Valentine's Day

I can't believe February is already half-way over!  I still feel like we're in January!  Though, it felt more like April 17th today instead of February 17th....the weather was gorgeous!  When I got of work this afternoon, it was 67 degrees out!  I rode home with the windows and sunroof down with the music up...a great way to end the work day.  It seems like Punxsutawney Phil was right this year!  Here's proof: http://www.groundhog.org/

So Valentine's Day (or Singles-Awareness Day, depending on your love life) was this past Monday.  Ben and I celebrated our first one as a married couple.  On Saturday, we went to Outback Steakhouse and demolished a bunch of delicious food and then rented a movie.  Very chill and relaxing.  Ben brought me 15 red roses (we don't know why it was 15 instead of 12) that are still beautiful and alive today!  They smell sooo good...roses are one of my favorite flowers.  Daffodils are my other and they're about to start popping up with spring coming!  Then on Sunday, we made sugar cookies together and decorated them with icing and sprinkles.  I gave Ben his gift which was a set of Bucky Balls.  If you haven't heard of these yet, visit their website: www.getbuckyballs.com  They're a set of 216 little magnetic balls that are very strong and highly addictive to play with and create things.  We've enjoyed playing with them!  Monday nights dinner consisted of steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans which is a favorite of ours.  And that was our Valentine's Day!

Let it Snow

This past Wednesday, we had a snowstorm!  We got about 8 inches of snow in about 6 hours.  It was really heavy, wet snow that was great for snowballs!  Lots of schools and offices were closed Thursday and I couldn't make it out of our apartment complex for work.  I took a snow day and Ben went in late once the roads were cleared.  Even though it wasn't a lot of snow, the news reports said that the damages/power outages were more than the three blizzards from last year combined!  Some roadways became gridlocked and it took some people over 12 hours to get home!  There were all kinds of stories about people being stuck in their cars or simply just abandoning them and walking home.  My work let us out early Wednesday so I made it home safely and Ben works just a few miles away so he left early too.

Here are some pictures of the snow.

 This tree was leaning quite heavily over our cars.  Thankfully it didn't break as a lot of other branches did.

A picture of one of the fallen branches.

Riley absolutely loves the snow.  

Catching snowballs

She likes to stick her whole head and upper body into the snow and army crawl through it.

Some big news to share!...and no, its not a baby

I have some great news to share and no, we're not having a baby.  That's pretty much everyone's first thought or question when I say I have news.  No baby yet but I have decided to go back to school!  I will be getting my Master's in Elementary Education through the University of Maryland.  My B.S. is in Animal Science but I have been thinking and preparing for this since my senior year of college.  Even though I enjoyed my classes and my major, I have felt God calling me to do something else, and teaching came to me junior year.  I figured since I was close to being done, I should finish my bachelor's degree and then figure out how to transition into teaching. 

Universities and colleges throughout the state of Maryland offer programs for career changers like me.  I applied for the MCERT program through UMD back in November, had an interview at the beginning of January, and found out last week that I had been accepted.  Some of you may be thinking this is the first time you've heard of this and you'd be right.  I didn't tell many people because I figured if I didn't get in, the less people I would have to tell.  But I got in and now can tell the whole world!

The program starts in June and is a 13month, full-time program.  At the end of it I will have my M.Ed in Elementary Education and be eligible for certification in the state of Maryland.  I will take 12 credits this summer and starting with the school year, I will student teach full time for the entire school year while taking 2-3 evening classes.  It's a demanding course but I am very excited and looking forward to it.  God has certainly blessed me with this opportunity and I can't wait to start!

The Holiday Hussle

Can you believe that Christmas is over and it's New Years Eve?!? Where did 2010 go?  We had a wonderful Christmas with lots of traveling!  Not far traveling but we were still in the car quite a bit.  We started off by heading down to my parents house on Christmas Eve.  Spent some time with them and the dogs played a lot.  It's tradition in the Hill household to go to Mom mom & Pop pop's house for Christmas Eve dinner.  We went to dinner and had a great time with the family.  Every so often, we had to check NORAD to see where Santa was visiting!  Christmas Eve is always full of food, fun, chaos, and laughter!  Ben and I opened our presents from the family and received many wonderful gifts!  Thanks everyone!  Riley got a lot of presents too...she must've been really good this year! 

We headed back to Columbia that night and set out our presents for each other before heading to bed.  In my family, we always get up at 5am on Christmas morning....Ben's family tends to wake up a little later, haha.  Ben made me promise not to wake him before 7am so at 7 on the dot, he was shaken awake!  We opened our presents while Riley gnawed on a big rawhide from Santa.  After presents, we made breakfast together, which was french toast, bacon, eggs, and scrapple (for me....Ben hates the stuff).  It was quite a different Christmas than the ones we were both used to.  It was a lot quieter for me and a lot earlier for Ben!

Riley, Ben, and I headed over to the Alvarez's house for presents and my parents and brother joined us for a Christmas feast of steak and lobster tails!  The Hills then joined us at our little apartment for even more gifts!  Our Christmas day ended with watching Despicable Me on Ben's new Blu-ray player.

On Tuesday, we celebrated Christmas with my mom's side of the family.  Ben wasn't able to go due to work but I went and had a great time with the Ecks, Hills, Talleys, Semchenkos, Higgs, and Mowells!  ( Think I got everyone!)  Still more great presents and I got to meet my cousin's baby, Easton, for the first time!  He's a real cutie but I wasn't able to hold him since I was getting over a cold.  Next time though!

I believe that wraps up (hahaha) our very first Christmas together!  Happy New Year and see you in 2011!

Cookies, cookies, and more cookies!

Yesterday was cookie day for Ben and I...well, mainly me!  I started baking around 8:15am and finished up at 4:00pm.  The final count was 137 snowman cookies and 113 molasses cookies.  Most of them are gifts for people but we did save some for ourselves!  I thought 250 cookies was a lot to make but a friend of ours had cookie day with her extended family and they made 4,066 cookies!! That I cannot imagine doing!  Makes my 250 look like chump change but I did mine all by myself...that should count for something!

Riley was pretty well behaved with all the cookie smells around her.  She did manage to steal a few snowmen off the baking stone before they were put into the oven.  After the second steal, she realized that she wasn't allowed to do that and was a pretty good girl the rest of the day. 

Here are some pictures of the cookie madness!

And here's just a cute but weird picture of Riley.  She stayed like this for a few minutes!  I don't know if she was stretching or what!