The Decorating Continues

Well, Brian and I are on vacation and so we decided to do some more painting. We tackled the rest of our living room and the kitchen and the dining room all in a day and a half. Brian's uncle John is staying with us for the holidays and so he has been a big help. It looks so much better now that the rest of the walls are not a boring white. If you can't tell from the picture, it is tan. Technically, it is called Pony Tail but it is tan in the non-paint world. We really like it and it makes things stand out more. Well, that is about it. I am also posting pictures from our Christmas Eve dinner. I love cooking big dinners like this and it has been even more fun to eat the leftovers. Anyway, enjoy the pictures. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas!!

We put up our Christmas tree lights today. It was a lot of fun to decorate the outside of our house. It's simple but we like it. We also took our Chrismtas picture today. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season. With all the things we can get sidetracked by, remember that it is because of God's amazing love and grace that we are celebrating. Merry Christmas and God bless your new year!

A Little Update

Here are just a few pictures to update you on how things are going. We have planted grass in our backyard and bought a lawn mower because the grass seems to grow really quick, which is very surprising in Arizona. Brian is loving have a yard to take care of and mowing our grass. Eventually some day we will finish the border on our yard but we have plenty of time to do that.

We are also getting into the cooler part of the year so my friend, Sonshine, her son, Titus, and I went to White Tank Mountains Park and though we didn't walk far, it was fun just to be outside enjoying the beautiful weather. Titus had fun playing in the sand while we watched. It was a fun day.

Now we are into the busy Christmas season and I'm enjoying decorating our house. I even made a tree skirt for our Christmas tree, thanks to a little help and direction from Mom. Both Brian and I are busy with school but have enjoyed this Thanksgiving break very much. We were with his family for Thanksgiving and enjoyed a beautiful 70 degree day. Now after this break, we have four weeks left of school and then Christmas break We will be very busy with different Christmas events going on, concerts, parties and a little shopping here and there. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and we would love to hear from you. Happy Thanksgiving!!

Life after summer!

Well summer has been over for several weeks now. I just passed midterm for the first quarter of school and boy can I feel it. Things are very busy in life right now, mainly because of school. That is okay, however. I feel like I have my feet on the ground somewhat, as it is my second year teaching but there is still a lot that I am learning. I love what I get to do everyday, working with kids and learning how to connect with them. My choir kids are the days that I particularly look forward to because those students make the choice to be in choir and so have much better attitudes. I am so thankful that God opened the doors for me to be at my school. I remember when I went to the interview, I didn't think that I would actually end up at the school but God knew what I needed. I have so many blessings by being at my school. I don't know if I can truly express my joy in words but I'm sure you will understand. God has this amazing way of leading us where we need to go if we are just willing to follow. Speaking of which, it seems like a teaching job has opened up for Brian. It won't officially start until January but that is okay. Brian had applied for two other high school choir teacher positions but they didn't happen. He was kind of bummed after that but now this one has opened up and it is just two miles from our house. Again, God's provision. Well, other than work, which consumes a lot of our life, we do find time to relax. We went camping over Labor Day weekend with a bunch of friends up in northern Arizona. It was very relaxing to get out into fresh air and cooler weather. It only rained one night, too. Well, that was just an update on how life is going now that school started.

When it rains, it pours!!

I wanted to share some pitcures with you. It doesn't rain like this very often in Phoenix so I took some pictures. It is monsoon season right now and the storms usually blow through quickly but this one moved slow and the result was a river in the street in front of our house. Also the dirt lot next to us looked like a small pond. And the sun shining through the clouds afterwards was amazing. It's amazing how people think this world was just created out of chance. Beautiful rain like this and amazing suns rays just show what an amazing Creator we have. Well, I hope you enjoy.

Pennsylvania Vacation

We had a wonderful time in Pennsylvania celebrating Grandpa and Grandma Hall's 50th anniversary. It was also just fun to be with family and relax. Meadville is beautiful and the picture of the creek is one that runs through Grandpa and Grandma Hall's place. The weather was beautiful for the party. We also went to Lake Erie and saw the beautiful beach. The water was warm, surprisingly. We also had a great time at Hunter's eating a lot of wings. There are also some pictures of us making ice cream by kicking a ball around. Surprisingly it worked and it was very good ice cream. If you want to know how it works, you'll have to ask. Enjoy the pictures!

Our New Home!!

This is the view that you see when you walk through our front door. The living room, dining room and kitchen are all one big room so it is very open and we love it.

This is the view from the kitchen into the living room. As you can see, we have already painted one wall and we haven't been in the house a full two weeks yet.

Here is the wonderful, big kitchen with more storage than I know what to do with (right now anyway. :)
This is the hallway off the kitchen that leads to three bedrooms, 2nd bathroom and the garage. The master bedroom is on the behind the green wall in our living room.
This is Brian's office. Here he is already enjoying the fact that he can play piano and sing any time he wants because we don't share any walls or floors with any one else. I think the piano was the first thing we plugged in. :)

We love our house and I will add more pictures later. I have one of the other bedrooms as my office which I plan to do scrapbooking in but that has yet to really come into fruition. The fourth bedroom will be the guest room, waiting for anyone who wants to come visit. The master bedroom has a big walk-in closet and a master bathroom with two sinks, which both of us were looking forward to. We are already enjoying doing things and decorating the way that we want to because it's ours!!(relatively speaking)

Is it okay to brag a little??

I know that Clara and Elsie probably look a lot different now but I still wanted to put this pictures up for you all to see. I got to go up to Iowa a week after Clara and Elsie were born. When I made plans to go up there, I thought I might be lucky if Kjirsti gave birth while I was there. I was even more blessed and was able to see these two beautiful little girls. I do have to brag a little because I was the first person, other than Kjirsti, to hold either of the girls. I was holding Clara in the picture on the right. It was so much fun and I can't wait to see what they will be like as they grow up.

Here is our new home. We have yet to move in but that will happen soon enough. The front door is down the sidewalk to the right. Yes, that is Brian standing in front of it. Well, enjoy!

You are all welcome to visit!!

The big news in our world is that we just bought a house here in west Phoenix!! We will move in the beginning of June. It is a single story, 4 bed-2 bath with a decent sized backyard. We are both excited and looking forward to making it our home. You are all welcome to visit, especially with the extra room we will have. As soon as I figure out how to upload pictures, you'll see pictures of it.

It Has Begun!!!

Well, I guess this is it. Now we have a blog. I don't know how I will be able to update it right now but I will use it to keep you all posted on what ever might be going on. More later!!