Our Thanksgiving (with pictures!)

We have been teasing all of our devoted readers with promises of pictures of our new home. So without further ado, we present...


Our new house!


This is the view right as you walk in the front door.


This is the living room from the kitchen entryway. We liked this house because of this big, open room with high ceilings. The picture doesnt really do it justice but this is our favorite room in the house!


Our living room is hard to take pictures of but this is one of the front door and temporary entertainment center! We have spent alot of time this week in furniture stores in Dallas trying to find its replacement.


And this is a shot of the back door that Mom, Brandon and I (Kaitlyn) put a stained glass window treatment on. I (Josh) wasn't so sure about it, but I (J) think it turned out pretty well.


Here is our kitchen - the room that has been the most unpacked and set up right now! We loved the cabinets and the builder gave us a full appliance package with the house. New refrigerator, microwave, stove, dishwaser and washer and dryer! Pretty awesome.



(J): This isn't even the full tour. You'll have to come and see it yourself for that (or just stay tuned here for more pics). We are so excited to be here and it is so close to our school. It only takes us 10 mins at the most to get there in the mornings. Getting into this house was quite a process (see "Homeowners" post below). We are so thankful to have it. Mostly, we are so thankful to everyone who helped us out so much! Both of our families, Carlton, Nikki, Brandon, Ted, Kim, Katy and Billy were all a big part of the moving process. From packing millions of boxes to loading and unloading furniture off the truck. We could not have done it without them. Its alot of fun to have such great families.

(K): We didn't even plan it this way but I like how we're doing a very Thanksgiving theme post right now! (Editor's Note: When Josh read that sentence he was inspired to change the title of our post. It really wasn't planned!) In that same spirit, we are so thankful for all of our friends! We have been so blessed since we moved to Nashville to meet so many people that have become parts of our lives! From our high school and college friends that we have known for years to our "teacher friends" we see everyday at school to our friends at Ethos and house church - you guys have been with us through the whole process, encouraging us, being bummed with us and getting so excited for us when everything finally worked out. We appreciate each and every one of you so much and are so thankful for your friendship! You have been an incredible blessing in our lives and I don't know what we would do without you!
**Thanks especially to Daniel and Jessica, Dustin and Laura(you were there in spirit!), Dana, James, and Jon and Heather for being our manual labor on Saturday!

(J&K): Hope everyone has a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving!

Longest Week of my Life

You're about to get the full and complete story of Cool Schools, the "camp out" lock in, and everything else that happened during the week of October 26-30th!

Let me start with a couple of back stories so that we're all on the same page! The first one goes all the way back to last year. Steven Hayes, the art teacher and FCA sponsor at school, asked Josh and I to be in a video promoting See You at the Pole. Unfortuantely for Josh, he asked me first and I don't know how to say no! What you need to know about this video is that Josh and I were in homemade Wonder Twin costumes and acting ridiculous! Other teachers were Superman, Batman, Wonderwoman and Aquaman. I have no idea why we were some of the most obscure superheroes from the 70's but that's who they asked us to be and once again, I can't say no! I have heard from others that this is one of the first videos that pops up on youtube when you put Goodpasture in the search.
Next, I need to tell those of you who don't watch Nashville Local News what Cool Schools is. Every Friday morning, Channel 4 in Nashville broadcasts live from a high school in the area. They send Aaron Soloman, one of their broadcasters, to the school from 4:30-7:30 and every 20 mins or so they cut to him live to see what's going on at the school. It's the schools responsibility to have a pep rally, activities and performances going during that time so that you don't look like the most boring school ever! That's right, this means that teachers and students have to get to school at 4;30 in the morning in order to be a part of Cool Schools! We have known that this was coming for most of the school year, what I didn't realize was how crazy that week was going to actually be!
The last thing you need to know is that I had been talking to our principal, Mr. Judd, about getting something from Fools (my upcoming production) on the agenda for Friday so that we could get some free publicity for our show that would be the next weekend. He was trying to work something out but left it at a no promises type answer. When we got the schedule for that Friday pep rally the week before, Fools wasn't on it. I was bummed but I had tried and I wasn't going to push it!

Monday, October 26: I don't really remember much about Monday except that it was Retro Twin day. (All week was our Spirit Week which means every day is a different dress-up day). Retro Twin day means an outfit from any decade as long as someone matches you. So Josh and I decided to wear our Death Cab for Cutie t-shirts and I wore my skinny jeans for the first time. (The t-shirts were our twins part and the fat that Death Cab for Cutie is so last year's band was the retro part!) I think the skinny jeans were a success so it was a big day!

Tuesday, October 27: Tuesday was Hero day! You could dress up like your favorite hero - I didn't have time to put anything creative together because of rehearsals every night so I pulled out my Little Mermaid sweatshirt (lavender Disney sweatshirt in a little girls size with Ariel and Flounder swimming on front) and decided that she would be my hero for the day. We had planned an all-school singing devotional because we would knew Channel 4 would be there to do a little pre-filming so they could start advertising for Friday. So everyone took their hats and masks off before coming into the auditorium and they filmed all the heroes and superheroes singing their hearts out! Precious! So then at the end of Devo Mr. Judd makes an announcement for the cast of Fools to stay behind after devo. At this point I'm a little confused and hoping we're not in trouble because I don't know anything about why he would need to see us. So I come down front after devo and ask what he needed us for. "They want to film a scene from your show and interview you." Seriously? Remember, I am wearing a Little Mermaid sweatshirt, and as far as I know we got bumped off the schedule so my kids are not expecting this at all! But I'm not complaining about the free publicity so I circle my kids up and tell them to get set for Act 2 Scene 1, mostly because that was the scene we had just practiced! While we're working Mr. Judd calls me down to meet Aaron Soloman, local TV personality. He introduces me and Aaron shakes my hand and says "Hey, you're one of the wonder twins!" SERIOUSLY?? Apparently, we had given them some of our past videos to go through and edit and add to the footage and so Aaron had seen our See You At the Pole video. Awesome. He made some crack about how I was nominated for an Oscar for it and I made a witty response about how I'd been waiting for this day my whole life and everyone was laughing so my first conversation with someone semi-famous in Nashville went ok I guess! So then I have to go make sure my cast is doing ok. They are freaking out but they're troopers to they handle it and do really well! After a few minutes of the scene he groups us up on the set and asks some questions and the whole time I'm standing there in my Little Mermaid sweatshirt. Again, awesome. Fortunately, the video they ended up editing and putting together is now online and it turned out pretty cute (look for me, lavender sweatshirt on the end!) I'll include the link to that video at the end of this post!

Wednesday, October 28th: Full Disclosure: I started this post back in October but never finished it! It is now November 23rd and I don't really remember anything specific that happened on Wednesday but I'm sure it was awesome!

Thursday, October 29th: So our awesome principal (seriously, he really is awesome!) has been scheming this whole week trying to come up with a plan for the night before this big Cool Schools event. Since we are trying to encourage all the kids to be there at 4:30 in the morning it seems like we should be able to work out a fun plan to keep all the kids at school all night. Kinda like a lock-in! To most people (Josh included) the word lock-in is terrifying. I LOVE it! I love everything about lock-ins! I pulled so many all-nighters in college I can't even remember them all and that was for lame school stuff! When I get to have lock-ins for fun stuff it's even better! But then they start adding the words camp out. That's when I freak out. I do not camp. At all. Seriously. Not even a little bit. No tents. No sleeping outside. None of that sounds awesome to me. So that's where I start to get a little worried. To make a really long post a little bit shorter, I'll just say that they decided to let the kids bring tents starting at 8:00pm on Thursday night but also left both gyms open (for a boys gym and a girls gym) for people who were not so keen about sleeping outside so I was all for it! I even moved up my rehearsal that night (because yes, in the midst of all of this we've still been having rehearsals every night!) so my cast could be a part of all of it. And it was AWESOME!! I didn't sleep even one bit but it was so fun! We had tents and campfires and smores and games and we showed a movie in the auditorium and it was just so fun to be able to hang out with the kids (and our fellow teachers) in a setting that was so different from the classroom! I played Nertz (a card game) with a group for ahwile and we had playground relays and then towards 2 and 3am we just sat around and laughed at nothing till we cried (or at least I cried - I don't think anybody else did!) The kids did awesome and there were like 8 of us teachers who stayed up the whole night!

Friday, October 30th: At around 3:30 or 4 we started walking around giving wake-up calls for all those who didn't make it through the night and then at 4:30am Channel 4 showed up and we were ready to go! We had a pep rally and a rock paper scissors tournament and the little kids did a dance to the Monster Mash. There was an awesome Science experiment and a middle school dodgeball tournament and just all kinds of us acting crazy for live TV! If you are just really interested (cough*Grandma*cough) you can go to www.wsmv.com and search on the Cool Schools page for Goodpasture and they have some pretty good footage still up of all the Friday morning stuff. I don't think I'm in any of it but it's still pretty awesome. We make it through till 7:30 when Channel 4 wraps it up and starts to leave and then they send all the kids to the cafeteria for breakfast and then after breakfast we are supposed to have class until 11:00. Which means we go through a normal school day and just spend about 30 min in each class instead of an hour and 30 minutes. That part started getting a little rough but we made it through! By the time that last bell rings though I am kind of dying but the day is not over yet because Josh and I have to be at the Title company at noon to close on our house! I still think it's really funny that these two things (cool schools and signing on our first house) will be forever tied together in my mind. We got there a little early and they had these huge couches for us to wait on and I had to go sit at the play table for the kids and start coloring because I was afraid I would be out in 2 seconds if I just sat there on the couch! But we got the papers signed and officially became homeowners and thankfully we have an awesome realtor who loves us helped us out alot and was not frustrated with us for operating on no sleep at all for the past 24+ hours! So overall an awesome, memorable, fabulous week - but definitely the longest week of my life! (in a good way!)


PS Here's the link to the video with my cast in it. It starts out with a commercial for Tennessee Tech but it doesn't last very long and then it gets into the Goodpasture stuff. They showed it during the week as a preview to what would be coming up on Friday. My cast shows up at around 2 min 30 seconds in.

http://www.wsmv.com/video/21476621


-Kaitlyn

Homeowners

Kaitlyn: So this is pretty monumental I think . . . On Friday, October 30th, Josh and I closed on our first house!

Josh: I dont think it has fully sunk in... and it probably wont until we move in a couple of weeks. But signing all of those papers and getting those keys was unreal.

K: I was prepared to sign until my hand hurt because everybody had been warning me it would be that bad. But it wasn't really that bad! I mean, we signed a lot of papers but my hand was fine and I didn't feel like I signed away my first born child in there or anything like that. And you're right, I don't think it's fully sunk in yet.

J: Many of you have been following our progress on this purchase for awhile and know the difficulty we have had. But for those who haven't been getting frustrated phone calls every few evenings, it has been a struggle. We had offers on three houses before this one and the house was taken from under us on all three occasions. We found this house and it seemed perfect and exactly what we wanted but we refused to get our hopes up until we actually signed those papers. Friday we actually got the keys and they told us it was ours. We are so relieved/excited/exhausted.

K: I'm not gonna lie, I think the process has been more stressful for Josh than it has for me! That's not saying that I didn't make some frustrated phone calls somewhere in there too but Josh had to pretty much drag me into this whole process with the help of 2 major "interventions". The first one was at my parent's house and the 2nd one was at our teacher's workroom at school. I had been saying for awhile that I did not want to think about buying a house. In my head buying a house equaled "the end of all fun". I don't know why or how that idea got into my head, but it did! Sometimes, believe it or not, I can be a little dramatic and irrational, this was one of those times. It just seemed so permanent and so life-changing, not to mention budget-changing (and I love shopping!) It was like getting cold-feet before a wedding I guess except it was all about the house.

J: But then we started looking at houses and seeing all the different possibilities and realizing how much more space we could have you started getting pretty excited about it. Especially after we would come back to our soul-crushingly small apartment. I'm just so glad we got this done and that we're going to get $8,000 for it. Unreal.

K: That's the short version! It took a little bit more than that but I guess that's what we'll go with. If you want to know more, just let me know - I'll do a whole post about my journey to being ok with buying a house. Ooh, that sounds good! I bet it could be a TLC show! I bet our whole life could be a TLC show! They need a replacement show right?

J: Nope. So we're really happy about our purchase and so excited to get into it. We are going to wait two weeks before we move because of Kaitlyn's performance that is coming up this week. (Fools, Nov. 5 and 7 @7pm. Be there!) So it looks like Saturday, Nov. 14 is move-in day. We'll keep you updated with pictures and stories as I am sure you are all waiting with bated breath.

Finally, we actually closed on Friday with literally no sleep the night before. Our school had a lock-in and naturally we chaperoned. This made the whole thing even more surreal. K will have an entire post about the reasons surrounding the lock-in coming soon. Stay tuned.

K: It sounded like you just signed off but we haven't told them about the house yet! Our new address is 1025 New Providence Pass Madison, TN 37115! It's a 3 bedroom 2 bath house with hardwood floors in the living room and carpet in the bedrooms and tile in the kitchen! It came with all the appliances (stove, oven, microwave, dishwasher, fridge, washer and dryer!) and they are all brand new and black and nice! The master bedroom has trey ceilings and TWO walk in closets! We have a good backyard with no fence yet but that will definitely be the first thing on our agenda this summer! I promise we will have pictures up soon! It's pretty much the best house ever and we can't wait to move in! But first come see Fools, seriously! It's going to be funny! And I will write another post (maybe tonight!) about why we hadn't slept in like 27 hours when we signed the papers! Hint: it involves me being on TV!!!! :) Get pumped!

National "Chill Out" Week, 2009!

I really, sincerely want you to chill out. I've discovered that my tolerance for tension and confrontation is close to zero. I would much rather have a good conversation sharing funny stories from the previous week or talking about how stupid the BCS is than to actually talk about something that is relevant and important to everyone.

Unfortunately, this attitude is pretty weak-minded and generally wussy and doesn't do much for standing up for what you believe in... but I still dont like it. So here's the deal. I have an idea that I think will help alot of us... and especially me.

Though not unprecedented, I believe the political rhetoric in this country is at such a vitriolic level that hardly anything can even be discussed beneficially, let alone actually get something accomplished. I believe, as do many others, that the main reason for this is the 24-hour cable news stations and in particular the pundits that rail daily from their small, air-tight studios claiming to know deep truths about government, religion, society and everything else. We have got to chill out if we're going to have legitimate conversations about all of these important issues facing our country, our church and our world. These are conversations that are necessary and need immediate attention (despite my discomfort).

But do you think these pundits want anything to do with a national "chill out?" No freaking way... that's their whole deal, right? Everything that they are talking about has to be incredibly important and everyone who agrees with them is a "normal" American, Christian, human being, etc. And everyone who disagrees is a complete imbecile that most likely have racist, fascist, or satanic tendencies. This mentality isn't just stupid, it's toxic. It brings us farther away from truth and leads us towards blind acceptance, anger and hatred towards anyone who doesn't watch/listen to the same programs ... and that's lame.

So here's my idea. Let's all chill out... seriously. Let's intentionally stay away from 24 cable news networks, talk radio, politically aligned blogs or websites for one whole week. Just a week to see if this works. And I'm not just talking about one side of the argument here. Many of you reading this blog will know my political leanings but even if you dont, I'm going both sides here.

For the entire week of Nov. 1st - 7th, I'm not going to watch anything on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, or anywhere else with similar programming. I will not watch or listen to anything Beck, Limbaugh, Stewart, Olbermann, O'Reilly says nor anyone else with medium to influence public political opinion. And I was hoping you would join me...?

But let's not just be passive in this. Let's do something as we collectively fast from pre-packaged bias. This isn't a media blackout. As a matter of fact, during the week, be intentional about watching your local news, read your local news paper, the more local the better (but I'd still stay away from the opinion section). We can begin to better understand the needs and concerns of the people in our communities. But lets not stop there. Our week of freedom from mass media punditry should be used talk to each other.

We have let these masters of the airwaves tell us how we should think, talk and act and often we are more than willing to follow. But the pundits don't stop there... they also tell us what the other guys thinks- and how stupid and racist and fascist they are because of those thoughts.


Instead of believing that nonsense, we could make it a point talk to someone who you know has a politically opposite point of view. It should be a week filled with calm, cool and reasonable discussion. But in these conversations, be intentional about listening to what they think and why they have that point of view. Dont go into it ready to disprove them or trying to create an argument. Instead, listen to what they say and ask them if they would be willing to listen to your point of view.

What if we had a ton of people do this next week? What if we turned off the tv and radio and stopped reading our blogs for a few days and just talked to each other? Would it help the national health care debate? Inspire widespread activism? Spur millions of fist fights? Maybe... but at least we'd get to hang out with each other and actually talk about stuff that matters.

Let's just try it. Lets all just chill out. For one week. Nov. 1-7 is National Chill Out Week. Spread the word...

-Josh

Movie Wednesdays!

Cause who does movie reviews on Wednesdays?

Last Friday Josh and I saw Where the Wild Things Are with our good friend Dana and her good friend Brittany (who is now our friend as well!) So this is going to be our first "together" review. We'll see how this goes ...

K: So Joshua, Where the Wild Things Are ... first thoughts?

J: Great book made into a good movie. The movie was visually striking and I thought the kiddo who played Max, Mr. Max Records, was really impressive. But I would have hated it if I was 8 years old.

K: Yea, you know how you wanted to name our first dog Max and I said no because I thought that Max was a weak name and that we could do better? Well I think a combination of Max in the movie and how awesome and precious little Max Records was when he was on Conan changed my mind. I think we can name our first dog Max!

J: Holy crap, that's fantastic. I'll hold you to that. You told me you enjoyed your movie-going experience while we were still in the theater... still feel that way?

K: Yes definitely! I mean, let's be real - I cried - but who wasn't ready for that? And I'm pretty sure that my mom can vouch for how I would have hated it as an 8 year old too! But watching it as a 24 year old with all the memories that I have of reading the book when I was younger it was incredible! And much more relatable than I expected. I knew the book was a short picture book with 10 sentences total and movies are long with much more than 10 sentences. So, I was expecting a lot of "artsy filler" I guess and I was a little nervous about it feeling long or stretched. But they did a fantastic job of making Max's story accessible and believable. I don't want to ruin the story for those that haven't seen it yet so I won't elaborate! The characters were really what sold me though. The heart, struggles and personality that the movie gives to the "wild things" are so endearing and felt so realistic even though they were puppets! I just think that Spike Jonze did a great job of giving life and extra dimension to 2-D characters that we all know and love.

J: A movie about childhood that's not really for children. My first reaction after the credits rolled was how scared I would have been if I was a kid. I read this article about how some parents were pretty upset. I'll just say that I thoroughly enjoyed the movie but I feel it should have been a bit more geared to a younger crowd. We talked about how many levels there were to this film. Symbolism is everywhere. Max does a great job showing the frustration and incapacity of an 8 year old. But its much too realistic and complicated to be enjoyable to a child. I dont know if that was the right move.

K: I don't know. I see your point but I liked the levels and the symbolism just like you did and I liked how realistic and complicated it was (which is surprising for me). It gave the movie that depth that makes me want to go see it again. And I realize that I am not your typical movie-goer but from the moment I saw the first preview I was not thinking about it as a kid's movie because I was a little creeped out (in an awesome way) by the previews. And from the little that I did hear about it I was able to get the feeling that it was going to be more intense than say Up or Monsters vs Aliens. And I hear the argument that it is a children's book about an 8 yr old so why shouldn't I be able to take a kid to see the movie. However I feel that the movie allows "kids" to continue to grow up with the story. To me it means that someday when we have a kid, they will grow up hearing Where the Wild Things Are and looking at the pictures and let their imagination create the story. When they get older they will have a chance to watch that same story as a movie that presents the characters they know with a lot more going on under the surface that they can connect to and I hope learn from.

J: I'm looking forward to the DVD so Jonze can spoon-feed me what in the world he was talking about.

K: You could also get the book based on the screenplay - that would probably tell you alot too. It's called The Wild Things by Dave Eggers and it is a novel based on the Where the Wild Things Are screenplay. I think Spike Jonze, Maurice Sendak and Dave Eggers all worked pretty closely on both projects. Just saying ...

J: That's probably a better plan. I think we both agree this a film you should see at some point... just not when you're 8. Right?

K: Yes! Absolutely! Agreed!

Lessons Learned

I am a high school theater teacher. Some days are better than others, but on my best days I try to teach so much more than theater. I understand that I will make mistakes and I understand that it is my responsibility to learn from those mistakes. What I am beginning to understand more and more is that it is also my responsibility to learn from my students. I was blessed with a reminder of this on Friday during 4th period.

My 4th period Theater 1 class is an interesting mix of 23 girls (freshman thru seniors) and 2 freshman boys. They are always a fun class to walk into because they respond well to me and I am able to have a lot of fun with them. We usually start off the class with some sort of improv/icebreaker type game to get them talking and up on their feet. On Friday I introduced the game 2 Truths and a Lie. It's pretty self-explanatory. One student at a time they stand up and tell us 3 things about themselves, 2 of which are true and one of which is false. The class then tries to guess which one is false. It is a fun way to learn more about each other and get them used to standing up and talking in front of people. We had been playing for a bit when one of my students (we'll call her Mary) stood up and gave 3 facts that the class thought they for sure had figured out. Fact 1 was about her being a middle child, fact 2 was that she had Turrets and fact 3 was that her favorite color was pink. "Mary" has been at Goodpasture for awhile and has quite a few friends in that class. All of them knew that number 2 was false. Until she told us that #2 (her having Turrets) was true and that actually pink was NOT her favorite color. There were a variety of typical high school student responses to that ranging from "I've known you for like forever and you never told me that!" to "But you don't LOOK like you have Turrets." Mary went on to explain how it was worse when she was much younger but now it only affects her at times when she is super stressed (like exams) and that she is able to do things to keep it under control and to keep it from being too obvious. But one response in particular really caught my attention. One of my more outgoing students said this: "But I was just making fun of people with Turrets at the football game last week! You never said anything." Before I had a chance to try to respond with a "teacher type" appropriate answer Mary said this: "I know. I've had it my whole life so I've gotten used to people making fun of it. I don't want to be the one to ruin everybody's fun."

Holy cow.

It's moments like those that I wish I had a phone booth in my classroom that I could jump into and then jump out of 5 seconds later dressed as "Superteacher" so I can truly take advantage of those opportunities and use them to impact and change my student's lives. (on a side note: I wonder what Superteacher's costume would look like and if that's something I should look into for Halloween ...)However, I do not have a phone booth or a secret persona and this is only my second year so I did the best I could. I tried to tell them about how Mary was helping us be more aware of something that we had never noticed or thought of before and that it shouldn't make us treat her differently but instead, it should help us be more aware of what we say when we think it's "just a joke" or "just funny". I can only hope that it affected one person in that classroom like it affected me. Because I have not been able to stop thinking about it.

I love being funny. I love it when people think I'm funny. I love it that Josh is hilariously funny make people laugh all the time (including me). I love laughing and I love funny. How many times has my "funny" come at the expense of something or someone else? This has been a humbling question for me. I am the teacher who gets on her soapbox at the beginning of the year and bans words and insults that alot of other teachers don't ban. My students know that you do not use the word gay as an insult in my classroom. At all. The guys in my class know better than to use words like girly or sissy to try to insult another dude in class. It is a big deal to me. I believe and feel strongly that using the word gay to mean that something is stupid or bad or dumb is detrimental to an entire group of people. The same goes for girly and sissy. Using these words to describe something or someone as being weak or not good enough is harmful to an entire sex. They are insults and they are hurtful. But how many times do I look over things that are just as hurtful because they are not phrased as an insult but in a "just kidding" or joking manner. A lot of times I think that I know the people around me. But I haven't taken the time to really get to know them. Superficially and selfishly I want them to like me and I usually try to do that by making them laugh. I hope and pray that I have not every put any one in a situation like I'm sure "Mary" finds herself in all too often. But I know in my heart that I more than likely have.

For some reason, society (and understand that even more specifically I mean high school society) has made it an "uncool" thing to say that anything that was meant to be a joke was actually offensive and hurtful. Jokes are made every day about disabilities, different races or nationalities and lifestyle preferences. To stand up and say that those are anything more than jokes can be very socially damaging. People get defensive. "Geez. Can't you take a joke?" "Try getting a sense of humor." We have this way of turning the victim into the bully. They are the ones that are treating us wrongly and ruining our fun because they had the nerve to get offended. I understand that there are a lot of things out there that have the potential to be offensive to all different types of people. I refuse, however, to understand the excuse that because there is no way for me to know all of these things or be aware of everyone's situation that I shouldn't even worry about trying because people should just get over it. Hearing my students have this discussion really inspired me to begin taking more advantage of the position that I have and to start trying to be more aware myself.

I will be more aware of the jokes that I make, the statements that I laugh at and the attitude I have towards people. I will think twice before speaking to make sure that what I am saying does not come at the expense of anyone (whether that be the words and phrases that I choose to use or the things I say for a laugh). I will not get defensive when someone points out how something I say is offensive. And I also will be intentional about gently letting others know when they say something that is offensive to me. It may seem overwhelming and tedious but I really do believe that taking the time to learn more about each other AND all our differences can only help. I will not always succeed and I will not always be perfect but it is important to me that I try.

Movie Mondays!

Cause who does movie reviews on Mondays??

So I'm thinking this will be a weekly (maybe bi-weekly when my life is crazy) feature in which, I will review movies. Since Josh and I don't have a money tree growing in our back yard they won't always be new movies. Sometimes I'll pull out some oldies but goodies just in case you haven't gotten around to renting/netflixing them yet and need that extra push!
But today the movie review is a new movie, playing at a theater near you .... FAME! One of my college girlfriends, Amanda Lee, is in town for the month while her husband Chris does a crazy med-student rotation thing at Vanderbilt Hospital. I didn't have school on Friday and so we went to get a fabulous pedicure and to see the movie Fame!

Full Disclosure: I was worried. I was definitely excited but I was also nervous. I just wasn't sure if it was going to live up to my expectations of everything that I wanted it to be.

Thankfully, it did that and more! I absolutely loved it!! And Amanda did too! The movie takes place over 4 years (Freshman-Senior) at a Performing Arts academy in New York City. You follow the journey of about 8 students from the moment they enter with their dreams and hopes high until the final graduation performance. You get to watch their auditions, performances, and how lunch in a cafeteria turns into a straight-up musical number. Amanda thinks that that's what heaven will be like - spontaneous musical numbers - I could definitely get behind that! The movie incorporates the storyline and some music from the original while adding in artists and music that is recognizable to today's generation like John Legend, Santigold and Anjulie. (I already bought the soundtrack on iTunes!) As a theme, the movie dealt with what each of them was willing to give in order to "make it big" and, not to ruin anything for you, but not all of them make it which I actually really liked. Their teachers guide them through a lot of decisions through those 4 years and as promised in a speech at the very beginning, the school trains them to be "disciplined in their craft" not to be famous. I will say that it was weird to watch a movie like that and for the first time relate more to the teachers than to the students. It was a reminder to me of how much I love what I do and can't imagine doing anything else!
To sum it all up: Go see it! It's fun and will make you want to dance in the aisles on your way out of the theater!

-Kaitlyn

So ... a blog?

Josh: You're starting a blog? Don't you always judge people who have blogs?

Kaitlyn: No I don't!! I love reading everybody's blogs, I just always worry that people wouldn't really want to read what I would put in a blog.

J: Yeah... are you going to start blogging about cool weekend getaways you go on or new shoes you buy or awesome new cupcake recipes or something? because then no one would care...

K: That's not true ... I think my mom would care and my grandma definitely would. So yea maybe I will blog about new shoes and awesome weekends... probably not cupcakes though cause I don't cook. I could blog about Amanda's or Dana's cupcakes! :) But I want to blog about other stuff too. Like how there was a March for Equality on the National Mall today. I wish I could've been there but I wasn't so I want to write about it. Does that make sense?

J: So, new shoes and equality marches... I could get behind that... what else?

K: That's where you come in ...

J: Are you going to blog about me?

K: Nope! You're going to blog too! It's should be our blog. Cause I think you are a good writer. And I know you have things you could write about. And then it would change it up so people wouldn't have to read about me or what I write the whole time ... variety is good!

J: I'm a great writer... but I refuse to be a part of something lame or girlie. Like that picture up there... that seems lame... and its not going to be "Kaitlyn's blog with Kaitlyn's husband sometimes" is it? Will I get title recognition?

K: Ok whoa. First of all, if you want a better picture then maybe you should buy a better camera and take more pictures with me. And yes you will get recognition beyond "Kaitlyn's husband". It will be our blog- for both of us. Which means I promise not to pick a really girly theme or decorations or anything like that. And I think it will be awesome. We'll talk about all the things that we usually talk about with just each other except now we'll just start sending it out into the wide world of the internets. Like for example, awesome sports posts, movie, music and tv review type things, we can tell awesome stories about things that happen in our classroom and just in our life (like how a baby kitty got stuck in my Mustang today ... more on that later), and then also some "deeper posts" about faith and politics would be cool too I think.

J: Ohhh yeahhhhh that little cat was freaking outtttttt..... I get it... we have awesome conversations all the time and now the world will get to hear how awesome they are. I'm down... but you said politics in there... we always freak out about people finding out about our crazy liberal leanings... you're ready to put that out there?

K: Yea they're not leanings, hon, we're straight up liberals. And I guess hopefully people will still love us... and if they don't like it they don't have to read it?? maybe?

J: Haha... alright. Is it going to be super intense all the time?

K: No I don't think so! We'll throw in the funny/awesome with the intense/awesome and it will hopefully just be all around awesome! Or I guess at least tolerable? I don't know, I guess if nothing else it will just kind of be an outlet for our random musings and creativity and jumbled thoughts and stories. That kind of outlet is always important.

J: "That kind of outlet is always important"... nerd alert... but alright, I like the fact that it's going to be awesome...

K: Definitely, so all that's left is a name .....

J: Oh man... this seems like something that we'll spend way too much time worrying about and taking a long time deciding

K: Yup. hmmm. maybe we should take suggestions?

J: Great plan.

K: Welcome to our blog, guys! Title suggestions?