Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday....

Tuesday:
We finally made it to the beach!  We swam in the ocean and hung out for a few hours.  After grabbing a late lunch, we rested and cat napped.  At 5 we took a sunset walk.  It took about 15-20 minutes to get to the top of the mountain where we hung around to see the sunset.  It was beautiful, but of course we forgot our camera at the resort.  Haha!  That night we ate at the hotel's Italian restaurant.  I ordered the salmon carpaccio and then the beef lasagna.  I actually liked the beef lasagna more than the salmon!  David enjoyed his meal, but wasn't sure how Italian it really was...
Wednesday:
Unfortunately, David did not get great sleep because of a wicked stomach ache.  I bought him some medicine, then hung out by the pool until 11.  When I went back to check on him he was awake, but still not feeling great.  After a couple hours, we finally had him eat some plain pasta, rice, and bread.  David realized around 4:30 that this stomach pain was probably his diverticulitis flaring up again.  We quickly got a cab, went back to Coco beach, and bought him some antibiotics that were suggested on the internet for treating diverticulitis. Needless to say, we did not spend much time outside yesterday but we did finish the first season of Arrested Development! Thanks Zeb and Andrew! :)
Thursday:
David was able to get a good night's sleep since the antibiotic started kicking in immediately.  We had to be in the lobby at 7:45 this morning for our boat excursion to the rainforest.  He was very nauseous due to taking the medicine on an empty stomach and for the first 30 minutes of the bus trip, I thought he was going to pass out. Luckily his stomach wasn't in pain and the nauseousness disappeared soon enough for him to enjoy the entire boat ride. There was almost 20 people on the jungle boat including our tour guide and the driver.  We saw crocodiles, birds, and monkeys even came onto the boat!  The driver was feeding them apples (which is not encouraged) but man did I get some great pictures!  A monkey literally brushed my arm at one point!  We were back to our resort at around 1:15 so we had lunch and chilled by the pool until sunset.  It is super windy outside and seems like it might rain, so we are waiting it out until our 9:00 dinner reservation at the Italian restaurant again.  We are due to check out tomorrow at noon, but our van to take us back to the airport isn't coming until 11 p.m.  Thankfully, the resort already told us they would give us another room to shower in tomorrow before we leave.  What a deal!  Now we just have to deal with the 3 1/2 - 4 hour drive back to San Jose.  Wish us luck!

Coco Beach outing

Yesterday, David realized he really needed some allergy medicine (we were hoping his allergies would not be bad in Costa Rica but they are) so the concierge arranged a taxi with someone who spoke English!  We went to Coco Beach which was only 15 minutes away.  We bought some souvenirs from different little shops and we walked to the beach to take some pictures.  Our driver recommended a seafood restaurant for lunch and we are so glad we went!  Everything we had was great.  We started off with a small Caesar salad with garlic bread.  The dressing was different than a normal Caesar, but still delicious.  Then, we had sea bass ceviche (Sp?). It was so fresh and tasty!  We ended with a grilled seafood plate including shrimp, mussels, octopus or squid, fish, and vegetables.  Everything was cooked to perfection and there was so much food!!  We drank a couple beers with lunch and then headed back to our resort.  We hung out by the pool a little bit in the afternoon and it was the perfect temperature. We also went to get our couple's massage (Thanks Val, Jason, Zeb, and Andrew!) which almost put both of us to sleep! There was a long line for dinner so we had a few drinks in the upstairs lounge, and then had an okay dinner (especially compared to lunch!).  Today we are planning on finally hitting the beach for an extended period of time and then doing a sunset walk that is organized by the resort. Our excursion should either be tomorrow with a hike through a rainforest, or on Thursday which would be a boat ride through the rainforest.  David and I are excited for either of them, but it just depends on how many people sign up for them.  Love you all!

Honeymoon

David and I flew into San Jose, Costa Rica on March 12.  We spent the night at a Hampton Inn near the airport since we got in around 9.  The next morning a shuttle picked us up to take us to our resort.  The shuttle took about 4 hours, but we were able to see a lot of the country.  Check-in at the resort wasn't until 3 and we got there at 11 so we had to wait awhile before going to our room.  We sat at a lot of bars and ate snacks until we finally got to go in our suite at 2 pm.  The suite is awesome.  It has a big patio where we can sit outside, free internet  (clearly), a rain shower, jacuzzi tub, a tiny living room area and a huge bed.  We received complimentary champagne and fruit to enjoy.  The beach is not exactly how David pictured it would be, but it is a beach so we are not complaining.  I will try to take some picture of the view from our resort to the ocean, and then of the beach itself.  I'll also snap a picture of the pool area too since it is rockin'.  We didn't realize our resort has this schedule of activities that anyone can participate in such as archery and rifle shooting, kayaking or snorkeling tour, sunset walks, sushi and cocktail workshops, yoga, and much more. We plan on doing nothing today except relaxing on the beach and near the pool.  Don't worry,  we will wear tons of sunscreen.  There are animals, birds, and lizards wandering all around the resort's grounds.  One type of animal looks kind of like a big possum, but they remind us of Puddles with a long tail so we have named them Puddles 2 in her honor. Tomorrow or Wednesday we will be taking an excursion to the rainforest to hike and take a lot of pictures!  I'll keep you posted....

Cruisin'

Well I've been a bit out of touch for the last several days, but the cruise has been fun!  The first 2 days were pretty cold and windy.  Since they were just days at sea, we found ourselves pretty sleepy and looking for more to do.  Yesterday we got to go to Montego Bay, Jamaica.  It was pretty rundown, but our zip lining excursion was a lot of fun!  We got to see beautiful trees, bamboo, fruits, rivers, and kitty cats.  We all just wish it lasted longer.  After the zip lining, we all enjoyed a Red Stripe and laughed at the funny pictures that were taken along the way.

 

Today, we went to Grand Cayman.  Wow, I have never seen water so blue.  After a bus ride and a couple of boat rides, we all got to swim with sting rays.  Each of us held and got a kiss from the huge rays.  After the sting rays, we were able to relax on Rum Point Beach (with some excellent rum drinks I might add...) and enjoy some lunch.  David and I had just enough time to buy a shot glass and a keychain before boarding the bus/boats to take us back to the ship.  We relaxed in the sun for a while until the ship launched. 

 

Tomorrow we are going to Cozumel.  David and Bret will be golfing, while the ladies relax on some beach. 

 

The food has been pretty good, but I'm sure we have all eaten way more than our share.  Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the break for the holidays.  How's Puddles doing????

Yay for break!

Today was my last day of school before winter break. I have been looking forward to this day for the past month. I've been completely stressed this year and I never feel like I catch up. Plus, I'm planning a wedding on top of all that. This break will be a blessing. We are going to go to Plano and hang out there for a week, and then it's CRUISE TIME! David's family and I are going on a cruise to Montego Bay, Jamaica, Grand Cayman Islands, and Cozumel, Mexico. The boat leaves from Galveston the day after Christmas and doesn't return until a week later! It's gonna be one fun break!!

It's been a loooooong time!

I finally made a wedding website! I hope most of you have already seen it, but if not here's the site... Don't forget to sign the guestbook!

http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/DavidLynch&StephanieLisee

Prayer Request

For those of you who don't know, David's father passed away last Thursday. It has been one of the most emotional weeks of our lives. His family is doing amazingly well, but please keep them in your prayers! Thank you for your support and love.

Wall cloud?

This is one of the views David and I saw when we were driving home from Plano to Austin on Sunday. Literally a wall cloud separating dark from light. Creepy, but cool....

Congratulations are in order...

Yay! Zeb graduated! You think we would have remembered to make a sign so it would be easier for Zeb to find us in the stands, but we didn't. After 6 graduations, we STILL did not remember to make one. Luckily, Zeb was the smart one because she decorated her graduation cap with the name of the school where she got a job for next year. It was super cute and in UNT colors. She was always the creative one!!

Lovely Bones

Well it's been one month since David and I got engaged. Even though the wedding is still about a year and a half away, I have already looked at venues, bought plenty of wedding magazines and searched through/joined wedding websites, and I've looked at wedding dresses. I don't think I will mind the long engagement since it's fun being engaged! :)

On another note, we went to go see lovely bones tonight and the movie was great. Very interesting way to film the movie and I thought it stayed pretty true to the book. Mark Wahlberg was surprisingly good in that role being the father. Definitely 2 thumbs up from both of us.

Engaged for real this time

David proposed tonight and of course I said yes! We were able to go to my staff Christmas party so I had the opportunity to show off my beautiful ring. We are both very excited!

School

I haven't really talked about school in a while. This year's class has several more challenges than last year. A lot of times I feel like I'm failing these kids. I hope that is just the perfectionist part of my personality coming out, but I just wish I could do so much more for them. If you're a teacher... do you ever get into those funks where you feel like everything you're doing is boring and there is no possible way you are getting the point across to your students? I feel like I should be giving more enrichment for my high kiddos and more reteach to my low students, but I'm managing as best as I can. They did a lot better on the middle of the year benchmarks than the beginning of the year at least. I think it's funny that all my students last year got commended on the reading TAKS whereas this year I am desperately hoping a couple of my kids even pass... My writing curriculum has been a lot better this year due to that professional development I did this past summer. I am planning on some sort of science professional development this year or summer to help improve my teaching in that area. I feel like it's nice to have goals so now that I've tackled some of what I wanted to work on in writing, I will work on improving my science lessons. If you can tell, I don't discuss school with David all that much and I needed to get some of this out, even if only my parents read it! :)

Rockin around the Christmas tree...

David and I decorated a tree together for the first time with our
ornaments that we have each accumulated over the years. All it's
missing is a tree topper and a tree skirt... I love Christmas time!!

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil...

Picture of our house!

Cute Pictures... :)

UPDATE

There has been some confusion....I am not engaged. I have moved, but I am not engaged. LOL, sorry for the mix-up!

Home

Well thanks to Dad and David, I'm all moved in to David's house. I still have bags and boxes to unpack, but it's nice having everything here! :)

Schoolhouse Rock

I'm done with the first month of school and I've only had to take one sick day so far! After many stressful schedule changes and figuring out pull-out times for my needy kiddos, we are finally getting into the routine and swing of things. My class is full of sweethearts. Some of them are super impulsive (ADD or ADHD), but they have good intentions.

After the first week with the kiddos, David and I headed back to Plano for Zeb's 21st birthday...she's so grown-up now :) The weekend after that we went back to Plano again for one my friend Tracy's engagement party. It was a gorgeous night and I am so exited for Dan and Tracy! I am actually going to be a bridesmaid in her wedding in February!

I finally got to spend a weekend in Austin last weekend. David and I went to the movies (our usual hobby), slept in, and watched a lot of football. We also decided that I will be moving into the house with him. I just have to figure out how to go about subleasing my apartment...

Yesterday, I finally used my spa certificate that David got me for my birthday. I spent 3 1/2 hours at the spa getting a one hour massage, a spa facial, and a foot facial pedicure. I also enjoyed a couple glasses of wine while getting pampered. Needless to say, I was in a great relaxed mood when I got home! David sure knows how to buy gifts.

Today, I am looking forward to watching the UT game against Tech, and avoiding doing school work. Hope everyone is having a nice weekend!

My 2nd "first day of school"

Man it's nice having at least one year of teaching experience. I wasn't stressed or nervous really at all for today. Everything did not work out how I thought it would, but I just shrugged it off knowing that would happen. My kids have an overall lower average than last year, but they are a bunch of sweethearts...so far. I remember it took a few weeks for the true personalities to come out last year so I'm keeping that in mind. By the way, it's pretty awesome to hear that students actually wanted to have you for a teacher and were really excited when they got you. I've never heard that before considering they really had no idea who I was last year. I have a little sister of one of my kiddos from last year. The mom came in whooping "YES!" during open house because she was excited to have me again! How awesome is that?!