It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Okay. So I am aware that the most wonderful time of the year generally refers to Christmas. However, I am going to have to disagree. Fall is full of fun, like, pumpkin carving, pumpkin pie, and watching football.

 It's also about the smells.

The decorations and candy!

 Did I mention the Pumpkin pie?

 Oh, I love Fall.

Hope y'all are enjoying it as much as we are! :)

It's Low Tide!

Who's afraid of the big bad elephant? :)

I'm not going to tell stories, I was just as skeptical about pulling out a win over Alabama as Lee Corso was, but at the end of the day, Carolina fans are the ones smiling over our biggest win in school history and the 1st time we've ever beaten a #1 ranked opponent.

As Justin and I headed down to Columbia from Augusta yesterday, it seemed as if we were passed by more Alabama fans than USC.  I guess seeing the opposing fans inspired several quotes by Justin that were similar to this one: "Now Casie, they are a #1 team, I don't want to see that same temper I saw after the Auburn game..."

After sitting in traffic for an hour and only traveling 6 miles, we finally made it to our tailgating spot! :) My long lost bridesmaid, Hillary, met us for a little while to talk about hopes, expectations, and how badly we were going to get beat. Well, to be honest, I was the pessimist and Hillary predicted the biggest upset of the season. We laughed at her prediction and moved on.

Oh...did I mention it was GAMEDAY in Columbia? Gameday! Oh my, it made my day to know that ESPN was covering this game on our turf!

It was a sold-out crowd at Williams Brice! We used my grandma's season tickets and sat in the lower deck around others who have had their tickets as long as my grandma (44 consecutive years)! When I sit in these seats I am used to being the only one standing, cheering, and otherwise being a football fan. It was a completely different experience last night. Old men were dancing, twirling rags, jumping. Oh it was a sight.

The enthusiasm stayed the entire game. The only time it was quiet was on the snap. Carolina seemed to just do everything right (except for the play made by Garcia when we gave Alabama a safety.)

Justin kept telling me not to take a picture of the scoreboard until it was 0:00. He mentioned after the game that at half time (when we were up 21-9) he thought, "Casie's really going to be upset now when Alabama makes a come back!" :) I guess he knows me!

 When the game ended a roar sounded throughout the stadium. The loudest I have ever heard it. Everyone around us (except for the lone Alabama fan three seats down) was laughing, cheering, dancing, excited.

This picture was taken at least 15 minutes after the game. It was apparent no one wanted to leave. There were a lot of happy people in Columbia and we just weren't ready to stop celebrating!  

Final Score: 35-21. Good day!

Stress-Reducing Hobby!

Just thought I'd share some images from an all too neglected hobby-- baking cupcakes!!

I made these for my students! I do believe I am the best teacher ever! :)

These were made for my Mom's and Brother's birthday! (Justin helped decorate them!) Sadly, before the cupcakes even made it out of the door for their trip to Georgetown, the cupcake holder's handle broke and all of the icing smeared! :(

Justin and I made these for my Father-in-law's birthday! :) We consider cupcake making to be bonding time, now!  These cupcakes were HUGE! Please note the picture below:

The cupcake on the left is a normal sized cupcake. This just shows how humongous the cupcake on the left is! :)

My favorite part:

Buttercream Icing:

Yield: 3 cups

1 cup solid white vegetable shortening

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons water

1 lb. powdered sugar (approx. 4 cups)

1 tablespoon meringue powder

(I do not have meringue powder so I make meringue first with 1 egg white, 1/4 tsp of cream of tarter, 1/6 cup of sugar, and a very small pinch of salt and then follow the below directions. )

Cream shortening, flavoring, and water. Add dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until all ingredients have been thoroughly mixed together. Blend an additional minute or so, until creamy.

If you need to thin the icing, just add a little bit of water at a time until you reach the consistency you like. If you have any questions, just ask!

Surviving a Rivalry.

This post brought to you by guest author Justin Tyson (my husband) :)

The second college football game of the season. If you're a diehard Georgia Bulldog or Carolina Gamecock, you know that the game will be a hard-fought battle. Regardless of the outcome, by the end of the game, your nerves will be frazzled and handfulls of your hair will be scattered about the room. Imagine, then, that you are a diehard Georgia Bulldog who happens to be married to a Carolina Gamecock (or vice versa).

For the first two years of our relationship, we braved the dangers and attended the annual clash between the Palmetto State Poultry and the Classic City Canines in their respective stadiums. Both times, the 'Dawgs wound up atop the bloody heap, and both times, we considered ourselves to be quite fortunate to be on speaking terms by the end of the weekend.

Now that we are married, however, the stakes are higher. We're talking about wedding gifts here, people. Why risk settling for dual custody of a red KitchenAid mixer and a fabulous set of Calphalon Cutlery over a silly game? This year, Casie and I knew better than to risk our marriage at a stress-inducing stadium, and instead planned a weekend getaway where we could relax and watch the game in the comfort of our own hotel room. We needed a something a little different. Something luxurious. Something exotic. Something like....Atlanta?

That's right, Atlanta. For country folks like us, Atlanta is about as far removed from what we know as "The South" as Madagascar. Of course, we had other reasons for choosing such a seemingly pedestrian locale for our getaway. For one thing, the price of a night's stay at a four-star hotel in Atlanta is comparable to that of a two-star hotel in a more rural tourist destination, like Boone, NC or Berea, KY (I know, I checked). To find the best deal on a hotel, I always turn to my favorite travel site: Hotwire.com.

The downside to Hotwire is that you don’t know, specifically, what hotel you’ll be staying at until you’ve already put down the cash (or credit card digits, more specifically). Casie and I have been very lucky when using this website – we used it to book two nights in San Francisco on our honeymoon earlier this year – so once again, we threw caution into the wind and plopped down $170 for two nights in a four-star hotel based on little more than a vague map and a few rave reviews. What a surprise when we found out that our room was on the 52nd (out of 72) floors of the famous “Peachtree Plaza” – the tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere!

When we checked in on Friday night, we opened the door to our room and were immediately greeted by a panorama of city lights. It was Atlanta like I’ve never seen it before. It was beautiful. It was exactly what we needed.

Unfortunately, our camera died after snapping these two photos so we were unable to document the rest of our weekend (and too cheap to buy new batteries).

The following day was spent as lazily as possible. A day of sleeping in, eating in bed, and watching college football was exactly what we needed. I, of course, could have done without a 17-6 loss to team coached by Steve Spurrier, but in this relaxed environment, I was able to look at Casie without an heated pool of misplaced rage dripping from my ears within a couple of hours. It didn't hurt that immediately after the game she went down to the lobby and came back with a pack of Reeses, my favorite snack!

On Sunday, we decided to act like proper tourists and visit Zoo Atlanta. There are many attractions in Atlanta, of course, but what really set Zoo Atlanta apart is their ‘college student discount’. Nevermind the fact that neither of us are college students. We both have our old college IDs, which, as it turns out, are just as good. I won’t bore you with the details of our visit, except to confirm that yes, it would, indeed, be awesome to be a panda at a zoo. Who wouldn’t love to spend every day garnering fascinated attention by merely reclining in a hammock and munching on a never-ending supply of bamboo? Mmmm…bamboo.

Monday, unfortunately, brought us back to the real world, but I think Casie and I would both agree that next year’s UGA/USC game should involve a similar escape from the ordinary.

Absolutely wonderful...no matter how you look at it.

What a beautiful life we live. I came to the realization this morning on my drive to work that sometimes I'm not as thankful as I should be. Sometimes I overlook all of the blessings in my life just because I am stressed at work, have lots of bills to pay, and just plain tired.

Although Justin and I have seen our share of struggles over the past three and a half months, we are extremely blessed and I do not want to overlook that.

As the day went on I was reminded of how good I have it and how many wonderful people I have in my life.

I arrived at school and as I was signing in in the work room another new teacher said "Mrs. Tyson! I brought you a treat today!" Oh, I love treats! She said "It's granny made!" Oh, I do love granny made goodies even more! As I made my way back to my classroom after visiting the 6th grade refridgerator, which is where she stashed my yummy banana pudding, I was grinning from ear to ear. It is always nice to know someone is thinking of you, even in the small things! Mrs. Coyle is so precious!

The day went smoothly and the kiddos were well-behaved for the most part, which always makes my job a little easier. During 8th period I had a visitor. One of the special education classes in our school made cookies today and one of the students brought me one! A COOKIE with icing! I was so delighted.

Unfortunately I had to stay after school for car duty and to catch up on some paperwork. My phone died at some point and I couldn't call and tell Justin I was going to be late. Well, it didn't matter. When I got home my wonderful husband had dinner on the grill (yummy lemon peppered chicken, grilled squash, onions, and peppers) and yeast rolls in the oven. And to my surprise, in the middle of our newly refinished table were beautiful yellow Lillies. Today was awesome!

During dinner he informed me that I needed to pack my bags because we were taking a little trip this weekend...just to get away from the hustle and bustle of our busy schedule! Since we both work late most nights and are so busy with everything else on the weekend, we haven't had a lot time to ourselves recently. Gotta love my thoughtful husband!

What a wonderful life this is.

2 years and a lot of changes later....

Two years ago, Justin and I decided to make 17 nights of phone calls become a much anticipated face-to-face interaction. From our first date, or maybe even before, I guess we should have known that our relationship would be fun, but all too often bring unexpected occurrences. When we finally decided to meet, we were supposed to go to dinner at Applebee’s in Greenville, SC and then go bowling. It so happened that neither of the locations we had planned to visit were even in existence, much less open. So we came up with plan B, going to downtown Greenville, sitting by the waterfall and talking.

But let me back up… to explain why it took 17 nights of phone calls before Justin and I could actually have a first date.  A few days after we began our nightly ritual of Justin calling shortly after 9pm so we could capitalize on the ‘free nights and weekends’ minutes , Justin was caught in a Police trap and pulled over for crossing a train track when the red lights were flashing. Ordinarily this would have been just a minor traffic offense, but while he was pulled over the policeman discovered Justin was driving on a suspended license (unbeknownst to Justin). His license had been suspended due to an “unpaid” speeding ticket in a small town in Tennessee a year earlier. Justin had in fact mailed the money in but the record keeping in Tennessee must be worse than ours here in South Carolina (that’s for you, Trav) and it was never taken off of his record. For what felt like the longest time, we couldn’t meet due to a misunderstanding and the record keeping in Tennessee.

Nevertheless, back to our first date: A night of handholding and a good-bye kiss later, I was as giggly as a middle school girl- this comparison holds more weight to me now because I teach them and know just how excited they get when a boy looks their way. So yes, I was all smiles. But apparently I was not as sure as Justin was… for on his ride home he called his best friend, Mark. When asked how it went, Justin replied, “I’m gonna marry her.” Just what a wife wants to hear! No denying that the boy had good insight about that!

In the first few weekends of our relationship we had to tackle one of our biggest obstacles: being college football rivals. As everyone who knows me knows, I am a huge Gamecock fan! The same goes for Justin, however we couldn’t be lucky enough to be die hard for the same college football team, no. He’s a Georgia Bulldog all the way. Our extreme loyalties were shown to each other on our third date: UGA vs. USC at Williams-Brice Stadium. Justin was a very good UGA fan, but I guess he had no other choice considering we were sitting in the USC Student Section. We both knew that either way the game ended, one of us would have to show restraint from gloating and the other had to keep from pouting and not take it personally. This was a challenge for me because I always like to make excuses (like all Carolina fans) after a lose…I couldn’t this time because Justin had a come back for everything. Thankfully we got through it…and another season after that! One of the first changes I experienced in our relationship was for me to find UGA football tolerable.

Families were then met and quickly we began to take up as much of each other’s time as we could. Seeing each other every other Saturday soon became every Saturday and we were both discovering how hard life would be without each other.

Our first year of dating culminated with a road trip to Canada which ended in a proposal in Niagara Falls. Definitely spectacular.

It didn’t take long for us to “plan” out our future. We had to take into consideration that I had to work in SC upon graduation because of my scholarships. This didn’t seem like an issue since Clayton, GA is only 10 or so miles from the SC line. As time progressed and the Education budget cuts became more critical, we began to realize our original plan would have to be amended. Come to find out, Oconee County had taken some of the biggest budget cuts across the state of South Carolina. There were no jobs available, not even for Special Education teachers. So, with determination to be together, we started applying for jobs all across the state of South Carolina.

In April, Justin received a job offer from Bartlett Tree Experts in Augusta, but it wasn’t until the Tuesday before our wedding that I secured a job with Kennedy Middle School in Aiken. At this point there was no turning back. We were moving.

So, that Saturday, two became one and I became Mrs. Justin Tyson. We headed off on our honeymoon to Yosemite National Park for a week and tried not to think of all of the changes that lay ahead.

Upon our return, Justin was no longer single, living alone in a small town, working in a very good government job, or having to call me every night at 9pm. And for me, my last name was not the only thing that changed. I was no longer a college student living having to share a bathroom with two girls in Spartanburg, I would no longer be getting housing, school, and groceries paid for from my scholarships. No, I had to pay bills.

One of the bills we had to pay was the mortgage on Justin’s house. As soon as we realized we would be moving, we began working feverishly to fix it up to sell. We worked hard, but to our dismay, we failed to complete the job before moving.

Now that we are living in North Augusta the progress on the house has been slow. We have made several trips, but not as many as we would have liked. On one of the trips in late July, we packed as much stuff into Justin’s Dodge truck and headed home. We arrived late that night and agreed I would just unpack everything the next day. It turns out no unpacking would be necessary due to the fact that at 5:45am I looked out the window to see his truck engulfed in flames.

Another change: new car. After we spent three weeks waiting for insurance to make sure we did not commit arson and for them to send us our check, we were ready for a new car. We spent our time weighing our options and comparing the pro’s and con’s of getting another truck or getting a more fuel efficient vehicle. We compared prices online and when we received our check we had made up our mind and we were ready to make an offer. We were getting a Prius.

We now get 500 miles on a 10 gallon tank. I filled up with gas today and couldn’t help but smile as I got back in the car. This is the car Justin and I needed when we were living two hours apart.

The last few months of our lives have seen many changes, but we are happier than ever. We discuss daily how much better it is to have someone else to share in our happy times as well as our disasters. Through it all we have learned more about each other and our relationship has done nothing but grow.

Week One in Retrospect.

“If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.”

Ignacio Estada

The room at Kennedy Middle School that has been designated as mine is beginning to take shape into the form of a classroom. Well, I guess it has always looked like a classroom..but not the classroom I have always imagined. Last  week I spent the majority of my time organizing the closet space, shelves, desk, and file cabinets. After logging about 57 hours (including working on a Saturday) my room was  presentable for the students to come...but I was not nearly prepared enough...or so I thought.

Monday morning, August 16 I woke up at 5:45am, put on my brand new "first day of teaching career" outfit and made the mistake of asking Justin how I looked. He decided it was probably a little too colorful for a bunch of "behavior problemed" middle schoolers, so I changed. (Probably for the best.) The lime green pants and the swirl-y brown shirt probably would not have made the impressions I was hoping to make (INTIMIDATING). I arrived at school at 6:35am and did more neurotic planning and hanging of last minute posters getting a more than a little anxious to meet my students.

But the time did come....my class consists of 20 boys. 5'8-6'0 tall boys. I teach one girl all day. She is such a delight, however she is boy crazy. I can see this becoming an issue in the near future....oh middle schoolers.

Monday went well.  I intimidated the smaller boys and made the larger ones smile, which is all I could really do with them...so Monday went well enough. After dodging "how old are you" questions and "you look like a student" comments, by the end of the day I was exhausted.

After a long day, I was confident I would sleep excellent that night but MAN I was wrong. I began tossing and turning around 3am with a stomach ache and feeling a little nauseous. Not something that I wanted to start the morning before the second day of school. I went to school and attempted to just suck it up, but I didn't even make it to 8:00am. I had officially been attacked by the stomach bug...but this wasn't just the 24 hour bug, NO SIR, it lasted 48 hours. For these two days I couldn't keep anything down, I was weak, and my stomach hurt. Poor Justin was a trooper. He put up with my wimpering, complaining and begging for more gatorade to keep hydrated. Good Husband!  

Thursday was spent emphasizing procedures that I attempted to establish on Monday that the sub had kind of overlooked. Friday was definitely rewarding, though.

!

Friday reminded me of why I went into teaching in the first place. I have a class full of signifacantly below grade level students who are never interest in work or anything most teachers teach because they usually don't know how to do it. But today was fun. The students actually said "MAN!" (in disappointment) when the 3rd period bell rang for them to leave my classroom. All the way down the hall I could hear them talking about how fun Math was today and how glad they were that I was back! Oh it made me feel good!

Week one is now complete. It is far more stressful than I had originally anticipated, but completely worth every minute.

God is Good.

"My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."

Exodus 33:14

A few weeks ago I told Justin I wanted to take a trip. Anywhere was fine, I just needed to get out of the house before I started teaching (which is next Monday!) We talked about it and decided...the beach! Then we were left with several more decisions..like which one?

We finally decided on the Outer Banks, made our reservations a couple weeks in advance, and were excited!

After some unforeseen disagreeable vehicular events we thought about cancelling (and actually did) but immediately rebooked. We realized, now more than ever, we needed a vacation!

Saturday morning we left early with a kayak on our roof and a long day's drive ahead of us. We arrived at Cedar Island Ferry right at 11:30am in order to catch the 12 o' clock ferry to Okracoke. Thankfully we were the second car in the 'Cars without Reservations' line because we didn't know you could make reservations and the ferry was completely booked for that time. The guard said two or three cars with reservations usually don't show up, so we should be able to catch it. And we did! We were the last car they let on the ferry!

The ferry ride was 2 hours and 15 minutes--which I must say surely beat being in a car for that long!

Once we got off of the ferry we found our campsite and headed for the beach! (For some reason, I didn't take any pictures of the beach itself...so sorry!)  The temperature was fabulous the entire weekend. It stayed around 75 degrees F, which is a much needed break from the 100+ degree temperatures we have been getting in Augusta.

Sunday morning we woke up to rain. Heavy rain. (Which my dad always says is going to come anytime you pitch a tent.) So, we got up, got in the car, and explored as much of the island as we could (by car) while we waited for the rain to stop. It finally did around 9:30am and we found a spot to put in the kayak.

(This picture is for Tyson and Ben.)

Strategically placed (or not?) in the Pamlico Sound were duck blinds. Lots and lots of them. We could see them from the shore but couldn't quite make out what they were, so we decided that's where we would kayak.  Some were simple (comparatively speaking, this is a simple one), and others were not so simple. Some had glass windows, gas stoves, and a paint color-- not to mention the branches on the sides. We found this very interesting.

The sun never peaked through the clouds all day and it rained again while we were cooking dinner. We had been a little disappointed in the weather but it was still a vacation! After dinner we decided to walk down to the Pamlico Sound with our chairs just to sit by the water. We were wanting to see the sunset but it was so overcast we weren't hopeful. As we rounded the corner and saw water, it appeared as if we had just missed the sunset....however, after a brief moment we realized the sun was still above the clouds...and there was an opening just for us! With glowing excitement we set up our chairs and almost immediately afterwards the sun began to set! What a glorious sight! This view made everything worth it!

(This is God's way of saying He loves us!)

After a week of stress and down-heartedness, we found rest.  We had a fabulous time and couldn't be more thankful for God's beautiful creations!

Man that's a hot truck!

Imagine waking up at 6am Friday morning to roofers clanking ladders, cussing like sailors, and banging on your roof (without you knowing they were even coming.) What a way to wake up, right?

Now, imagine Monday morning waking up at 5:45 to a strange noise. Thinking it sounded a little different than the usual clank and clatter of the roofers, I get up to check.  I get up out of bed and peer out of our kitchen window and see....

...Justin's truck on fire.

As soon as I saw it I ran back in the bedroom and started yelling, "Justin, your truck is on fire. Your truck...fire....flames..." (Clearly not being able to form sentences at this time.) Thinking I was having a nightmare and hesitant to believe me, he slowly got up to check. Needless to say- he now accompanied me in this nightmare.

He hurriedly called 911, and after 30 minutes of waiting, they arrived. Apparently, dispatch had given them the right street, wrong city. Instead of our Verdery Drive, they gave them N. Augusta's. (I forgot to mention, the roofers showed up 5 minutes after we discovered the flames. Thankfully they were there with us because they called 911 again for us after 10 minutes of no sirens just to confirm they were on their way- they weren't.)

The truck was radiating heat and was (as usual) parked close to the house. It wasn't until the roof started steaming that we realized...the house could be next. Justin ran to the neighbor's and stole their water hose. He immediately began spraying the side of the house and roof with water trying to cool it off. While doing so, the battery exploded and the fire hit the gas tank. A few explosions happened while Justin was within feet of the truck....not a good feeling.

The firemen finally arrived and began spraying a very powerful stream of water towards the truck. After working at it for around 5 minutes or so, they realize...water wasn't going to do the trick. Since we filled up with gas a few minutes away from home last night, the truck had about 20 gallons of fuel in it. They had to resort to using a foam substance to put out the fire, which worked, but they say is very costly (and our dogs shouldn't drink it...).  Hopefully that can all be billed to our insurance agencies, also.

Since so much foam was used and so much gas leaked out, DHEC had to be called because our yard is now an environmental hazard. The DOT had to come and dump a load of sand to cover up the foam and we  (by we, I mean Justin) had to take a shovel and try and get as much of black, burnt sand out of the yard.

Yes...we are still wondering the exact same question you are wondering...how did it happen?

The firemen seem to think it was faulty wiring or either a cell phone charger that was left plugged in. Other than those two suggestions, they are stumped also!

Since we are in the process of moving from our GA home to N. Augusta, we had A LOT of stuff in the truck. We were too tired last night to unpack it, so we decided that I would do that while Justin was at work today. (I guess that's one thing on my to-do list that took care of itself.)  Among the things in the truck were: 2 paint sprayers, a push lawnmower, a dog box, LOTS of clothes, new door hinges we were supposed to use on our new cabinet doors, and a coleman grill. Many other small things were in there, but I won't list them all. The total cost of all of the items on our list so far is at $2417 (not including the truck, of course.).

 A few items remained...like the driver's manual.  We especially like bullet number 2: Things to know before starting your vehicle.  I guess we won't be needing this anytime soon.

Please pray for us during this stressful time. We're trying to get everything settled with our homeowner's insurance and our car insurance agencies. Maybe this was God's way of giving us permission to buy a new car! ;)

Living the Simple Life (Sort of)

   July 1st was our official move in day, and my mom, grandma, and aunt came across the state to help clean up the house. After 7 hours of dusting, mopping, scrubbing, bleaching, and many other -ing words that are related to cleaning, the house was spotless! Our first night we had a bed, a dresser, a coffee table, three lamps and a well stocked kitchen, but that was it.  

   After a fun weekend celebrating the 4th with the Tysons, we borrowed Mr. Tony's massive truck and trailor and headed to Clayton, Ga. We returned to North Augusta with a dining room table and chairs, recliner, rocking chair, guest bed, another dresser,  TV and stand, the dog kennel, and even more kitchen stuff.  

   While Justin worked, I put the house together.  I am now beginning to realize how much work a stay at home mom really has to do...and we don't even have kids! After being in a constant state of cooking, cleaning, and washing clothes, I can't imagine throwing kids into the mix. (Go Moms!)

   I'm not saying I haven't had a little fun, too! :) During the first couple of days I went shopping!! Guilt free shopping! Thankfully, Justin and I had saved all of our Target and Bed, Bath, & Beyond gift cards and had a few returns and exchanges...I was able to buy several things for the house that we had accidentally left off the list or just were waiting on getting (like a rug for the living room and a new set of cutlery!).

Until you come to visit, here's a sneak peak of our house (which we are quickly making into a home.):

 

Our kitchen.

Our bedroom.

Our living room.

Our guest bedroom! (Come visit!!)

We do have our favorites about each room (To be honest, I guess these are mostly my favorites):  

My favorite part of the dining room is the plates! The table is set with square green dinner plates accompanied by paisley salad plates (which Justin prefers to call dessert plates.)

 

The most sentimental part of our bedroom is the love birds. They are now used as decoration but were once atop our wedding cake! I love duel purpose items!

   The original glass door knobs give the home a vintage vibe. I love it.

And in the kitchen: I'm sure it goes without saying, my favorite appliance is my KitchenAid!

What's a plant if it's not edible? We have hanging baskets, but these personalized pots are my favorite!

As we settle into our new home - and our new lives - we are trying to keep in mind the advice given to us by a very wise doormat: Live life simply! :)