Back to Work?

Maybe, we will have to see...

Although I had thought about/really wanted to be a cashier at the HEB Plus! outside the front gate, I have since changed my mind... although I could always change it back! haha

So, last Thursday (after being stuck inside b/c of Hurrican Dolly for DAYS!!!) I decided to take my application, resume and cover letter to the Flour Bluff School District office and apply to be a special education aide; as there are positions available, I am only 4 classes away from completing my Master's in Special Education! :-) AND I figured it might be more acceptable for an aide to leave halfway than for a full time teacher...

We live about 5 minutes from this office and before I could get in the door, they were calling me!
"My Aggie friend in the office" they told me said they should call... (The story behind that is the A&M purse that my friend, Angela, had made for me for my 25th birthday, caught the eye of a few of the ladies in the office - Way to go Angela!)
Anyway, they were calling because they were confused... Had I meant to fill out an application to be an aide?... being that I was completely certified to teach! It was at that point that I shared our short stint in Corpus and the woman seemed to understand and appreciate my honesty. (It is pretty much in stone - although life happens - that we will be heading back to Florida no later than the middle of January 2009) This employee then proceeded to tell me that the middle schools were still in need of teachers and that she was going to pass my resume on to the principals...

So, I am thinking in about 2 weeks, if they have not filled positions, they will give me a call; time will tell!

I put myself out there and am letting God tell me where I go from there! :-)

Hurricane Dolly!

We have survived our first hurricane - even if it was a very mild one! ;-)

The wind was constant, gusts up to 30 mph?, and the rain would come and go as the bands passed over us...

In the video you can hear the wind, and our neighbor (across the street) yelling out to me something about getting wet (yes I was soon drinched), as well as the fact that their tree fell over right before I started the camera!

Oh and the most annoying part about the past 3 days of Dolly was the exhaust fan vent door? on the roof, flapping in all of the wind, in our bathroom upstairs... Talk about a constant racket! Nolan got the idea to turn it on and that seemed to help! :-)

Lots of Catching Up!

Home Sweet Home...
base housing
for now ;-)

(only the left side of this picture is our house...)

I am so far behind, I'm not sure where to begin!?
It's almost like that friend you have failed to call back and then it seems like it has been ENTIRELY too long to call them back now... what to do?!

I either pick up where we left Florida for Texas or skip over all of that and start where we are now, having spent a month in Texas! Decisions, decisions...



I suppose I will catch everyone up to where we are now, by briefly sharing what we have being doing to pass the past month; which seems to have FLOWN by!

Here is a quick run-down

June 10 - After a full day of cleaning the house, to prepare to leave in a few days, we had dinner at the Melting Pot in Pensacola! YUM!

Happy 2nd Wedding Anniversary!

- Friday, June 13 - Left Milton, Florida for Texas... arrived around 10:30 and spent the weekend with my dad, brother and his family, at my dad's house in West Columbia

Nolan, Jayci (our niece) and Sandi swimming in my dad's pool!

- Monday, June 16 - Drove to Corpus Christi and made our first stop the base housing office
Decided base housing was the way to go and was told our house (on Boomer) would be ready on the 18th... Found a place to park the truck for the night (LOADED with stuff) at the Ross' (who also came from flight training in Florida)... Also found a Days Inn that allowed dogs (Boo for the Navy Lodge for not accepting dogs over 50 lbs - ohh well)

- Tuesday, June 17 - The moving company who had all of our worldly possessions call to say we have a matter of hours to decide if we want our stuff delivered THAT day, or if we wanted to wait until the next truck went around delivering house hold goods... We shared this with base housing who stated our house (on Wise Owl) would be ready by 130pm... Yes, they changed our house without telling us, but to be able to get in a day early, we didn't even bat an eye about it! ;-) Cleaning carpet man left at 130 and the movers started unloading most everything into the garage or downstairs shortly after.... Into the garage because the carpets were wet upstairs... Before the night was over we moved our upstairs furniture upstairs on our own ;-) Overall the move, having the movers come get our stuff and delivery to our new duty station, wasn't too bad. It was rather hard for me to not have control over how things were being packed and/or moved, but most everything survived, for the most part. The washer/dryer had a rough trip, which I feared they would, but I am grateful that the Tempurpedic bed made the trip unscathed... Our bed frame also took quite a beating, one computer desk had a wheel ripped off, as well as our bowls (they were on the bottom of the kitchen stuff and only 2 survived) The military has 100% replacement value coverage, but I hear they do all they can to "fix" whatever was messed up before paying to you buy a new one... we are still working on the move claim, so I will see how that works out...

Getting the internet going in our new house was a fiasco I hope to never go through again... LONG story short our neighbors down the street are Aggies and stopped by to say hi, so thankfully I was able to use their internet for my SIX assignments that were due for my master's program the Sunday after we moved in on Tuesday...

Spent a week in our "new to us" base house... :-)

- Tuesday - June 24 - Traveled to Marlin to drop Sandi off with my mom, "Gram", for a week "on the ranch", while we traveled to Seattle and Las Vegas...

Sandi and Nuggett

June 25 - June 28 - Seattle, Washington
We hit the ground running and didn't slow down until we got back to the airport on Sunday morning! We had a wonderful time going, doing and seeing everyone that we possibly could! We spent lots of time in Yelm, where Mike and Emily (Nolan's sister) live, with them, as well as Nolan's mom, Caroline. We even met up with Amy, who I taught with at Jane Long Middle School during the 05-06 school year! Her husband had just left for his second deployment, he is an Air Force Pilot, so it worked out quite well! We had a BBQ cookout and even went horseback riding! Fun times!

Some of Nolan's cousins from his dad's side
Cousin David, Cousin Mari, Us, Emily (Nolan's sister) her husband, Mike, and Cousin Jeff

Jane Long Midlle Mini Re-Union
with Amy in Yelm, Washington
Who knew!? :-)

Me, Nolan and Caroline (Nolan's mom)

(thank you Cousin Jennifer for taking these last two)

Cousins from Nolan's mom's side
Espen, Lindsay, Jennifer, Ben, Nolan, Me

June 29 - July 3 - Las Vegas, Nevada
I have wanted to go to Vegas for about 5 years now, since I was 21, but it just had never happened... so we made it happen and made it our 2nd wedding anniversary trip! ;-) (since we were furiously cleaning our Milton house on June 10th)
My dad helped us out greatly by putting us up in the Paris Hotel on the Las Vegas strip... Ironically, we visited Paris, France on our honeymoon, but I was mostly less than happy while visiting, as it was quite a challenge for me not being able to speak the language and dealing with the chaotic environment (where I had no control over anything! it is somewhat of my weakness ;-) Thankfully Nolan did well with the language thanks to a book! ) BUT our time at the Paris hotel in Vegas was much different, so that was good - yay for easy communication this time in "Paris"...
The first night there we visited the Bellagio Hotel for the Buffett and enjoyed it so much we went back! We tried lots of new foods and everything was wonderful!


ALL, yes all, of the desserts they had... we shared and very much enjoyed! ;-)

We saw a show each night: Blue Man Group, Stomp Out Loud, and Jubilee
Stomp! was by far my favorite - WHAT a show! I would definitely be willing to see it again!

Funny story behind this picture:

We failed to read this little notice inside the door of the mini-bar of our hotel room and managed to run up a few hundred dollars before I realized that I had bought everything I had taken out "to look at!" Thankfully the front desk believed that I was that ignorant and took off all of the charges! Note to self - don't "check out" what's in the mini-bar, nor should you use it for left-overs....

Yay for a castle!

New York Sky Line

MGM

Of course a bit of gambling was involved as well...

We used $100, which of course went up and down quickly, but we walked away in the end only losing $50 - Way to go Nolan! by playing BlackJack

July 4th
Happy Independence Day!
Mexican Food in Marlin with my mom and Tim!

Fireworks are a MUST when celebrating with Nolan...
here he is using a piece of fuse to fuse these sparklers together!
Make for a great finale!

We decided to watch from the porch...
Sandi wasn't too sure about the fire crackers, but eventually calmed down.

And Most Recently....

What happens when you hear a thud, but don't investigate it....
It seems I didn't get the lid on the BRAND new bottle of detergent and when the washer spun the detergent went flying everywhere! literally!
Fun times cleaning that up!

Fruit tarts Nolan made... YUM!
Nolan is quite the chef!

Seeing as how I am enjoying not working at the moment I REALLY hope to post more often - so please keep checking back! Better yet, come visit! ;-)