And That's A Wrap

Tomorrow, for the first time in about ten days I will wake up at 6:05a.m. to get ready for work, and bid farewell to Spring Break. :( It was really great to have a whole week off of work to get doctors appointments out of the way and random things done around the apartment. The best part about the time off was being able to spend time with Dan. On Tuesday we went to the Field Museum and had a great time! Dan and I didn't get lost in our travels to the museum as anticipated because my groovy father ended up driving us there. The only problem we encountered at the museum was Dan getting a little jealous about some hunk hitting on me. I was quite taken by the sculpted stranger...

Dan ended up taking a blow to the face after exchanging some nasty words with my new found hunk!

After leaving my hunk, we walked around the museum some more and saw some interesting exhibits about Earth's evolution and the Tsavo lions, just to name a few. Upon leaving the museum, we took a nice long walk to a fancy shmancy restaurant we had reservations for and ate meals fit for a king! ;)

Anywho, I had a wonderful Spring Break. It really ended with a bang last night for Frema's bachelorette party. Yesterday Frema's family and close friends celebrated my dear sister's last night out with the girls as a single woman. We began the fiesta at my parent's house, where Frema was showered with pizza, liquor and fun presents. Afterward, we went to a really fun bar where we drank a lot and danced our butts off! From bun pinching to dancing on bars, I don't think Frema will ever forget her bachelorette party. ;) She was such a fun and cute bachelorette and I'm so happy to be her matron of honor!

Well, I have to end this entry now so I can go grocery shopping. After a week of procrastinating this much dreaded task, I can no longer stand to see just a few bottles of water and one can of yogurt in the fridge. I hope you all had a great weekend, and as always, thanks for reading! ;)

Eggcellent Memories

Easter has always been a special holiday for our family because with it, comes a special tradition. In addition to celebrating Christ's resurrection, we also get together to dye and decorate Easter eggs. Every Holy Saturday, the day before Easter, all the Ma'Ayteh children gather around the kitchen table and delight in making a plain white hard boiled egg look FABULOUS!! We decorate the eggs using the special wax crayon that comes with the dye boxes and dye our eggs beautiful colors. I always wondered why there is only one wax crayon in those darn dye boxes. Don't the manufacturers know it causes World War II like fights amongst families with more than one child?? Sometimes we use the shrinky dink wraps to put around the eggs, but not often. We Ma'Ayteh children welcome the challenge of making an ugly egg artlike. ;)

This past Saturday, we continued the tradition of coloring Easter eggs at my parents house. There were three important things missing from this time honored tradition this year: the white wax crayon, Frema and Luke. While the white wax crayon's absence was substituted with colored pencils, we could not replace Frema and Luke's missing presence. The happy couple did not make the road trip to Chicago this Easter, but we were sure thinking about them! ;) We did however, make a special egg for Frema and Luke. The other side of the egg was more artsy, but the darn flash on the camera would not allow the images to show up. It's the sentiment that counts though, right? ;)


Anywho, my Easter weekend consisted of:

1.Dying lots of Easter eggs

2. Taking goofy pictures
3.After accepting the fact that Ryan's bunny isn't a rat, I fell in love with it and played with it quite a bit

4. Looking for my Easter Basket and watching Ryan's boyfriend, Jason, search fiercely for his Easter basket, that my vindictive husband hid. Jason was seriously looking for his basket for at least an hour and a half. Dan finally told Jason where it was, the bathroom hamper. Earlier when Jason was looking for his basket, my brother Geo gave him the hint that,"as the day went on, the hiding spot got better." Basically, by the time Jason found his basket, it was completely immersed in the day's dirty laundry...yummy.

5. Pigging out of steak tacos and chocolate cake

6. Watching "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" with Donna

7. Hangin' out with the fam

(My goofy brother Geo and husband Dan are pictured above decorating their eggs. Some of their Easter egg writing decor included phrases like, "Eat me." "I'm a dead baby chicken and never had a chance at life." "I'm hard." <-- (meaning boiled, but that was not mentioned on the egg.) Tomorrow we are going downtown to the Field Museum to see the "Evolving Planet" dinosaur exhibit. I am sooo excited about it! I'm doing a dinosaur theme with my class for April and some of May and I want to take a lot of good pictures and get information to share with my class. After the museum, we have reservations at Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab, which is supposed to be a really nice place. We got some gift certificates for Christmas with a few restaurant choices on them, and this place seemed the most appetizing. My only fear for our big date tomorrow is getting lost. We're taking the Orange Line, (Chicago Transit) to avoid parking rates and crazy downtown drivers, but then we're walking from the museum to the restaurant. We've both taken the train a million times, but it's always a quest if it's to an untraveled to location. We'll see how this works out my friends. Wish us luck! ;)

Well, since Dan and I are Spring Breakin' it all this week, we'd better get started on our very important task of watching all three "Lord of the Rings" movies we rented. ;) I hope you all had a wonderful Easter holiday with your family and friends!! As always, thanks for reading. Over and out.

A Little Bit Weird

Frema has tagged me with a Meme that requests I share six weird things about myself. As I carefully select the unique habits or characteristics about myself that indeed "make me weird", you must promise that you will try not to judge people. ;)

Six Weird Things About Sambo

1. Before I go to bed each night, I obsessively check that our front, back and balcony door locks are secure in our apartment. I also do these little rituals when I check that my phone alarm and night stand alarm clock are set for the next morning. I know you may be thinking it's no big deal, but these pain in the butt routines take away about ten to fifteen minutes of my sleep time every night. Just ask my husband, who patiently waits until I come to bed every night to turn off the bedroom lamp. Even after I check that the doors are locked, I have to go back to make sure that I didn't forget to secure all three locks on each door. I realize the craziness of this time consuming routine, which is why I have tried to lower the number of times I check the doors, and I have to say I'm doing much better.

2. Yet another bedtime setback...I have to be the last one to use the bathroom before Dan and I go to bed at night. Even if I have just used the bathroom, and Dan goes, I will try and go again after him. I know it's weird, but you promised you wouldn't judge, remember? ;)

3. I can't stand it when unwashed dishes are left in the sink, it drives me NUTS! Today I made eggs and sausage for Dan and I for breakfast, and immediately after I was finished eating, I started washing the dishes. Even if just a few glasses are left in the sink, I feel compelled to wash them.

4. I have a very addictive or compulsive personality. When I find something I like to do or am good at, most of the time I tend to overdo it. For example, when I used to smoke cigarettes, I smoked a pack and a half a day. When I began running more, I ran six days a week, and now I can't run at all until the orthopedic doctor says so, because I have hurt my knees.

5. I'm a die hard Molly Ringwald fan. I own and frequently watch "The Breakfast Club", "Sixteen Candles", "Pretty In Pink" and "For Keeps". I'm aware that this is the year 2006, but Ms. Molly's movies are timeless classics people! ;) By the way, does anyone else out there have a crush on Randall Batkinoff?? Just wondering...

6. As I've mentioned previously in other entries, I'm not much of a phone person and have never really been one. When I was in high school and would get calls from people and didn't feel like talking on the phone, I would answer our house phone and pose as one my sisters, saying that I was not home. Example--> Riiiinng, riiinng!!! (me) "Hello?" (person calling) "Hi, is Samantha there?" (me) "No she's not, this is her sister Frema, I'll tell her you called though." I didn't do this all the time, just when I had to avoid an awkward or unwanted lengthy conversation.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading about about my quirks friends! Have a happy and safe Easter holiday with your family and friends. ;)

P.S.
Today Dan and I went to our gym to view a weight lifting competition. It was absolutely insane to watch! This one man benched 750 pounds people! Anywho, the judge asked me to take pictures with his camera as he judged the competition, and when I was done, he told me my name was going to be in an issue of the "Powerlifting USA" magazine for taking the pictures!! Dan said he never thought his wife would be in a body building lifting magazine before he was. ;) I'm thinking my name/photos will either appear in the May or June issue of the magazine.

The Countdown Is On!

One week from today mine and Dan's students will have an early dismissal...and then it's SPRING BREAK 2006 BABY!! Don't get me wrong, we both like kids and love teaching, but we need a break. I wonder if there would be as many teachers if it wasn't for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring and Summer vacation. Spending an average of six-seven hours, five days a week with your students can almost drive one to border line insanity.

We're Spring Breakin' it at our apartment this year my friends. I'm most looking forward to not having to wake up at 6:00a.m. and leave for work while Dan is sleeping sound, because he doesn't leave for another half an hour after me. His alarm goes off about two to three times before I actually leave the apartment, and his snooze button always prevails. Dan wakes up to my Ray Charles Greatest Hits CD, and all I hear is, "Weeeeeeeellllll, I gotta woman, way over town, that's good to me...". Usually Ray only gets to sing, "Weeeeelllll..." before Dan slaps his snooze button silly. ;) It's really nice that we both have the same vacation time because we can hang out and really relax together.

Besides sleeping in, we really have no other plans and that makes me excited! Of course we'll find something that needs to be done, but there's nothing really scheduled other than visiting my cousin Kenny at college. I foresee lots of Texas Hold'em and a case of Miller Lite in our near Spring Break future, and that's just fine with me. ;)

The countdown is on people. Spring Break is keepin' like a wedgie! ;)

Sherlock Sambo

I feel like I've been holding my breathe with the nervous anticipation leading up to Frema and Luke's wedding shower. This past Saturday, April 1st was the happy couple's big fiesta and I have to say I'm very pleased with how smooth everything went. Frema and Luke had a good time with their family and friends, and enjoyed the wonderful presents they received, which is the most important thing of all. This post was going to be full of photos, as they paint the best picture of all. However, blogger is acting up and only let one picture upload. :( As soon as it stops being so ghetto, I can share more pictures with you all. The only visual the pictures can't show you is the story I'm going to share with you now.

At the wedding shower, we played a poem game to determine which person at each table would get to keep the table's centerpiece. There was a silver coin placed next to each centerpiece, and the coin was passed according to the poem's specific directives. It was a cute little game and everyone seemed to enjoy playing it. Toward the end of the shower, my dad's aunt, our Tia, came over to my table and pointed to the centerpiece, saying that she took one. I knew that she didn't win the poem game, so I asked her if she meant that she took a party favor instead and she said yes. Then I explained to her that only the winners of the poem game were supposed to take a centerpiece because I wanted mine and Luke's parents to be able to also take one home, and there were just enough for that. She still insisted on not taking a centerpiece, and then continued on socializing with other people.

I didn't take a picture of an individual centerpiece, but it is the glass vase with blue jewels and rose candles on the banquet table pictured below.



Shortly afterward, Tia was getting ready to go home, and saying her goodbye's. As she was walking, I heard the jingling of jewels coming from a large plastic bag she was holding. (And no people, plastic bags were not given out at the shower...so I'm thinkin' brought her own goody bag.) Anywho, suspicious that Tia stole a centerpiece several glasses of alcoholic punch later, I approached her and opened her plastic bag. Lo and behold, what do I find...the missing centerpiece. Not only did I find the centerpiece, but a handful of party favors as well. Dun, dun, dun. Busted. I actually took the centerpiece from her bag and explained to her that there were no extra centerpieces and she had taken one that belonged to Luke's parents. All she said was, "Do you want me to do a somersault out of here so you can make sure I didn't take anything else?" and I told her that wasn't necessary. Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky I tell you. Although, I must admit, Tia has a little rep for displaying off the wall behavior. Don't get me wrong though, I love her to death and she'd give you the shirt off her back-just not the centerpiece off the sweets table! ;) Anywho, enjoy the rest of your evening and I hope to have pictures to share with you very soon!!!