My absolute favorite book ever when I was younger. I just reread it and still loved it!

Happy Father's Day!!

Ben and I would like to take a few moments of your time to say Happy Father's Day to my dad David, Ben's dad Brian, my two grandfathers, Larry and Carl, and Ben's two grandfathers, McRae and Ed!!  Even though some are no longer with us and some we never were able to meet, these men have impacted our lives in more ways than we can count.  We are grateful for these special men, especially our own dads, David and Brian.  You two are awesome fathers who have raised both of us (individually haha) to be (hopefully) great young adults and we can't thank you enough for your love.  We love you!!!  

Happy Father's Day to all the other dads out there and those who may not be dads by blood but are dads in other ways.  Thanks for everything you do!  Below are some oldies but goodies of us, our dads, and grandfathers.  Enjoy!

Ben and Pop (1989)

Ben, Kevin, and Brian (2001)

Lyndsey and Pop Pop Eck (1988)

Lyndsey, Derrike, and David (1991)

Lyndsey, Derrike, Courtney, Erin, and Pop Pop Hill (2001)

1 week down, 3 to go!

Done my first week of classes for this semester!  Which means I have 3 weeks to go and then my first two classes for my Masters will be over!!  The two classes I am currently taking are about reading and assessing literacy.  I absolutely LOVE them!  Which I didn't say much in my undergrad classes, haha!  But I really am enjoying them.  My two professors are really nice and engaging.  In one class, my professor does a "book blessing" at the beginning of each class where she brings in about 10-12 books that are great for classrooms.  The class loves this because we are all waiting to see if a favorite childhood book will be blessed that day!  She blesses all genres too but a lot of them are children's books and it is so much fun!

Do you remember your favorite childhood book?  Mine was the Jolly Postman which was about a mail carrier and each page was an envelope and you could take the contents out and read them!  I loved it and its probably why I love getting the mail nowadays!!  Sooo many good children's books!

I also received my placement for student teaching in the fall!  I will be at Elkridge Elementary School with Kristin Stansbury who is a 2nd grade teacher.  This was the exact school and grade I wanted so I am super excited for it to start!  I went in on Thursday and spent a good portion of the day with Kristin.  She's great and a fun fact for the day, she and I got married on the same day last summer!  We have the same anniversary!  It was meant to be.  I must say, it was quite weird to be called Mrs. Alvarez!  Guess I will have to get used to that.

After 1 week, I am still enjoying grad school!  1 down, many to go!

How I found Riley sleeping one morning!

Memorial Day/Mini Vacay

Hello friends and family!  Hopefully this post finds you in a well air-conditioned room!  It has been in the 90's the past few days and it's only May!!  Well, it's June now, but that's still pretty hot and it is technically still spring!

Just want to give a shout-out to my parents, David and Carla Hill, who are celebrating their 27th wedding anniversary today!

I know Memorial Day was a few days ago but I haven't had a chance to blog yet.  Ben and I ended up at my grandparents house for a little cook-out with some other family members.  We had these AWESOME wine slushy things that my grandparents got in Florida and some tasty meat!  The meal was finished off with some homemade ice cream, chocolate cake (ew!), and homemade apple dumplings! We didn't do much, everyone just relaxed in whatever shade that could be found.

After we ate to our hearts content, Ben and I headed down to Ocean City for a few days.  Since my program is full time and starts next week (gasp!), we decided this would be a good time to take a little vacation.  The extended Hill family has a condo down on 81st street so we got to stay for free!  We had a great time down there, lots of relaxing and having fun.  Monday evening we walked the boardwalk and ended up in one of the arcades.  We both got $10 worth of quarters and played to see who got the most tickets!  Ben won by a long shot...you can see it in a picture below but he hit the jackpot on one game!  We also ate dinner which was a soft pretzel for B and some Thrashers french fries for me!!!

Tuesday was a beautiful day!  We started the morning off by getting our breakfast from the Fractured Prune which is an OC must!  You can see the donuts below but they are de-lish-i-ous!!!  Check out their website if you haven't heard of them before.  www.fracturedprune.com  Then, I spent the morning reading on the beach which was fantastic!  Hardly anyone was there and a nice cool breeze kept me from getting hot.  I did get a little sunburned and Ben got a nice flip flop tan!  Tuesday evening we ate dinner and watched a movie back at the condo.

Wednesday wasn't as great as Tuesday.  The sky was overcast for most of the morning and it was a little cooler so we did not venture out on the beach.  Instead, we played mini golf, which I smoked Ben in, and got some Rita's.  Then we cleaned and packed up to go back home!

So that's what we've been up to the past week.  Now I am just enjoying my last few days of freedom!!