New Address

Family, friends, and students... if you would like my new address email me and I would be more than happy to send it to you! misswheeler1986@gmail.com

We have unpacked almost all boxes and we will have the apartment set up soon enough for me to take pictures! I had a job interview today with Farmers Insurance Group... so wish me luck on that!

Also... we have no internet or cable so tonight I will be keeping myself busy by making some sugar cookies. I'll be sure to post pictures when I'm done! I am going through withdrawals from cookies and the sun... I haven't been to a pool in 10 days and I haven't made cookies in a week. Luckily out apartment has a pool so hopefully tomorrow I will satisfy my sun needs :)

We Made It!

Update: We arrived in Albuquerque yesterday afternoon and took a quick look at our apartment we had on hold and.... we weren't too impressed with it. SO after touring the place we decided to talk it over and checked in to a hotel. We did get the chance to scope out another apartment and we really liked it! We are going to spend Sunday and Monday morning looking at a few places and by Monday afternoon we should have a place, which is a good thing because we need to return the UHaul! Dierks is thoroughly enjoying having the freedom to run around the hotel room and not be all cooped up in a pet carrier. Wish us luck in our apartment search! :)

 

 Texas and New Mexido look just how you would expect them to from all those cowboy movies!

 

 

 We made it!

 

 

Chili's.... I hear they put them on everything down here! I'd better start liking spicy food

Road Trip!

We are currently on day 2 of 3 for our New Mexico move. In the past 2 days we have driven through.... Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and now we are staying the night in Texas! I have never seen most of these states so it has gone by fairly quickly. I do feel sorry for Dierks, however, because he got sick within the first hour of driving and since has been strictly medicated in his cat carrier. He's definitely catching up on some Zzzzzzzz's for this trip (as if he needed any more sleep). We stopped a couple of times in Texas just to take pictures. In Amarillo we made it just in time to dump off the cat at the hotel (his medication was wearing off) and race for the Cadillac Ranch so that Joe could get good pictures before the sun set.The "Cadillac Ranch" is where someone just burried Cadillac's in their field and they let people come spray paint them. I don't really understand the point of it but Joe really put it in perspective when he said, "Well what's the point of going to see the butter cow at the Iowa State Fair?" Touche, Joseph, touche. Here are a few pix of our drive! Unfortunately I haven't been able to take many pictures because it's just me and the sleeping cat in the car (Joe has been driving the UHaul).

 Leaving our Georgia apartment... all packed up!

 

 

 Just had to take this picture in Oklahoma for Joe.... Garth Brooks Blvd!

 

 

 If you look closely you can see the rainbow... and Joe taking a picture. After we drove through the rain in Texas, he called and insisted we stop so he could take a picture of it. What a photographer!

 

 

 Cadillac Ranch... 10 buried Cadillacs in a field...

 Graffiti!

 

 

 I wonder what would inspire someone to do this... I'd rather drive the Cadillacs, personally.

 

 

 We found a paint can with paint... awe, look what Joe did. "Joe + Jess 2012"

 

 

 Climbing the car to get a better picture

 

 

2nd Grade!

I have been thinking a lot about my former students and I am missing them dearly! I know a new school year has started and every day I wish I could walk down the hall and wave to them and see how much they have grown and get a few hugs here and there. I promised I wouldn't forget about them! How could I.... they were just such a great group. So today I thought I'd reminisce.

Kindergarten Dr. Seuss's Birthday

Kindergarten Valentine's Day

First Grade Dr. Seuss's Birthday

First Grade Last Day of School

KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer!

I was playing around on eBay today while taking breaks from packing (always a dangerous thing) and I found a 5 qt Artisan Stand Mixer for a VERY decent price. I paid less than half for what they sell them for in the store! Needless to say, I am extremely excited and I can't wait to put it to good use! I see many sugar cookies in my very near future. Now, was it the raspberry color that I think would just look so fancy schmancy in my kitchen? No, it is white..... but I wasn't about to spend another $100 just for the color.

Dino Cookies

I had some leftover frosting and I just couldn't bare letting it go to waste... it took 20 minutes of  mixing with my hand mixer to get it to set up! (I desperately want a fancy stand mixer... preferably pink). Christmas present! **wink** **wink** So I used my new BOX of cookie cutters and found some dinosaurs and whipped up 1/2 a batch of cookies and this is the result! Joe came home just in time to decorate an egg. You can probably guess which one is his. He's so creative and I'm so lucky I have a boyfriend who actually likes to decorate cookies with me!

Dierks on Cat Nip

Joe wanted to get Dierks a toy the other day (he just loves that cat) and so he picked out a cat banana that had a little cat nip in it. I don't think Joe had ever seen a cat on cat nip before, and after a while we had to just take this banana away so the cat would give it a rest!

Creepy Crawlies

One very valuable lesson that I have learned from moving from the midwest to the south is that Iowa really has it made when it comes to their lack of natural disasters and their lack of deadly, large, hairy, creepy, and disgusting bugs. Now I have seen a few wolf spiders.. plenty of wolf spiders, but mostly they stayed on the bricks and never got into the house (pretty sure Eugene Wheeler has used some illegal pest control product to prevent this from happening). This is not the case in Warner Robins, GA. I have seen more bugs in my home then I care to admit and I am also hoping and praying heavily that New Mexico is slightly less buggy. I know there are scorpions and tarantulas, but for some reason I am letting myself live in a dream world for now where those types of creepy crawlies only exist in the middle of the desert and not in the middle of my Albuquerque apartment. I will continue to live in this dream world until I am proven otherwise.

What I am really trying to say here... is that I hope that by moving from Georgia to New Mexico that I am moving far.. far.. faaaaaaaaaaaar away from what I just found outside of my BEDROOM WINDOW......

Allow me to introduce to you to the North American Banana Spider. Joe has lovingly named him Peter Parker.

School Sugar Cookies

I have been thinking of all the DCG students and teachers lately and I am hoping that everyone had a great start to the new school year! Today I decided that I should send the teachers at DCG some love and support for their new year and so I made some "school" sugar cookies! I'll be sending them out tomorrow. I'm getting much better at perfecting my sugar cookies... and have been finding any reason imaginable to make them. I think these are the 4th batch I have made this week!!!!

Flower Sugar Cookies

Yesterday I decided to try out a new sugar cookie recipe... this one has white chocolate in the batter. Joe took a bite and instantly his eyeballs popped out of his sockets, "These are the BEST sugar cookies I have ever tasted," were his exact words. So... I guess these were successful! I learned a new technique for decorating via pinterest (my other obsession) and I made my way to Michael's for some supplies. Here are the results!

I can't wait to make some festive Halloween cookies using my newly found spider web design!

The batch only made about 20 cookies... the flower cookie cutter was so large! We are having another BBQ this weekend so I think I'll make some more, maybe try a cream cheese recipe, and make some smaller cookies. They sure were tasty though! I'll bet in this picture... you can guess which 2 cookies are Joe's. I decorated most of them and had to make myself slow down so he would have some to decorate. He does such an intricate job!

HOTlanta!

Joe and I decided that we should spend just ONE more weekend in Atlanta when we only have to drive 2 hours to get there. On our Atlanta bucket list we decided we needed to stop at the Vortex Bar and Grill to get some of the best burgers we've had (plus it was featured on an episode of Man vs Food).

This is the delicious Yokohama Mama Burger with tots.... and I swear, those were the best tots I've ever had. And if you had any doubt in your mind... I practically licked the plate clean.

After the Vortex we went shopping at probably the nicest mall I have ever seen in my life. I was in heaven! They had Prada, Louis Vuitton, Michael Kors, and countless other stores I couldn't afford and didn't bother going in to. However, it was fun just window shopping. I walked away with a new pencil skirt for job interviews at a whopping $23 from Express (I am a bargain shopper).

Those Vortex burgers could only fuel us for so long after the marathon shopping we did, so before leaving and heading to the hotel we got some pizza to go from the California Pizza Kitchen. I love the frozen pizzas from California Pizza Kitchen that I get at Walmart.. so of course fresh was way better!

Joe is totally rubbing off on me and my food choices and I think I may be rubbing off on him. When it comes to pizza I am a cheese, cheese, and more cheese girl as far as toppings are concerned and he is always ordering something unique and different. Well, we traded places at the California Pizza Kitchen where HE ordered the 5 cheese pizza with tomato and I ordered the Gorgonzola Pear pizza with caramalized onions. They were both very good. I was proud of myself for stepping outside the box.

This is the best picture I took from the World of Coke. But like a dedicated photographer, Joe had his fancy camera and took many great pictures that I will put up as soon as I get them on my computer! The BEST part of the World of Coke was the Tasting room where we got to taste over 60 flavors of pop or what some might call "soda" that Coke makes that is popular in other countries. Some were DELICIOUS.. some where like syrup... and some I can't believe people would actually spend money on. But to each their own! Needless to say, we got our caffeine fix for the weekend. All in all it was a great trip and we will miss Atlanta!