Trucker Week

This week at work was trucker appreciation week! Our company supplied lunch for the whole company including the truckers. It was fun meeting some of the truck drivers. They were all really nice!  National Carriers also has a mini semi-truck that is 1/18th of a real semi that has a motor in it and everything. My co-worker got a chance to drive it. It is so cute!

I just got this picture this week from a co-worker so I thought I should add it to this trucker week post. I had to push that tire and let it roll down the hill between two barrels of hay with about a foot of space in between. I was one of a few who was able to make it through!! Woo!

We went to the Sunset Homecoming football game on Friday night and it was really fun! All the students came out painted and dressed up and the halftime show was amazing! We have the best band in Texas! Unfortunately, the football team struggled again and lost 41-0. We will keep going to the games to support all Taylor's students and hopefully we will win one! Taylor also got to see a lot of his students in the stands and talked with all the soccer/baseball players he works with in strength and conditioning everyday. They all love him! 

Saturday we FINALLY had a relaxing day! We went to Chick-Fil-A for chicken biscuits for breakfast (my favorite!) then saw End of Watch, a good (but sad) police movie Taylor really wanted to see. Then I got to go shopping at H&M and we got frozen yogurt for the first time since leaving Utah! 

All in all it was a really fun week! Hopefully next week we will have some more pictures!! 

Friday Night Lights

What a busy week! We had a fun labor day cooking and buying Taylor some new clothes for teaching. He has to wear a shirt and tie to school and Jos. A. Bank had a really big sale so we took advantage of it! It was fun matching the shirts and ties haha! I made a baked chicken penne for dinner that night which was delicious. This week I also made some BBQ homemade pizzas yum!

This week was the second week of school for Taylor and he loves his job at Sunset! He is now the strength and conditioning coach for all of the boys offseason sports, so he gets to workout at the new athletic facility with the boys soccer and baseball teams every day for the last 90 minutes of school! He lost his planning period, so he has to do a lot at home, but he loves teaching and coaching!

On Thursday we went to our first Sunset pep rally/parade at the Bishop Arts District. It was a fun night supporting the Bison as they prepared to take on their rivals the next night, the Adamson Leopards. We saw a few of Taylor's students and one of my young women, who was a baton twirler. It was a short and sweet parade and was a fun way to support the community. After it all finished up, we ate at Oddfellows, a modern soul food restaurant right by the parade. We have found that the Bishop Arts, which is 1.5 miles from our apartment, has the best food in Dallas!

Friday night was our first real Friday Night Lights experience! It was Sunset v. Adamson and it was in a 15,000-seat high school stadium. We felt like we were at a college game! Crazy! There was a big crowd there to support the Bison. We sat in the upper deck (yes, there is an upper deck in a high school stadium!!) for the second half and stayed until the end, but Sunset ended up losing 33-5.

The halftime show was one of the best parts of the night. The Sunset band and dance team are among the best in the state, and a bunch of Taylor's students (and my twirler!) were a part of it. It seems like a lot of people just come to the games to see the halftime show and its totally worth it!

Taylor ended the week with a pretty incredible experience. President George W. Bush hosted the Dallas Teach For America corps at his house for a BBQ on Saturday night. Taylor got to meet with and talk to President Bush, and even got an invite to the Bush ranch to go hunting! (although he was probably just being nice ;) President Bush spoke at the end of the night and showed great support for the mission of Teach for America. It's nice to know that we have the support of such great people!

Finally Working

Boy has a lot happened since the last time we posted. First of all, I got a job working as an invoice representative at National Carriers! It is a trucking company that ships many companies' products including our biggest customer, National Beef. After a few interviews with different managers in the company, they offered me a job and I was able to start right away. I am really liking it so far. The people I work with are really nice and friendly and the commute isn't too bad! My first week, I was being trained on the phone by someone who works at National Carriers' Liberal, KS location. It was getting difficult to get trained over the phone, so my manager decided it would be better to get trained in person. The person who was training me could not come to Dallas because she has a baby she has to take care of so I ended up having to drive up there to get trained.

So, I spent this past week in Liberal, KS. Since Taylor and I only have one car, the company paid for me to use a rental car! I left Monday morning and it took me about 6.5 hours to get there. Liberal is a very interesting town. Most of the people who live there work for the National Beef plant. I learned a lot for what I need to know for my job. It was hard to be away from Taylor and home and to be in a strange town for a whole week. Luckily I got through it and the long drive there and back. I even made it through being pulled over for the first time. The officer was really nice and just gave me a warning.

The night before I had to leave for Liberal haha

Taylor started school this week! It has been a great experience so far, but his classes are huge! He has 40+ students in all 6 of his periods, and he is the only astronomy teacher, so he has to do all the planning, test-making, etc. all by himself! Sadly, because teaching is taking so much time and he has so many big classes, he can't coach football anymore. But we will still go to all the games and he is still the varsity girl's track coach! Taylor loves Sunset and his classes are great and he is always really tired when he gets home. It will be a fun year and we are just really happy he ended up at Sunset High!

Yay for Mr. Wilson!