December through the Present

Get that play on words?  Because in December we get presents.....It sounds like a Richard Paul Evans book...I'm so lame.  I'm gonna lie and say Kelly pointed that out to me when he was reading over this for me. Ha ha Kelly's so lame.  So Kelly's (lame) pun notwithstanding, I (once again) am terrible at keeping my valiant readers up to date on my life.  I'm very very sorry, because I do know you live for this stuff.  No more delays; here goes:

So, way back in December I totaled The Mr. Darcy (my first car, and our only car) on the freeway (I'm okay!), then we went a couple days without one, which wasn't the most fun thing we ever did, and then we bought a new one, a 2009 Corolla which Kelly has dubbed Carolina.   I just realized we don't have a picture of our new car.  I'll have to take one sometime.

Poor Darcy.  The damage actually doesn't look so bad, but the airbags came out and that alone would have cost more than the car was worth to fix.

Then a week or so later I got pulled over for my first time ever.  So that was, well, kinda horrible, especially since I was in an area where a lot of my students live, and while I was waiting for the officer to write out my ticket I hear "HEY MRS. A! YOU GOT PULLED OVER!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"  Yeah...a few of my students were across the street pointing at me.  Laughing.  Saying inappropriate things like yelling at the policeman that I probably have illegal substances in my car (of course I didn't/don't, but they probably had some on them.  I kinda wanted to ask the police officer if he could let me off the ticket if I could tell him where he could arrest some kids with drugs).  It was about then that I decided never to drive again because apparently after 8 years I just started sucking at it.  But Kelly won't let me because I have to get to work somehow.  I tried to solve that dilemma by offering to quit, but he won't let me do that either for some reason.  There is no reasoning with that guy!


Then we went home for Christmas and it was so much fun.  We hung out with our families, and pretty much relaxed for the whole time we were there.  We had fun with our nephew Liam and went to SLC with my family, including my newlywed brother Kevin and his wife Lindsey.   We had a back-and-forth Christmas between my house and Kelly's house; it's pretty nice we haven't had to make any tough choices about where to spend any major holidays yet.

Kelly, me, and Bryan at the Tabernacle

Kevin and Lindsey with some lights on Temple Square

Kel and I attended an unofficial Juniper Reunion.  I saw a bunch of my old college buddies that I haven't seen in a few years, like Becky, Amy, Lindsey & Steve, Annette, Bryan, Nate, Blake, to name most of them.  And there was a guy I never met before who thought the fact that my name is Dani is the most hilarious thing in the whole freaking world.  I heard the quote from The Shining, "Come play with us Dani.  Forever.  And ever.  And ever."  come from his mouth about a bagillion times.  So....I'll just leave that there.

 It was pretty awesome when I walked in, though.  I think it's the closest I've ever come to feeling like a celebrity somewhat popular, though I believe that the actual sentiment was more like Hey-Dani-we-missed-you-a-little-plus-we-are-all-nice-and-somewhat-exuberant-people.   So that was really fun.  Later in the trip I also got to see my old roomie Janalee and meet her husband, Danny.  It was fun to catch up with everyone.

It was sad to say bye to our families and come home to Baltimore, and the all night flight was a killer, but we made it, and our apartment and cat were both fine when we got home.  Although our evil cat Libby was happy to have someone to play with again (I use the phrase "play with" loosely,  think more like "attack"), she didn't seem very happy when we took away her giant bowl of food.

When we got home we found that Libby had left a present in my shoe.  Fortunately not a typical Libby present, which tends to be poo.

We got her a Christmas present too, a crab in honor of living in Baltimore....

...which she subsequently ripped an eye off of.

In January I taught some more.  I have some pretty cool students this trimester.  Tomorrow is the last day of finals and I'm quite sad to have some of them leave my classes.  Of course there are a couple others to whom I say "I tried my best with you, good riddance."  I'm the worst teacher ever!!!  Although I missed school yesterday due to the previously-mentioned traffic ticket (I went to court to see if I could get probation, so I wouldn't get points on my license (success!))  and someone had scrawled "BEST TEACHER EVER" in blue pen on my desk.  It was probably meant sarcastically, but I haven't cleaned it off yet.

In other news, we were pretty convinced Kelly was going to get into Teach For America, and we were hoping for somewhere closer to home like Vegas or Denver, and we told everyone about it all excitedly and we waited and waited for January 17th to see where we would end up and start making plans....but he didn't get in.  I can't quite figure out why, but I guess there's another plan for us.  So we went about a month pitying ourselves and wondering what to do, but on Saturday Kelly got a job teaching Spanish here in Baltimore for next school year.  Hooray!  Not closer to home....but not any farther, either.  In celebration we went to Abbey Burger, which has a checkoff list of all the delicious stuff you want on your burger.   So tasty.  Anyway, I'll probably work another year and we'll pay off Kelly's student loans and probably a huge chunk of the car and throw the rest into savings for...future things...that I want very badly....right now....but Kelly says we have to wait longer :(

My parents gave us a puzzle of Las Vegas for some good vibes for TFA, I put it together and we kept it out until the 17th.  Needless to say we put it back in the box that night...not so good vibes I guess...

 Hmmm....anything else interesting I feel like writing about? Um...Our cat has been trying new tactics to try to let us know she REALLY wants to be fed.  We give her dry food for cat breakfast and cat after school snack, but before we go to bed she gets half a packet of wet food.  She lives for the stuff and starts letting us know around cat after school snack time that she wants her good stuff.  The best attempts recently have been jumping into the refrigerator where we keep the uneaten half-packet of food in a ziplock bag, licking her empty food bowl, licking the outsides of her empty food bowl, licking the floor around her empty food bowl, and the best so far is what we like to call the "dying of hunger" approach.

Libby's dying of hunger approach

 When we go into the kitchen, she slowly makes her way to her food bowl, as if she can barely stand, and right before reaching it she collapses.  It's quite a performance and she seems quite pathetic...until you leave the kitchen and she trots after you.

Oh, for an early Valentine's Day present Kelly bought me a bench and I loves it.  It's great to come in, be able to sit down to take your shoes off, and not track outside stuff onto the inside stuff.

This is the present that was on the bench.  It was for my friend Cara and her new baby.  I took a picture of the card for my mom, because I made it while I was on the phone with her so I was telling her about it.

Now for some other pictures of random stuff...since November, I guess...

Our Thanksgiving feast of chicken marsala, mashed potatoes, dressing, and peas.  And the chef himself.

Ahern self family portrait Thanksgiving 2011

I made this for our nephew Liam for Christmas.  It's made of washers and I got the idea from Pinterest.

Our Christmas tree! We called it Baby, because we didn't put it in a corner this year.

Libby LOVED this tree this year.  She would sit under it, hide next to it, stare at it, play by it, etc.  She was sad to see it go.

It's pretty sad when you upload your pictures from your camera and 75% of them are of your cat who is a pill and really does poop on the floor sometimes.  Kelly...we need something else cute to take pictures of...hint hint.

 So that's the update into the meaningless drivel we participate in everyday.  Aren't you glad I update you on the exciting comings and goings of the Aherns?