Finally, I finished the alternative certification program. When the administrators told me it would take a year I thought it was a long time. Now, that time just flew by, I realized how fast the entire process really is. It will be odd not having to study for certifications, attend after-school graduate classes and first year teaching training. Not to mention those Saturdays when all you wanted to do is sleep just another five minutes. It would of honestly been a lot harder if it wasn’t for Eric helping me and working around my crazy schedule. I am looking forward to starting the school year. I feel better prepared and I know that it won’t be such a stressful year. Most of all I will be able to enjoy a family life with Eric and our soon-to-be addition.

Eric and I have started our Lamaze class. I thought it would be a two-week process, but it turns out it’s six-weeks. The first night we were asked to introduce ourselves and tell everyone why we were there. As couples took the floor I quickly realized that I was the only one interested in finding out what medication options I had. Everyone else was putting on a brave face and saying they wanted to have their babies naturally. I should of taken a poll and found out if their minds had been changed after watching the birthing video and finding out that the average first time mother is in labor for sixteen hours!!

I happened upon a new collection of music that has nearly doubled my horde. I now have 20.2 20.6 days worth of non-stop, continuous listening pleasure. I’ll finish listening to all 7574 7740 songs (I just acquired more) about the same time I reach the end of the internet. I listen to a pretty diverse set of music. I have my favorites, but my tolerance levels are pretty high for genres most people I know wouldn’t consider. Going from oldies to 60’s/70’s to disco (haha, yeah right) to country (not-so-new, old, older) and even a little (very little) rap (hip-hop, R&B, rap… it’s all the same to me) and then to latin (salsa, mariachi, as little norteño as possible) and then some of my favorite, grunge & post-grunge. Nice, huh?

This post isn’t about all that. What I’m getting at is I’m really surprised at how much some artists sound like others, even if they aren’t trying to. I understand that some artists are admittedly influenced by their idols, like how Clint Blank sounds so much like Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam like Buck Owens, and Milli Vanilli like the guys who really sang for them. Ok, not so much that last part… I still want you to think I know what I’m talking about here! I’m not really referring to those. I’m talking about the ones that almost sound like a copy of others, but not in a bad way.

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In June (yes, it was that long ago and I hadn’t written about it yet, as Elizabeth promised… sorry), Elizabeth decided we should take a final trip away before the baby arrives and before she is no longer able to take airplane rides. Our destination, Cozumel, Mexico. Neither of us had ever been there and we both obviously love Mexico. So, she found a good deal on FunJet and booked the trip with the travel agent we used for our honeymoon to Playa del Carmen.

So, on our departure day, we woke up at 4 a.m. to drive out to the airport. Houston traffic is so much better before 6 a.m. Once at the airport, we started our day of ‘waiting in lines’. By the numbers: we spent about 45 minutes in the ‘check-in’ line, 2 hours on the flight, 1 hour and 30 minutes waiting for 3 customs agents to process 3 full flights, another 20 minutes to wait in line to push the fail-safe stoplight button to see if pass or fail for a strip search, a 25 minute ride to the hotel, and finally a 15 minute check-in at the hotel only to be told we would have to wait 4 hours to be able to actually access our rooms. Just in time to miss the breakfast they stopped serving 10 minutes before-hand.

Two tips (literally):
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