Happy Valerie's Day! :)

a dozen roses from my sweet husband!

this one was from Becky, my high school helper

the red one was from David - one of my students.

Upset the fruit basket!

This was my desk on Valentine's Day. The students were so sweet with their candy, cards and flowers.
Alison was the winner of musical chairs

havin' a party!

For those of you that have wondered how far we are from the ocean, this is a view from my classroom window. Right behind the trees is the water.

my bro and me

Adam and I decided to go ahead and give Kaitlynn her birthday presents early instead of just seeing her open them over the webcam. This was her expression the whole time we sang to her!

We thought Kaitlynn wanted the gift card box, but when I took the gift card out, she tossed the box on the table saying that she didn't want it because there was nothing in it!

Adam opening his goodies from mom and dad.

The two greatest parents on earth!

Sleeping Beauty

Beautiful!!!

Thanks to mom and dad for a great birthday dinner at Bandido's.

So excited to be at Bandido's!

hahahaha - classic.

A great Mexican restaurant
Granny Nichols and me

Sarah Ann and me - this was my last time to see her before she has her baby. We met up at Starbucks. :)

Maria, Amy and Michelle

Aaron (Sarah Ann's husband) being himself!

As we were leaving Cincinnati, we met up with my Grandma Yount at Bob Evans for a late breakfast. The food was awesome and it was really good to see grandma again.

YUMMY!!! This was mom's table one of the nights we were home. By the way, most times we sat down it was to a meal like this one - hot and awesome! Thanks mom...I'm still craving mashed potatoes and beef and noodles. :)

More of our trip

Redneck cooler - very handy though!

Olivia loved playing with the cans of pop.

A beautiful view of Cincy... coming around the cut in the hill. We ran to the Florence Mall before going to Aaron and Lisa's house. JCPenney, ya know... The clouds covered seemingly all but the city, and the sun was shining brightly on the skyline. A beautiful sight.

Elliott was cute as ever, as were his parents. Or at least he was. Anyways. It was cool being able to spend time with them on this short trip to the mainland.

They recently got a wireless router installed in their apartment. However, it was encrypted, so I was unable to get on. Luckily, there are a couple other non-secure wireless networks floating around on the hilltop, so I was able to join my bro in surfing.

We headed down towards Cincinnati on Wednesday morning, and stopped in Franklin on the way at the home of our good friends Matt and Erika Deuel. They recently added a member to their family. Hannah is adorable. Lunch was fantastic and it was great to spend time with them.

chicago with eric, meg and livvy

We arrived in Chicago around 8:00 Saturday evening and spent the weekend there with EML. We enjoyed spending time with them as well as the church people there at Wesleyan Missionary Church. We are heading back up there this Saturday morning to fly back out Sunday.

Olivia was definitely a major highlight of Aunt Valerie's trip.

Ash Wednesday Break

Greetings, friends and family! I am doing something very unusual with this post...not posting any pictures. However, I will post them once we get back down to our home in Cayman. We have had this whole week off of school for Ash Wednesday Break. We have been able to see much of our family and several friends on this trip. Our journey began on Saturday evening when we got on the airplane and headed for Chicago. We spent Sunday with Eric, Megan and Olivia and had a very nice time. Monday, a little after noon, we headed for Lima. The weather was horrible the whole way home. I guess I'd rather have extreme fog as opposed to icy roads, so I'd better be thankful. The trip took a little longer than expected plus we lost an hour, so we didn't get in til around 7pm. We spent the night at my parents house and enjoyed visiting with them, Granny, Greg, Steph, Ryan, Evan, Kaitlynn and Allison. On Wednesday, we headed for Cincinnati. We stopped in Franklin at Matt, Erika and Hannah Deuel's house for lunch. Erika is a great cook! I guess Matt helped with the prep stuff to, and all women know how much of a help that is! Hannah is such a little doll. We were glad to get to see them. We left there and continued our journey to Cincinnati to see Aaron, Lisa and Elliott. That night, Aaron, Sarah Ann, Maria, Michelle, Amy and I went to Starbucks. That is always a must at least one time when we go to a place that has one of those fine establishments! I was really glad I got to see Sarah Ann again before their baby comes. She is due March 23. I'm really looking forward to seeing this little one! Maria is my lifelong best friend, Amy is my old college buddy (with whom i miss having cookie dough and coffee) and Michelle was one of our students last year - fun times! This morning we met Grandma Yount for a breakfast at Bob Evan's. We enjoyed spending some time with her. We are now back in Lima for a couple of days and then will head back to Chicago to be with my brother and his family again on Saturday until we fly out Sunday morning. This is/has been such a good week - busy, but good. We have traveled many miles, seen many people and hugged many babies! That's always fun! Anyway, I hope I haven't bored you too much...I promise pictures will come...SOON!