Jobs, Jobs Everywhere!

As many of you already know, Ross was laid-off in January, due to company-wide budget cuts. It was a huge blow and an extremely challenging circumstance. However, after a lot of hard work, Ross has found a new job with Metabank, in downtown Des Moines. His title will be credit analyst, or senior credit analyst (something like that) and he starts Monday the 30th. The major downfall is that he has to wear a full suit and tie everyday, but he's excited! :)

As far as my career goes... I just can't seem to stay in the same position for very long. I started out teaching first and second grade math and literacy my first two years in Ankeny. Then Ankeny decided to absorb the math and literacy teachers into the regular gen-ed classrooms to reduce class size (Which didn't really happen, but it was a good idea.) I wanted to go to first grade, but ended up in third and I've had the best year teaching, yet! I love third grade! However, my 5-10 year plan is to be an instructional coach, mentoring teachers to facilitate best practice in the classroom. So, when the literacy leader position opened in my building, I figured that it would be a great stepping stone to attaining my goal. As of yesterday, I am proud to say that I will be our building's literacy leader for the 2009-2010 school year. Essentially, I will be working with at-promise (struggling) readers in small groups and one-on-one situations, along with helping to facilitate professional development in the area of literacy for elementary teachers. It should a fun ride! I look forward to the challenges it brings.

Spring Break

Ross and I took off on our week-long road trip Saturday, March 14th. Our first stop was St. Louis. It was a beautiful day for the drive, and with the help of a GPS, we arrived on time, without any hassel. (That thing proved to be a lifesaver!) Our first stop was the Budweiser Anheuser-Busch tour. We saw the entire process of brewing the beer from start to finish and we even stopped along the way to check out the Budweiser Clydesdales. They were huge! At the end of the tour we sampled different beers, and the whole thing was free!

After the brewery tour we checked into our hotel. Apparently people celebrate St. Patrick's day for a whole week in St. Louis. Our hotel was taken over by crazy and LOUD partiers. For the first time, we were the old boring couple, but that was just fine with me! :)

Saturday night we decided to brave the crowds and head downtown to an Italian place for dinner. We were not prepared for what happened next! The streets were lined with bumper to bumper traffic and crowds of people. We were a block from our final destination when we were cut off by a Monster energy drink truck that parked in the middle of the street to hand out free cans. So here we are, stopped under this bridge on a narrow, cobblestone road, with a horse and carriage to our right. All of the sudden the horse lowered its head and tried to peer into the passenger side window. So, I ducked and shrieked because I thought the horse was going to come through the window. Ross then managed to pull the car forward to get away from the horse to no avail. The horse got behind our car and... THUNK! The freaking thing bashed it's head into the back of the spoiler and left saliva on our car. Only in St. Louis...

So we decided to get the heck out of Dodge. We went back to our hotel to grab the GPS and then entered in the address for a restaurant called "10th Street Italian". We had read about it in our hotel guide and it sounded good, so we thought that we would give it a shot, even though the restuarant was 30 minutes away. By now it was 8:30 and we were starving! We finally arrived at our destination, only to find that it was the equivalent of a Fazoli's!!! That's the problem with GPS--you never know what you're really going to get! Needless to say, we passed up 10th Street Italian for a local pub and grill on the corner. It was quite delicious, especially after all of the trouble we had been through.

We also went to the St. Louis Zoo, while we were there. It was a beautiful day to be outside! Ross couldn't get enough of the penguin exhibit. I made him leave early because I couldn't stand the smell (think of fish X 10!) and I didn't hear the end of it the rest of the trip. If you look really hard, you can see a black rhino in the background of the picture.

After St. Louis, we stopped in Nashville for a couple of days. To be quite honest, I wasn't impressed with the Grand Old Opry. We also did quite a bit of window shopping and I beat Ross in putt-putt golf, according to his scorekeeping. I fessed up later, after I checked the scores and pointed out that we actually tied. There will have to be a rematch in the near future!

Two days in Nashville was enough for us and we were excited to get down to Alabama to see Matt and Johnni. We definitely saved the best for last. We spent a lot of time just relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather. However, on Friday, while we were there, Matt had a family day for his Army class. This is Matt flying.

We posed as Matt's family for the day and got to shadow his daily schedule. He was the first to fly. We watched him take off and do a lot of different types of landings for an hour or so. We also had the opportunity to go up into the control tower and Johnni gave Matt permission to take off over the headset. It all just sounded like jibberish to me, but it was really cool to listen to. After his flight session, Matt landed and came over to eat lunch with us while his stick buddy took the controls. I am so amazed with how much Matt has learned in a short time of flight school. He talked us through everything that was going on as the helicopters continued to buzz in and out of the runway. It was another beautiful day and definitely the highlight of our trip.

We headed back to West Des Moines around 5am on Saturday, March 21 and arrived home sometime after 10pm. After a fun-filled week we were ready to be home. I slept like a rock! Now it's back to work to finish out the school year!

OOPS!

Since it's been a long winter in Iowa... to say the least, I have finally talked Ross into taking a road trip down to see Matt and Johnni in Alabama over spring break. This has been weeks in the making, so when he finally gave in, I was ecstatic! I started searching for cheap hotels along the way, primarily using Priceline.com. In past experiences, Ross did the bidding and got us great rates in KC. However, since this is my trip to plan, I thought I would try the bidding.

I was so excited when I finally got through--thinking I had gotten us a 3-star hotel room in St. Louis for $45.00 a night. When I clicked the final button of no return or cancellations, I was appalled at what I had done! I was staring at a hotel room for almost $700 per night with over $200 in taxes and fees. Total damage: $1513.91. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

I spent the next 20 minutes on the phone with the hotel and then a Priceline representative trying to explain that I put our CC security code in the price box. "Due to extenuating circumstances" she was able to cancel the reservation and refund our money... and then BANNED me from thier website. Can you do that?! :) :) Those 20 minutes were awful, and needless to say, it made me sick!