The end of summer....

So... It's been a while. I don't really have a good excuse since July was the only month where I worked less than ten hours a week for the majority of it, but I for some reason blogging ceased to appeal to me. Well now my life is running in its regular fashion and I decided to catch up.  Here is the readers digest version of my summer.

June- worked at a summer school that was perhaps the roughest group of kids I have had the pleasure of being stuck with all day long.  Hopefully they learned something, I survived, and June went by relatively quickly.   Shane went to Vegas for a bachelor party, and I spent some quality time with my aunt, cousins and new baby Micah in Dallas.  It was a great mini vacation in the midst of my summer school saga. ( oh and little Adam came, but he already had a blog entry devoted to him)

July- Over the fourth of July we went to Austin!

We saw the bats, went to the Capital, visited UT, went to the LBJ museum/library, ate delicious bbq, went swimming in Barton Springs and ate at a taco truck! It was super hot, but we had a delightful time.  We drove straight from Austin to our friend Melissa's aunt's house and finished out the Fourth of July there with our friends.  It was lovely. 

The rest of July seems like a blur.... I tutored, hung out with friends, stayed around Houston. Our friends Jillian and Joe moved to Houston! (Well, Tomball which is like 45 mins to an hour away, but still closer to us than Tucson!)   Her dog Pogo and my pups Paisley are now friends:)

They hardly stayed still enough to get a clear picture... 

It's been fun having some new friends in town- I like them:)- More pictures of Jillian and Joe (and Pogo) to come!

We hung out with friends, enjoyed baseball games, went on lots of nighttime walks, and suffered the heat and that sums up July!

August- We went to Willy's wedding in Pittsburgh! It was so fun I think it deserves its own blog entry... look for that later this week.  Here are a few teaser pics..

Pittsburgh!

Rachel took this one- I really like it!

Highschool girl friends reunite:) 

So anyways, school started- the place is a mess...here was my classroom the day before the kids came.

The construction made the school nicer, but they certainly weren't done before the Monday morning, so getting ready was a bit stressful.  Now we are in full swing- my kids are great, my coworkers are lovely and I am ready for the year! 

Shane and I went out on a date tonight at Mockingbird Bistro to celebrate surviving my first week - it was pretty fabulous and will probably get its own entry too, but  I will say it started with lobster risotto and ended with vanilla bean creme brulee....mmm.  Ok time for sleeps. Goodbye friends!!

No boxes for me, please!

Shane and I aren't moving!!  This will be the first time since  I was 18 that I will have lived in the same place for more than a year. Can you believe it?!  We are pretty excited.  We were almost homeless because we told our apartments we weren't staying, but  couldn't find anywhere else to go! After seeing that everywhere else is full or way expensive, we got our place to come down on the rent increase and we decided to stay. YAY!

Adam and Shane working hard to find boxes for our last move

A pastor doing a sermon on friendship once said that you can tell who your true friends are by who shows up to help you move in the middle of July. Well, by that standard we have a lot of awesome friends. I know we had friends here that were willing to help us( Thanks for the offer Belgards and Mortons but we don't have to spend a sweaty day moving boxes yay!), and we moved so many freaking times in Tucson our friends really stepped it up.  

So here is a shout out to some of our awesome friends:  First of all Chris Porter- we barely knew this guy and he saved us in our move to Houston with his enthusiasm, ability to squish everything into our truck and spidery long legs.  Amazing! Along with Chris, Big Adam- who was technically  on vacation but helped anyways, and Matt George were super helpful.  We actually had to move twice while trying to get to Houston and our Bible study ( along with lil Adam of course) rocked the first half of the move. 

We will not be doing this yay!!!

You can see the Sams and the Andersons being awesome in the picture above- I think it was Ryan who discovered how to take apart our big chair- we tried for forever and couldn't do it but he totally figured it out!  And let me tell you- there were multiple items that had to go up, and down, over the balcony - a bit scary!  Oh and the time before this one Jilly Z was there, and the Sams again- they really are troopers and Michael Miller ... oh and the Georges came and cooked us steaks which were de-lish ( Michael Miller made brea mashed potatoes too!) !  And Matt Hilst showed up late, ate yummy food, and repaid us by building our bed! Of course a huge shout out needs to go to the Kraffts ( not us... Shane's parents) and Wes who were there every time.  

Hopefully I didn't forget anyone... there have been so many moves and so many wonderful people that have helped. I wish I had pictures but apparently moving is not a great picture taking activity.  Anyways, I am super glad that we aren't moving, but also very thankful for all the people in our lives that have helped us in the past.  I love you guys!! 

e

Adam's Visit in Photos

 So sometimes I like to read peoples blogs....but most of the time I skim the words and just look at the pictures, so here is a blog told in pictures.  Adam came to visit!!  ( Also, the picture formatting wasn't working, but you can still enjoy)

Obviously hanging out with the pups.  

We went to the Art Museum! They have a 3-D art!

NASA

We went on a tour!!

Adam liked all the engineery stuff

So Big!!

We played games:)

WoW!

Lookin' good Adam

  

Galveston Beach

Black Pearl Oyster Bar- good seafood. 

Getting ready for St. Arnold's Brewery1

The Belgards joined us!

Beer

Of Course Settlers was involved. 

Lion King!!

Mmmm Baby Boone:) 

Stop by the Beer Can house

A little frozen yogurt 

Fajitas at El Tiempo!

Church!

Shane kissing a cow head

Adam thinking about how good the BBQ was

Chocolate- yummy! 

PARK!

     

                                

Quick trip the Zoo and we're done:)

Countdown to July...

2 more days until JULY!!!!

Top 6 Reasons I am excited for July...

6. New summer TV shows start:)
5. Possibly finding a new home?!
4. Two Words: HARRY POTTER

3.Fourth of July- I LOVE fireworks:) 

2. Travel time to Austin!

1. Summer School is OVER!!! - This means sleeping in, more Paisley time, no more dealing with mean mean little children, I get to tutor more and make money without being stressed, time to experiment with fun summer recipes and again- NO SUMMER SCHOOL!!!!!

Grillin time!

It is summertime.  It seems every recipe I see in a magazine, every cooking show on the Food Network I watch is all about grilling.  Well, that doesn't work out so well for someone like me who doesn't have a grill.  It is also super hot out and using the oven every night makes the entire apartment warm and miserable for a few hours.  So I decided, enough is enough, lets get a grill!   Shane and I had a grill but we left it in Tucson for his brother. When we got here, we bought a tiny charcoal grill that was like 3 inches tall , but it was stolen from our porch.  Classy, apartment neighbors, real classy. To be fair, we didn't even realize that it was gone for a few months so I guess we didn't miss it much.   Anyways, we headed down to Lowes and picked up a lovely new grill!  Unfortunately, it didn't fit in my car. So I had to leave Shane and the giant grill box in the parking lot, drive home, switch cars and pick him and the grill back up.  Yup, we are pretty smart ones.                                       Luckily it fit in his Jeep!

After a quick 45 mins of assembly- its grillin time!

 I was pretty psyched! My first dish:  Pork Souvaki! It was delish!   This was a short- not super interesting post- more to come!!

Before....

During...

                                     

after!

Summertime....and the livin' is easy

Well, easier.  I just finished my first week of summer and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I am teaching summer school, which isn't super exciting, but its alright.   My kids are rough, but getting better each day, and the paperwork is way less so that is much much better!   I am also tutoring a sweet 2nd grader twice a week which is fun because she is cute and has lots of energy and zero attitude ( complete opposite of my 6th grade summer school crowd). My schedule is a bit heavier than what I envisioned my summer being, but it is working out alright.   I have decided to have fun anyways! On Tuesday ( our anniversary) we went to Ruggles- look at our crazy amount of food!

It was good stuff. Then on Wednesday after summer school and tutoring we got to go see Boone at HOME!!  Boone is our friend Melissa and Casey's little baby boy who has been in the NICU for over a month. I held him for the first time and was so happy to see him at home with his beautiful parents. I stole a picture from them to show how freaking cute he is. I really need an i phone- I think I would remember to take pictures at wonderful times like this.  Just one of the many excuses I am making to myself  to get over the hump of spending lots of money on cellphones every month.  Anyways...It was wonderful seeing the Belgards, baby Boone and saying goodbye to Amy and Jeff George- a missionary couple who we met a few months ago and really enjoyed hanging out with, but who left yesterday to return the mission field. Praying for you Georges!  We played settlers ( surprised?) and Jeff beat everyone- one handed.  Shane was a close second but I wasn't even close to winning. I was quite impressed with his ability to hold a fussy Boone, put him to sleep and beat all of us at Settlers.  

Thursday we went to the Astros game! We bought 10 tickets for $20 bucks and were able to enjoy our first $2 game!   We took the metro down and I really enjoyed watching the city go by and walking through new parts of downtown as we go to the stadium. The game was fun- we got dominated in one of the innings we were there for, but enjoyed it anyways. Here are some pictures of downtown/baseball!

I just love baseball stadiums!

Of course we eat BBQ at a Texas baseball game!

One of the beautiful things about summer school is Fridays off!  It was amazing sleeping in today.  Shane was wonderful and woke up at 7 when Paisley woke up, and let me sleep.  I hung out, watched my new fun summer shows- The Mentalist, Franklin and Bash, and So You Think You Can Dance (also known as sytycd).   Paisley hung out with me but kept sleeping! She was super tolerant because I would pick her up, cuddle her, play with her and mess with her as long as she took it. She would then get annoyed, stand up and walk somewhere else to sleep. A few minutes later I would call her over and start all over again. I mean really though, how cute is she. 

Then I got to go eat Thai food with my friend Jennifer Morton! It was lovely seeing my friend because it had been too long! We throughly enjoyed our ridiculous amount of Thai food and each others company.  Not sure what the rest of the weekend holds, but I'm excited for the potential of movies, more baseball,  dog parks(?), house hunting, possibly a super belated date with the gym and more! I hope everyone else is having a lovely summertime too!