I'm a Homeowner!!!!

I closed on my condo/townhouse on Tuesday March 3rd and I received the keys on Friday March 6th. Welcome to my new abode...

Doesn't the outside look inviting??


There is a half bathroom to your left in this photo and then my living room. Don't the carpets look clean? My sister and I spent about 3 hours cleaning the carpets in the whole place with a steam vacuum. Jealous you weren't there to help aren't you?!?


Where I will probably spend most of my time :)


I am almost done cleaning the kitchen. I just have to clean the inside of the fridge and stove...


This room is opened to the hallway and stairs, so it is technically a "loft" room.


The 2nd bedroom that hopefully I will eventually have a roommate for...


And the bathroom they will get to use...


This is my bedroom with my new queen bed. Well, new to me!


There is a huge soaker tub in there. It's too bad that I don't like baths! Showers only...


My friend wants this closet. One day I'm sure I'll fill it up :)

The Beach in February

We went to La Jolla beach on Saturday Feb 28. C wanted to run around in the freezing water, so I staked out my spot on the beach with A and made sandcastles. He would say "castle", I would build it, then he would knock it down and laugh hysterically. Who knew that would be so fun???


A and me relaxing on the beach.

Legoland & Dramamine

My first trip to Legoland...

I just want to know who gets paid to build these things?!?!


A could only go on a couple of rides due to height restrictions, but he loved the train!


I did go on a couple of rides with C, who was the perfect size for all of these rides. However, this is where the Dramamine came in. Who knew I would need it for kiddie rides?!?


For those of you who haven't been there - they have entire city scapes built out of legos. So I decided to take my picture @ New York City since they have a lego Citicorp building (where my dad worked pre-retirement). He would probably have been a little prouder if their stocks weren't doing so poorly...


Since C did not want his picture taken today - this is what we got! Good thing A loves to get his picture taken and says "cheese" as soon as a camera is pulled out :)


There were some play areas and A liked me to follow him around so he could label everything he saw and wait for me to confirm that he was correct.


I thought it would be fun if we were all in the shark. Can you see my eyes at the top???


I figured I should get a picture taken that you could actually tell I was in it :) 3 Dramamine and 1 Excedrin later, the day was over!

Professional Sledders...

My brother and his family came into town President's Day weekend to visit, so we took advantage of the fresh snow..

My sister is just admiring my sledding skills :) I half went off a jump and was very off-balance...


In case you weren't convinced of my skills in the last photo - I tried tubing as well!


Me and my nephew coming down the hill. I had to use my feet to make sure we didn't go over the jump - hence the flying snow!


Fortunately we made it down the hill in one piece - and he loved it!

Ou-Ou-Ou...Ah-Ah-Ah

A trip to the zoo included A saying "Ou-Ou-Ou...Ah-Ah-Ah" a thousand times and running from animal cage to animal cage. I must say that visiting the zoo has an added level excitement when in attendance with a child whose favorite thing to do is make animal sounds :)


After a few attempts, I got both of my nephews to look at the camera at the same time. Monkeys and gorillas were big hits - especially the gorilla eating his own poop. Ah the memories...


Finally we went on the merry-go-round. A chose 3 animals to sit on before finally being satisfied sitting on the animal right next to his big brother! Although I must say that the merry-go-round went a lot faster than I remembered. Next time I might need some Dramamine...

"Give Me Five"

Five Things I Was Doing 10 Years Ago
1. Attending Waubonsie Valley High School
2. Being the only child left at home with my parents
3. Attending early-morning seminary
4. Pretending to take piano lessons from Sherri Moss
5. Hanging out at the Child’s house

Five Things On My “To-Do” List Today
1. See children
2. Go to my nephew’s birthday party
3. Go to a professional development meeting after work – FUN!
4. Make some phone calls for work
5. Play with my nephews

Five Favorite Snacks
1. Peanut Butter Cups
2. White corn tortilla chips with mild salsa
3. Popcorn
4. Clementines
5. Nutty Bars

Five Jobs I Have Had
1. LC’s Frozen Custard – I scooped custard (and made it – and ate it…)
2. Hallmark – and yes it is annoying if you put a card back in the wrong spot!
3. Jacobs Engineering – filing, filing and more filling. Oh, don’t forget the data entry…
4. IP Relay Operator – took and made phone calls for the deaf/hard of hearing
5. Speech-Language Pathologist at an elementary school (hence the “see children” on my list of things to do)

Five Things I Would Do With a Million Dollars
1. Buy a townhouse
2. Travel the world
3. See my family more often
4. Buy fun things for my nephews
5. Invest (safely in CDs currently)

Five Things That Made Me Laugh This Week
1. My dad dancing to “Manheim Steamroller” Christmas music
2. One of my nephews running around with no pants on – (part of potty training possibly?!?)
3. While trying to glue a Nativity back together I got superglue on 5 of my fingers and almost glued the Nativity to the kitchen counter
4. My mom finding two more Nativities online to purchase and then her proceeding to tell me why they would be good ones… (like a kid at the candy store!)
5. My nephew doing a “Kung-Fu” kick at Wal-Mart while saying “Hi-ah!”

Five People I Tag to Answer the Same Questions
1. Janene
2. Amanda
3. Maren
4. Conni
5. …
(I guess I should work on getting more friends!)

Bumps and Bruises

So I had a very exciting Thanksgiving Break. It started off with a race on a bounce house obstacle course that ended like this...


And now looks like this...


And Sunday night, the day before I have to go back to school, I fell down the stairs (who knows how - I'm going to claim it was due to favoring my good ankle due to the above photos...) which resulted in the following:

A lot of ibuprofen later, I am just hoping this goes away soon!

Vegas Baby!

Last weekend (Nov 8) I went to Vegas with some friends from school. We spent most of the day shopping (gag, cough, hack...) but the night ended fabulously when we went to see "Stomp Out Loud".


This is one of the scenes that they did and I must admit it was very entertaining and quite amazing at their skill level. However, there were times that I wish I had brought my ear plugs as my heart was thumping to the beat. But I did remember to take an Excedrin before the show which was a good decision on my part!


At the end, we had a group shot (One person is missing! Hence the space beside me...) with one of the performers and man - he was SWEA-TY!

Hard at Work... Or Play...

So, for Halloween at school they have a parade in the morning of every single class that takes over an hour. Seeing as how I just know a few kids, we had a lot of down time waiting for the kids I see. This is how we (my co-workers and I) spent that time...


This is me, the resource teacher and the speech tech at the school. Are you scared?


Just in case my teeth weren't big enough before...


I'm pretty sure we look like we have "syndromes" in this picture :)


A little classic black and white to suit your fancy.


Have you ever seen conjoined twins that have a 6 inch height difference and about a 60 pound weight difference? Well now you have...


A little sun burst to lighten your life :)


Do we look like we could be in professional pop art?!?


Another classic - sepia


J is even more tiny and there's two of me. What excitement!


And one more scary x-ray picture. Special for Halloween :) Now doesn't that look like more fun and more productive than doing paperwork while the rest of the school is parading around?!?

Trunk or Treat

So we had a lot of Halloween activities this week, two of which were trunk-or-treats. One at my parent's ward and one at my sister's ward. But I couldn't pass up the chance to go with them and see my nephews in their costumes. Doesn't Batman look tougher this year?!?


Me and the boys. No family event would be complete without one of these pictures. And in case you can't tell, A is a horse :)

Building a Fort

One night I was helping babysit the nephews and C and I decided to build a fort. Inside we used a flashlight to play a variety of games. The only problem was I couldn't sit up, so it was very awkward. But what more could a little boy want????

I'm BACK!

I got back Monday night from Ireland and the U.K. It was a fabulous trip, but now I am trying to recover from jet lag while trying to get some hours in at work before school starts next week! This week I have woken up at 4 am, 3:30 am and finally 5 am. Believe it or not, I was happy to sleep in until 5 this morning!

Needless to say I have A LOT of pictures that I am currently trying to sort through, so here are just a couple and then I will do another post soon!


Who goes to London and doesn't get a phone booth picture? No one I believe...


My dad and me at Stonehenge :)


At the Stocks in Warwick - I know, I know, you're thinking "again"?!?!


A picturesque moment on a boat ride on our way to the Lake District. Have you ever seen so much green?!? I think I will buy that house when I am rich... Oh wait, I'm on a teacher salary!


This is me at the Blarney Castle and YES! I kissed the Blarney stone - don't I seem chatty?!? I'll let you know if I come down with some unknown disease any time soon...

Family Photos

Before I went on my big trip we had family pictures taken. It's been a long time since it has been done, but here we are (minus two) in all our glory! (the minus is a long story...)


I wanted a picture with me and the boys, but as you can see it didn't work out all too well... However, we'll just consider it a "character" picture :) Of course, A had been sick the previous night with a 104 degree fever so that may be why he was crying!


Just one more for good luck :)