Ooof

I know that most of the country is having a ridiculous heat wave right about now, but this is seriously hotter weather than I've ever experienced before. You would think that growing up in Florida would have prepared me for this, but amazingly, living near the beach always keeps temperatures below 100 degrees. Because of the weather, this week was one of the toughest I've had in awhile. Camp can be very dangerous with the heat as high as it's been, so in an effort to avoid heat strokes, the kids spent more time inside than normal, aka, tearing apart my art room and making my brain spin. Granted, this week's pitfalls didn't all have to do with the kids being crazy, I also need to learn to say no to people and not spread myself so thin all the time. Regardless, I'm ready to step into this weekend with an attitude of renewal, so that I can return to camp on Monday with a refreshed spirit and the hope of a little less sun... (did I mention I had to tie dye 300 shirts out on the playground all day for the most indecisive kids ever? I was not using my patient voice today haha)

On another note, the intense heat has made me think of a few things that I am EXTREMELY thankful for this summer, which include:

• our new house, and central A/C. I get sweaty just thinking about how miserable we would be in our old house right now. 
• having two cars with working A/C... again, we've been through a hot summer with no A/C in the car and it is just miserable. 
• living in a country where we have access to clean drinking water. I have had close to a gallon of water today and I'm still feeling dehydrated. I don't even want to imagine what kind of state I would be in if I had to be outside without being able to stay hydrated. Scary scary thought. 

Because of those three things I feel like I have a lot less to complain about... sure it's hot, and definitely uncomfortable, but we could be a lot worse off. Here's hoping that we can convince mother nature to cool down a bit so that we can actually enjoying being outside this summer... at this rate we're going to be on the couch for the next couple months just racking up an electric bill haha 

Home Office

This weekend while we were in Atlanta we got a quick chance to stop at Ikea and pick out a new desk for our new home. We had previously been using my desk from college, but it didn't fit very well and the color didn't match any of the other furniture in the room, so we were on the hunt for something a little more simple. In our new house we have the benefit of having a bunch of space at the entryway of the front door, and it looked a little awkward there without anything to fill the space. As much as we always thought a guest room would be a good place for an office, we found that this was a good way for us to NEVER use the desk, or the calendar. All that put together is how we decided to make the wall of our entryway into a mini office! That way the calendar is right out in the open and a perfect reminder of things that need to get done, and I can use my computer and still be able to hang out with Keith in the living room. Best of both worlds! We love how things are coming together in the house and how it's already feeling like home even after just a month of being here. So excited to show it off to my family when they get here in a week!

Keith is the designated builder in our home, so I was pretty proud when I managed to build this chair all on my own :) 

Our new "office" complete with framed diplomas! We're so fancy ;)

Paradise

This Sunday, the evening weather was so spectacular that we couldn't justify eating inside but since we don't have a table for our deck yet, we did a little rearranging of the furniture and just brought our dining room table outside. The results were pretty magnificent:

I can't wait until we have a permanent table on the deck and we're able to host all of our favorite people. Did I mention that we're beyond thankful for this new house? I think we have seriously raised the bar for all future houses we will live in haha

A Peek

Sometimes it feels like the new house is coming together slower than I want it too, but then I step back and remember that it took us almost the entire year we lived in the old house for it to really feel like "home". We have most of the rooms decorated the way that we want, and I think the next step will be to finish the living room, and our bedroom. Thankfully we have lots of friends and family making their way into town this Spring which I'm sure will help us find some extra motivation to fill up the walls (and we're making an Ikea trip in April, which is always an inspiration).

In the meantime, I snapped a photo of one wall in the living room because it just looked so perfect with the sleeping kitty :) Theo has been REALLY loving the new house, which he has shown by sleeping everywhere and anywhere haha

Dinner Guests

Last Thursday night we had our first visitors at the new house! Trent and Jordie came over for dinner and they even brought their dog Buddi. We had a great night enjoying wine, a fabulous dinner thanks to Keith and Jordie and then some fun time on the couch chatting and playing games. Here are some photos from the night:

We hung out on the porch while Keith grilled.

Buddi enjoying guy time haha

Sweet Jordana

Buddi!

We were all playing the "Draw Something" game on our phones with each other

Jordie convincing Buddi to do tricks for us haha

Deck Life

All I have today are some super quick updates as I hurriedly use some wifi at a local coffee shop... hopefully next week we'll have our internet situation worked out and I won't have to exclusively blog from my phone anymore haha. Things at the new house are coming along SO NICELY and we are finally feeling settled all around. This house has certainly come along much faster than when we moved into our last place, and I am truly thankful for that. This weekend was spent running errands and gathering some necessities, but we also found some much needed time to relax. Overall we got a perfect amount of things done, but didn't feel overworked and really got to settle in to how much we're in love with the new house. 

I posted a photo last week of how beautiful the sun rise was from our deck, but now I'm excited to share how great it looks at night time! We got lights at Home Depot on Saturday, and even though it wasn't necessary to get them hung, we made it a priority because we were just so excited to make our backyard ready for entertaining. So... whoever wants to come over and have a beer with us in honor of our new deck, come on down! We're ready for yah! Can't wait for all the wonderful memories that will be made out here during the spring and summer!

Newness

So we've been officially living in the new house (which needs to be properly named, please!) since Sunday night and things are slowly but surely feeling more put together. I had the morning off on Tuesday and Wednesday which was great because I got to make some strides in the unpacking and organizing. Keith had a doctors appointment on Wednesday and ended up taking the rest of the day off so that we could get even more things done. Now we even have a couple things hanging on the walls! How fancy! Hopefully this weekend we'll still have some energy to finish working around the house, but I have a feeling the guest room is going to look like a tornado swept through it for a few more weeks haha. Here are some photos that I snapped of the new house this past week, I'm sure there will be many more to come as time goes on!

Again, sorry for the jumbled pictures for the time being!

Sunrise breakfast on the deck :)

Boxes boxes boxes!

Chris and Jordan were in town for a Preds game and thankfully helped us a bit!

Dining room pre-decorations

Dining room finished!

The Move of 2012

Hello friends, it seems that our lack of internet in the new house has led to a bit of a drought in posting for me. That, plus that whole MOVING thing where every night this week we've been unpacking, organizing or cleaning something. Pheww we are EXHAUSTED!

So here's a little story: remember when we thought we would be leisurely moving over the course of a couple weekends? Well that went right out the window when we heard from our old landlord that he had decided to charge us for anytime we spent there past the 1st of March. We buckled down last weekend and made it happen regardless of any other plan we may have had in our heads. This made for a very tiring weekend, but a rewarding one at least. The move happened pretty slowly and consisted mostly of just Keith and I making lots of trips in our own cars on Saturday and Sunday morning. In the afternoon on Sunday we had to bite the bullet and rent a uhaul since there was no way to get our mattresses or the washer and dryer in our cars. Thankfully we had some friends from our small group that came by for a couple hours to assist with the heavy lifting. There was only one real low point the whole weekend and that was when there was some confusion unhooking the washing machine and we damn near tried to flood the whole kitchen, but it was just too strange not to laugh about haha. We are SO happy to be here in the new house and can't wait to get it settled ASAP so we can start sharing it with people!

Here are some photos from our move, don't worry... new house pictures are next!

Ps: excuse the jumbled photos, this tends to happen when I post from my my phone... I'll be doing some editing when we get the computers up and running! Just wanted to briefly share about our move!

Our curious kitty.

Oh, just sittin in the Uhaul waiting for someone stronger than me to come help haha

Our helper Ives

how CRAZY we looked after a full weekend of moving haha

Goodbye old house! Thanks for being so good to us!

Preparations

This past weekend was mostly spent packing and preparing for our upcoming move. I don't know if it's really hit me yet that as of March we will no longer live in this home, although I can say that this is probably the most excited I've been about packing up everything we own to move. I said this on instagram... but really, you would think our stuff would have learned how to pack itself by now. I've gotten really good a figuring out how to box up our stuff just right; what is necessary to bring and what can be tossed or given away. We were thinking about it, and we both moved every year of college, so at least 2006, 2007, 2008... we moved to Philadelphia in 2009, Nashville in 2010. but get this! We lived in this house all of 2011! I would call that a success for us haha we seem to be serial movers.

Here's hoping that they will have the house ready for us to move in this weekend, and that this can be the least stressful move of the past 6 years!

Edwards Ave

I know we can't move in until March, but we're super excited our new house. We stopped by this afternoon just to take a look and we were further impressed by how humongous the back yard is. Our future puppy is going to LOVE it, and who knows... maybe it will be void of snakes ;)

Keith walking the fence line.

Our future deck! and we can pull our cars around back if we want.

View of the house from the absolute wilderness that is the backyard haha it's so huge!

Just a little view of the side.

Sorry there aren't many more, I need to upload all the photos on my phone, because right now it's full and I can't take more... boo.

Something random: I've noticed that my photos are pretty poor quality when you look at the blog page, so until I can change the layout just click on the photos and they will expand and look a bit bigger/nicer.

A Lack of Pictures Post

It makes me sad that not having a camera has caused me not to post anything to our blog. I promise we've been just as busy doing fun things! Our long weekend turned out to be a great mix of getting things done at the house and relaxing, which means I was a happy camper. We got our lawn mowed, and Keith installed the air conditioning units in our windows, which was MUCH needed because Nashville has been hotter than I can describe. Saturday we fought off cicadas at Centennial Park and tried to enjoy some music now that Musicians Corner has started; maybe next week it won't be so bad haha. Monday we enjoyed our day off with a trip to the pool at the YMCA and I definitely look forward to many more summer days over there (since there isn't a beach anywhere near here, boo). Afterwards we had a great group of people over for a BBQ (the daiquiris were a hit!) and spent the evening hanging out, and eating. The boys played some games outside and sweat themselves to death, while the rest of us enjoyed the cool air inside. I'm guessing that most gatherings for the rest of the summer while have to happen like this because I don't see it getting any cooler any time soon.

This has been an interesting week at work for me, since it was the students last week of school. Tuesday I had the pleasure of walking from the school my students attend, to the Titans stadium. At 1pm. In the sun. Up a hill. I have never sweat so much in my life haha. Thankfully it was only a mile and a half away.

We got to tour the stadium, check out the players locker rooms and the owners suite. It was pretty interesting, but above all the kids had a blast (except for the walk) and were just excited that they weren't in school.

Yesterday the kids had a half day, so I only had to work until 3, but came back around 7pm for a lock in. Please don't ask why I volunteered to sleep at work with a group of 25 middle schoolers, but it seemed like a good idea.... until like, 4am. We took the kids to dinner at Applebees, went to the movies, played an epic game of mat ball, lots of uno, basketball, loud music, a scavenger hunt, pool, and just general non sleeping. We finally convinced the children to close their eyes, and I went and hid in a quiet room to catch a little nap before heading out at 7:30 am. With that being said, I spent the rest of today SLEEPING! Keith called me at noon and was surprised to find that I was completely passed out, but I don't think I've been that tired in my whole life. No more "sleeping" at work for me.

Also, in the absence of my camera I've been using instagram on my iPhone. If you have that app you should follow me!

Grey January

 5 reasons why today was great when it could have been lame:

1). Today was another snow day, which could have been a bummer since our kids really need all the school they can get, but it turned out to be awesome since I got SOOO much work done without their presence. Love them to death, but they make my brain spin haha

2). Keith has to work until midnight tonight which is always sad, but, my best work friend Sarah and I went to dinner together at Baja Burrito. Which was scrumptious :)

3). Another thing that makes Keith being at work all night just a little better? I get to shamelessly watch chick flicks until he gets home haha

4). I think I've mentioned once before that our house is very very cold. It's old and not insulated very well, but we manage. Tonight I don't have a warm husband to keep me warm on the couch but I do have my coat and gloves on AND my favorite blanket (that Keith outwardly hates and never lets me take out in his presence)

Yep. That's Garfield. best. blanket. ever.

5). Last but not least, after my amazing burrito all I could think about was eating a chocolate covered oreo like they gave away at work last week (our kids get donated bagged dinners on Thursday nights and we like to snag all the unclaimed treats). Well last I remembered I had scarfed all of those on, well... Thursday haha. I had given up on my dessert desire and then when I reached into my bag to grab my planner guess what I found!!!! Yep. One last awesome amazing tasty as heck chocolate covered oreo haha.

We love Nashville a lot, but this wet, cold and grey January is making me antsy for some sunshine and Spring. For now I'll just be dreaming... hope you all had a great day too!

Residents

Today I didn't go into work, mostly out of protest of Tennessee snow days, but also because I wanted to spend the day with my wonderful husband.

We started our day early with Sonic breakfast and another attempt at the DMV. After a relatively short wait (compared to when we tried earlier in the week) we walked out the door as official Tennessee residents :) I'm pretty sad that I had to forfeit my Pennsylvania license since the picture was the best I've ever had. Our Tennessee licenses? Not so much haha

Here is what Keith described as looking like "he got pushed into the middle of a highway in the darkest part of the night. Then a tractor trailer blew his horn, turned on his headlights and snapped Keith's picture with a camera mounted to the front of his truck."

Mine is just a bad angle and I feel like it's super zoomed in, but oh well. 

Tennessee, we're here to stay! As we were leaving this morning the man who processed our paperwork yelled across the room, "welcome aboard!!"

Out-takes

Tonight was the night for us to finally buckle down and get our Christmas cards taken care of. Last year I wanted to be real adults and send out cards and since we were pretty poor we did a very limited and exclusive mailing. This year... we've expanded! So look for a card coming your way soon!

Here is last years version, and while this years isn't quite as silly, I'm sure it will be another hit.

Little tree, little Theo

I don't want to spoil anything just yet so here are some out-takes from tonight's photo shoot. As you can see, Theo was MUCH smaller for last years card and was more patient with our many do-overs. Not so much this year... and I've got the scratches to prove it haha. We almost had to give up and not include him, but it's just not our family without him :) Hope you all enjoy!

This is what happens when you take a picture instead of setting the self timer haha

Theo is putting up a fight here

Mistletoe!

This is a glimpse at the theatrics involved in lighting our living room, and propping the camera haha

Now I just need to get some stamps and the patience to address them all haha

Trimming the Tree

Last night after a full day of snow, Keith and I finally decorated our awesome little Christmas tree! We started with some scrumptious breakfast for dinner (my request, duh) and then we needed to brave the icy roads so that we could get another strand of lights for the tree. These southerners completely overreacted to the snow and we had a good laugh about the people freaking out on the roads haha. We completed by watching Love Actually and just had a great time hanging out together and making the house feel homey.

We didn't have enough ornaments to cover the whole tree with the ones I had from our baby tree so Keith picked out some red and white ones to fill it in and I got to pick out a star because we never had one. I also strung some popcorn which took a surprising amount of time to accomplish, and left me pretty frustrated with our curious kitten. Overall I think it looks pretty good for our first married Christmas tree :)

Sidenote: when we woke up this morning Theo had only managed to get 2 ornaments off to play with. We decided that Theo shouldn't get presents this year because this tree is a present enough haha