The move and well, for now...

Welcome to my kitchen. And my cheesy smile, just for my mom. This as well as the next few were taken on moving day. We had an incredible group of people help us move last weekend. They arrived at our apartment at 12:15ish to eat some lunch and we had the truck loaded and unloaded at the house by 3:40. Incredible.

This is our moving crew - minus my parents, Brian's brother Derin, and Jared and Michelle Carlson. And no, Amanda didn't move things in those clothes. She came later.

There's Jared! I still can't believe how hard these men worked. It was awesome!

Moving wasn't all bad - I did get to kiss my sweetie!

Here's the kitchen a little more put together - but I'm still excited for it to be painted.

I think we're going to paint everything, so nothing is going on the walls yet. But here it is with our furniture. Our TV cabinet that helped us begin our love story doesn't fit in that little wall cut out, so we're on the look out for something new.

The guest room - which again, we'll paint and once I get a washer and dryer and can wash sheets, we'll set up the bed.

The office...in progress.

The guest bath - doesn't the green paint look lovely with my blue-green bathroom things? We'll have to paint this, too.

The basement, aka - the pit. I'm scared to go down there. Brian found a roach in the laundry room. Ew. Gross. Sick. Nasty.

The master - this room feels mostly done! It needs some wall decor, but other than that, it's great!


Master bath - there are glass doors, and neither of us like showering "in the open" so we put up our shower curtain.

That's it! This post was for my friend Denise who's going to Bolivia to hang out with cute babies all summer. She wanted to see the house with our stuff in it before she left. I wasn't sure how much progress we'd make before she left, so I hope this will work for a bit!

Sick in Bed Birthday

Today is my 27th birthday. And, I'm sick. I'm not in bed, but if I could breathe laying down, I probably would be. Sick in Bed Birthday was one of my favorite books as a kid. It was about a little pig who stayed home from school sick on his birthday and was sure it would be the worst day ever. His birthday turned out to be okay, mine, on the other hand....eh. I don't have much of a voice, so teaching 3 classes was interesting. I had to blow my harmonica to get their attention because I couldn't yell "Escuchen!" - listen, in Spanish. My kids were pretty nice - lot of students told me "happy birthday" and one of them even made me a birthday card - which was just about the cutest thing ever. My friends at school brought me presents and I felt special. Brian is working and the weather is crappy. I couldn't go shopping our out to dinner with my mom. It may have to rank as one of the worst birthdays ever, but mostly because I feel so terrible.

In other news, we move in about a week and a half. I'm very excited to be done packing - although my sweet hubby has done most of it so far - and to be living in the house!

Meet our HOUSE!

This is our house. I like him or her. I guess I should call it a "her" since house is a feminine noun in Spanish. Anyways...this is our house. We'll get to live here in about a month! Not only do we love the house, we love the location. It's very close to my parents, my best friend Emily, my friend Melissa, and our church. Isn't it pretty?


It's only about 10 years old, and in great condition, so we don't have to do anything but paint the inside! Here's a little blog tour. Keep in mind that we don't live here yet, so this isn't our stuff, but we would like to own most of it. This is the back - and our nice deck. I'd like to get a grill and patio furniture, but we did just buy a house, so we'll have to start small.

The eating area in the kitchen. We had a hard time finding a house that had an eating area big enough for our dining room table. The "island" is at the bottom of the photo.

The kitchen going the other direction. We're grateful we get to keep the fridge. The ice dispenser doesn't work, but, it's something we don't have to buy - so we're excited.

The living/family room. I'm standing in the kitchen as I took this picture. It's pretty much just one big open room.

The hall bath. We like the color, but it doesn't match our bathroom things, so we'll probably paint it. There's a red wall in our kitchen that I would like to paint this color.

The master, looking into the bathroom.

The view standing in the hall looking into the master

The master bath - with 2 sinks (one of our requirements).

The master shower - with 2 shower heads!!! Where's the toilet you ask? It has it's very own room. Yay!

Guest room/office #1 - we'll paint, for sure.

Guest room/ office #2 - I love the huge windows.

The basement - it walks out to a patio area that's covered by the deck.

The basement looking the other direction

So that's it! We can't wait to live there!

Oh no! or yes!

I just had a heart stopping experience. I just opened our mail. There was a letter from our apartment office. They said our lease is up May 31st. Oh no! We thought we had until JUNE 30th. Oh yes! We get to move sooner! Move to a house, that is! This afternoon Brian and I went to get approved for a loan on our very first house! It was just a pre-approval, so we don't know if anyone will loan us money yet, but we now have 30 less days to find and close on a house than we thought. Let the hunting begin!

And yes, we have thought about asking our complex to extend our lease by one month. We may do that. We'll see how the house searching goes!

Do I really?

It's about 10:00 on a Sunday evening - and although I'm sleepy, I'm not really thinking about going to bed. I have an entire week off from school! Wahoo for being a teacher and being able to enjoy the huge perk of spring break. There's not much going on this week. I've got lunch plans with 2 great friends I work with (we didn't want to go a whole week and not see each other) and my mom and I are going to have a girls weekend with my grandma and my 3 aunts. It will be a relaxing few days. Since I have no real things to do, I thought I'd head to google and do that whole "Andrea needs" thing. Type your name and the word "needs" or "needs to" after it and see what you can find. Here were the first 10 things that came up for me.

1. Andrea needs some help finding stalker songs.
2. Andrea needs me close to hear heart.
3. Andrea needs all her wits and all the help she can get from the company's attractive operations manager to find and stop the perpetrators.
4. Andrea needs sleep...badly.
5. Andrea needs your prayers
6. Andrea needs help fast!!!!
7. Andrea needs to read her Emily Post
8. Andrea needs no siblings
9. Andrea needs to be fired for this
10. Andrea needs to change her stance on immigration

So, seeing as I don't have a super eventful week planned, I can just look at this as my checklist for the week. And if any of you want to send me stalker songs, pray for me, or tell me why you believe I need to read my Emily Post - please feel free to leave a comment.

A new job?

Today at brunch I was discussing my need for summer employment to combat boredom with my friend Amanda. Now, don't get us wrong, we love having summers off work - but without having children to wrangle, being home day after day does get a little boring. We talked about our love of going to the farmers market and from there I got an idea for my ideal job. This summer, I would like to take on three or four families and plan their meals and then do all of the grocery shopping. I LOVE to go grocery shopping - during the week- when there aren't crowds. I love meal planning, coupon clipping and trying to save money. Brian does the shopping for us because it works better for our schedules, and I can't wait for summer to be here so I can resume my domesticity in that area. I know there are women who HATE trying to decide what to make for dinner. I could take care of that. I know there are women who HATE dragging their kids to the grocery store. I could shop for them. Of course I'd supply the recipes and pictures of the completed meals. I could customize it based on ease of preparing the meal, the person's level of cooking or dietary needs. It could be fun to do it for older people who can't get out to the store very easily, but are still living in their homes and able to care for themselves. I think that sounds like tons of fun. Flexible schedule. Not a lot of hours. Trips to the farmers market. Professional shopping. It sounds right up my alley. Any takers?

Unexpected...

The Valentines Day Surprise...Well, about a week ago I got Brian to tell me where we were going and what we were doing for Valentines Day. He had made dinner reservations at Fig.lio on the Plaza, we were going to be staying the night at the Wes.ton at Cro.wn Center and he was going to be taking Sunday off from work! I was beyond pumped! I spent the entire week looking forward to the whole weekend!

We were gone for 1 night. ONE. This how much stuff we took. I was quite excited to get to use my new Ve.ra Bra.dley duffel bag I got for Christmas!

When we arrived at Fig.lio we got to valet park! I was wearing a dress and heels and was quite excited to not have to walk very far to the door. We were seated and a little disappointed to find out that they had prepared a special Valentines Day dinner menu - and that the typical food served there would not be served. Bummer - and lots more expensive. We decided to say since there we didn't think there was any way we'd be able to get into another restaurant on Valentines Day - and it turned out to be a really fun treat! Our waitress was really apologetic that we weren't told about the special menu offered and so she got us whatever drinks we wanted! Quite fun. Dinner was delicious. We had appetizers, salad, lobster bisque, steak, tiramisu, and cheese cake! . It was so much food - we were glad we had a fridge in our hotel room. On our way out of the restaurant I heard a guy mention to our waitress that he was going to propose during dinner...I wanted to stay to watch, but we were done, and so we left and headed to check into the hotel. We love staying in hotels because we get to sleep in a king size bed. When we arrived at the hotel we decided to do the valet parking since it wasn't that much more expensive than parking yourself. Seriously. You had to pay to stay at the hotel AND you had to pay to park there. Ridiculous. What else were you to do with your car? Take it to the room with you? Please. It was nice to not have to carry all that luggage across a parking lot - we did get to pull up right next to the door. Upon check in we were upset to discover that the room we had reserved was not available. There were no rooms with king beds left. The concierge tried to be helpful and told us that he could take care of our parking cost for us...when we acted as though that wasn't enough (and it wasn't) they ended up giving us our room for half price. THAT made it WAY worth it. We ended up staying in a hotel and eating dinner for QUITE a bit less than the original cost of our hotel stay. Our room was pretty nice - and it was even nicer that it was way cheaper! See pic below. I'm standing in a huge hallway in front of lots of windows. The bathroom and a big closet are to the right.

After we had gotten settled, we called for room service - which was included in our package and they brought us a bottle of sparkling wine (which I was afraid to open - I'm glad my hubby was brave enough to do so) and chocolate covered strawberries! Very tasty!

I'm terrible about asking people to take our picture - and really should have gotten one of us both when we were dressed up for dinner, but I didn't. Here we are getting ready to watch Phan.tom of the Opera (we packed our DVD player).

The next morning (after not a great night of sleep - I've been sick all week with a cold and have now given it to Brian) we headed downstairs for an awesome breakfast buffet!

We're now at home both enjoying the fact that Brian doesn't have to work today AND that we both don't have to work tomorrow either! I'm updating the blog and he's linking us to a famous comedian through all the genealogy work he's been doing - and he's done it. We know how we're related (thanks to Jeff's aunt!).

Since we don't have to work tomorrow I think we may have a date night to see a movie! He did a great job planning Valentines Day! I'm a very blessed wife!