Summer Vacation

I realized I didn't really talk about our summer vacation. We had great time! We got to meet our nephew, Vincent for the first time. Below is his photo. He is such a good baby and so adorable! We had a great time playing with him...even though he did use my shirt a few times for a spit up rag. :)

Lindsey eating some Gogurt
Uncle Nick had a great idea to put the camera around his neck and then swing our neices around in circles and set the time to take a picture. It turned out pretty good.
Jenna


Natalie loving the spinning! This is like one of my fav photos ever!

Jon's bedroom

The photo above of Jon's bedroom closet brings back some GREAT memories! We moved my family back into their house after the fire. It took 5 months of work to get the house in order and at least ready to live in. We used Jon's bedroom closet as the place to store all the hang up clothes and blankets that came from the cleaners. There was a LOT of weight on the shelves. We took a break in Jon's room after moving all the stuff upstairs. We were standing there and making fun of some of the stuff Dad wore in the 70's- particularly a leather jacket decked out in fringe. We had been giving Dad a hard time about that jacket since it came back from the cleaners (a few months before they moved back into the house). Keep in mind, this jacket weighs about 10 pounds itself (I may be slightly exaggerating but not by much).

Jonny points at the jacket and says, "Why are we keeping this??" All of a sudden, the shelves start to collapse, slowly working it's way around the closet like thousands of people doing the wave at a sporting event. All of the clothes piled to the floor with the shelves lying on top of the mess. Isaac took one look at it and said, "It looks like it did before we moved out!" (My brothers made a mess of that closet with their toys and so the plan was to keep this new closet nice and organized.) We all started laughing so hard and even Dad started laughing after the intial shock of it collapsing. Jon blamed it on the jacket and we were all laughing so hard we were crying. It may have been a "you just gotta be there" story, but I'll never forget that moment...and we'll never let Dad forget that moment either! You know we love you, Dad! :)

House Pictures

After a lot of hard work, we finally feel settled into our home. We're so glad to be unpacked and organized! There are still lots of little projects that we have in our mind, but due to time and money, we'll get to them one at a time and do a little bit at a time. Our first big project would be to paint the downstairs. The color we have now is nice, but when they repainted the downstairs, they did some touch ups in a color that didn't match. Plus, we want some color! We're waiting until the fall to complete this major project so we can open the windows and not die of heat exhaustion!

School is just around the corner! I went into my classroom to start working this past Wednesday. I was slightly dreading going back because it felt like I didn't get much of a summer. But once I was in there and planning and being creative, I started getting excited about this coming school year. Nick has helped me a LOT and so I owe him lots of back rubs. But it's worth it because I couldn't do half of the stuff with out his wonderful help and support. Good thing he's a junior high teacher and doesn't have to get creative every year! :)

I am headed back to Iowa this coming weekend for my cousins wedding. I'm nervous about the trip because I'll be flying by myself again. At least I'm an experienced flyer now! I'm looking forward to getting to spend even more time with family and friends. My brother Jon, who turned 18 in June and will be a senior this year, is driving me to the state fair to hang out for a day together. I'll be finishing taking his senior pictures while I'm there. I've already edited several and so when I get them all finished and he gives me permission, I'll post some on the blog. Isaac will be 15 later this month and will be a freshman! He's already had a week of "unofficial" football practice. He's loving every minute of it. I can't believe how grown up they are becoming. Then again, I don't think I should be turning 24 in September!! I'm growing up too fast! :) I'll post some photos of the trip when I get back!

Crazy Squirrels!

We purchased a humming bird feeder in hopes that it wouldn't take long for it to be discovered. We're still waiting for some humming birds... I got a little impatient so I decided we needed a regular bird feeder because of have a couple of cardinals that are both beautiful! We hung it up right outside our living room window. We thought for sure it wouldn't take long at all for them to find this feeder! We're still waiting for the cardinals to come close to it...

The birds haven't been brave enough or adventurous enough for the feeders, but you can always count on one animal to be creative. This creature is a cute, bushy tailed, small eared, beady eyed, grey squirrel. We have three of them that love our backyard. As I was trying to attract the cardinals by sprinkling their feed in the yard, the squirrels took advantage! They look so cute out there sitting right under the window just eating so fast.

Two days ago, we were sitting in the living room watching tv. We heard this scratching sound and both looked outside from the direction of the sound. Our eyes spotted a squirrel, climbing up our window, half on the screen, half gripping who knows what. Perdi spotted it as well and went crazy trying to get up in that window to get it. The squirrel got scared and ran off. Snickers also loves to sit in the window and watch them in the yard. This has happened several more times and were able to get pictures. We love the squirrels and are planning on buying some squirrel food just for them.

Snickers also discovered a really BIG stink bug on the same window and was trying to get it. The bug was on the outside (Thank you Jesus!) so it was kind of cool to watch. I was able to get a video and ended up capturing the moment Snickers pawed at it and it flew away. Enjoy the pictures and the video below.

We've got our eyes on you!

Life Moments

Nick and I spent the week unpacking and organizing the house. It was a long, tiring process, but we got it finished for the most part. The house looks good and we are enjoying it. We've had some exciting things happen in the past two weeks since we've been home.

Lizards:

The first few days we were home, we found a total of 3 small lizards inside our house. They are pretty cute and do no harm so the only thing I worried about was one of them crawling on me while sleeping! Thankfully that hasn't happened and we haven't seen any in over a week now. We found one in the bathroom crawling on the floor. I discovered it when I woke up one morning and it startled me. Nick woke up and caught it in a box and took it outside. The second one was actually on the mop handle. When I moved the mop, I felt something land on my leg and I freaked out and screamed and ran around. All the movement caused me to accidentally squish the poor thing. The last one was just crawling around on our bedroom wall. We caught and released that one as well.

Swiffer Wet Jet:

I like my new Swiffer Wet Jet because I can spot clean the tile floors easily. The other day I had Nick hold it up by the handle so I could put a new pad on it. He didn't know the button to spray the cleaner out was on the handle and he ended up spraying the cleaner all over my face! Thankfully it did not get in my eyes, but my skin was iching the rest of the day even after washing it off. He felt bad about it, but we laugh about it because it was funny. :)

AC Unit:

We have two different AC units. One upstairs and one downstairs. The upstairs one stopped working last weekend. Thankfully we had an air mattress and were able to camp out downstairs. We were just glad to have at least one AC unit that worked! We had it fixed and it's been working great ever since! We're praying for no more problems with the unit.

Snickers:

Snickers has a nice spot to lay and nap that is up high. Right abover our front door is a little flat area where he likes to lay. We have an open staircase and so he goes up the stairs and then jumps up to it. During the move he jumped down from there (it's a good 10 feet onto tile floors). He was not hurt though. The other day, Nick and I were playing with Perdi and Snickers was up there watching down at us. Snickers thought he would attack Perdi and he jumped down to get her. However, the landing wasn't good for him and he ended up hurting his paw. I thought about taking him to the vet, but he could put some weight on it and so I wanted to wait and see what would come of it. After a day he was almost back to normal and so I didn't worry about it. I'm so glad I didn't take him to the vet because he's fine now and it would have been a waste of money.

Snickers waving "Hi!"

Summer is almost over and it has really gone by fast this year. I say that every year, and it's just amazing to me how time goes faster the older you get. I'm excited for a fresh group of kids and a new year. I am hoping for this year to be a great one!

The Move

It has been a whirlwind kind of month! Nick and I moved into our first home the end of June and then left for vacation right after the move! But it was a great time and now that vacation is over, I'm beginning to think that summer is almost done! I hate thinking that!

The house was a nervous but exciting time for both of us. There were quite a few complications with closing (due to the seller). But it turned out to be ok in the end and we're glad it's over! Nick's parents came down along with Chad's family (his brother). We were so blessed to have them help us out. The guys did all the moving and the girls stayed at the house to unpack and try to get some what organized. We also had some friends come over to help us through out the day. The guys did several home projects for us which kept them busy. The hot temperature made it difficult to want to do any work, but they were great help and we really appreciate the hard work that was done.

We left for vacation 1 week from the day we moved in. Nick's family left the afternoon before we left and so it almost felt unreal that this was our home. Being back home now, I think every day it'll start to feel more like our home. It's still a mess so we have a lot of work to do. It'll keep us busy for sure! I've included a few of the messy pictures that include our new furniture. I'll post some good ones as the house comes in order.

The guys installed blinds throughout the house.

It made a big difference in the look of the house

and also the temperature inside!

The kitchen

Nick and Chad installed a cat door for Snickers!

Our brand new LG washer and dryer! I love them!

The living room in complete disarray. It now looks much better and includes an area rug...again more pictures to come.

Summer Begins

After a week of class for both Nick and I, we finally feel the summer time laziness set in. What a wonderful feeling! However, there is a lot of stress coming up in 10 days that makes the laziness seem like it's not going to last long at all.

We close on our house June 25!! We're moving part of the stuff in that Thursday if all goes as planned. We will finish moving everything else in on Friday the 26! We can't wait! We have our furniture for the living room purchased. We have our fridge, washer and dryer picked out. We're just waiting to get the go from the bank people to buy them. We are so fortunate to have Nick's family coming down to help us out. His parents and his brother's family are coming and we are excited to see them. It may be difficult to work on the house because I'll just want to have fun with them down here. But once the dirty work is over, we can have fun.

We will be heading up to see family in July and we look forward to that as well. It's going to get really crazy soon. It's so good to be able to look forward to things in life. Simple joys as seeing family are a huge deal to us and we treasure every moment!

Nick and I went to the beach today and had a nice relaxing time. We also rode the ferry boat and got to see some dolphins. Here are some pictures from the day.

Three Years of Wedded Bliss

Tomorrow marks our three year wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe because sometimes it seems like just yesterday the chaos of wedding planning consumed my every thought. Other times it seems like Nick and I have really known each other our whole lives and it seems like we've been married longer than that. We've been together for seven years now and we're still never sick of each other. In fact, I can't stand to be away from him!

The story of how we meet is a unique one. We met over the phone through a mutual friend. Nick being in Indiana and myself being in Iowa. Nick was getting ready to start his freshman year at Purdue and I was starting my senior year of high school. We talked on the phone everyday (except when I was grounded for having an extremely high phone bill...oops!) from September through December which was when we first met. We fell in love quickly over the phone and I knew he was "the one" almost immediately after hearing his voice. It was kind of a strange feeling and I didn't really want to believe it, but I just had this feeling about the man I was talking to. It took a lot of talking our parents into letting us meet and they both agreed! Nick drove all the way from Indiana to stay with my family and I for Christmas vacation. What a huge blessing it was to have his family share him with us. It was a total God thing in reality because who would have ever thought of meeting a stranger...that's scary stuff. But it turned out great! Unfortunately, Nick had to go back to Purdue, and of course I finished high school. He came for my senior prom which was during his finals week! He also came for my graduation just a couple of weeks later. He must have really loved me to do all of that traveling!! And I loved him all the more for it.

I started my freshman year of college at UNI and Nick continued to attend Purdue. Still seven hours apart, but phone calls were occurring every day more than once a day. One autumn day, Nick told me over the phone that he wasn't happy what he was majoring in and was thinking about becoming a teacher. I told him he needed to do whatever just as long as he was happy. If we couldn't be together for four years, then that was how it was going to be and we would get through it together. He surprised me a few weeks later telling me that he got accepted to UNI and was transferring in January!!

We spent our college years together, taking several classes together, making friends together, and we even got to work together! We got married right before our senior year of college and the last semester we had at UNI we lived together in our dump of an apartment. We then moved to Council Bluffs (four hours from college, and four hours from my family, 12 hours from Nick's family!) to student teach for the last semester of college. We didn't want to go, but it ended up being a great thing for us. God really lead us during that time and we didn't realize it until we look back now. He prepared us to be apart from our families and also for the big city living when we moved to Houston, TX after college graduation.

We love living in Texas and it's so neat to see how God has molded us and changed us for the better. Since we are so far away from our families, we have learned to depend on each other more. We have really cleaved to one another. I love him more and more every day. We have been through a lot this past year, and I could list all the horrible things that have happened, but I'm not one to sit and dwell on the negative. I know that greater things are yet to come in our lives and in our walk together. We are both standing firm in our belief that Jesus is the only way we can get through these difficult times. It truly has made it so much easier. Nick and I have come to have an even deeper love for one another. We both cannot wait to have our first child, whenever God's timing is right. In the mean time, we know he is preparing our hearts and minds for the future and strengthening us for life. I am enjoying every step of this walk with my loving, supportive husband and I am excited to see how things will turn out in our lives.

The bridesmaids: Left to right: Rebecca-roomie in college; Stacia- cousin; Kristen-cousin; Heather- Sister-in-law and me in the middle. This was while we were getting ready.

The Guys: Left to right: Joel-friend; Ron-friend; Joe-brother-in-law; Isaac-Cirsti's brother; Nick; Jonathon-Cirsti's brother; Jared-Nick's brother; Chad-Nick's brother; Eric-friend

Nick and I kissing after eating some delicious cake!

The rings :)

Nick's Family

Cirsti's Family

My favorite picture of all