I have been busy! I thought that summer was for relaxing?!
Two weekends ago, I went to Pittsburgh to celebrate my best friend's wedding! It was the first wedding (other than my own) that I was in! And it was a blast! L was also in my wedding:
L is all the way to the left
And she looked sooo beautiful in her wedding! I can't wait to see her bridal portraits because they are going to be awesome. She hired a fantastic photographer.
The bride getting her hair did the morning of her wedding!
My first French manicure!
The whole bridal party
Best Horn friends from WVU
Cutting the Cake
Then Josh and I drove to Cumberland where we spent the 4th of July with my family. It was a good time. We hung out, ate food, watched fireworks, and made S'mores. Always a good time.
L and her new husband(!) followed us back from Cumberland on Tuesday to Salisbury where they stayed for the night and got to see our new house!
Wednesday was my birthday! We woke up, L and I went on a run, we came back and the boys were making us breakfast, we ate breakfast and then all of the sudden I remembered it was my birthday!!! yep, we all forgot. So, they apologized, we hung out, ate lunch, and they had to leave. I colored all day and watched my DVR shows from while I was in Pittsburgh. Then Josh took my to my favorite sushi restaurant for my birthday dinner:
Look how happy I am!
Lately, Josh and I have been doing some projects around the house as we get the money (we are currently broke as a joke!). I will update :-)
So, I decided to make some cake balls for dessert while we had some company last week. They are pretty easy, very adorable, and yummy. I got the original recipe from here. It's a Paula Deen recipe.
Ingredients:
1 (18.25 ounce) package cake mix (and whatever you need to bake the cake)
1 (16 ounce) container prepared cake frosting
6 ounces of chocolate flavored confectioners coating disks or bar
Food Coloring (optional)
Start by baking the cake according to the directions on the box. When it's finished baking, allow it to cool for about 30 minutes or longer.
Crumble the cake into a large bowl using a stand or hand mixer.
3. Add the frosting and mix until well combined. (I added an entire can of vanilla frosting. They turned out way too sweet for our taste, so next time I will either use a less sweet frosting like cream cheese or something. Or I will just use less frosting all together).
4. Next, I divided the dough up into four bowls and mixed in food coloring. Place the dough in the refrigerator for three hours or more. (I left it in overnight).
5. Line a baking tray with wax paper. Use a melon baller as a scooper to form balls with the cake mixture. Place on wax paper. Once you have used all of the cake mixture, place the baking tray in the freezer for 1 hour.
6. Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl of the microwave, stirring every 5-10 seconds until smooth.
7. Remove the balls from the freezer. Using one toothpick, pick up the balls one at a time and dip in the chocolate. Use a second toothpick to slide the ball off the first toothpick onto the wax paper lined baking tray. (I found that it was easier to just dip them like buckeyes, leaving the top open so you could see the color of the cake ball).
8. Place the balls in the refrigerator until the chocolate is set (only a few minutes). Taa-daa!
My friend, Carla, and I have started another blog together. It's called "One Hundred PushUups". There is a training program online called onehundredpushups. If you follow the program, you will apparently be able to do 100 consecutive push ups after only six weeks. There is also a section for squats, dips, and sit ups.
We are logging out progress, as well as other workout progress, on the blog. Check it out:
Yesterday, Josh and I celebrated our one-year-anniversary! We celebrated with a budget-friendly day! That's what happens when you buy a house, guys. Budget-friendly anniversary celebrations!
We woke up, had our usual breakfast, and went to the gym. I took a Zumba and a yoga class (which were awesome, by the way). We came home, took a nap, got all prettied-up, and drove to West Ocean City. My favorite OC restaurant, The Shark on the Harbor, offers $5.99 lunch specials every day! They are a local and organic restaurant with an incredible chef and their menu is always changing and original. The best part is that there are lunches for $5.99 or lunches for $26 and everywhere in between. The same goes with their dinners and desserts. Lots of choices for everyone, but everything is delicious. They also serve local craft beers.
On our way home, we stopped at the furniture store and picked out a couch and love seat that we want to buy, but haven't done yet. Then we stopped at Panera and got some coffee (with a gift card). Then we stopped at Starbucks and got some coffee beans (with a gift card). We went home and Josh made us dinner. He made omelets with green pepper, onion, and tomato. That's right. We had omelets on our first anniversary.
We had free movie tickets so we went and saw Hangover Pt. 2 late last night. It was pretty funny at times, but not a fall-out-of-your-chair-with-laughter movie.
All in all, it was a great day. In one year, we got married, moved to another state, both started new jobs, started grad school (well, one of us), finished our new jobs, bought a house and moved again! But we are happy and excited to get to work on our new house.
I am on summer vacation and I am not blogging like crazy! Oh yeah... I just moved.
That's right!!! We bought our house, settled, and moved in! It's the cutest little house I have ever seen in my frikin' life. I am absolutely in love. My friend, Annie, jokingly congratulated us, "Congrats on the new house! Now everything is going to break!". Well, thanks, Annie. Our toilet broke on day 7.
It's just a small fix, though. We have a huge back yard, a bangin' master bathroom, and the cutest kitchen you have ever seen. All of the following pictures were taken immediately after we signed the papers and before we moved anything in.
Our cute blue house from the front
The old homeowners left us this :-)
Part of the very-yellow living room
Our also-very-yellow dining room with a very pretty chandelier
My favorite room :-)
Some sweeeet appliances!
Pretty master bedroom... with nothing in it
Our awesome master bathroom!
My enormous walk-in closet. Josh has one, too, but not quite as large :-)
Guest bathroom upstairs.
We also have a laundry room attached to the kitchen, a half bath downstairs and two guest bedrooms upstairs. I will try to post more photos as we get settled in. We have very little furniture and it is probably going to stay that way for quite some time, as we have very little money now that we own our home! I really want to do some little cheap projects around the house. I will try to update!
Tuesday was the one year anniversary of my Pap's death. He was my mom's dad. I did a few things. First, I called mom and grandma. Second, I sent grandma some pretty Spring-y flowers. And I wore the dress that I wore to his funeral to school. It's a really pretty dress and I never wear it because it reminds me of his funeral! I have only worn it once! So I figured that the anniversary was a good time to break it out of its shell :-)
Remember this post? It was what I read at my pap's funeral last year. I got that out and re-read that as well. I had almost forgotten how comfortable I was with the whole situation until I read that.
I had never, until last year, attended a church by choice on my own. I had always gone to church with my mom and dad or just dad. When I stopped going with them, I didn't really want to go. Well, two Springs ago I attended a concert of Christian music that my dad was playing in. I basically went to support my dad. When I got there, I was in awe of the affect it had on me. I knew I needed to start going to church for me. That summer, I attended Chestnut Ridge Church with a friend. I immediately fell in love and knew that it was my home. I also joined a small group of girls in a bible study weekly. That church practically saved my life. When I moved, I was devastated. I was absolutely certain that I would never find a church to replace it. I still haven't, by the way. I kept wondering why this awesome thing showed up in my life only to be taken away!
I honestly believe that Chestnut Ridge Church was put in my life to prepare me for the death of my Pap. If I hadn't been so spiritually strong and mature at that point, I would have never been able to handle his illness and death immediately before my wedding.
It was still hard, though. It, along with the death of my best friend's father when I was a sophomore in college, was the single-most life changing event of my existence. (Sorry, Josh, I know our wedding was great and all, but my life is practically the same since!).
Along with my pap's illness and my wedding and my first year of teaching, my brother was going through some things that made a big emotional impact on my whole family. It was definitely the most stressful time of my entire life and if it hadn't been for my church, Josh, my bible group, and my relationship with God, I would have never made it through it.
This song really helped me a lot. This song is what reminded me that it was okay to have a burden, but it was important to give my burden away and let Him handle it. I ultimately did that, and He took care of it!
All of Creation, by Mercy Me. The words that struck me and allowed me to trust someone else were:
I have been sucky at blogging. I have been productive at living. SOOOOO busy.
Last week, I had a week off from grad school classes. It wasn't supposed to work out that way, but my professor canceled the last class, so that was nice. I took the week off. Well, actually, I had a lot of stuff to do, but it wasn't writing papers or reading, so that was great.
Last Thursday, the WVU percussion ensemble came to Josh's school and did clinics and put on a concert all day with his kids! It was AWESOME. The kids actually got to perform with the college kids from Josh's old studio in the concert that night and we got to see some old friends. We got home late on Thursday night. We both took Friday off because we were traveling to York to see Josh's family and attend a Surprise birthday party for one of our friends! We left Friday early afternoon and went out to dinner with Josh's family at Chili's. I love that place.
Saturday, I got to hang out with my friend and bridesmaid, Lauren during the day. Then we got ready and went to the party. Josh's friend is a principal in York and it was a surprise party for his 31st birthday. It was at the Lancaster Brewing Company with endless good food and great beer. A good time. I am now wishing I had taken pictures!
Sunday we had an early spaghetti dinner with Josh's extended family and drove home. We got home around 7, immediately went to the grocery store, came home and unpacked and I started on grad school work again. My first class of the summer semester was yesterday. I had to do some work which was due on Monday evening. I read and replied to forums allll night long. Just in time for Josh to get sick. He has practically been sleeping since Sunday night.
Woke up Monday, went to school, taught all day, came home and changed and went to McDonald's to work. YEP. That's right. It was McTeacher Night. We gave coupons for free happy meals at school and a percentage of income made that night goes to our school. Well, here's the catch. The teachers work there all night and serve the students and their families. I worked the Drive Thru. Surprisingly, I had a great time. maybe a throw back from my Starbucks days???
Tuesday I was at school early. I had multiple rehearsals in the morning for a program that night. I had 60-70 kids at a time all morning. Then in my only planning time of the day, my principal and supervisor show up and want to do a formal evaluation. UGH. It went really well, though. I continued teaching all day, stayed after school to set up the stage, and then had a big program with the whole 4th grade and the strings program. It went really well. I rushed home and made it just in time for my first grad school class of this semester. I was on that until 10, then I passed out.
Today I was a teacher all day and then came home and read a LONG article and wrote a 3 page paper on it. That took until about 9:20 and it was due at 10. phew.
Tomorrow I am being a teacher all day, doing zumba with teachers after school, going straight to a class at the gym, coming straight home and getting online for class again. This class meets on Tuesdays AND Thursdays. I can already tell I don't like it.
Friday is a busy day at school again and then I am coming home, sitting on the couch and not getting up until Saturday morning. What about dinner, you ask? Well, someone is just going to have to bring it to me :-)
Last night I had my last online class of my first semester of grad school.
My group presented on education policy and reform in Chile. My portion of the presentation was specifically on recent policy and reform in higher education in Chile. Does this sound boring to you? It did to me at first, too. Actually, it wasn't ever really all that exciting. It just got less and less boring the more involved I got.
My presentation actually went really well and our professor and other students seemed very receptive and asked lots of questions. That scared me a lot because I was terrified that they would ask something simple and I wouldn't be able to answer it. But I did okay.
My last paper isn't due until Sunday and we plan on sending it sometime on Saturday. It's hard to write a 40-page paper with three other people. It's even harder when those three other people are located in: Chile, Puerto Rico, and New Jersey. We had a hard time finding a time to Skype because of the time changes and work schedule differences and whatnot.
So far, I am proud of my research for my portion of the paper. It is by far the most extensive research I have ever done on my own and I hope I can report it accurately. I feel like I am "growing up" in the world of writing, researching, and reporting. If this is all I take out of grad school (even though I know it won't be) I will still be satisfied because that's important stuff, dude!
When this class is over I will have a few days until my next one starts. During the whole two years that I will be in this program, there will only be about 14 days that I am not actually in a class. They definitely keep you moving right along in this program. No summer breaks for me for a while!
Sorry it took so long to update, but I was recuperating.
We all finished! Josh ran his 5K and beat his personal record by almost 3 minutes, Brian (Josh's dad) ran his first half marathon and finished in less than 2 hours(!), Alex (Josh's brother) ran his first half marathon and finished in just over two hours (!) and I ran my first half marathon and finished in 2 hours and 26 minutes!
