Just and update of my count down

Only 10 more days until I am officially on summer break! I have a presentation tonight and Thursday night and a final next Tuesday. I have to go to my last class next Thursday to listen to other groups present (my group gets to present this Thursday and get it over with). Then…I’m DONE until August 26th!!

So here is a list of things we hope to accomplish over the summer

• put in wood floors throughout the house
• paint bathroom cabinets
• paint and add crown molding to the kitchen cabinets
• build a pergola over our flagstone patio (this one is mostly on Jon)
• install closet organizers in master closet
• paint the study
• paint the extra bedroom

Yikes, that’s a long list of painting projects! Before I start working down that list, I am going to do some major cleaning out of everything. Then, once I finish up the list I am going to do some shopping for accessories. Here is a wish list of things I want to buy for our house soon.

• a chair and ottoman for our bedroom nook
• art work for our bedroom (I am thinking about making something since I don’t want to spend a lot of money)
• baskets and such for extra storage in various rooms
• rugs for the rooms were we install wood floors.

Okay, this list could go on and on forever. But I don’t think you are every done decorating a house, it just kind of evolves with you. :)

This weekend

Jon and I headed up to Plano for a quick family trip. We both took off work on Friday so we could skip Austin and Dallas Friday traffic. We got to Plano around 2 and dropped Hiro off at my parents house. My parents were kind enough to put us up in a hotel over the weekend (they are doing some remodeling so they thought we would be more comfortable there). So after dropping off Hiro we checked into the hotel and rested a little bit.

We meet up with my parents and sister at a cool outdoor shopping area in Allen. We had dinner at the Woodlands Grill. It was nice and relaxing, we ate outside and enjoyed the great weather. After dinner my mom and sister and I did some shopping. Our first stop was the Vera Bradley store. I have never had anything from Vera Bradley and I decided I needed to make my first purchase. I bought this cosmetic bag.

Cute right? It easily holds all the makeup that I use on a daily basis so it can just sit out on the bathroom counter and look cute. :)

On Saturday my family got up bright and early to go down to the Dallas Museum of Art. We checked out the King Tut exhibit.

It was very cool. We were also able to check out some other art at the DMA.

After lunch Jon and I decided to go test drive Subaru Foresters. Um…I know, we can be impulsive and random at times. We had been talking about wanted to get a bigger car in the future and Jon loves Subaru so he wanted me to check out the Forester. I love it!

Ultimately it will probably be another year before we get a new car. We decided we want to focus on the house this summer and do things like wood floors and then figure out the car stuff next year. But it was fun to look!

Saturday night my family enjoyed my Mom’s homemade lasagna. It was amazing!

This morning we headed back to Austin and now we are watching a few more episodes of LOST before Jon has to go to bed (he is waking up at 5 am to drive to San Angelo for work in the morning). All and all it was a great weekend. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get together with friends but it was great to spend time with my family.

Weekend update and pictures

I’ve really been slacking when it comes to posting. I haven’t felt well all week…first a sore throat for 2 days, then a bad cough for 2 days and now I have lots of congestion…awesome. The good news is I am not feeling too bad day…just dealing with the congestion.

I had a long day Friday and to make matters worse it rained all day. By the time I got home around 8 I was ready to be done. I immediately changed in to PJs and Jon and I enjoyed pizza while curled up on the couch. Saturday morning Jon had to get up early and drive to Houston for a job. It was still pouring when I woke up so I made use of the morning by cleaning up the house and making Texas Caviar for a cook-out we went to last night. It was easy to make and a huge hit at the party…thanks for the recipe Mom!

Jon made it home Saturday afternoon, but was exhausted so while he took a nap, I made my self focus on my research paper. I finally finished and now I just have to go back and edit. After I finished the paper and convinced Jon to wake up we headed over to World Market. They have a “friends and family” weekend twice a year, and if you have the special coupon you can get 25% anything you buy all weekend. I decided we needed to take advantage of this. We bought a couple of cute wooden folding chairs. We are going to keep them on our front porch like this.

We just need to get a couple of potted plants and we will have a nice little sitting area on our front porch. A nice bonus is these chairs match our adirondack chairs on the back patio, which will be perfect when we have people over. We can just move these chairs to the back and have a great place to enjoy the summer evenings with friends.

After shopping at World Market we were both pretty hungry. We decided to head over to South Austin’s Trailer Park and Eatery. It is a fun little outdoor space that has 3 trailers with different types of food and then a bunch of picnic benches. We love the tacos at Torchy’s Tacos. My favorite is the Trailer Park and I get queso added, which makes it a Trashy Trailer Park. :)

After dinner we felt like dessert was in order. If you get dinner from a trailer shouldn’t get dessert from a trailer? Of course! We headed over to Hey Cupcake on South Congress. As soon as we turned onto South Congress we realized we may have made a mistake. The traffic was horrible! People were lined up and down the street with chairs and cameras. Apparently there was some sort of old car rally and people were driving up and down Congress showing off their cars. Since it was going to take us forever to get through all the traffic we decided to park and enjoy the festivities. We picked up some delicious cupcakes and then enjoyed a stroll down South Congress.

Yesterday Jon had to work again, but this time at least the job was in Austin so he got to sleep in. The weather was beautiful so I took Hiro out to Town Lake and meet up with my friend Jesse and her dog Norma Jean. The 4 of us made our way around the 6 mile loop. When I got home Jon had already gone to work so I finished up my weekend chores (cleaning and laundry). Then I remembered I never took pictures of our new bedroom arrangement. Here is the view from the bathroom door.

Here is the view from the other side.

I haven’t moved any of the wall hangings since I wanted to see how I liked the arrangement first. I am thinking out getting two big framed prints for the long wall on the side of the bed. In the little nook with the door I want to get a comfy chair and ottoman. Eventually we want to replace the door with a window since we really don’t need a door there (it goes to the back porch) and a window would allow us to let more fresh air into the bedroom. What do you think off the new arrangement? I like it, except for the big empty wall next to the bed…it will look so much better with some artwork of some kind.

Last night we went to a cook-out with some of my co-workers. It was a nice relaxing evening and we enjoyed swapping stories from work…we have some good ones. Trust me when you work with kids, especially the population we work with there is at least one funny/inappropriate/embarrassing story per day. :)

Well I think that about sums up our weekend. Here is one more picture.

This is what’s on my nightstand. The lotion was something my mom put in my Easter basket, it is wonderful! I use it every night before bed. I am reading the book The Host by Stephanie Meyer. I am embarrassed to say I have been reading this book most of the semester. I love to read and usually finish a book in a matter of weeks, or even days. I have just been lazy this semester and instead of reading at night I have been watching more TV. School ends in 3 weeks, so I plan on making up for the lack of reading over the summer.

What is on your nightstand? What good books would you recommend for my summer reading list?

Not feeling so good

I woke up this morning with a sore throat, yuck! I went to my morning session (shadowing in a first grade classroom). The 3.5 hours I was there felt like forever! When I got home I just laid on the couch and did nothing for a couple of hours. Jon came home and talked me into skipping class tonight (when I say he talked me into skipping, I mean I said "I want to skip class tonight" and he said "okay"). After watching a couple of episodes of LOST (we are trying to get caught up and are almost done with session 2) we both took a 2 hour nap! I woke up feeling a little bit better but my throat still hurts. :(

Jon took Hiro out to play and I cleaned up the house and heated up some leftovers for dinner. Now we are watching more LOST (we should finish session 2 tonight). After dinner I'm going to go make some chocolate chips cookies and then maybe I will work on my research paper for a little while.

Hopefully I will be feeling better tomorrow because I have a full day of work (I have gotten spoiled by working part-time and only working half days). Now on Wednesdays I have a full day of sessions.

Remember the patio we built? Well we had some extra stones and a lot of extra decomposed granite (what we put under and between the stones). We stacked the extra stones up in the garage in case we want to use them again. But the granite was just sitting in a large pile in our driveway. Last night a couple out walking their dogs came by and asked if they could have it...I said of course! Today they came by with a wheel barrow and took it away...yay! Jon can now park in the driveway. It was also fun to meet some new neighbors. One of them told me about a google group that our homeowners association set up. She told me how to sign up and now we should be able to see upcoming neighborhood events and such going on around here. I am hoping to get to know some more people in the neighborhood since I think we may be staying in this house for at least 5 more years or so.

There is nothing like a long weekend

Well except maybe a whole week off, but still a long weekend is wonderful.

I was able to head to Plano on Thursday afternoon. I got off work at noon and I decided to skip class Thursday night (yay, for good friends who will turn in papers for you when you want to leave town early). The plan was to drive into Plano by early afternoon and go out to dinner with my parents and my sister. Unfortunately when I got to about Waco I got a call from my sister saying my great aunt had to go to the hospital . She suffers from congestive heart failure so every now and then excess fluid builds up and she has to go into the hospital for them to correct it. We are thankful she is doing well now and will probably get to go back home tomorrow or Tuesday. We didn’t get to go out to eat that night as a family, but my sister and I were able to get dinner together and catch up which was nice.

Friday I went with my parents to shop for granite. They are in the process of remodeling their bathroom. It was fun to see all the different options. I asked a lot of questions about prices and such for our kitchen, but I think in the house we are in now granite is just too pricey for us…oh well next house maybe. Anyway, my parents picked out a beautiful granite and they are going to get a matte finish so instead of it being shiny, it will look more natural and feel soft almost like leather…very cool! Friday night we went to Easter service which was nice. I wish our church in Austin had a Friday night service. Its the perfect way to start the weekend/end the week and you can sleep in on Sundays. :)

Saturday was filled with hanging out with friends and relaxing which was great. My mom made a big Easter dinner with ham, mashed potatoes, fresh green beans and pineapple casserole (it is delicious, I will have to post the recipe on here sometime soon).

This morning we all slept in and my dad made breakfast. Over french toast and coffee we started talking about home improvement ideas for my house…if you know my family you know that this is what we do. In fact most Saturday mornings my parents can be found with coffee in one hand and a tape measure in the other, talking about plans for the next renovation. I am excited about the ideas we talked about for my house.

Jon made dinner tonight while I finished up the homework I neglected over the weekend. Now I am catching up on some old Lost episodes while Jon writes some emails for work. After a long weekend away, its nice to be back home and relaxing with my two favorite boys, Jon and Hiro.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter Everyone!

Yikes, its been over a week since my last post. I have lots of catching up to do, but it will have to wait until tonight. I have been in Plano with my family since Thursday afternoon. It has been a great long weekend. I am about to go enjoy a big breakfast of my Dad's famous french toast. My favorite!



Oh and only 25 more days until summer break!!!! :)

Our new patio

After spending last weekend fixing up our front yard, we decided we should move to the backyard. We have been talking about adding a flagstone patio off our cover porch for awhile. So on Tuesday we went to a stone place and picked out what we wanted. They delivered everything the next day and Jon spent the end of the week making our new patio. We finished it up yesterday afternoon and headed to World Market (love it!) to get some chairs.

I took this picture with my iphone so its not the best. But we love it! We sat outside all evening yesterday and tonight we had some friends over for dinner and enjoyed the evening outside again. The grass in the backyard is still looking a little rough but we have been watering a lot so hopefully that will change over the next few months.

Our goal is to get the back and front yard looking good, put in wood floors and paint over the next few months and then once our house is done (although I am sure there will always be something I will want to do) we want to have a party. We have people over frequently for dinner and to hang out, but we have yet to have a planned party,

Count Down

37 more days until summer break!