Tuesday, March 23

With two weeks sans internet at home and then Spring Break, I have been a bad blogger! Here are some pics from our fabulous trip to California over the break. We visited my sister and had a great time! Caroline lives in Temecula in South California, and we were able to go to San Diego to see the zoo, Anaheim to visit Disneyland, and Los Angeles to see Hollywood, West Hollywood, and Beverly Hills!!! Too much fun!!!

Thursday, February 25

Happy Birthday, Hodum Solo!

Two sweet girls in my 3rd period AP English IV class got me a cake today for my birthday. They are HUGE Star Trek/ Star Wars fans and we have had a running joke all year because they try to talk to me about SW/ ST stuff and I always have NO CLUE what they're talking about! One day, one of my kids said, "We love you, Mrs. Hodum," to which I replied: "I know." Apparently Han Solo says that in Star Wars, thus they call me Hodum Solo. They also got my a Yoda birthday pin to wear today! I have good kiddos, for sure!

Wednesday, February 24

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, and a special thanks for everyone who helped David with this video. I LOVE IT!!! And I love all my friends and family! I'm a lucky girl!!!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Tuesday, February 23

Check out what I've done to my Dubliners book! We're teaching Dubliners by James Joyce for the first time in AP IV, so I'm hard at work destroying my copy. And yes, this book was brand-new before I got my hands, pens, and highlighters on it. Upon seeing my annotations, my kids have asked me if I would rather have a coloring book. Today, David said it looks like I'm schizophrenic and am having a conversation with the words on the page... :/

Monday, February 22

Tonight my parents took David and me to my favorite restaurant, Jasper's to celebrate my birthday! As usual, the food was fantastic and I always love the time I get to spend with my parents. My mom and dad got me this AWESOME teal purse, as you can see me modeling above!

Sunday, February 21

Tonight, David and I watched the Olympics for the first time since it began! Well, he watched, I mostly read stuff for school. I did stop to watch the ice dancing. I thought the Russian pair's aboriginal costumes were WEIRD!

Saturday, February 20

S'Mores bars for book club! Make these, they're worth every calorie.

Ingredients:
* 1 cup Butter
* ¾ cups White Sugar
* ¾ cups Brown Sugar, Packed
* 2 whole Eggs
* 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
* 2-½ cups All-purpose Flour
* 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
* ½ teaspoons Salt
* 2-½ cups Mini Marshmallows, Divided
* 2 cups Semisweet Chocolate Chips
* 6 whole Graham Cracker Sheets
* 4 Tablespoons Butter, Melted
* 1 whole Milk Chocolate Bar

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Stir in 2 cups marshmallows and chocolate chips. Spread into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan.

Combine crumbled graham crackers with melted butter. Sprinkle on top of the cookie dough. Sprinkle on candy bar and remaining 1/2 cup marshmallows. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely on a wire rack. Cut into bars.

Note: these do not require refrigeration, but they are easier to cut if chilled.

Thursday, February 18

My seniors are about to begin their study of Dubliners by James Joyce, so to introduce Irish literature we decided to show a movie dealing with Ireland and Irish culture. I haven't seen Waking Ned Devine in years and have forgotten how funny it is! If you haven't see it, check it out!!!

Wednesday, February 17

Happy Ash Wednesday! Don't forget to go to church!

Tuesday, February 16

Lauren and the terrible, no good, very bad day.

I've had "one of those days" today. I'm not going to go into it publicly, but I sure am glad it's about over!

Monday, February 15

Happy Birthday, Stacy!
Tonight we joined some friends (both new and old) from Restoration for a dinner to celebrate Stacy's birthday. It was a fun time with great friends and gourmet food. We went to Villa O in Uptown, which features a free two course meal on Mondays and an extensive wine list.


I also had a PDH (Professional Development Hours) day, with no students and several sessions to attend. It was interesting and included seminars on new technology ideas and how to help cut back on plagiarism. Overall, it was a good Monday!

Sunday, February 14

Happy Valentine's Day!
David planned a very sweet, two-part Valentine's surprise by cooking me dinner Saturday night and then taking me to a nice, upscale dinner Sunday night. Both were wonderful!!! David made us Cajun chicken with fettuccine in an Alfredo sauce, with cheesy garlic biscuits and a salad. It was wonderful and he really is a great chef!

Sunday night we unfortunately were not able to get All-Star tickets, but we had a lovely meal at Rathbun's Blue Plate Kitchen. Kent Rathbun is a renowned chef with several restaurants in the Dallas area, one of our favorites being Jasper's.Jasper's is pretty pricey, so we thought we'd try the 'new' eatery with a lower price point. We are SO glad we did! The BPK was just as good as Jasper's, and a lot less! We highly recommend it!

I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day and are ready to start the new week!

Saturday, February 13

This morning, AT&T was supposed to come and install the mythical, wonderful, amazing thing known as U-Verse while I met some old friends from HS and A&M for breakfast at Spoons in Old Downtown McKinney. Well, of course the UVerse couldn't be installed (this has been ongoing drama in David's life) so he joined us! And I think he's glad he did, because now there's a SLIGHT SLIGHT chance we could get to go to the small basketball gathering going on at Cowboys Stadium tomorrow night. This is because my friend from HS and college, Shane, and his wife Cassandra, both work for the Boston Celtics and might have some extra tickets. Stay tuned to see if we get to go! And all I'm asking is.....

Will The Big Guy be there? :)

Friday, February 12

SNOW DAY!!!!
David and I both have the day off today because of the record snow we received yesterday. What did we do on our surprise day off? We slept in (David), watched a movie (Lauren), threw snowballs at the doggies (fun! you should try it!), AND made a snowman!

We think he's pretty cute! We're having a nice, relaxing day. We hope you are too!

Thursday, February 12

Happy New Year!!! I haven't blogged since Christmas! YIKES!

Today we are having a record snow- the most the DFW area has ever seen in one day! AMAZING! Here's what my students were looking at today instead of listening to me talk about the Prologue of Invisible Man:

After my last class 5th period, I decided to head home during my conference to avoid the rush hour traffic and worsening conditions. Here's what it looked like coming home:

Now, I know some of you who read this remember the decision we were facing this time last yearand the weather seriously reminded me of our trip to Michigan last year! CRAZY!!! We are loving it though, and praying for a snow day tomorrow!

Here's our cute house in the snow. I took this picture when I got home from work, around 3:30pm, and we still received steady snowfall until around midnight that night.