Sunday update

This weekend was busy with friends, pumpkin patches, bathroom work, and prayers. So I'll start from the beginning...

First things first, I got my toes painted on Thursday and she put little Frankensteins on them - so cute! I love them! Then Friday night I went out to eat with some friends at Olive Garden...it was delicious! Loved spending time with my friends, too. Josh helped Andy out at the shop with a vehicle Andy is fixing up for Laura to drive since they only have one vehicle. It was a low-key night and I liked that.

Then Saturday we took Kayden to the pumpkin patch. She was a little young and feeling under the weather but it was still fun. She loved "driving" the little wooden car.



Josh got a lot done on the bathroom Saturday...I absolutely LOVE it, especially the accent pieces. I can't wait for it to be done.


And lots of prayers...my grandma took a turn for the worse so I'm waiting to hear back from my mom as to whether I need to head there right away today. Please keep her in your prayers and thoughts, we sure do appreciate it.

Hope everyone enjoyed this beautiful 80 degree October weekend. Xoxo

Sneak peak

here's a sneak peak at the tile going around our bath tub. :)

Bathroom progress

Well...we're thisclose to being done with our downstairs bathroom. Once we're done, I feel like I need to throw a "no-more-home-renovations" party; it has been a long road with these bathrooms! It just sucks that for the most part I can't help much since I don't know much about plumbing, electricty, or drywall. That, and our bathrooms are only made for about one person so it's hard to get both of us in there. We did get them painted though this weekend (thanks Jane for helping!) and now tomorrow Josh is going to start tiling....I have my fingers, toes, and everything else crossed that we get it all finished by next weekend. That would literally be great. Here is the progress as of tonight:


It's hard to see the color correctly because of the flash/lighting, but it's a really dark chocolate brown. I LOVE it and I think the white trim really makes it stand out. I can't wait to get our tile in...I absolustely LOVE the tile colors we picked out.

Also, tonight I had a photo shoot with the puppies outside since more of the leaves have fallen. :) I can't believe it was 86 degress in the middle of October...so AMAZING! <3



Also, if you're reading this, please put my Grandma on your prayer list. She's in the hospital right now with what they think were some small/mini strokes. God is definitely good, and His power has definitely been felt in the past few days with some great news for people around me - but just a few extra prayers up to him for Grandma couldn't hurt. :) good-night blog world!

It's almost Holiday Season!

It's almost the holiday season!! And by holiday I mean Halloween, Thanksgiving, and then the best thing ever...Christmas!! I love once it gets to Fall because there are SO many things to look forward to like decorating and spending more time with family and having the holidays off! I love buying presents and putting them under the tree and everything. I am super excited...this weekend I'm going to get out all of my Halloween stuff and put it all out. I literally cannot wait!

We're still working on finishing the downstairs bathroom, which really takes up all of our free time I feel like. We're on the verge of sanding, putting on texture and then painting! After that it's just tile and then putting everything in! I'm hoping to be completely done by the end of October; if not before. Josh is thinking maybe in a few weeks...after this bathroom project is done, hopefully we'll have a life again!

So aside from the bathroom we haven't done much. We went and helped Andy and Laura move into their new house in North English last weekend, and the weekend before they came to Baxter and we took Kayden to Monkey Joe's. It's amazing how big she's getting!
Us at Monkey Joe's

KK going down the slide!


I went to the craft show this past weekend and got some neat Halloween decorations...I'm still looking for some battery operated orange lights for my Halloween tree, so if anyone knows of a place to get some, please point me in that direction. Other than that, nothing exciting has happened - hopefully once the bathrooms get done we can get back to having a life and I'll have something exciting to blog about! :)

Remembering

I can't believe it's the 10th anniversary of 9/11 today. It seems like it was just a few years ago I was in 8th grade history class when our teacher turned on the tv and we watched the second tower be hit. It seemed so surreal. I remember coming home that afternoon and just watching the news coverage over and over and over again. It seemed like when you stepped outside there was this eerie feeling that washed over you. It's still something I have a hard time watching and hearing about, I always start crying. My heart just hurts from the pain not only the heroes who perished on 9/11, but also their loved ones still feel today. I also though have an immense pride in my country and will always get teary eyed when "I'm Proud to be an American" plays. Always remembering those whose lives were taken too soon, and, as one of my favorite quotes tells us, "If we learned nothing else from this tragedy, at least we learned that life is too short to hate" - Susan Dahl, wife of Jason Dahl, pilot of United Flight 93. I'm proud to live in the greatest country on earth. <3

We had a nice weekend of remembering, remodeling, and cheering on the Cyclones! Tyson wore his lucky jersey and ISU pulled out the win on Saturday! Josh has been finishing up the walls in the bathroom and hopefully in 3 weeks we'll have a finished bathroom!

I downloaded an app on my phone that lets me update so maybe I'll be able to update more often, but for now excuse the typos since I'm on my phone. :)

Updatin

Once school starts...my life is consumed. I've noticed that when I come home at night, I seem a little more tired, and I don't have much energy to do much besides clean up, cook dinner, and then maybe take the dogs for a quick walk (since the weather has been so nice). We haven't done much in the last month...I went back to work and Josh has been slaving away on the final bathroom project (we have a tub and some walls up right now! Getting there!). We have a new 7th grade Language Arts teacher and her and I have been working together to really update the 7th grade curriculum and really work together. So far so good! But it seems like one night a week we plan and it usually takes us from 3-5p.m. to plan out one week's worth of lesson plans, which is consuming when I still have to do my own for 8th grade as well. But I've liked it so far and we both have some great ideas - it's nice to bounce ideas of someone else at work. :)


I guess though I'll catch up from the last post. Josh's birthday was great; I always love birthday's, no matter whose they are! From me he got a new ipod, a signed Def Leppard poster, some work out shorts/pants, and an ISU shirt. He got lots of great things from everyone, he's a pretty lucky guy. We also went to the fair again and this time Josh and I rode this ride called "The Sky Scraper". The sign says you go 70mph like 165 feet in the air. We had both ridden it before (years before), and didn't think anything of it. Boy were we WRONG! My heart was beating so hard I thought it was going to jump out of my chest!! I feel like in my "old age" I can't handle heights as well, they're jumping up on my list of fears. This was NO difference. Even Josh got off the ride a little shaky and I think his exact words were, "I don't remember it being as intense when I was tweleve." Hahaha. Jane got some pictures of us on it though:
Us waiting in line (I'm excited!)

Getting strapped in:

Away we go!! At this point in time was when I started getting sweaty and my heart started beating super fast:

Swinging down!


Glad to make it off alive! I am a thrill seeker though, so anytime I can drag Josh on a rollercoaster or something, I'll do it, no matter what the height!

Other than that nothing too much to post...we had a low-key Labor Day. Some of our friends from Omaha came down and we were suppose to go boating, but of course, it rained ALL DAY. So instead they came over, we all hung out for a while, and then Alex and I went out in Des Moines with them. All-in-all it ended up being a nice night for just hanging out with friends.

Coming up we have a couple of weddings, and hopefully a finished bathroom project by the end of the month! Andy and Laura will be moving soon; only an hour away (and close to the outlet mall!). So I'm excited to see KK a little more often and definitely taking her and babysitting! :) Will post when something exciting happens and as always will keep you all updated on the bathroom project! xoxo

End of Summer

I can't believe how FAST summer went! Seems like just yesterday we were packing up the classroom and heading out to end the school year. Last week I went in and UNPACKED my classroom and got it all set up again - it really seems quite crazy! I always LOVE the fair, but it seems like once the fair starts, summer is over. It's kind of the signal of the end. But, we did a lot this summer and as always, I'm looking forward to snow and Christmas! :)

I was lucky enough to get to go to THREE concerts this past weekend! Friday night, we scored some late Jason Aldean standing room tickets for his Friday night concert at the fair. I went with some of my girlfriends and we had a BLAST! It was a lot of fun and we danced and sang at the top of our lungs! SUPER FUN!



Then Saturday night we took the boys and went to Def Leppard. They're one of Josh's favorite bands, and he'd already seen them once at the fair but he humored me and went again. I had a lot of fun and they played all of their old hits so it was a great time!



Then Sunday night Alex and I went to Glee Concert Movie in 3D! Basically it's just a 3D movie of their US tour, but it felt like we were at the concert! Plus we were the only people in the theatre so we got to sing and dance and cheer all we wanted, it was a lot of fun - ALMOST as good as watching them live.


Josh's birthday is also on Sunday the 21st so we've been trying to figure out what to do for that (and he says Thank you! to Grandma & Grandpa Medders for the card...it was the first card he got for his birthday! :)). Here's his pile of presents from me, and we went and got some good presents for him from his mom and Grandma Koppin so he'll be spoiled on his birthday! Plus I'm going to try and make his favorite breakfast for him on his birthday - biscuits and sausage gravy! I'll let you know how it turns out (if it turns out edible) haha!


Oh! And I've been meaning to post pictures of our COMPLETED upstairs bathroom! The only thing left is to decorate it, but I love the way it turned out! It's not a very big bathroom so we had to utilize the space we had, but I just LOVE using it and I feel like there's so much more room in it already!
Before:

Before:

After:




Josh did all this himself! Bathroom #2 is in the process now! :)