, but she wasn't able to make the trip this time.

We hung out on the beach with them on Monday, then Jim fired up the grill for some burgers and dogs. Afterwards, we played a whole bunch of rounds of Catch Phrase for plenty of fun and quite a few laughs. We saw them again on Friday evening when we went out for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. Germanchokolatekake, one of their flavors, provided some humor while waiting in line.

Brenda showing good form (must've had a pretty good elementary school P.E. teacher :-)...


A view from their balcony...


Catch Phrase intensity...


Mine on the left. Anna's on the right...


Thumbs up from Amber...

After ice cream...


Now...

...and then (remember this rainy day, Brenda?). Taken about 7-and-a-half years ago (4th grade) after she invited me to come watch her ride in a horse competition...


And a few videos of some Catch Phrase action...

Happy Anniversary to us!

Yesterday, August 9th, Anna and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary. We had a blast the whole day doing a bunch of different things together. We started off the day waking up early and going surfing down from our house off 6th Ave South. After that, we went all out and high-rolled it to Golden Corral for breakfast (after all, it was our anniversary :-). In the afternoon, we each had something special planned. Anna went first and presented me with a scavenger hunt. After I found each clue (they were spread throughout town), she gave me a gift if I was able to answer each successive question. The hunt was a lot of fun and I scored like a little kid on Christmas. At the last stop, we ended up at Filets restaurant over-looking the Intracoastal Waterway. However, they were only serving a light menu, so we ended up at Carraba's (even though we ate there a few days ago when in Ohio). Yeah, kinda ordinary for an anniversary dinner, but it doesn't matter where you go, it only matters who you're with. After dinner, it was my turn. I took Anna to the spot on the beach where we got married and presented her with an anniversary band she's wanted for a long while. This particular band is exactly like her wedding band (she liked the idea of having two identical bands on each side of her engagement ring). There's a funny story to this, though. About two months ago she sent her wedding band out to get serviced. Before it was ready to be picked up at the jewelers, I went by myself and bought her the anniversary band. They sent it out to get sized. About a week or so later, Anna goes and picks up what she believes is her wedding band, but is actually the new anniversary band :-( Turns out the jeweler gave her the wrong ring. Of course Anna never knew this, because the two rings are identical. I didn't find out until a couple weeks later when I called to see if her new ring was in from being re-sized. When I read off the order number from the receipt of the ring I had just recently bought (which Anna wasn't supposed to know about), they told me she had already picked it up. She never did realize any of this though, so I went and picked up her wedding band instead. For the past couple of weeks I kept joking with her telling her she already had her anniversary gift, but she never did figure it out. All of this will explain the video below. At the end of the video, Anna still looks confused as I hadn't presented her with the ring yet. She still wasn't sure if I got it for her as I forgot to take it out of the pouch in the back of my beach chair, and couldn't do so until I stopped taking the video. After that, we ate cupcakes made by Cakes by the Sea, who made our wedding cake last summer.

Boards loaded and ready to go...


My surfer girl wife checking out the huge, epic conditions North Myrtle Beach had to offer that morning...

One of my scavenger hunt stops where I teach, NMBM...

Another stop at 6th Ave South, our "home beach"...

After eating lots of bread and other stuff at Carraba's...

In case you can't tell from the sign, Bay Watch...

Sitting in the spot where we were married...

The new anniversary band...

My emotional, then confused wife...