Took a day off but am back. You missed me, didin't you?

 Last night, I was at school until 10:30 pm because we had our department speech contest, and it's my job to plan and judge it. This means one super late night a semester.   I love the speech contest, and this was my 20th semester participating in it.  As a TA in Comm Arts100, I entered my students and watched them compete.  As a TA in other courses, I judged the semi-final rounds of the competition, and as a course director, I have been working behind the scenes to select semifinalists and do other backstage work ever since.  

The contest also has personal significance beyond professional growth.  Shortly after we first moved here, I got engaged to Ben late one night after a CA100 speech contest.  I was all excited because my student placed third, and I stayed after the final round to meet with my advisor, the man who is now my boss.  When I pulled up to our apartment, I saw Ben pacing back and forth in the window, and I thought he was nervous about me coming home so late.  I walked inside, and he said, "Oh, I have a surprise for you," and he handed me a People Magazine.  I was stoked because I was too broke for magazine subscriptions back in the TA days, and I was happy to have some new reading material for the gym.  Imagine my surprise when I looked up from my magazine to see Ben in the middle of our living/dining room down on one knee and holding an open box with a gorgeous diamond solitaire ring inside.  He had champagne and roses stashed in the fridge, and we stayed up way too late laughing and calling everyone we knew.  (It was a long time ago, so we had no FB or Instagram.  Pretty sure I was still excited about my pink Razr).

I think about that sweet proposal every semester when I stay late on campus, and I am not the only one.  Driving home from work yesterday, Ben realized that fateful night was exactly 10 years ago yesterday!

He met me at the front door when I came home and had roses and champagne waiting to celebrate our ten-year engage-a-versary!  HOW SWEET IS THAT?   I took a picture of the flowers this morning in the middle of our breakfast mess.  Cooper saw them last night and was excited to show them to me with an adorable TA-DA when he woke up.

 And crabby Dorothy had fun with champagne box all morning.  She's currently using it to chill Cooper's trains.

 We are done rearranging our room.  We decided to go with a hotel motif-- and I have to tell you, IT IS AWESOME.  Finally Ben does not have to sink into my too-soft mattress, and I don't have to feel my arms falling asleep under me on his too firm mattress.  He can go to sleep with a single sheet, and I can burrow under a sheet and 2 blankets.  No more SIDE of the bed because we both get the middle. When Cooper and Dorothy both need to sleep with us, there's plenty of room.  Just generally amazing all around.

 Except the room is a teeny bit squished and we have to have an electrician come drill a bunch of holes in the wall and ceiling to move our cable jack.  But otherwise?  Excellent sleep.  And Ben said to tell all the tongue-cluckers to give him a call-- he would love to talk about our sex life with you.  Awkward.

 I think I have mentioned that Ben and I spend a ton of time volunteering at the kids' school and are actually the co-presidents of the Parent Teacher Organization, right?  Well this week is teacher appreciation week, and I signed up to bring bagels one day for a breakfast and brownies another day for a lunch.  Then Ben  and I organized a student/teacher lunch and Ben brought in all the food and supervised all the lunch periods another day.  That's a lot of volunteering this week alone.  WELL, I tell you all this so you can share in my annoyance when I tell you that I was 20 minutes late with my bagels, and another mom called and YELLED AT ME to bring them because they didn't have enough food.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Yell at the 350 other parents who do NOTHING why doncha ya?

Anywho, Jack licked the brownie bowl because I am a raw egg risk taker.

 Speaking of, I have not tried these cookies yet, but the dough is amazeballs.  Chocolate chip oatmeal peanut butter:  Basic oatmeal chip recipe only use 3/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup water, and 1/3 cup PB.  I used Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips.

 Dorothy liked them.

 Cooper has been sick with general crankiness and a 99.4-degree fever all week, and now sweet baby Dorothy has it too.  SHE IS A LITTLE BEAR.  But a cute one.  (And her hat is the Paddington Bear collection for Baby Gap, which is so fitting today)

 No real reason for this picture except to show that Cooper has hockey hair and is getting tall.