Camping!!

So it's almost been a month. Only because I am so slow at uploading pictures! lo siento!

David and I went camping. He called me at 4:30 on a friday and said.. "HEY, want to go camping?" My response.. "...SURE!" So then we had to figure out what we needed for camping and headed on out! We went to Pace Bend State Park west of Austin. It was beautiful!!


David had to set up the tent at 11pm in the dark. Everything I tried to help with had to be redone so I was little to zero help!

We're finally finished and need to go to sleeeeep. I only brought A&M apparel for the weekend. Was not thinking about how I was going to be in Austin all weekend. oops!

I was determined to wake up for the sunrise. Here we are! After this I basically jumped out of our tent to find a bathroom. Emma however was headed straight for the lake!



Our tent all set up in daylight! Emma is such a good guard dog!



We hiked for about 2 1/2 hours in the morning! Emma could not be trusted, which explains the lease to the belt method! I do hope we do not have to do this with our kids one day; however, it is likely!



Our water well!



David makes our fire! Which we ended up eating steaks over the fire with mac n cheese and broc! yummm! We ate dinner, roasted mellows, had hot chocolate and then called it a night! We were pretty tired so went to sleep early only to wake up at 6am to make it back in time for church! No worries the sun is not up at 6 in the morning so we had to take down our tent in the dark as well! :)

Overall a really really fun weekend with the hubs. I recommend it if you don't mind sleeping outside and not exactly having a bathroom. Next camping trip.. Nov. 5-7 with our bible study group!

Till then, trying to pack our apartment in boxes for the move! only 13ish days! :)
Blake

Soccer

This morning David and I decided to go play soccer .... with Emma. Emma is superrrr fast and hungry for chasing any type of ball. Therefore soccer ball, no problem she can carry that around too!

We were basically playing keep away with her until David kicked the ball when she was coming at him full charge. Needless to say Emma took out David's knees and he flew over her onto the grass :( We will be talking to Dr. Spann later today. Hopefully everything will be ok!

Also this next Wednesday the J.R. Harris eagles will begin practice. There will be lots of running and more running! We have 6 soccer balls total. 3 for the boys team 3 for the girls. hmm.. should be interesting. Originally when they asked me how many we should get I confidently said one for each player. They laughed at me. I guess we don't have money for that. shoot. If you know of anyone who would like to donate a lot of soccer balls to my school, we'd love it!

As for the rest of the day... we'll be tailgating at the alumni shindig with the sr. Spanns at the Baylor vs. rice game! It's here at Rice which is very convenient for us! Hopefully I'll have some fun pictures from the game! Go Bears!

..and go cowboys tomorrow! (Do I care? not so much, but everyone down here is obsessed with the Texans and they are playing here tomorrow so i'm routing for the cowboys :)

Have a good weekend! :)
35 days till the move!

Cinnamon Goodness!

I have a strong obsession with cinnamon rolls and Nancy Spanns are by far my favorrrrite! I finally attempted to make them on my own last week and here is what we have..

This is the dough after all the mixing and the yeast is in there. Then I had to let it rise twice..

They ended up being more of cinnamon loafs because I didn't have the small pans for cinnamon rolls that nancy uses.


After the first rising I put the cinnamon + sugar inside and they rose again. Then we have this my final cinnamon loaf after the baking. I must say I was quite impressed with myself on the first try! They are so delicious and if you come to the horrid houston to visit the spanns ... I will be happy to make these for you :) We will have 2 extra bedrooms in about a month so please start planning the visits!! :)

Till then.. here's emmalou chasing shadows!

Neiman Marcus Cookies!

Hello friends! This by far the best cookie recipe ever!! I remember Kelly (sister) making them one time growing up and I loved them (hence they were in my wonderful tried and true recipe book) and still to this day the Spann clan (in the words of mals) lurrrves them too! So I thought I'd share the recipe with you guys! (Emily.. has your mom made them yet?)

here ya go!

eee no I did not take that picture but you know if I had it would have taken me years to get it on here so I googled one, BUT that is how they look.. basically :)

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, not margarine
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup granulated sugar
12 oz chocolate chips
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt

4 oz grated Hershey chocolate bar
2 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
2 and 1/2 Cups blended oatmeal (place in blender and blend until fine powder)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream together butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine flour, blended oatmeal, salt, and baking powder and soda. Add gradually to butter mixture until combined.

Add chocolate chips and grated chocolate and stir. Bake for 10 minutes.

**This recipe has been halved from the original. You can double these amounts if you want to make a TON of cookies. I only make this halved recipe and have close to 50ish cookies. The extra dough I have I put in balls and freeze them so I can make them when we want a few and they're warm and gooey :)

Enjoy!
Bakin Blake!

Spann Summer Highlights

Hello trios amigos! (that's for my 3 friends) I was finally able to upload my camera and so here is our summer! :)




David and I got married on June 18, 2010. I had the BEST day ever and if you know me (which you 3 do) then you know how much of an answered prayer that is! Yay for no anxious Blake on our wedding day :) I love David so much and so thankful to be in this life with him!

After our successful wedding we made our way to Jamaica! It was a fun exciting week :) We were able to do so many fun things!! one of them being...

Tubing in the beautiful water!!! The water was so amazing there I was in awe all week long!
And snorkeling!! That was one of my most favoritest things to do! I had never been snorkeling so clearly I was AMAZED with all of the reef under there! sheesh it was sooo cool! Ok moving on from la luna de miel :) ...

PUPUSAS!!!! I'm quite obsessed with them so Dave and I tried to make them! big time fail. However a few days later we saw a PUPUSA place right by our house! They only make pupusas!! it's perfect and I practice my Spanish there!

Blar came to her favorite not so favorite city HOUSTON for Sam's wedding! This was us before the bridesmaid luncheon. We refrained from us both being ridiculous and wearing boots! However blar wore them and rocked them!

Then one of my best friends got married to Keith! Her wedding was so fun and I loved getting to spend the weekend with her, friends, and her family :) So happy to have been a part of it! And of course.. I can always use more purple dresses ;)

Enter: wife chop! I could no longer stand the enormous hair so I gave it to pantene ProV. They will make a nice wig out of it for someone who needs it! David and I went to Dallas to see Malsasita one last time before she left for good ole indy. I had lots of fun with those 2 love birds over there! We must salsa next summer before the ZAMwelch wedding!

BLAIR! i also got to spend a delightful meal with her before she took off to DC. I love blar mucho and hopefully david and I will make a trip up there SOON to see all that is blair in DC!

Which now leaves us here... I have my Standard Teacher Certificate as of now! I'm officially a legitimate teacher in Texas! I am thankful for this because I plan on sticking with it for at least 10 years (according to David)!

So for now.. I'm investing my time and life into 3rd graders who need a lot of love and knowledge. They are the sweeeeetest group ever and I'm so thankful for them. It'll be a struggle at times but I am so excited for this school year. I only have 34 more weeks with them! Sounds like a lot but not at all in the scheme of things! I will be updating you guys frequently on my classes! :)

Till then,
Teacher Blake

I should write something...

But I don't have any pictures uploaded :( See I knew this would be a problem!! I took pictures of all my childrens already.... it'll get up on here eventually.. (is that allowed?!) Also I have 2 favorites already.. Yulisa and David. Mostly David because I of course call him DAVEEEEED! haha no they do not know that is my hubs name!
*Side note... this year the "miss" is fading away... i'm getting a lot of Mrs. Spann! But mostly when my children say it it sounds like Ms. Pan ... hello mrs. bread! The bilingual teachers pointed this out to me..

I have begun my second year of teaching! It's crazy how nervous I was though for the first day. There was at least one child who looked more scared then me! My second day was today though and that went over well! They seem a little more advanced then last years buncho so that is kind of a nice feeling!

We're going to Dallas (again) this weekend for CATIE SKOMOH's Baby Shower!! I'm excited to see her although it'll be a short trip!

Off to write a very long list of overdue thank you cards!

Blake

48 Days of Marrrrriage!

equals one giant wife chop!

I'm sorry Ashley Little, but I couldn't hold out any longer. I have always wanted to chop off my hair because I mean I live in Houston, it's 112 Degrees outside, my hair is the BEST humidity detector everrr, and I live in Houston. Therefore today.. I chopped about 9-10 inches off when it was all said and done.

Here's a little preview from my excellent photo booth camera! I will eventually have more updated real photos but it's so hard to upload them that it's unlikely!

Speaking of difficulty w/ this blogging... how do I type type type and thennn upload a picture? Couldn't figure it out :( help!

Everything else in ilona is going swell and I will be returning to school oh so shortly!

:) love all of you two followers!
Blake Ashley

oh and ps. i need help with fixing the blog. it's toooo confusing. malsi this is my call out to you for help!