Where have I been??

I don't know if I could even tell you - it's been such a hectic and busy year so far!

Here's a quick run down of what has been going on with the Pages in the last month:

First week of October: I had a mysterious mole removed on my arm. My doctor thought it might be Melanoma, but it came back clear - YAY! It did give me a good scare though, so I made a dermatologist appointment and when I went he said all of my moles/freckles looked good, but that I have pre-cancerous cells on my lips. I had to have the skin on my bottom lip frozen which gave me an awesome blister that looked like a fever blister. I also have to use this cream (over the holiday break) that will burn off several layers of skin on my lips to get rid of the scary pre-cancerous cells.

October 8th: College Day at my elementary school! I love college day because I absolutely love where I went to college. It was a blast telling the kids all about "Essefay" (S.F.A.) and letting them try on my cap and gown. They also loved seeing the picture of "Mr. Casey" and me on my graduation day.

October 8-10: Home to Longview to visit my dad and relax. Casey and I helped him fix the roof and paint his kitchen. My dad also started a new job recently that he really loves. Thank you Lord for giving my dad a job that he loves!

October 11: I survived Parent/Teacher conferences - Year 2. Last year I threw up on my way into conferences. This year was much better. :) I have a great group of parents this year - another thing to be thankful for!

October 16: Dinner with our old friends the Tolars. Trey was my outside salesman when I worked at Elliott Electric Supply and we became great friends during that time. It was so great to hang out with them and get to see their kids - they are such a cute family!

October 23: Stephen F. Austin vs. Sam Houston game at Reliant Stadium! Casey and I got tickets through the ZTA alumni association earlier this year to go to the SFA vs. Sam game and we had so much fun tailgaiting with friends and watching the game. Oh and the Lumberjack Marching band did Beyonce "Single Ladies" and Lady Gaga!! That absolutely made my day. :)

October 22: Family pumpkin carving night at Casey's Aunt Jackie and Uncle Gregs! A year ago Casey proposed to me at this event so it was really tough opening up a pumpkin and not finding a diamond ring (kidding). Casey and I went traditional this year and made pretty basic pumpkins, but they turned out really well. Here we are with our pumpkins!

October 30: Halloween parties. Casey dressed up as the "Hide yo' kids, Hide yo' wife" guy (Antoine Dodson) and I dressed up as Santana from my favorite show GLEE!

October 31: My MIL's birthday! I love that her birthday is on Halloween! We went out to eat at Black Walnut Cafe and then back to the house for ice cream cake - yum!

That pretty much brings me up to date!

MudQuest!

"It's time to get Mudieval!"

That was the tag line for the MudQuest Adventure Run we did this weekend and boy was it fun! You may be thinking to yourself, "Mudieval?"... well this wasn't just any muddy adventure run, it was medieval themed! Being someone who loves anything "themey", I was all about this!

We arrived in West around 11:00 to check everything out and get ready for our heat which started at 12:45. We found Carl, Jennifer, and Natalie and headed in the gates. We were surprised to see that everyone who had already run their heat was completely soaked and then we quickly found out that you actually had to swim down the creek for part of the course. We weren't exactly prepared for that, but we were all kind of pumped.. and maybe a little scared. :)

We ended up making "custom" shirts on the fly when we got there because we wanted to be a little more unified and I'm so glad we did - it's amazing what a old tank top and a Sharpie can do! Our team was called the "Bad Axes" because a. We're all Lumberjacks (even you Carl - you're honorary!) and b. It worked with the medieval theme!



By the time we got registered and our little "camp" set up, it was time for the race. Can you tell how excited I was?


The course was SO much fun and I'm so glad we did the 3.5 mile instead of the 2 mile - it was really great and the obstacles were challenging enough to push our limits, but not too difficult for everyone to do (especially me and Casey who didn't train for this - oops!). We can't wait to do MudQuest again next year!




After the race we hung out and listened to some of the bands and then headed to our hotel to get ready to go out. We had dinner at Cricket's and then headed to Austin on the Avenue for drinks and more live music. It was my first time dressing up since cutting my hair and it really gave me such an ego boost to see how different I looked - I love my bangs! Here's me and Jennifer!

I picked this handsome guy up at the bar.

A week bit sunburned. :)

And this is how the night ended after a few margaritas...

Not to brag, but my husband won the silly arm wrestling challenge! I am always so surprised at how strong Casey is because he rarely works out, but he still manages to stay strong and fit. Love him!

We had such a fantastic day/night with our wonderful friends - can't wait to see the Waddills in Longview next weekend!

Oh the Places You'll Go In Books!

I love Dr. Seuss... which is why I named my Limeades for Learning project after one of my favorite books. Please go vote on me so that I can get emergent storybooks for my classroom library!

Here is the link to go vote:

http://www.limeadesforlearning.com/projects/view/446707?utm_source=et&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=l4lstaf

It's only open through Friday though so please vote as many times as you can (only one per email, per day, but if you have multiple emails you can vote multiple times!)

Wedding photos are up!

If you feel like stalking my wedding photos, they are up on Lauren's website! The log in is sarahnicolewood@gmail.com and the password is: Page

Mini-Moon

Last weekend we went to New Braunfels for a mini-moon since we won't get to take our real honeymoon until March. If I haven't mentioned it before, we LOVE the hill country and especially New Braunfels. On Saturday we took our time and drove up around lunch time and just kicked around New Braunfels for a bit before checking in at The Faust hotel in "downtown" NB. While driving around NB we passed a golf course with a ton of deer just hanging out so we stopped and took pictures. I realized that even though we live in a place called "The Woodlands", we are still so excited to see wildlife... kind of ironic huh?

After the deer viewing, we headed to The Faust. The hotel was ADORABLE and exactly what we were looking for. It was historic (built in 1929), perfectly located for what we wanted to do that weekend, and the staff was incredibly nice. The rooms are smaller because the hotel is so old, but it was perfect. Here are some pics of the hotel:

Kind of reminds you of the Shining right?

On Saturday afternoon we walked around the square and into a few antique shops and boutiques and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We had a really nice dinner at Liberty Bistro which is actually located in the basement of the NB City Hall - funny huh? The food was great and we of course ate WAY too much.

On Sunday morning as we were walking out of our room at the Faust we ran into our good friends Andi and Wes - how random right? Turns out they were staying at the Faust for Labor Day weekend as well - so weird! We hung out with them for a little while and then headed out to float the Comal for a few hours. The float was great and so relaxing and I finally found a cut pair of Sanuk flip flops at one of the river stores - score!

Sunday afternoon we took a drive up to Canyon lake and then came back to NB for dinner at Huisache Wine Bar and Grill, our new favorite spot in town. The food was amazing and the environment was so cool. We sat out on the breezy patio where, while we were waiting on our food, we were greeted by a white cat sitting up on the brick wall. A few minutes later another cat comes up and watches us... before we knew it there were 4 cats on the patio with us just hanging out and watching us. They all stayed pretty far away until Casey and I started feeding them (I'm sure the restaurant loved that), but we were the only people on the patio so we figured, why not? Here are some pics from Huisache..

After the waitress put our dishes in the dish tub, one of our friends promptly took care of the leftovers... hopefully the Health Department doesn't see this haha.

One of our new "friends"

Casey fed this one and then he promptly ran as fast as he could away...

On Monday morning we got up and had breakfast at Naeglin's and then headed out to San Marcos to the outlet mall and then headed home. It was a perfect weekend to relax and spend time with each other, so nice!

The oldest bakery in Texas and a place we stop at every time we are out this way...

Back to Basics

Now that the wedding is over and I have myself a new husband, I am trying to embrace my role as a wife and partner to Casey. I've always been a very headstrong independent person and even though Casey and I have been together for 6 years now, it's still sometimes difficult for me to let go and let someone be my life. Luckily I found Casey and I want nothing more for him to be my life so I've been in full on "nesting" mode since the wedding. We have completely unpacked all gifts and hung up all of the framed pictures we had/got, I have started making a menu each week so I can stay on track with cooking (thanks for the idea SB!), and I'm trying to find new and exciting things to do with my new hubby. :)

Last week I made Gnocchi from scratch as well as chocolate covered marshmallow s'more cookies that were so yummy! Casey helped with the gnocchi - I usually have no need for a food mill, but this was a time that I needed one, so we had to improvise by pushing the potatoes through a colander... not very easy. Here are some pics:





In the past two weeks I have cooked more than I have cooked in the last 6 months - crazy huh? Here are some of the things I've made so far:

Cuban Red Beans & Rice
Potato Gnocchi with marinara
Casey's favorite enchiladas
French Dip sandwiches
Corn tortilla chicken tenders with spanish rice
Cajun skirt steak with homemade creamed corn
Margherita pizza

As far as the new and exciting things to do, we registered for the MudQuest run in Waco for October 2nd and we are so excited to get to do something so fun with all of our friends. Pictures to come!

Mr. & Mrs. Page

So the wedding happened... 2.5 weeks ago. I can't believe it's been that long already! I have been in a frenzy trying to get life back together with starting school and all so expect some compound blogging and multiple backdated blogs. I have been so busy that I haven't even been able to think about blogging, so I've started a few blogs and then never finished them. In fact I am starting this blog entry right now and who knows when it will get finished! Anyway, here's the wedding timeline of how Casey Page & Sarah Wood became Mr. & Mrs. Page.

August 6-8th, 2010 - Bachelorette Party in New Orleans = Amazing.

August 10-13th, 2010 - Mom comes down and we rush to get stuff in my classroom set up.

August 14-16th, 2010 - Daddy comes in for his birthday weekend. We go to Galveston for his birthday and then to a BBQ at Marie & Kevin's (Casey's parents). Unfortunately I cannot find pictures from this week!

August 16-20th, 2010 - Work week at school! Probably the most stressful week of my life... I was fine until Thursday when I was sitting at Post Elementary at a workshop and I flipped out. I realized that I was sitting in a room basically accomplishing nothing (except learning about the new curriculum)... It took everything I had not to start crying because I knew that I had SO much to do and literally only 48 hours to do it. I kind of felt like a wimpy Jack Bauer... I knew I had to do it and the clock was ticking..

August 20th - Get off work at 11:30 and Aunt Lorie came up to school so I would have someone to ride with up to Austin. The rehearsal dinner was perfect and I was so glad we got to hang out with everyone that night and try to calm our nerves. After the rehearsal dinner we hung out for a bit with everyone and then the girls and I went up to our suite to get some sleep. This turned into us ordering pizza from Papa John's and then going to sleep - what can I say, I had been a ball of nerves all week and not eating.

August 21st - Wedding Day!
Wake up to a beautiful day and head down for breakfast with everyone. I'm so glad Casey and I didn't do the whole "him not seeing me until the wedding" thing because I feel like that would have been so stressful. After a wonderful breakfast Leigh Anne and I headed to the mall to get our makeup done and then back to the hotel where Megan was waiting to do our hair. I seriously have the best friends ever because I was a total bridezilla that weekend because I don't deal very well with stress and they were so accommodating and helpful. Before I knew it it was time to head over to the bridal suite to put my dress on.

A while back Casey and I had decided to do the "First Sight" thing before the wedding to get rid of some of our nerves and I'm SO glad that we did. It really took the edge off and it was so nice to get to talk to him when he first saw me in my dress.

The ceremony was absolutely perfect. Even though my best friend ended up getting violently ill and quietly had to exit the altar, I could not have asked for a more perfect wedding ceremony. It was amazing.

At this point it is now September 27th, more than a month after the wedding and I still have not finished this post. All I can say is that through the bumps and stresses, it was still the best day of my life and I am so happy that I got to spend it with my wonderful friends and family.

We are about to get all of our photos back from the photographer, so I will definitely post photos ASAP!