Last Weekend

Last weekend we went down to Houston to visit Joey's mom, have me sign my teaching contract and move some of our stuff down there. We took Joey's nieces and nephew down with us to see his mom and also surprise her. She had asked us a few times if we were going to bring any of the kids. We took all four with us! She was surprised to see the girls but was really surprised to see Zeph. This was the longest he has been away from his mom. He is 18months old and is really attached to both of his parents. He did really great this weekend, only got fussy when he was hungry or tired. Don't we all get that way sometimes, I know I do!! We enjoyed spending that time with the kids. We will miss them a lot when we move to Houston. It won't be as far away as when we were in Idaho, but it won't be the 15 min drive we have now!! We left on Saturday and came back on Monday night after I signed my contract. Next Sunday I have to drive to Houston by myself and start my new job on Monday!! I am a little nervous, but I am confident I will do the best that I can!!

The last few weeks

Now I remember why I hate moving so much. The last 2 weeks have been kind of stressful. I have had to find a storage shed, find a place for Joey and I to stay for a couple of weeks, while he works and before I start my teaching job, and pack our apartment, move it and clean it before the 31st of July. It has felt like it has been drug out longer than 2 weeks sometimes and sometimes there just doesn't seem to be enough time. We also had some other unexpected things happen that was thrown in there with all the moving stuff. Needless to say, I have been stressed out and at times not handling it very well.

I managed to find a storage for an ok price. They are more expensive in Texas than they were in Idaho. It took me a little while to get motivated to pack. I didn't really want to do it because I didn't want to carry it down from the third floor. Next apartment we live in (if there is one) we will not be living on the third floor!!! We eventually got everything packed and moved to the storage. This is the first time in moving that we haven't had truck or suv of any kind. It was kind of hard for us to move stuff in my little car. We had help from Joey's Dad, his brother Josh, Sister and Brother-in-law Jeni and Tim and my dad's truck. Thank you all to those who helped!!! We greatly appreciate it. We couldn't have gotten it all done with out you. I would also like to thank my nieces Ivy, Klover and Meadow they were also a big help in cleaning the apartment and helping carry stuff down to the trucks. They were all so eager to help and did a great job!! Even when it was one of their birthdays!!!

I also managed to find us a place to stay for a few weeks. We are staying with our friend Zack at his house. We thank him so much for letting us stay at his house while we are in transition of moving to Houston!!!

While all the cleaning and moving was going on Joey was also practicing for a show. For those of you whom don't know, Joey plays the guitar and bass guitar. He has been in different bands off and on since I have known him. Tim, his brother-in-law, asked him to play bass with them in a church band for the Denton Stake Jubilee celebration. Those practices took time away from us getting things done faster. But I know how much Joey likes to play so it was worth the time. They did a great job and when I get a video of a song they played I will post about it. Also during that time Joey's great uncle died and his grandma had a heart attack. So he was a little preoccupied with those things. I was busy with helping my dad out at his work. He went on vacation for a week and needed my help in running his office for that week.

We got everything moved out and cleaned on time!! Yea!! Hopefully in the future we will be buying a house and staying there for a while so we don't have to move again!!!

It's Official......

After a year and a half of looking I am now officially a teacher. I got a phone call on Tuesday offering me a teaching job in Aldine School District. The school district is north of Houston about 15 miles. Which means we have to move there. I will be teaching 7th or 8th grade science at Shotwell Middle School. I will know what grade I will be teaching when I go down to sign my contract on August 3rd. I will start work on August 10th. It has been a relief to finally have a job. I am very excited to start my teaching career, but also a little nervous because this job is at the high end of my certification. I now have new things to think about and get done. (Or you could call them new stresses.) I have so many things going through my head that I need to figure out.

It has taken me a few days to post this because I have been trying to plan everything out. Which entails making lists of things to do and planning our move. I also am getting the hail damage fixed on my car finally!!! I now have to pack up our apartment and move things to storage. We are fortunate that Joey's Mom lives in Spring, which is only 7 miles from the school I will be teaching in. We will be living with her for a little while. While we get to know the area and figure out where we want to live. It is great to have family that is able to help and support us. I know she is very excited to have us moving down there.

Joey will be staying in Fort Worth to work through the month of August and then will join me down in Houston. There will be a lot of driving back and forth that month also. He is excited for me and also happy he gets to quite and finish his degree and start in his career. We will miss all our family and friends in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. But not to worry I will still be looking for jobs in that area every year, until I get a job back there.

I will be busy for the next few weeks. So it will be hard for me to blog. What's new though, I do not post very often. I will try to keep posting updates, but I am not promising anything!

Yea for me!!!!!!

4th of July

Our fourth started out a little boring. Joey had to work and I was just at home doing nothing. After Joey got off we went to his Dad's house to have some dinner. It was really good. We also sat and talked for a while about their trip to Europe. It was neat to hear about all the things to see. I would really like to go there someday. All of the history and old buildings is something that I would love to see and learn about. After we left Joey's Dad's, we had been invited by our friends Heath and Adrienne and Matt to go to Oklahoma and watch/set off fireworks. It was a lot of fun. I prefer to set off fireworks rather than to just go and watch a show. Our friends Davy, Spencer and Matt had bought quite a lot of fireworks. They had a good variety of different kinds. They had fountains, roman candles, small ones that spin on the ground, and the large ones that go really high in the air and look professional(can't remember the name of those)!!! They were nice enough to let Joey and I set off a few. I don't why but it is more exciting when I get to set it off myself. We had a little rain delay. They lit the big cakes in a little sprinkling rain. There was a ton of fireworks to set off, but not all of them were set off, so they will be ahead next year. We finally arrived home at 3 in the morning!! We both had a lot of fun. Thank you Heath and Adrienne for inviting us to come!!

Frustrated with New Hair Cut!

Well I haven't posted a picture of my new haircut because I kept forgetting and now I do not like it. I haven't figured out how to do it so that it looks good to me. I feel like it is to short and that some of the layers she cut are too short. Joey keeps telling me that it looks cute and that it will grow out!!! I love it when he tries to make me feel better about it!! Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Hopefully I will figure out how to fix my hair and make it look good, so that I can get a picture taken and post it.

Transporter For A Day

Yesterday, I had the job of transporting or escorting to kids from Fort Worth to Kansas City. It was a long, tiring day. The kids were Caleb and Kelsi, they are Joey's, Dads stepkids. They are only 9 year old so they can't fly by themselves. Joey's dad and stepmom were going on vacation to Europe. They fly standby and the flights looked better for them to leave on Wedneday. So they asked if I could fly them to Kansas City to stay with their grandma. Here is how my day went.

I checked the kids out of school at 10:00. Then we drove the 45 mins to the airport. We arrived at the airport and checked in. After going through security we found our gate and then got some lunch. While we were sitting by the gate and eating our lunch an annoucment came over the intercom. The flight to Kansas City has moved to gate C24. I look at my watch and think great our plane leaves in 30 mins and we are at gate D28. For those of you that don't know about the DFW Airport there is 5 terminals and they are not with in walking distance of each other. You have to take a bus outside the front of the terminal or the skylink, which is a train by the gates. I tell the kids to finish their lunch and then we will go ride the skylink to get to the new gate. We made it to the new gate with about 5 mins to spare to board the plane. The flight went smoothly and landed on time. We left at 12:40 and landed at 2:20. I handed the kids off to their grandma telling her what the checked bag looked like without leaving the secured area. I had to turn around and get on a plane back home at 2:50. Greatfully it was leaving from the same gate and was actually the same plane that I had just gotten off of. I was lucky to get a seat back, flying standby can be frustrating sometimes. The flight home was going great till the captin told us that DFW had some unexpected weather and are backedup and we may need to land at another airport and refuel and then when we were able to fly to DFW and land. I was thinking I just want to get home I am soo tired. We were able to land at DFW. Yea I can get in my car and drive home. I looked at the time and it was a little after 5. Great now I have to deal with rush hour traffic. It gets really bad around the airport because there are about 3 or 4 freeways that come together and then split off again. I would normally take me about 20 to 30 min to get home. Yesterday it took me 45 to 50 min, so it was that much worse. It was still annoying and slow go. I finally arrived home and was very happy to see Joey there waiting for me!!

I didn't think it would make me tired. When I got home and sat down I felt very exhausted. I guess all the moving around of gates and makeing sure the kids got where they needed to go and then makeing sure that I got home. Don't get me wrong it was kind of fun to fly somewhere for a little while and then be at home the same day!!! I was the transporter for one day!

New Hair Cut, Big Change!

Well I finally decided to get a hair cut. I didn't really go much longer than I normally do!! It has been about 8 or 9 months. I have had the same basic hair style for more than 10 years. I usually get a bob cut with layers just below my chin line. Then I let it grow out for a while till it gets long enough that it is bothering me or it just won't do anything and I am wearing a ponytail pretty much everyday. Well this time when I decided to get my hair cut I decided I wanted something different. I kept thinking what can I do differently besides my normal cut. So I decided to go with bangs. It was a big step with me because I haven't had bangs since I 14, I think. I didn't go for the side swept bangs, because I kind of got those last time and they were annoying!! What I decided to do was a big change and will take some time getting used to it. I feel like I look totally different. But you can be the judge of that. I am still trying to adjust on how to style it. Which there is always an adjustment period when you wait as long as I do to get a hair cut. I think a change is good and I needed something different. Picture will be soon to follow. I need to get Joey to take a picture. Hopefully I can get that done today. We will see though, sometimes I forget things!!!

Tristan Turns 1

Friday was my nephew Tristan's first birthday. First birthdays are so much fun. You get to watch a baby try to eat a cake. Most of them don't dig right in at first, they need a little help. But once they get that first taste, they eat until it is all gone!! He wasn't really interested in the opening of the presents, but after a little help he wanted to play with all the fun toys. My sister-in-law Danielle did a great job with the party. It was a sports theme and held at my Dad's house. We had hamburgers and hotdogs and some yummy sides.

I love living close to family. We are lucky enough to live close to some of my family and some of Joey's family!!! We live close to all the nieces and nephews. We love benig able to be apart of their lives!!! I love watching them grow up, they all change so much every year.

Here are a few pictures from the party. It was hard to get everyone in the pictures to coperate that day!!!! There is also a video of him eating his little personal cake or smasher cake as they are called!!

Tristan and Danielle(The Awsome Mom)

Tristan and Kelli (Daddy)

Tristan and Zephraim (The two cutest nephews in the world!!)

Blog Stalker

I have been informed that I am a blog stalker. I read everyone's blogs and then don't comment. I have a hard time commenting, because most of the time I do not know what to say!! Sometimes someone else has already said what I thought of to say. So then I just give up and don't do it. I am not going to promise anything, but I may try to comment once in a while!!!

So sorry to all of you that I read and do not comment on!!! I love reading eveyone's blog and like being up to dated with everyone!! I enjoy all the pictures and things that are going on. Most of the time it makes our little life seem boring!!! I love you all!! And thanks to the people that leave me comments!!

Spring Storms!!

So the past couple of weeks, about once a week we have had Texas spring thunder and lighting storms. They are tons of fun to watch. The lighting spiderwebs across the sky, which is a really cool effect. The thunder is so loud that it will occasionally shake the house and set car alarms off. I hate to admit it but sometimes this scares me. Along with these cool effects we also get some hail. Most of the time the hail isn't very big. But about two weeks ago we got hail the size of golf balls. It was so loud hitting the roof of the apartment. No my poor car has hail dents all over it. It makes me sad that now we have to fix that or just leaves all the dents on the car. Joey had offered to go move the car under an empty carport before the storm reached our house, but decided against it. We didn't think that it was going to be that bad. It only last for about ten minutes. At least none of the windows or mirrors were broken. I love to watch storms and listen to them, but I do not like all of the effects of them sometimes. Hopefully next time I can get a picture of the lighting!!

Here is a picture of some of the hail I collected with a golf ball in the middle.
Texas has some crazy weather!!

Car Problems!! Frustrations!!!!!!

Well last Saturday when I was taking Joey to work our cars check engine light came on a started flashing. Then the engine started running really rough. That put both Joey and I in a panic and stressed out mode. It is our only car we depend on it to get us both to our jobs and other things that we need to do!! I had to drive home to wait for the dealership to open to call the to see if I could bring the car in to find out what was wrong with it and if they had a loaner car!!!! I took it to Lewisville around 9:00 and dropped it off and was put in a 2009 VW Jetta to use till our car was finished being fixed. (It was fun to drive a new car for a little while!!!) I had time to stop and see Kelli, Danielle and Tristan before I had to be at the church to coach the YW in their two basketball games. (We won both games!!!)

We were both hoping that our extended warranty would cover the repairs, because we do not have any extra money. I still have not found a teaching job and I haven't had hardly any Subbing jobs due to the start of the state testing. The dealership said they may not be able to get to it on Saturday. They did not call until Monday to tell us that an ignition coil, and the electric fan motor were broken. Also that the two oil leaks that they told us about in December had gotten worse. They had faxed over a estimate to the warranty company and were waiting on what would be covered. We already new the oil leaks wouldn't be covered and would cost almost $500 to fix. After much back and forth between the warranty company and the dealership and us we finally told them to fix all the problems including the oil leaks. The warranty company wouldn't cover all the labor because they do not cover diagnostic time so we would have to pay for that. All total out of pocket we had to pay $773. This was a big headache and very stressful. I was fighting to get as much paid between the dealership and the warranty company. We got our car back on Wednesday. Hopefully we won't have to do anything else to the car for a long time!!!!

Since we don't have any extra money I have been looking for things around the house to sell on craigslist. So far I am selling my WII Fit and an old 19" tv/dvd combo. I hate to sell my Fit but I haven't used it very much and we can always get it later if I really want to when we have the money. This will help us pay on the credit card that we had to charge it to. I have also rolled all the coins that were in our coin mug. It isn't much but it will help out. I hate charging things to credit cards when I know I can't pay the balance off when the bill comes!!!

It seems like Joey and I have the worst luck. When we have figured out how to get everything paid off and start saving money for an emergency like this or for a house something always happens. Hopefully we will get this taken care of fast before anything else happens again. I just hope we get some good luck soon!!!!!! So if you hear of any teaching positions for me or good jobs for Joey let me know!!!!!

Blogging!!!!

I have decided that I am really bad at blogging!!!! I read other peoples blogs and think I need to update mine but just never do. I sometimes feel like there is nothing really that important to write about or I just can't figure out what to write about. So it has been over a month since I have blogged and there are people that are bugging me about it.

There hasn't been much that has gone on in the last month!! I have been going and looking at houses with my friend Adrienne. They were thinking about buying a house new or used. It was lots of fun. I love to look at houses and get ideas and figure out what I want out of a house when Joey and I will be able to afford to buy one. Which won't be till I get a teaching job!!!! I also feel like I am more informed on how to buy a house and what things to watch out for.

I will try to be better at posting. There might be a time period of multiple posts, as I remember things or think of things that I want to write about or vent about!!! Please be patient with me!!!

Job Hunting!!

Well for those of you who do not know, I have been looking for a teaching job for the last year since I graduated from college. Looking for a job is a very frustrating process. I have encountered some bumps along the way. The first thing that I need to do was to get my Texas Teaching Certificate. I had an Idaho Teaching Certificate and after a few interviews found out that most principals wouldn't even consider me for a job till I had my Texas Certificate. That was really discouraging because I needed to take three test and the all cost money. Well I finally took them all and passed them on the first try (Yea for me!!!!) and received my Texas Certificate in October. I have been handing out my resume to the principals at the schools that I have been substitute teaching at. I have gotten some good feed back and also some feedback that is very frustrating. Some principals want people with experience others want some with TAKS experience(this is the state standardized test that kids take starting in 3rd grade). My only thought to this is how am I supposed to get experience if no one will give me a job in the first place.

Today I went to a school to drop off my resume for a position that has been open since December. I haven't take the time to do this before now and I am regretting it. The position has been filled, even thought it is still on the districts website. I have decided that as soon as I see a position open that I need to go to that principal as soon as possible to show that I really want the job. It kind of sucks that getting a teaching job is a lot about who you know and a little about your qualifications. Hopefully things will start to get better and I will find a job before the end of the year, if not I better get one for next school year, because I have everything that is needed now, except experience.

Crazy Week!!

This last week has been real crazy!!! It went like this:

Wednesday-My older brother came from Utah to visit. I haven't seen him in about a year!!! We picked him up from the airport in the morning and then went to my dad's house and hung out with both my brothers and my sister-in-law and my nephew until my dad and his wife got home from work. We had a lot of fun that day.

Thursday- I went to help Kelli and Danielle move into their new apartment. That was a long day for me I didn't get home until 9 o'clock. Joey had to work and had his bowling league that night so he couldn't help. Poor Kep it was his B-day and he was also helping move. Kelli works nights so he was sleeping while the rest of us moved everything to the apartment. Luck duck!!!

Friday-I tried to get a few things done at home while Joey was at work. Kep and I also played some Wii games. He is much better at the tank game than me. But I can beat him really bad at the look alike game!!! We went out to dinner for Kep's B-day to Salt Grass Steak House. I love the bread there!!!! It is really good!!!! The steak is also good. We had a lot of fun sitting around the table and chatting and making fun of each other.

Saturday-Joey's mom came up from Houston to visit. It was his nephew's 1st Birthday so she came up mainly for that. She also came to see all of her kids and gandkids!!! We had Zeph's b-day party and then hung out really late at his sister's house.

Sunday-We went to church and the had dinner with Joey's family at his sister's house. Lots of kids running around and lots of food and game playing. We actually stayed at her house till like 3 in the morning playing Rockband over the internet against other people. That was tons of fun!!! Kep flew back to Utah and Joey's mom went back to Houston.

Today we stayed at home and rested!! It was nice. I feel like I have been going nonstop since last Wednesday. It is really nice when family comes to visit. While family is here it can be a little overwhelming, but lots of fun!!! After they leave it is nice to know that your family loves you and wants to see you!!! I love it when I get to see any of my family or Joey's!!!!

Texas Crazy Weather!!!!!!

The weather has been like being on a roller coaster lately. One day it is in the 70s or 80s and the next it is in the 30s and 40s. Don't take me wrong I really like roller coasters. But this weather is messing with my allergies and sinuses. Hopefully it doesn't cause me or Joey to get sick. On the bright side there has been a few nice days to spend some time outside doing things like playing tennis or just being outside!!! That is just how Texas weather is. OH Well!!!!

New Year's

Joey and I (Pics of us are very rare!!!)

Me, Jeni, Mary and Danielle















Tristan, Zephraim, and Zerrin in their New Year hats!!!

This new year's eve we went over to our friends, Chris and Mary's and celebrated with them and a gew other friends! Much Better that last year. We spent it at home alone and I think we even fell asleep before midnight!!! We had lots of fun playing Guitar Hero, Rock Band and some games on the WII!! It was really funny to watch my little brother Kelli play Rock Band, because he is always saying that he hates that game. We ate pizza and had chips and cheese dip, we also had lots of yumy treats. It was great to see and play with my two cute nephews Tristan and Zephraim. It was also fun to watch my neice Meadow sing a couple songs on rockband. Kelli was also a good sport in letting Meadow and Klover climb all over him like he was a jungle gym. It was also fun to play with Chris and Mary's little boy Zerrin. All the little boys got to hang out!!! At midnight we had some Welchs Sparling White Grape Jucie. It was really good and bubbly. We had to do our noise making outside because of sleeping kids. It was a lot of fun until my feet got cold and then noticed that no one else in the neighborhood was outside. Joey and I didn't spend the night because Joey had to work the next morning.