july already?

where has the time gone? it's already July and my summer is half over. so much sadness. i feel like a lot has been going on lately. here are some life updates:

1. we still have a house
2. said house needs lots of repairs (roof, HVAC units, siding, and floors)
3. we are getting a renovation loan to take care of these things
4. we will hopefully be settled in at the beginning of September
5. our house will need a lot of DIY TLC
6. I am still in love with my kitten
7. I am newly in love with hot yoga
8. I am starting to think about all of the things that I will miss in South Charlotte when I move
9. I am starting to think about all of the things that I will miss from this condo when we move
10. I worry almost every day about house things (i.e. we have yet to have the inspection and who knows what that will bring...praying for nothing too bad)
11. I love love love having time to enjoy things (note to self, when I feel like I cannot take teaching one more moment, remember the feeling of summer)
12. I turn 24 this month!

life updates in pictures:

my new digs :)

back yard. just envision a fire pit and bar. it'll happen someday.

my baby.

I've been cooking a lot of home cooked meals this summer!

hanging with crazy kiddies.

America Day

ghetto fireworks

mountain drinking. favorite.

I really need to go to sleep. Josh is still doing some work, but we plan on going to a class at the Y at 5:30 tomorrow morning (we've done this twice already. so committed to beach week! haha) then my aunts and mom are coming over to clean out my Gramps' stuff in the garage. they want to put the condo up for sale at the beginning of August. the animals are sleeping beside me, time for bed. and to finish this episode of Workaholics Josh is watching :)

week of downs, then ups

Last week (my first full week of summer vacation) was a whirlwind. Monday, some awful news arrived. My coworker has been battling Cervical Cancer for months and passed away that afternoon. We all knew it was coming, but it actually happening was so sad. She has two young boys and it just breaks my heart - she was one of the nicest people I have ever had the chance to meet and interact with. Good has come out of this awful situation though...I for one have been more appreciative of life and those around me. I have realized how much I need to cherish each day. Plus, heaven has an amazing angel now.

The day after that, on Tuesday, I had to go to the OBGYN for a procedure following an abnormal pap smear. They had seen abnormal cells that could have been high risk for...cervical cancer. Not exactly the procedure I want after what happened on Monday. It hurt, but only lasted about 2 minutes in all.

Tuesday evening I was hanging out at my parents and got a phone call from my real estate agent. We had bid on a house about 2 weeks ago, but didn't get it. Turns out something fell through with the person who won it and we were next in line! We won the house!!!

I had 48 hours to turn in a bunch of paper work. I was running around town like a crazy person, high stress, but got everything submitted Thursday. There is so much that goes in to getting a house, especially because we are also doing a 203k loan, which means money is factored into our mortgage for repairs that need to be made. This house is a fixer upper. It needs paint in every room, new carpets/floors, repair the fence, and ideally new sinks in the bathrooms and countertops in the kitchen. I am so excited for all of the DIY projects to occur! Now I need to find a contractor, inspector, home insurance, and gather a bunch of documents ASAP. So much for a stress free summer! Fingers crossed, we should have the house by the end of August.

turning in the last of my forms and celebrating with Starbucks.

I babysat on Wednesday and Thursday (luckily mom was there to help me through that and the house craziness) and my older sister got me pretty congratulatory flowers :)

Friday I got a call from my OBGYN and my test results from my procedure were normal. Huge relief! I also became a member of the YMCA on my sister's family plan and went to the pool with the kiddos.

After Josh got off work on Friday, we headed up to the mountains to his parent's cabin. We had a wonderful weekend of antique shopping, eating out at new places, going to the play Oliver!, relaxing, eating delicious vegan food (prepared by his dad...so good), hiking, and canoeing. I am so sore from canoeing! It was a lot of fun. I took a lot of pictures on a disposable camera I have, but I got a few with my phone as well.

attacked by the biggest moth I've ever seen

mini vegan donuts!

cool vase we bought at an antique store

gorgeous mountain views

I never wanted to leave!

Today I am heading over to pick up some FedEx things for my house from my mom's, working out, hanging with the kiddies, and probably doing a bunch of cleaning once I get back here. I realized we need to start organizing and packing because 60 days will go by quick and our beach week/getting ready for the school year to start will cut out a big chunk of time.

Cute snuggle buddies to start off the day :)

Dad's Day

Happy Father's Day to my pops.

the G-Man.

I am especially thankful this Father's Day because of my dad's bike accident a few weeks ago. He was in a bike race and the guy right in front of him went down, causing my dad to crash his bike as well. He broke a few ribs and his lung collapsed. He was rushed to the hospital and I was so scared when I read the text from my sister. Luckily, everything turned out fine. I feel blessed because I know it could have been much worse. He is back to doing light work outs already but says he's still in pain often. Hopefully he'll feel better sooner rather than later. He is so strong and determined, I very much admire that about him!

We went to my mom's for a "linner" (lunch/dinner). My aunt and gramps were in town as well. It was a very nice afternoon with the family with delicious food, including made from scratch veggie burgers and a strawberry salad I helped put together. We looked through old pictures and gramps told funny stories from his past. It was a very nice Father's Day.

Josh and I got frozen yogurt this evening and are currently watching the NBA Finals with the animals (go OKC! even though it isn't looking too promising for them in this game)

Pepper looks hilarious.

Tomorrow starts my first full week of vacay. I'll probably hang out with the kids a bunch, clean, stay active, look up healthy recipes/food, etc. I have a doctor's appointment Tuesday and I want a hair cut sometime this week, but overall I just want to enjoy everything about this time.

:)

back again

Wow, where has time gone? It's been about 2 months since I posted. The last few months of school are always the most hectic it seems, but I survived my 2nd year of teaching! I am already planning for next year (dork) and I was named Kindergarten Team Leader.

I need to forget about my job for a while though because it's summer vacation! The only other perk to being a teacher besides getting a fantastic deal on a house (PS, still house shopping. we are the most unlucky people ever).

I suppose it is best to recap the past 2 months with pictures, naturally.

Cinco de Mayo + Kentucky Derby

found a huge snake

Teacher Appreciation

reunited with old friends

adopted a kitten

Cayenne (kitten) and Pepper became best friends

named team leader for next year

cabin beerlympics with my loves

best friend puppies

celebrating summer with my coworkers

saw Owen Wilson!

Those are the highlights of life the past two months. Today was my first official day of summer. I slept in, perused Pinterest forever, had lunch with Josh, went to Mom's, worked out, and cleaned a bit. Tonight I think we are starting season 3 of Weeds. We got Netflix and are addicted. We watch shows all the time. I have seen the first 3 seasons of Weeds, but years ago; I forgot how much I liked that show! Then we may watch a movie. Who knows! I am loving having no responsibilities after a hectic and stressful 10 months. Have to enjoy it while it lasts. As for the blog, I will write when I can and it will probably be random :) Happy Wednesday!

life

life has been so busy lately. ever since spring break has ended, I haven't felt like I've had a free moment. I hope to be able to blog again some day. so much is going on! we didn't get the house, but I have faith a better one is coming our way. I also hope to update my photo-a-day page sometime in the near future. time for some sleep. another busy day tomorrow.

float on

It's been a good Saturday so far. We laid in bed watching DIY for a few hours, and then finally got up to head to Wal-Mart. Got a few things (new candles!) and browsed the outdoor area, picking out furniture, plants, flowers, and decor we'd get if we had a house. I have been cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry and I found my new favorite Pandora station - Fun. Radio.

The past few days have been a whirlwind. After I last wrote, we went house hunting. We drove to a few places and when we got home that afternoon (after almost taking a tour of a house we sort of liked but was a little pricey) we actually figured out how this program I get through teaching works. We hadn't really been looking at the houses we could afford! We found one we loved, drove by it, called, and set up a showing for the next day (yesterday). Dad and Laura accompanied us. We fell in love. Therefore, yesterday, I saw a house, got pre qualified for a loan, filled out paper work, and placed a bid/entered the lottery for the house. It still hasn't sunk in - everything happened so fast. We find out on Monday if we won, but if everything works out and we get lucky, this could be our backyard someday in the near future:

I am beyond excited for the possibility. I am trying not to get too excited because there is a good chance we won't get it. I am trying to tell myself that more houses will come along and if we don't get it, it isn't meant to be. Regardless, Josh and I have had fun talking about it and planning. We went out to dinner last night to take advantage of Bonefish happy hour and "celebrate" bidding on a house.

$5 drinks, $5 appetizers, and classy PBR in a glass.

It was a nice date night. I can't believe spring break is almost over. I am so sad. It is going to be really hard to go back to reality. Just have to make it through another 45 days of school, that can't be too hard. Then hopefully I'll have an exciting summer of moving into a new house :)

happiness

Yesterday was a good day. I got a lot of stuff done in the morning and then Josh came home from work. He changed and we headed out to lunch to celebrate our mini vacation together.

Who doesn't drink beer with lunch on a Wednesday? And why can't every lunch be like this? I got a delicious citrus salad and Josh got some beef tacos. I stole some of his rice and beans and had a bite of a taco. I am not a huge beef fan, but they were pretty good because they had BBQ sauce. My salad was wonderful. I need to figure out how to recreate it.

Josh made Pepper a vet appointment while I drank beer ;)

It was a perfect lunch.

After lunch picked Pepper up and went to explore the dog park near our condo. It was huge! We decided to take advantage of it in the near future as much as possible. Pepper is so hyper, but at the dog park all she wants to do is sniff around even when we try to throw balls and stuff to her. Weirdo dog. She did try to play with some of the other dogs though. She was in heaven.

After the dog park, Josh gave Pep a bath and then we headed to the vet. Pepper was psycho at the vet. She whined, jumped, and tried to sniff everything. We had to sit there and try to hold her/calm her down while waiting for like 15 minutes which was near impossible. The vet was really nice and told us pretty much what we already knew, that she had bad allergies. We got a prescription for more medicine and she said to try other combos like Benadryl when we ween her off the prescription. She also said that we probably need to look into allergy testing in the near future. This is pretty expensive, but then we would know exactly what her allergy was and would get allergy injections. It just makes sense to do since the vet said she'd probably be battling allergies for the rest of her life. At least we have things to combat her bad allergies for now.

We headed to my mom's for dinner after the vet. Mom made veggie burgers for those who don't eat meat and chicken with salsa and cheese in the crock pot for everyone else. She also steamed broccoli. It was a nice home cooked meal.

Skylar is obsessed with Draw Something on the iPad while Kylan really wanted milk.

After we left my parent's, we got home and promptly passed out just after 8pm. We are too cool.

Currently, Josh and I are at Caribou since we woke up at 7:00am (weirdest thing, the same number from Jamaica - at least that's what my iphone said - called me in the middle of the night at 1:45 and 2:30. it was so weird.) We are going to look online for houses and drive around to look at a couple and go to Target. I hope the rain stays away so we can enjoy the days we have off together!