¡La Casita!

This is our new place.  It's a condo close to work and family (well, not all of our family, but most. :)) and we love that it's not perfect.  We're going to do a lot of work on it over the summer which includes (hopefully) the following projects:  New kitchen cabinets and counters, paint everywhere, update vanities and mirrors in the bathrooms, laminate flooring downstairs, new cadet heaters and thermostats, 6 panel doors and possibly new moulding, and we're going to get rid of the space ship in my living room! The rocks will go as well since someday we'll have a little one and even though Shem thinks it would be funny I really don't want my child eatting rocks from my living room. :)  We're also going to completely open upthe kitchen to the living area and put in some track lighting.  We have big plans and hopefully we'll be able to make our budget stretch!  Don't mind the mess.  I was going to clean everything up perfectly, but I figured that I would never get this post up then.  Oh, and the room with the big blue bins, that our 2nd bedroom which is currently our storage room.  Everything is still a work in progress.  Also, notice the missing drawer in the kitchen?  Before we un-packed I had to fix most of the runners just so that the drawers wouldn't fall down when you opened them.  This place is totally from the 70's though!

December 2009

December was crazy!  All I have to say is that Shem and I were both so thankful for christmas break!  Personally I was stressed to the max and had to fight to keep myself from melting down at times.  I really can't remember what made it such a stressful month, but it was. :)  In a nutshell we moved, I made this crazy video, we both graded a ton of work, we packed, I tried my best to get the perfect sunset picture for my parents, we sent off gifts, lived in 20 degree weather for 2 weeks, and we celebrated the holidays.  Here are some pictures.  We went to the Sheraton with Shem's Mom on Christmas Eve to check out some ginger bread houses and here are a few pics.  More later!

November 2009

In November after having an offer on a condo in Issaquah and a house in Renton we finally made and had an offer accepted on a townhouse in Bellevue!  We were excited and nervous all at the same time at the reality of owning out own home.  There is a lot of work to do on the place, but for now we love it and I'm excited to get a budget together so that we can start making some changes, like getting rid of the existing kitchen cabinents!  They look awful!

We also took some family photos and I'm so proud of my running skills because I had to set up the shot on the tripod then run to be in it.  It's time consuming and we lost our light quickly, but at least we got it done.  I think next time I'll have someone take our pictures next time though. :) 

I turned 28 on the 22nd and I must say I'm getting nervous thinking of turning 30 in two years!  I feel like there is so much that I have to do before I get there!  On my birthday we hiked Little Mt. Si out in North Bend, WA.  We tried to find some hot wings to eat, but we decided to just go to Applebee's.  I love hot wings and I've been obsessed with them for a while.  I also started running again this month, but really only got out once.  It was a crazy busy month.

Thanksgiving was also a lot of fun and I loved all of the good food.  We spent it with Shem's family this year since it's just not very economical to fly out to Michigan.  I made this "buche de noel" from a Martha Stewert magazine and I loved it!  It was walnut orange chocolate goodness!

October 2009

After loosing the baby I had a really hard time and I felt like I was completely unbalanced and my body took a long time to heal (which I learned later is actually normal for some women).  I stopped running and I didn't run my 1/2 marathon because the night before my body was in pain and my doctor said that it would be best not to run.  We drove out to Leavenworth anyway for the day and walked around town and I bought some ornaments for Christmas. 

We also continued to look for houses and I took some family photos for Shem's sister, Quinae.  I think that photography helped get my mind off of not having a baby and I was able to move onto something that I loved.  During this whole process Shem was quite supportive and was always available for me.

September 2009

September was filled with looking for houses, getting back into the teaching thing again, being excited about being pregnant, and then loosing the baby.  It was a good month up until the end.  I had been training for a 1/2 marthon and at the beginning of the month I was running really well and even logged in a 9 mile run around from my house to Coulon Beach Park.  I was so proud of myself and loved being healthy and able to run while pregnant. 

We also went to the Puyallup Fair so that we could see what it would be like to have a food stand.  Shem and I had been thinking a lot about selling some kind of food at fairs over the summer, so we wanted to check it out.  It was a lot of fun and I took this picture of a gigantic pumpkin!

August 2009

I'm trying to catch up on my blog, so I guess I'll start with August.  :)

We had such a fun time on our vacation back east for a month that when we got back we were ready to get to work on finding a house.  We quickly found and agent and started looking and then quickly realized that we didn't like him at all, so we found another agent.  We worked with Johna Beall and we really liked her a lot.  Before we started looking for a house seriously I had no idea how time consuming it actually was! 

August also brought us some visitors from out of town.  My brother Ken and his wife Nikki and their baby girl Marlie came to visit.  We suprized Ken with tickets to a Mariners game and he got to see one of his favortite baseball players, Ken Griffey Jr. hit a home run!  He was so excited and loved it!

Work started stortly after my brother's visit and so we got really busy with getting ready for the new school year.