and....BREAK!

Most days I would tell you how much I love my darling pups. Most days I would brag on and on about them. But today, I'm totally annoyed! They have escaped the yard twice today, and are trying to tunnel under the fence. So, in light of being COMPLETELY irritated, I'll try to remember what I like about my dogs.

Well, first, they are funny. They play tag, and chase each other and Jazmin acts like a little fat kid who never has enough to eat (and yes, she's the smaller one).

Don't they just look SOOO innocent?

Back to the annoying...so, we bought them these cute sweaters because I really did think she was going to die from freezing. Obviously she isn't going to, because Jazmin somehow convinces Appa to rip her sweater off of her. This was taken this Sunday when we took them to the park all morning. They did so well :)

And....Craigs List. We are clearly obsessed. We have now bought:

• decking


• dog run


• shed


• tool box


• hot tub


• tread mill


• ummmmm anything else (I think so, but I can't think right now)

Yup, we like Craigs List!



And here is a fantastically amazing picture of me after I was done waxing the hot tub.

see??? finished! Fill, heat, and enjoy!


So, I'm on break and I'm loving it. I have a week off to enjoy and relax, oh, and grade papers. I have a giant stack of them too. But it's been nice to clean the house, sit and drink coffee, you know, the important things in life!


We have the great opportunity this year to spend Thanksgiving with both families. My parents and Rachel are headed to Oregon (right now) to spend Thanksgiving with my grandparents, so my dad's parents decided we should have Thanksgiving here a week early! Awww, I love them :) So, we had dinner with my parents, grandparents, cousins, the whole gang! And Thursday we are headed to the Dixon/Butler's for another Thanksgiving dinner! Yummm!!! We are so blessed to be able to have both our families so close! But to those of you in Oregon, I'm missing you too! Hopefully we'll have some time this Christmas to go visit. We'll see...



Well...I feel like I've rambled about a lot of nothing in this post. So, for all of you still reading, thank you! Happy Thanksgiving, and be safe where ever you are headed!

Blog Fail

It's been MONTHS since I've been on. Here's the recap of my crazy life.

1. I have 2 dogs that escape out of my yard at least 5-15 times a week.


2. Rachel lives here and helps chase dogs.


3. Rachel helps my in my class at least twice a week.


4. I love my hot tub.


5. My room is a crazy place full of crazy kids, who I love dearly.


6. I hang out with 23 children all day long that are 6-8 years old, and I love it.


7. I have 5 pages of wonderful stories about my darling class in my journal, if you ever want to hear a great story...give me a call, kids say the most amazing things :)


8. Everyone I know is having a baby. And no, I'm not, yet.


9. I get to go on a date this week with my husband because him and I barely live in the same house together.


10. I get a week off next week and I'm ready to dive into a new project :)


11. My biggest annoyance in life right now is that our neighbors put up their Christmas decorations this weekend...it's the MIDDLE of NOVEMBER!!! Don't get me wrong, I love, love, LOVE Christmas, but, Thanksgiving needs it's moment in the spot light as well.

Ok - that's about it. That's my life in a nutshell. Things are pretty much the same. I'm getting into a groove at school, and really enjoying my wonderful team and class. It's been a crazy couple of months...but well worth the couple of weeks of yuck I went through to get here. I was very overwhelmed at first, but now things are running much smoother and I understand what I'm doing and what needs to be done :)

Weekends...

For anyone who knows me very well, they know that I only ironed when I got paid for it. When I worked at the Dry Cleaners I did a lot of ironing in the last couple years I was there, I didn't mind it, but they had ALL the right equipment. They had steam irons and a board that suctioned the clothes to the ironing boards. I never, NEVER, iron at home, unless it's a desperate need.

Well, when we were reupholstering the couch, my mom used my iron and in the process I pulled the cord out too far and it won't go back in. As much as I don't iron, who cares? Well, not me, but BBandB will take anything back that's broken. So, I found a new iron. And...OMG, I might start ironing again. I love this thing!!!! It's comparable to a dry cleaning iron, except it will burn my clothes if I leave it on the fabric too long. It has the most steam I've ever seen in a "normal" iron. I guess I just hated ironing because my iron wasn't awesome. Well, now it is :) I guess Anthony will have ironed shirts again, at least for a little while.

And how could I go a post without mentioning my darlings?? I wish this picture turned out better, but, it's the paws of all my babies. Sirus, Jazmin, and Appa. If the picture was bigger you could see the paw prints next to their names.

He's such a cuddler :)

They didn't like Anthony using power tools, so they came and snuggled with me

Getting so big...

Well, there you have it! Our weekend. Minus the 8 hours of class yesterday, the haircut I gave the Lund's dog, and the deck being almost finished. I guess I'll have to post again soon to include all that....

Labor Day!

Meet our new babies. Jazmin and Appa. We got them in Emmett off of Craigslist. Their dad is a Husky Rottweiler mix and mom is an Italian Greyhound. I'm hoping the got a little more dad than mom. Jazmin is the boss, she pretty much takes over...Appa is more calm and a lover. I'm so excited for our new additions to the family. They're going to keep each other company and be my new running partners.

Appa got something in his face

Playing

Chewing on my pants...that's going to stop soon.

Jazmin

Appa

blue eye and brown eye - Jazmin's is the same way

This is what Anthony did this weekend too...It looks better now. 6 holes with concrete and blocks. Anthony did lots of work this weekend, while Rachel and I played with the puppies.

Go Anthony Go!

All good things come to an end...

Dear Blog,

I'm sitting here thinking about all the wonderful things I did this summer, but to be honest, I feel like I just started, and I feel like summer has just begun! I think most of this is due to the fact that I WASN'T HERE this summer. So now I'm home finishing up things around the house, getting up late and enjoying my coffee...things like that (you know, summer things). Then, reality hit...summer...is...over. I've spent the last 2 days in my classroom (2 very, very long days) getting things ready for my kiddos (with lots and lots of help from my mom and Rachel - I could NOT have done it without them).

I'll be totally honest, I wish I could have done this at the beginning of the summer so I wasn't so stressed out about it all being done in the next 3 days. I now have to finish the walls (they are almost complete), write a management plan (which isn't too hard, I have one, just not in words), and about a million other little things to do...example, label all my material bins, label all the kids mail boxes, label Popsicle sticks, label...label...label....oh, and finish organizing.

Yes, I have 24 little darlings coming into my classroom in ONE WEEK and I am apparently ready for this. I've spend the last 6 years GETTING ready for this, but now that it's here, I'm freaking out. I know that as long as I look completely confident those kids will never know how nervous I really am. But again, being honest, I'm really awesome and wearing my feeling right on my sleeve.

And guess what project we decided to dive into right at the end of summer?!?! We bought a hot tub off CL and it's now taking up 1/2 my patio, sitting empty. Yea...we bought it, then went to Chicago and spent all our money, and now we get to look at an empty hot tub until we have some extra cash (haha extra) to buy chemicals and build a deck. This really was a genius idea 2 weeks ago, and it will be again when I stop spending all our money on school supplies (which I just can't STOP doing, it's entirely too much fun).

There you have it! My newest adventure. And because I was SOOO annoyed with blogger not letting me post pictures last time, I'm not doing it this time either. Ok...ok...I'll take some pictures of my room tomorrow and get them on here.

Where did my summer go?!?

~~Erin

Oh - and just a fun little tidbit - I'd much rather have an empty hot tub sitting on my patio at the end of the summer than to have just flooded my house and be living in a hotel - because that's where we were last year at this point. Joy, not THAT was not a project I EVER want to do again!

Chicago!!!!

Holy Moly, we made it through ALL our trips this year! I'm not sure how we managed to squeeze all that into one summer, but we did. Between the camping, Yellowstone, getting ready for school, more camping, trying to read as much as possible before school starts, yard work, and Oregon….we saved the most adventurous trip for last!

Things I learned in Chicago:

1. How to ride public transit
   


2. Giant lakes have waves
   


3. 7 Eleven's don't have to have a gas station attached to them (weird, I know)
   


4. People live in buildings that are taller that Idaho's tallest building – I was fascinated by this….
   


5. My body doesn't love humidity
   


6. There is some super strange art out there – like little boy statues with 3 eyes….you'll see
   


7. Peggy is afraid of heights – but took looked down 7 stories in the mall with me anyway
   


8. Anthony loves baseball (ok, I didn't learn this, I just thought it was a great tidbit)
   


9. The Chicago Water Tower looks like a castle…not a water tower
   


10. Someone stole rocks from Idaho to put into a really cool building – I'm just saying…it specifically says to not take rocks from Crater's of the Moon and Yellowstone
    


11. Middle Eastern monks enjoy Marilyn Monroe too, hahahaha
    


12. Peggy is not a true Chiagoian because she eats catsups on her hot dog
    


13. "Chicago food" is DEEEELICIOUS!!!! (says the 8 pounds I gained….)
    


14. Taking a vacation during vacation is a brilliant idea
    


15. Sue – the biggest and most complete T-Rex – lives in Chicago
    


16. Peggy loves owls
    


17. You need to be in excellent shape to enjoy the city the right way…because we walked EVERYWHERE!!!!
    

I'm not sure I learned much more than that, but we did do a lot of fun things….

Alright Peggy – what did I forget??? besides "The Bean"?

I hate blogger right now for not letting me post pictures :(

2 days...

We got home at 11:30 Saturday night and we leave again tomorrow at 4:30 in the morning. I WISH I had time to download pictures and make an amazing post of our Oregon trip - but, I'm lacking in time and effort. So...this what you get.

• Balderdash - I learned some amazing words.
• Boogie Boarding - the water was amazingly warm, and the waves were HUGEmungous!
• Sun - I fried the last day.
• Crabbing - wasn't good at all, but we caught and ate one crab Friday night :)
• Laughing - that goes with all good family vacations.
• Pacific City - sand dunes that were so wet it was like climbing stairs.
• Astoria - climbed the column and flew a kite.
  
• Pinochle - enough said....
• Food - we eat more food at the coast than any other time of year - and it's all SOOO delicious!

Awww how I love the beach - I promise to post pictures of Oregon when I get home from Chicago and I PROMISE to post Chicago pictures - more to come - please don't be too board without pictures :)

~~Erin

PROJECT TIME!!!

Where to begin? Well, I bought the fabric to cover my couch over a month ago. I decided with the limited time I had home this summer, if I didn’t start, I’d never finish. So…for my anniversary, I started ripping the couch apart. It took 2 long evenings to finish it. I couldn’t believe how many staples there were!!! Furniture is not made to come apart. But, in this tearing apart, I realized how little sewing there is involved. It’s mostly just cutting, stretching tight and stapling. Well….I should be able to do that!!!

Mom was my biggest godsend. With her sewing expertise, she magically made the first arm fit. Let me elaborate. We put more foam in the arms (as you remember, the one was coming apart and the foam was sticking out the arm) which made it look more like an overstuffed couch. This creates a problem when you’re using the old material as the pattern. But like I said, Mom’s magic. She created a new pattern, sewed it together and it went on like a glove. The 2nd arm wasn’t quite as simple, but not bad. It just had a few baggy spots we filled in with extra foam.

Highlights of the project:
· Having no idea how to use a staple gun
· Rachel reminding me again “Erin’s using the staple gun upside down again”
· Mom scolding me for buying a piece of stretchy polyester for the back (oops)
· Anthony coming home to show me how to hammer in brads
o I was trying to hammer them into a metal plate
· Sirus helping every step of the way
· Running out of fabric (oh don’t worry, it’s so much cooler now)
· Finding classroom fabric while waiting at the fabric store (new project!)
· Oh….and…it turned out perfect

With lots of patience and some fantastic help from my family, this chair/couch turned out even better than I imagined!!! I’m so happy to see it sitting in my family room now!

TaDa!!!!

It's perfect - and reversible. The bottom cushion is brown and the back of the top cushion is blue :) We can change it up whenever!

Yellowstone!!

Sadly, I’m posting my Yellowstone trip before I finish the rest of my Sagehen trip…oh well.

Anthony had the PLEASURE of going to Yellowstone with me and my family :) It was his first trip. We had an AMAZING time. (I suggest stop reading now if you’d like the summary, because that was it…the rest is a day by day detail of moose searching and geyser watching.)

Let me back up a few days…We kept looking at the weather and at one point there was a chance of snow while we were going to be there, and highs in the low 50’s. We were not looking forward to being bundled up the entire time, but pack our snow coats, stocking hats and warm clothes.

Fast forward a few days…we had AMAZING weather. It was perfect outside, mid 60’s to low 70’s. If it had been any warmer it would have been too hot!

Day 1: Spelunking…need I say more? Ok, I will. We stopped at Craters of the Moon and went “caving” or spelunking…but we weren’t really as prepared as some of the people we saw…and my phone wouldn’t let me type spelunking…so…we went caving. We also hike up to the top of the “null” which didn’t look so bad, but I decided to race Anthony. He won…by a long shot. I ran about 10 yards and couldn’t breathe.

We drove to the Tetons that afternoon and stayed just outside the park. Day 2, we took a short hike around String Lake and got to see a beautiful view of the Tetons. We drove into Yellowstone and set up camp.

We were so happy to use our brand new tent…boy…what a tent! It’s beautiful, and big, and I can stand up in it :) It’s probably one of the best things I’ve ever bought from Costco…besides our couch. Don’t get me wrong. I love our old tent. It’s perfect for weekend camping, but any more than a couple days and I feel cooped up. I like to be able to stand up while I’m changing and have some space to throw all my junk around (if you’ve seen my bedroom you’d understand what I’m talking about…it’s huge too…and sometimes I still think it’s too small).

So, our entire goal of the week was to find a moose. And thanks to one of my parent’s friends “guaranteeing” we would see a moose…ummm we actually did! I’m not sure how some guy guaranteeing it would happen, made it happen, but apparently it worked. Day 3? I think it was, Anthony told my dad to pull over because down in the VERY bottom of the canyon he was pretty sure there was a moose, sure enough, there she was! Anthony then proceeded to run down the hill further than us to get me a good picture (he really does love me lots) :)

We also had the pleasure of seeing a grizzly and her cub the first morning at Yellowstone, a bison and a bull elk laying together, lots more bison and elk (not together), another grizzly, a couple coyotes, birds (including a bald eagle), and a stump that looked a LOT like a moose until we ran up the hill and figured out it wasn’t…Yes, our wildlife searching finding was top notch. We also asked a lady at the store where to find more moose. She gave us a location (which we quickly forgot) and off we drove outside the park to Cody, Wyoming. There was had lunch and saw a miniature replication of the Old West, well worth the drive, but no moose. On the way home, mom and I began yelling at Anthony simultaneously to pull over we were SURE we saw a moose this time!!!! And yes, we did :) a bull, just across the river. These pictures were much better!

Ok, enough rambling about moose. We also saw lots of geysers and pools. We took a short walk hike to Ferry Falls. I’m going to brag for just a moment, and say how happy I am that I’m in shape enough that 5 miles didn’t faze me, even after the 4 miles of walking around Old Faithful. Ok, moving on…We sat around for…oh…about 2 hours waiting for Grand Geyser to go off. We had bets on who though it would erupt first, Jason won…I didn’t  But, thankfully Warren didn’t win, because we would have been there MUCH longer. And, yes, it was worth the wait…what an amazing show it put off! Much more impressive than Old Faithful! All in all, that was our trip….now if blogger would be nice to me, I’d post this with some pictures :)

Spelunking

Tetons

Bear #1 and cub - so cute!

Bull Elk

Far away moose # 1


David and Anthony - humoring me

Grand Geyser


Ferry Falls


Grizzly Bear # 2 - it did look at us, but this was the best picture I could find.


And behold!!! our beloved moose!

Well - that's it for now! We're home for a few days until our next adventure. And...I'll be posting my new and improved couch soooo soon! A word to the wise, I should never go in to upholstery.

~~Erin~~

PLEASE SOMEONE PLEASE!!!

Ok - I can't stand it anymore - I'm posting this in deperate hope to save this puppy's life...

Yesterday afternoon I left my house and saw this puppy wandering the neighborhood. Later that evening, Anthony and I left the house and he was still there. When we got home we took him some water and put him in our backyard because apparently it's ok to leave dogs on the side of the road.

Anthony took him into a vet this morning to see if he had a chip to scan, no luck. I posted him lost on craigslist, no luck. I know I need to call the city and have them come pick him up, but I'm afriad their going to put him down. I'm fairly positive he's mostly pitbull. The vet said pitt/lab mix, maybe.

He's soooo sweet! He loves to play, he sits, his listens (sorta...he's a puppy). And so...if anyone, ANYONE wants him, please come get him. We can't keep him. We're not ready for a dog in our crazy life.

yes, I'm aware how happy Anthony looks with this dog....but we can NOT keep him...

Sagehen 2011

The roads opened to Sagehen days before we went up. And I'm glad they did because we had a blast!

I realized 2hours after we got up there I forgot to feed Sirus...yea, what I great pet owner I am! Thanks to cell phone service 10 miles away, and the Lund's, Sirus survived :)

Anthony and I had a fun time with our setting up tent adventure. It's getting much easier (but now we have a new tent...so it's going to get hard again). Last year, Mom and Dad were supervising while we set up our tent, and no joke, the 2nd and 6th step read: "with an adult at each end of the tent..." I look at Anthony and say "Are we 'adult' enough for this?" haha. And the last step reads....the tent should look like the picture. Oh, good, what if it doesn't?

Anthony and Dad spent the mornings fishing while the rest of us slept. Anthony and I went on a 4-wheeler ride (part of that was because we had to go call people remember).

Mom took us mushrooming - which is code for, searching around the hillside for brown Easter eggs that only 1/2 of us enjoy eating... :) It's fun, as long as your find one mushroom every 20 min or so.

I gave David my camera to document us setting up camp. He apologized for any dumb pictures he might take and told me I could delete them. It then turned into a challenge when I told him I don't delete any of my pictures. Boy, did I get some awesome pictures after that...like 5 pictures of moss - and some of them were unfocused.

Sadly, my camera died within the first 2 hours, so this ends the first post. I'll put up more pictures when I steal the pictures from my mom.

Overall, the trip was great. We played lots of card games, wore long sleeves all the time, poor Sara thought she was coming to Idaho to be warmer. Sorry Sara! The first night I couldn't feel me feet, I was so cold!

Round 1 - the first 2 hours...

Setting up camp

Does it look like the picture?

ummm - pine needles

We found this really awesome flipper on the dock...yes, just one. I'm not sure who was using it, the water was COLD!!!


:)

Gardening....

I was so proud of myself for planting my garden on this this year :) I got my radishes and spinach planted in March/April and the rest of it in the ground before June.

I had spinach, radishes (duh, I just said that) tomatoes, peppers, basil, and pumpkin. I have my water set on a timer, I bought all the bug-be-gone stuff, I have my little plants all greenhoused in with walls-of-water. I'm all set...right?!?!

WRONG!!!

I went the check my little plants and what do you know?!?!? My peppers are gone...GONE!!! Apparently bug-be-gone stuff doesn't work on BIRDS! I'm pretty sure the quail thought I planted this garden for them. So, I'm down 2 peppers, and if I'm not careful, my pumpkin is looking very very sad.

The good news is....I had a delicious spinach salad a couple nights ago, and look what DID survive :)


I pulled these delightful things out of my garden today :) By next week the rest of them should be ready!

You know you're an elementary school teacher when....

I woke up this morning and had to tell Anthony how I MUST be an elementary school teacher. My dream last night consisted of a bus tour. It was with me, Anthony, family, friends...and a bunch of old people I didn't know. We were touring space. I remember getting off the bus and being like "hey, we just visited Neptune. Where did you just come from?" And we all took a pit stop on Jupiter, there were porta potties...no worries. Oh, and I believe Sirus came too.

I would just like to say...all the other planets look very similar to Earth, except due to the atmosphere you see differently on all the planets. Thanks to the Magic School Bus, we didn't even need to wear space suits.

Yup...I teach 2nd grade...

B...E...A...utiful!

I have to tell the story of this beautiful couch before I move onto it's purpose in my life.

When Anthony moved into his duplex Jr. year at NNU, it didn't come with a bed...cool. So, his uncle graciously let him have this hide-a-bed couch. Anthony threw a mattress on top of it and slept on it for a year. When we moved into our apartment, it came with us. I really love it as a couch, it's nice and big to lounge in watching TV. And it's a great extra bed...not that we really need anymore beds in our house, but it has been used before...like last night when Anthony fell asleep on it watching a movie and he wouldn't wake up when I went to bed, even though I spoke his name very, very loudly... I think he was out there for a couple hours, while I enjoyed the queen bed to myself :) Alright, moving on...


The only part I don't love...the stuffing is gone from the arms (and ripped) and I'm not COMPLETELY in love with the cream floral.

(I have no idea why the picture turned this way...technology hates me)

So, I got an e-mail from Joann's this week about how they were giving 50% off their home decor fabric. SCORE!! I browsed for a couple of hours, narrow down the results to about 3 patterns and had Anthony help me on the final decision. I was very happy that he picked the same one I liked. I got my debit card out last night...AND!!!!..... Stupid Joann's lied. Apparently, 50% off until Friday...means Thursday night. By the time I got on to order it, they had lowered the discount to 40%. I was annoyed. Oh well...I bought it anyway.

I was debating on whether I wanted to do the whole thing, or just the outside and have the cushions be a solid color. Well, the lack of discount made my decision for me. I'm going with a solid (blue?) color for the cushions. I'm hoping it'll cost less that the upholstery fabric does. So, now I'm going to need some serious patience. (I'd like to add in here, my inspiration came from Betsy...yea, look what you've done...) I'm not sure if I want to rip the whole thing apart, or just put some extra fluff around the arms and cover what's already been done (I'm leaning towards the 2nd option). I'm not really as picky as I should be...so this is a great project for me, and not for Anthony, who will probably insist on measuring things and lining things up. pshhh...so not me.

Well, I'm sure you're dying to know which fabric won...so here is the one we picked out for our beautiful couch. We'll see how this works out...wish me luck!