The Weekend

This weekend, Don surprised me by taking me to the local park, called "Mount Trashmore". It is a landfill that has been transformed into a giant grass covered park, complete with picnic areas, walking trails, and a skatepark. We took a picnic lunch and sat along the Mount Trashmore lake. We listened to the honking geese and watched as Godiva loved the smell of goose poop. She enjoyed her family fun night as well. The skatepark includes a half-pipe. We sat and watched the major biffing going on and even watched a four or five year old ride his bike up and down it! We took a few moments and threw a softball around. Don thinking back to the days in Colorado Springs where he played shortstop for his church team. Whereas, I was reminicing about the high school days when I played outfield for the JV and Varsity teams. It was a lot of fun!

We then drove over and picked up Godiva's best friend, Cali, who belongs to the Branines. She had a great weekend "catching up" with her friend who she had not seen in a month or so. They played together, slept together, ate together, napped together, went potty together and were pretty much inseperable all weekend long. We are quite certain that she will be in depression mode once Cali's mommy and daddy pick her up later today.



Don is on call this week and we traveled back from Williamsburg (our church plant that we are active in) early this afternoon. We were able to stop by Ruby Tuesday's and eat a yummy lunch with a gift card my students gave me for my birthday (February). Later on tonight we plan on finally getting rid of our brush pile in the backyard and have a little camp fire.

It has been a great, relaxing weekend!

Also, thanks to all the comments we got on the last post. We were shocked and amazed by some of the people that drop in to check up on our lives. We are honored by your visits. Please continue to let us know how you are doing! Also, thanks to so many who mentioned that they are using Google Reader. We had briefly heard of this, but it made us curious and we are now hooked up with our own Google Reader, so that we can keep in better touch with your lives. Thanks again!

Blogger Spies - Identify Self Please

Recently I have heard this comment by several friends, "Oh, I saw . . . this or that . . . on your blog!" To which I reply, "Why didn't you leave a comment so that I know you were checking up on us?" The answer to this question varies from my dog ate my homework to I had to wash my hair. I know that I struggle with the same thing; however, I am trying very hard to improve my spying ways. So if I stop by someone's blog (that I know), I attempt to leave a quick (no matter how dull) comment to let them know I was there spying on them. So, if you are spying on the Hines Herald, we are simply asking for a brief hello to cut down on all the stalking in the blogging realm. We have even made this easier by opening up our blog for anonymous comments to those of the "non-blogging persuasion" (quote taken from Don Hines).

When looking up the spy idea, I stumbled upon a huge website with all kinds of magnifying glass clip-art. They had bowling balls to paint brushes holding magnifying glasses. Since there has been an influx of toilet stories on friends blogs (Carissa and Shannon) I thought I would salute you with the plunger holding the magnifying glass!

Happy Commenting!

Green Day Friday!

Our fundraiser kick-off began with a great amount of green. Green - I think for GO, and also for the golf green (since it's a golfing tournament) as well as green for grass (since it is also a walk-a-thon), but probably not for boogers - even though you might see a few in this picture!

Last Friday, we were able to dress down as long as we had GREEN to wear. And so our creation of green, interesting outfits came about. My whole class participated and we were awarded "the class with the most green" for the K5 - 2nd grade classes and had to putt for a pizza party. Unfortunately, I was unable to produce the party for my class, but I'm happy to announce my partner in the "pretty club" at school, Sarah Joungblood, won it for her class (Check out her hair below!!).

To get the kids excited about this fundraiser, we were also suppose to create a door advertisement for the tournament. There were awards for the first door complete and the most creative doors. I'll give my props to Miss Kristen Varner who came out on top for her age group. My door, although highly creative, apparently paled in comparison to a Kindergarten class that will remain unnamed (Still resolving with my bitterness!). Who were those judges anyway!?! Check out these doors with their fabulous teachers!



Mrs. Dillard and her incredibly awesome door, assisted by Pastor Dillard!



Sarah, the hair, Joungblood and her incredibly punctual door (just completed the night before the judging!)



Mrs. Berry and her "tacky" door. She debated upon changing her door when she saw all the other ones being created. However, she followed the rules and allowed the KIDS to complete the door!



My great look and great looking door. Still thought we had a chance!








A better look at the fantabulously fantastic door!