It’s over…

Well another recruiting year has come and gone…once again.  A year of hard work has once again paid off.  We ended up on target with our year end goals…which always makes me smile.  What makes me smile even more…is watching all of those new faces walking around campus…experiencing Greenville College for the first time.  It always makes me think back to my college years…and how great and formative they were.  Just a great reminder of why I love my job.   Speaking of jobs…Jared got a new one.  He was offered  another job on campus with IT…and we’re super pumped!  (It’s a job he’s always wanted…and he’ll be working with lots of friends.)  It took awhile to make the decision for him to switch departments, but this new job was obviously the way to go.  So in 2 weeks…Jared will get to settle into his new digs.   In other news…we’re slowly but surely getting closer to finishing up our basement redo.  The patching is nearly done, and we also started painting down there this week.  Fingers crossed that in the next couple weeks we can put it back together and enjoy the extra space once again!  (In the meantime…if you like to paint…let us know!)   With that…I better get back to my homework.  I have plenty to finish up tonight before we have company over tomorrow.  More updates later…I’m sure! 

I don’t have blonde hair…

So yesterday I went outside to work in the garden.  I dug the rest of our potatoes and onions yesterday….and picked more tomatoes and peppers.  I weeded a bit…and still have quite a bit more to weed.  At some point I decided I would get out the trimmer (as Jared was mowing) and start working on the weeds.  So I got most of the yard done…and stupid me decided to trim right next to the garden.  Right next to the cute white wire fencing I have around the garden.  Needless to say, I have about 2 feet less fencing now…whoops!  It was so silly…I’m really good at mowing and trimming…so who knows what happened there.  Oh well…at least the yard looks good now!

1 week to go…

So in one week NSO (New student orientation) will be here…the day my office works towards year after year.  It’s been a long summer (which oddly enough has gone CRAZY fast)…and I’m so excited to see this day finally come.  I can’t wait to see/meet all of my new students.  Along with that comes the beginning of another work year…and I’m always excited to think about the other students I’ll soon start to work with.  Amongst all of that, I’m not also half-way done with grad. school.  With any luck, I’ll finish up this spring (Holla!). 

This weekend I’m working to get the house tidied up again…but seem to keep getting stuck on the couch wathing the Olympics.  I try to wash a few dishes or tidy up a room during commercial breaks!  (The business of work lately has wreaked havoc on the tidiness of my house…and it drives me crazy!)  That’s about it!

I’m here…really!

Ok…so I realized today (or maybe a few weeks ago) that I haven’t blogged in quite some time.  This is pretty much all due to the fact that school starts soon and I’m crazy busy at work.  My workload got doubled back in May, so I don’t have as much time to kill and by the time I get home I just want to sit and stare into space.  However…I’m back…and promise to be better about posting the going-ons of my life.  Here’s a few quick recaps on other cool things we’ve done over the past month or so. -Saw the Foo-Fighters (awwwwesome!!!)-Saw the Toadies (a great blast from the past…made me want to relive the 90’s)-Went to Iowa for a family reunion (amazing to hang out with family…didn’t want to leave)-Helped a friend move (my arms are now buff)-Got some insane allergies (that FINALLY cleared up)-Saved a cat from a life on the streets (no…we didn’t keep it)-Saw Mama Mia (and am now, once again, addicted to ABBA) That’s about it…more to come later! 

Mini-Vaca

Well despite it being 3 days instead of 2…this past weekend came and went pretty quickly.  To celebrate the 4th of July…we headed out of Greenville and over to St. Louis.  We spent the bulk of Friday utilizing our Six Flags season passes.  The weather was beautiful….and the park wasn’t packed at all.  Despite some icky feeling tummies at the beginning of the day…we were still able to ride all of our favorite coasters and thrill rides.  They’ve got a new coaster as well…the “Evil Kenievil”.  It’s a tight twisting wooden coaster…and was simply thrilling and fantastic.  It was warm enough to take in a few water rides as well…and not have to worry about being soaked for the rest of the day.  We stayed until the park closed…and watched fireworks there as well.  Definitely not a praise-worthy display…but still nice to be able to see a few. 

 From there we headed back to our hotel…but not until we stopped off for some late night Krispy Kreme to quench my sweet tooth.  So at the hotel we had a jacuzzi in our room…which I immediately went to fill when we got back.  After a day of walking all over the park…my feet and back were thrilled at the thought of sitting in a jacuzzi.  Well thanks to that decision…I’ve learned a major life lesson.  Don’t put any sort of a soap or bubbles in a jacuzzi…EVER!  I’m pretty sure I knew that…but still…I put a dime size worth of bubbles in the tub.  It was fine to start with…but then I turned on the jets…and the bubbles proceded to pretty much fill and take over the tub area (which was quite big).  They never actually flowed out of the tub…just kept rising up like there was some sort of clear glass surrounding the tub.  It was quite a site.  So the next hour was spent trying to “drain” the bubbles.  We transported some to the sink…which didn’t work.  Then we drained the water a bit…didnt’ work.  Then we pretty just turned on the shower head above and let cold water run until they were gone.  So after that whole process was done…we had to fill the stupid tub all over again.  Lesson learned.

After a good night’s sleep…we got up (after sleeping in) and headed over for lunch.   We got some bbq…of course…which gave us the energy necessary to continue on with another day.  From there we headed over to Grant’s Farm…which is one of our favorite St. Louis atractions.  We saw all of the animals…watched the animal show…fed the llama’s…and went on our way.  We shopped for a bit at a local mall.  I got a cute new dress and Jared got some running socks.  We ate a yummy pasta dinner and headed over to Ted Drew’s for some custard.  After seeing the mile long lines there….we just kept going.  I opted for a buster bar at DQ instead.  Not even close to being as good as Ted Drew’s…but it was still pretty tasty. 

 Sunday was church…and then napping.  After napping…an hours worth of weeding in the garden.  The tomoatoes and peppers are all growing quite well.  I’ve even been able to pull a few onions to use.  My favorite part is that the sunflowers we planted are starting to grow as well.  I’ve had this thing with sunflowers since I was younger…and I was so excited to have my own this year!  the rest of the yard is looking good, too.  The hollyhocks are finally starting to bud, the day lillies are in full bloom, the hydrangeas came back (they had a rough year last summer), and Jared’s finally got the grass to start growin the bald spots. 

 With that…I’m gonna get back to work!

It’s a Monday

After a great weekend…there’s always a Monday.  As a laid there in bed this morning…I quickly realized that I didn’t get nearly enough sleep this weekend.  Lack of sleep is totally worth it when it means you get to hang out with good friends…and watch silly movies with your hubby.  Today work just seemed to drag on and on…like 4:30 was never going to get here.  After some fun and exciting news though….it got here a little more quickly.  Jared surprised me today by letting me know that we were getting season tickets to this year’s Broadway series at the Fox Theatre.  We had some friends that asked if we were interested…and we decided not to…even though I really really wanted to.  Needless to say…Jared completely changed his mind and told them yes…and then let me know.  I’m so pumped!  We get to look foward to 6 great shows over the next year!  It makes me feel so fancy!  The Fox is probably my most favorite theatre that I’ve ever been to.  It’s so huge and beautiful…and just an amazing experience every time you go. This evening we made hobo dinners on the grill…and they were super yummy. We followed dinner up with some lawn games and cleaned the house up a bit. So even though it definitely started out as a Monday…it turned into a great day!

Yay for fun days away!

Yesterday we took the day off from work…to get away for the day.  To start with…I went to contest a speeding ticket that I got a few months ago.  Luckily I succeeded!  I’d never had a ticket before…and I certainly didn’t want to start now.  I was supposedly caught speeding in a school zone…however…school hours were over…so the ticket was easily dismissed.  Hooray!  After that we caught some lunch at Jimmy John’s (yummm!) and spent some time shopping.  Then we caught a matinee at the movie theatre…we went to see “The Happening” by M. N. Shayamalon (or however you spell his name!).  It was really good…but definitely not our favorite of his.  It will keep you on the edge of your seat though!  After that we headed over to Alton to spend some time with Steve and Nicole.  We hung out and got some supper.  Jared hung out with Steve while Nicole and I headed over to the Muny in St. Louis.  She was given tickets to go see “High School Musical” and invited me to go along.  It was really cute!  Cheese…but lots of fun!  The weather was perfect and it was a great night.  We made it back to Greenville around 1:45…and fortunately slept in quite a bit this morning.  It’s been a relaxing day filled with TV…S’mores cereal…and some cleaning.   Good times!

Fun Night Out

Last night we headed out for some BBQ with Steve and Nicole at 17th Street (our favorite…of course).  The food was delicious…and the company was even better.  After we ate we ran (well…drove quickly) over to Guitar Center to drop off Jared and Steve, while Nicole and I scanned the home decor section at Gordman’s.  I found a couple of cute things for the house…and a great pair of Nine West sunglasses.  Then we played an exciting game of mini-golf….which is always fun.  I definitely didn’t play my best…but oh well!  Then…to top of the evening we headed over to Lotawata Creek for desert.  Nicole had seen these “chocolate nachos” on the menu before…and they supposedly fed four…so went to give them a try.  They were…in a word…scrumtrulescent!  It was probably the biggest plate of yumminess that I’d ever seen…this thing was huge!  There was a layer of cinnamon suger tortilla chips…then like 4 or 5 enormous scoops of ice cream….then mounds of whipped cream…and then the whole thing was covered in hot fudge and caramel.  Oh…and a cherry on top.  The four of us couldn’t even make it through the whole thing.  It was amazing…I’ll definitely be giving that a try again.  And that leads us to today.  We’ve slept in and are being lazy….and it’s great.  We’ve got a wedding to go to at 4:00….so we’ll actually have to get off the couch at some point…but not until then!  Ah yes….yay for lazy Saturdays. 

Whew!

So life seems to be speeding by as of late.  There always seems to be something going on…all the time.  This past weekend we were able to get back up to visit family for Father’s Day and our niece’s 1.5 birthday party.  As always…it was great to be back home and to just relax for a bit.  Mom and dad got Jared a bocce ball set for his birthday…so that took up a good chunk of Friday evening.  Sunday was a bit more chaotic…but still a great time.  We got my dad an ipod for Father’s Day…and it was a lot of fun seeing how excited he was about it.  We went to church with my rents and then headed to Monical’s for lunch…dad’s choice.  It’s probably one of my favorite pizza places…so I’m always eager to go there when we’re home.  We also got to spend some time with Jared’s mom and his dad…which was a nice treat.  Then we headed off to Geof and Lauri’s for Aubrey’s birthday bash.  Lots of people…lots of good food…and lots of fun.  It was a great evening!  Then we made the long trek back to Greenville.  This week has pretty much flown by.  One of my coworker’s resigned last Friday…so I’ve now got double the workload…but I’m ready for the challenge.  Needless to say…my phone hasn’t stopped ringing since Monday.  Yesterday was Jared’s 29th birthday.  He had praise band practice for church…so our celebration was a rented movie…dippin’ dots ice cream…funfetti cake…some cool presents…and camping out on the hide-a-bed for the night while we watched said movie.  It was relaxing…and I think he had a really good day.  So today is Friday…thank goodness!  We’re planning on getting out of town with some friends for the evening….which will be nice.  Until then…adios!

4 Happy Years!

So yesterday was our 4 year wedding anniversary…and it was great!  It’s funny…because on days like that…most people ask if it seems like it’s been that long…etc.  It does seem like time has flown…but at the same time…I have a hard time thinking about life before I knew Jared.  He’s just been such a huge part of my life for so long…that it seems longer…but in a really good way!  Either way…since we’d just taken vacation a few weeks ago…we didn’t have a ton of cash to do something crazy fancy.  Sooo…we decided on the Amazing Pizza Company and a movie…both of which were AWESOME!  What’s better than spending 4 hours of all-you-can eat pizza and otherdelicious goodies…and lots of mini-bowling, mini-golf, ski-ball, go carts…with the bestest hubby ever?!  We also went to see “Baby Mamma”…which was hillarious and a great movie to just sit back and watch…without much thought.  It was great night away from Greenville!  Now it’s the weekend…which is great.  I have a lot of cleaning to get through in the house this weekend…and some homework too.  Hopefully it’ll be a nice low-key weekend at home!