2013 Ornament Exchange

Once I was back from Wyoming, Shannon and I started planning our annual Ornament Exchange Party. If I remember right, this was our Sixth Annual event, and every year we get a little bit bigger.

Everyone brings a wrapped ornament, we eat a bunch of yummy food, and then we play a game and exchange ornaments. Everyone goes home with a new ornament for their Christmas tree, but most importantly, we have great fellowship with other fabulous ladies.

Here's our crew from 2013.

Of Dead Bodies and Presents

Geesh, I have been absent for a very long time. I got waaaay behind on blogging and then just kind of gave up for a while. You'd almost think I was planning a wedding or something.

And what a wedding it was! I will definitely blog about that very soon (once pictures arrive), but for those who missed it, it was the wedding of 2014. Seriously, everyone said it was the best wedding EVER, and I have to take them at their word. I kinda agree with them! It is definitely my favorite wedding I've ever attended....

But let's rewind a bit and start with Christmas, 2013.

My four best friends and I have been celebrating Christmas together for 11 years, and that's not easy because we don't live very close to one another. Our friend Irish lives in Wyoming (five hours from Denver, eight hours from Kearney), Katie and I live in Denver, and April and McGee live in Kearney. We make it a priority to get together and exchange gifts every year.

This year, it was our turn to go to Wyoming to visit Irish (and she'd just had a baby, so we wanted to meet the newest Kreis member). The four of us girls hopped in a car together for a road trip into nothingness. Of course, we made the most of the long drive and sang and laughed and ate.

Along the way on I-80 going 80 mph, we zoomed past what looked like a dead body in the median of the interstate. Since we were going too fast to determined what it was we saw, we decided to turn around for a second look. Well, the next exit was 10 miles up the road, so we drove 10 miles, exited, turned around, drove 12 miles back the opposite direction, exited, turned around again, and stopped on the side of the interstate next to the dead body.

Once we pulled over, there was no doubt in our minds that it was a dead body. I said, "We need to call the police." McGee and April said, "We need to check it out before calling the police. We don't want to look like fools."

So, McGee and April hopped out of the car, dashed across the interstate into the median, and made a slow approach to the dead body.

Katie and I sat in the car while cars and trucks wizzed by us. The car shook every time someone zoomed by. Katie snapped pictures. I kept saying, "We need to call the police. We need to call the police." Katie claims I was crying, but I swear I wasn't.

Does that not look like a body, or what? We assumed someone had wrapped the dead body in a sheet, dumped it on the interstate, and drove away. 

Only McGee and April were brave enough to check it out. 

McGee walked up the body, and using the tip of her toe, she nudged it. 

Turns out, it was just a sheet. No dead body on this road trip! 

I will say, however, that that was an adrenaline rush for all of us!

We continued on our way and made it to Wyoming that afternoon with no other exciting events to speak of. 

We spent the next two days with Irish and her adorable family. We ate, we drank, we opened presents, we did crafts together, and more than anything, enjoyed each other's company. 

Here are a few pictures from our time in Wyoming: 

 Shawn, Irish's amazing husband, made us prime rib one night. Delish!

We did crafts. 

Man, I love these girls!

ER Help

Josh and I went on a 30 mile bike ride yesterday morning. It was my longest of the season yet, and I think I did quite well!

Before our ride even began, though, we had some minor excitement. We had decided to park in the Target parking lot off Santa Fe and ride around Chatfield lake; this would give us the 30 miles we desired to ride.

As we were unloading our bikes in the parking lot, a man and woman walking their bikes approached us. The lady said, "Excuse me, do you think you could help us?"

I figured one of them had a flat tire and needed help pumping it up. They were in luck! I have a fabulous bike pump for such purposes.

"Sure, what do you need?" I happily replied. I am always willing to help pump up a tire.

"Can you take us the ER?"

So that was not what I was expecting.

"Of course! What happened? Is everyone okay?"

The lady rotated her body so I could see her elbow. It looked like she had two fists being help up to her elbow, that's how badly swollen it was. She moaned in pain as she rotated her body.

"We had a bike accident. Since it rained heavily last night, the bridges on the bike trail are very slick. My tire slid out from underneath me, and I landed on my elbow. My husband kind of road right over me as I crashed, and he went over his handle bars."

I looked at the man, and he had a deep gash in both knees and blood was dripping down his legs.

Josh and Shiloh to the rescue! Josh quickly unloaded our bikes off my rack and loaded their bikes on. Josh said he'd stay with our bikes while I drove them to the ER.

The lady was in obvious pain. She kept moaning the entire way to the hospital and she was a bit loopy. She was trying to form sentences but was having a hard time making her brain work with her tongue. Her elbow continued to grow larger and larger on the short 5 minute ride to the ER.

I helped them unload their bikes and got them into the ER waiting room. There was nothing left for me to do. They were very grateful for my help, and I left them with a "Good luck". Both of them were going to need medical attention.

I arrived back to Josh, and we went on our 30 mile ride with no mishaps. I'm still thinking about those two, though, and wonder what happened to her elbow. It looked extremely painful and made my stomach leap whenever I looked at it or at his gashes in his legs.

Lost Ring

Five years ago, I wrote this blog about losing my brother-in-law's wedding ring (in my underwear). It's a great story, so go ahead and read it.

With my upcoming wedding quickly approaching, Shannon keeps mentioning that my wedding day is going to become pretty exciting when she "loses" Josh's ring. It has become a joke that Shannon will have payback for the stress I caused her right before she said "I Do." You know what they say about paybacks, right?

This past week, while working on wedding vows and the wedding ceremony, I came across this interesting statistic:

Of every 10 rings misplaced or lost at wedding time, 8 have been lost by the Maid of Honor. She has a big ring you have asked her to put on her relatively small finger.

That's exactly what happened to me. I put Jeff's large ring on my thumb, and when I went to the bathroom, the ring fell into my underwear.

Apparently I'm not the only one who this happens to!!!

Now, please pray it won't happen to Shannon :)

Name Change

My students are resilient. I see them face struggles that no teenager should have to face, but I have seen my kiddos bounce back quickly. It's one of the many things I love about my students.

But I tell you what, my students are not taking my upcoming name change very well. With 30 days until the best day of my life, my students have become very obsessed with my new name. It just hit them this week, for the most part, that I will no longer be Nichols.

It started like this: "What's your new name going to be?"

"Martinez."

"Hahaha, that's funny. You don't look like a Martinez, with your blonde hair and blue eyes."

"I know, right? It will be weird for both you and me calling me Martinez instead of Nichols."

"Wait, what? You're changing your name at school???"

"Well, yeah, I guess. I mean, I did think about staying Nichols just because everyone knows me by that, but I'm sure I'll change eventually."

"But, you can't change your name. You're Ms. N. What will happen in a few years when we're talking to someone about Ms. N, our former English teacher, and they have no idea who we're talking about because they will know you as Mrs. Martinez?"

"That will be weird, huh?"

And then one student, a Hispanic student, started saying my name with a Spanish accent and everyone was cracking up.

One student says, "I'm just going to start calling you Mrs. Martinez right now so we both get used to it." I chuckled and continued on with class (we actually do learn in my class, despite fun conversations like this).

As the bell rang and my students departed for the day, I yelled out for them to have a good afternoon. One students yelled back, "Bye Mrs. Martinez."

And then again today, another student called me Mrs. Martinez.

Perhaps they are more resilient than I first thought!

Thirty more days of being Ms. Nichols.

Thirty more days until I'm Mrs. Martinez!!!

Sweet Tea Run

Yesterday during 1st hour, two of my students came and asked if they could go speak to their counselor. They were finished with their assignment, so I told them that would be okay as long as they brought a note back.

On the way to their counselor, one of the girls had a great idea to make a trip to McDonald's to get sweet tea. They would only be gone for 15 minutes, and on the way back they would swing by their counselor's office to get the note "proving" they had been with Mr. Lewis.

They hopped in the car, and as the driver turned into McDonald's, she was going way too fast and came too close to the light pole. She swerved to miss the light pole, and instead rammed up the curb. At this point, she was out of control and was headed the wrong way with a semi truck coming straight for them. She swerved again to miss the semi and ended up ramming up the opposite curb and up a massive hill. Once the car stopped, it slid down the hill back into oncoming traffic. The tire was flat, her car was undrivable, and they knew they were in big trouble.

The first thing the passenger said was, "Ms. Nichols is going to kill us." (She was right).

From this point, they made a few good decisions:
1). They called me first and confessed what had happened (although, they only told me they had a flat tire, now that she had rammed up a hill and almost hit a semi).
2). They called both parents to tell them what happened.
3). The parents stayed with the car while waiting for the tow truck.
4). They came back to class (in tears) to give me their deepest apologies.

I was so angry I was nearly in tears. I didn't yell, but I told them that I had trusted them and they lied to me. I told me that I am responsible for their safety and that if they had been injured, I would have been responsible for their lives.

They truly were sorry for lying, and I give them props because it would have been easy to try to cover up and not tell me what happened.

Today, they got called into the office by their administrator. He considered suspending them for 1-3 days for lying to me, but in the end (and I thought this was fair), they have to spend their next five lunches doing chores about the school.

They will never be able to leave my room again, and they have learned a very tough lesson. The girl's car is totaled, and she won't be driving for a while.

Nut Job Mom

I have a student. Actually, I have 140 students on a daily basis, but this one particular student is a Nut Job. I can't even blog about her because I'm afraid I'll lose my job, but please believe me when I say she is a Nut Job. Words can't even describe this girl.

And to make matters worse, she is also a lacrosse player and I am her coach. Every day, for hours, I must deal with her, and I really should win an award for keeping my cool.

But this blog is about her mother. Team Mom. Nut Job number one. (In the battle of nature versus nurture, I truly believe nurture wins every time I meet the parents of a crazy student. Like father, like son. Like mother, like daughter).

I get about 5-10 text PER DAY from Nut Job Mom. No joke. And the texts are so poorly worded and punctuated, that it takes every muscle in my brain to figure out what she's trying to say. She often tells me the same thing two or three days in a row.

When I was in NE for my grandpa's funeral, she texted me and the entire team at 1:30 AM. Yep, in the middle of the night. It was the same morning my grandfather died, so when I got the text, I thought it was my mom sending a message that grandpa had passed away. So imagine my heart rate and speed at reaching for the phone.

It was Nut Job Mom, though, and the text said that our Lacrosse game the following day was over an hour away near Colorado Springs and to make sure to leave at least two hours in advance.

THIS WAS ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE INFORMATION. Our game was about 10 minutes away. Our game was at Thunder Ridge High School. She was sending the entire team to Palmer Ridge High School. One word makes a big difference.

There was nothing I could do about it in the middle of the night, and it took me at least an hour to fall back to sleep. At 4:30 AM, I got the phone call that my grandpa had passed away.

That morning, I texted Nut Job Mom and said, "The text you sent in the middle of the night has wrong information. You need to fix this immediately." I then texted my entire team to tell them not to listen to text messages from Nut Job Mom. I received several phone calls from parents, who had also gotten the text, to confirm where the game really was. And I was dealing with this while I was mourning the loss of my grandpa. I was furious at Nut Job Mom.

She eventually texted and said she was sorry for the mistake. It was Mapquest's fault for sending her to Palmer Ridge instead of Thunder Ridge. Riiiightt....

Two nights ago, I received a text from Nut Job Mom at 11:30 PM. It was to inform me, for the third time (not even joking), that her Nut Job Daughter wasn't going to make practice because she was getting her teeth pulled. She also wanted to know what time practice was this week.

(Practice has been from 3:30-5 every single day for the past month. Nothing has changed. Practice will continue to be 3:30-5 until the end of the season).

Once again, I was awakened by her texts, and I had a hard time going back to sleep. I was furious. (I go to bed at 10 PM and wake at 5 AM. Please do not text me after 9:30).

The following morning, I sent her this text: The practice schedule has not changed. Now until the end of the season, we will practice from 3:30-5. The girls all know. I wanted to ask if you could please not text me after 9:30. I wake up at 5 AM, and I have a hard time going back to sleep when you text me at 11:30 PM and 1:30 AM. Thanks for this consideration.

I haven't heard a peep from her since.

Nut Job Daughter said to me yesterday, "My mom has some questions she wanted me to ask you...."

At least I only have to deal with one Nut Job now.