I forgot!

Here are some pictures of a few things we have done around the house. There will be plenty more pictures this summer once I get the rest of the rooms done! Enjoy :)

Finished painting the porch, planted some azaela bushes.

We still need to pull up 2 of the trees.

I painted the bathroom green, hung a new towel holder, and a new mirror.

New curtain in the bathroom.

My china cabinet! It works beautifully in our dining room.

Mom bought this for my collector dolls when I was younger - now

it holds all my beautiful dishes and glasses. I love it.

It's been a while...

Sorry it's been so long since I've last posted some news. Things have been crazy busy with school and getting the house ready for our party.

We celebrated our 1 Year Wedding Anniversary on May 31st. I can't believe it's already be a year married - it went by very fast! We're still doing well! No complaints! We had a party to celebrate our anniversary and our new house on May 30th. Our little house was filled with many friends and family to share our joy. It was wonderful! Thank you to everyone who made the trip to see us! We had a nice BBQ and tiny bonfire in the backyard.

As we were cleaning out the garage for the party... we found a surprise in the garbage can - 2 baby kittens! They were just days old. We ended up keeping them in the garage and gave them a box and a few blankets to keep warm. Their mom kept coming in to feed them, but she moved them this week! So... we hope that they're okay. We haven't seen them in a few days. We wanted to keep one, but I guess it's for the better :)

I'll be starting the last week of school tomorrow :) I couldn't be more excited to be finished! It's been a long first year, and I'm definitely ready for a break. I went to Lake Compounce with my 8th Graders on Wednesday and they had their Semi-Formal Friday night. Both were a lot of fun. It's nice to see the kids outside of the classroom and really enjoying themselves! Their graduation is next Monday - which I'm sure will bring many tears! I will miss them... even if they put me through so much this year! I have become attached!

No job lined up for the summer just yet... I've applied to a few retail stores but no reply. We'll see what happens. We planned for me not to have a job, so money wise we're still okay for the summer! I'll just be bored out of my mind if I can't find a job! Fingers crossed...

Ryan finished his first set of classes with A's in Math and English! We were very excited. He starts summer classes next week - to add to the rest of our busy lives! He's taking another English class... should be easy with some help from his English teaching wife!

That's about it for now... Enjoy some pictures of our busy month!

My Team - 8 Red Teachers

Me with Lillian and Dean (at formal)

Raymond, Ambar, Me, Stephanie, and Steven - Some of my favorite students at formal.

Lillian and Brianna - Way to Lake Compounce - My Homeroom kids.

Steven, Davon and Ricardo - More Homeroom kids.

The black kitten.

Black and white kitten.

The kittens.

After cutting our cake.

Our little food set up at the party.

Mom and dad at the bonfire.

Cutting our icecream cake - It said "Today, tomorrow, and always" on it from our vows.

One month has already passed!

Just wanted to add a few more pictures...

We put up new shutters, got a coffee table and bookcases, painted the front door and hung up the rest of the curtains.

Still more to do, but we're taking it easy for now.

Done for now...

We've decided to take a short break on fixing up the house. We have finished all the rooms downstairs except the kitchen... which is a whole other story. We painted our master bedroom and might even pick a color for the guest room if we feel up to painting it. The office and bathroom upstairs are on hold until we gather up some extra funds. With summer vacation coming for me (and not getting paid for 2 months...) we need to figure out exactly what we want to accomplish on the house, and what we can afford to do.

For now we are just happy to be living on our own -- in our new house. We are still incredibly excited and can't believe that we finally bought a house. It seems like it took forever, but we made it somehow!

I guess I'll just have to keep busy with school and wrapping up my first year of teaching. Thankfully (and sadly) it's almost over! It will be sad to say goodbye to my first class of students, but I am ready to see them go! 8th graders are difficult -- especially the closer to June we get. I'm praying to patience as the year winds down, I know I'll need it.

Enjoy the pictures, and again thank you to everyone who helped us out these last couple of weeks! We couldn't have done it all without you!

Parker enjoying his yard.

Master.

The gift from our realtor.

Family room. New couch.

Family room with curtains and paint.

Looking into the dining room.

Close up of the dining room.

Week 1

This first week has been filled with exhausting days and long nights of unpacking and CLEANING! I have no clue how a person could live in the disgusting conditions we found our house in...

On a positive note it's finally cleaned out and starting to smell clean and fresh! We have begun the long (and painful) process of unpacking all of our boxes. I never realized how much stuff Ryan and I have accumulated over the years. I can only imagine how much worse it will be the longer we're married! So far we only have one room completely painted and the ceiling of the family room painted. We have come to the realization that we are NOT painters by any means. In fact, I REALLY do not like to paint due to the fact that no matter what it ends up ALL over me. Yes. I even had paint on my back when we were painting Ryan's "man room". I leaned up against the paint roller. Paint and I just don't mix!

I have had to work this whole week, but now I'm thankfully on Spring Break so I can get some work done! Ryan has worked so hard this week (he's been off) cleaning and unpacking. Not to mention we have had so many friends and family volunteer their time (and cooking) to help us out. We really couldn't have done it without everyone's help! THANK YOU!

Tomorrow we get our new couches, and then the rest of the furniture will come on Tuesday. It has been kind of odd living with very minimal seating and storage this past week! We finally got our gas and cable hooked up too! So life is becoming much easier...

We are all loving the new house and adjusting well! Parker seems to like it, but is much more on edge than usual. He went from NEVER barking to barking at everything. I like to think that he's trying to protect us from everything... including the neighborhood cats and kids. Hopefully he'll settle down once he gets used to the noises. We're definitely not in Newtown anymore back in the woods! He even barked at a couple of flags in someone's yard when I took him on a walk! I just don't get it...

Our new chairs in the family room.

Butlers pantry with our dishes.

Parker "helping" us.

Ryan putting together furniture.

Painting Ryan's man room.

Already fixing things...

Feeding Parker on the first night. Yes - that's faux brick.

First Night...

We've crossed our t's and dotted our i's... we're homeowners! Parker even got to come with us (yes... in the attorney's office, by request) to sign the papers. He was so well behaved! As soon as we got the keys we headed over to the house and settled in for the night - after some cleaning that is.

The house is FILTHY but nothing we can't handle with some elbow grease. We're moving in the rest of our furniture tomorrow... we can't wait!

We're thankful we finally have a place to call our own :)

CLOSING DATE!

April 2nd at 3:30 Ryan and I will be official homeowners. It's less than a week away (even though it seems like an eternity!) and we are busy packing up our "resting place" of 2 years at Mom and Dad's. We can't even remember what it's like to live on our own anymore! It will definitely be exciting...

We'll be busy the next couple of weeks, but I will try to post before and after pictures of our new home :) For now... enjoy this sneak preview! It needs some work, but it's ours!