Random Thoughts for August

Wow, I cannot believe we are going to be done with August in a mere two days. Where in the world did it go? I'd like to say things are settling down here in Boise since we've been here for three months now, but I think it got even more hectic this month. At the beginning of the month, Brett began his residency which he apparently likes quite a bit. He spends two days at his regular clinic. The other three days he spends half day at the clinic and half at a sports med clinic that overlooks the famous blue turf of Boise State. Rough life! He's been known to throw the baseball around at work, too. It really makes me wonder!

Also in August, I began my first real teaching job. It's kind of surreal to think that my whole goal two years ago was to become a teacher and now I really am. I have to say that this week has been crazy going from school to volleyball and then having to come home and do my planning at night. At the same time, I have to say I have a great group of 7th and 8th graders. I laugh my head off in class some days and they're always willing to laugh at my blunders in return.

If you've been reading the blog regularly, you know that we have an offer on our house. Things are moving smoothly, the inspection has been done, they are re-staining the deck, and we close at the end of September. Good news on all that!

I'm sure you're wondering about Puckett. I'm happy to report that he's doing fine. In fact, since we changed his food from Science Diet Large Breed dog food to this hippie food (I have no idea what it's called, but I know it costs more and he eats less) he doesn't have as much gas. That's right, I said gas. He used to stink up the house night after night! So maybe you didn't want to know about our dog's flatulance problem, but oh well.

The big news today was that John McCain picked a lady as his running mate. I didn't even hear about it until, oh, 8:45pm tonight so I guess I'm late on the news. Eighth graders apparently don't read the morning news before they come to class. I thought it was a bold move, as did MSN, but I'm a little indifferent right now. Actually, tired might be a better word to describe my indeciveness at this point in time.

Does anyone get tired at around 8:30pm? It's 9:06pm on a Friday night right now and I'm exhausted. Lame! Hi, my name is Nichole. I'm in my mid 20s (young) and can't stay up until 10pm on a stinkin' Friday night? What's wrong with me? And so you ask what we'll be doing this lovely Labor Day weekend in Boise? Well my friend, I'll be making some trips to school, picking up dog poop (there I go again), laundry, vacuuming, dishes, grocery shopping (not as much fun when you don't have Safeway), and hopefully sleeping a bit. And then there's church on Sunday. You know, I do teach 1/4 of the kids religion at my school so it's best to show my pretty face at church on Sunday mornings. Practice what you preach!

Sorry about the length. Just so you know, I'm not going to proofread. There will be no editing, and there certainly was no rough draft. And yes, my students must take those steps everytime we write. :o) (Haha, I really did proofread though. I couldn't help it!)

First Days as a Teacher

I have to say that my first three days as a real teacher have been quite the experience. There are still many things I am learning along the way. I think the first three days went well. We're slowly getting into our curriculum and hopefully we can have fun along the way. My seventh grade class if full of fun and extremely polite kids. My eighth graders are funny, but are serious most of the time. I don't think they've come out of their shells in my class yet. I haven't given up yet though. I will admit that the days are long as I get to school a little after 7am, teach, and then go to vball practice until 5:15pm. I guess that's the real world again isn't it? Each day is something different though and I'm certainly enjoying it so far!

We Got an OFFER!

Finally, after almost six months and waiting, we got an offer on our house in Wenatchee. In fact, we got two. This was such a stressful six months. Many nights I would wake up having nightmares about our house going into foreclosure, us going bankrupt, etc. Hopefully, those sleepless nights are behind us now. I have to say that Brett was amazingly calm during this whole process and was extremely reassuring everytime I had doubts. Thanks, Brett! We got an offer and have agreed upon a price. We are set (almost, Brett still has to sign tonight) to close on September 30. And get this - they are paying CASH! I sure don't have that much cash laying around, but hey, I'm not going to argue. I have to admit that I am a little sad to see our house go. I mean, it was our first house. It was so much fun to build the deck, lay sod (never again), figure out how to landscape, and everything else that comes with homeownership. I am very proud of both of us because, a) We finished all of our projects including the deck and the yard, and b) We're still happily married after all that! We are, however, not sad to see those terrible neighbors of ours go. Though, let me say that they were instrumental in keeping our lawn nice and green while we were living in Idaho. Thanks terrible neighbors for fertilizing our lawn so the house didn't bring down the value of the neighborhood! :o) Please keep us in your prayers that everything will work out and that we will no longer be homeowners as of Sept. 30. Adios Wenatchee! Picture #1 is of our house when it wasn't painted and had zero landscaping. #2 is the view we had from our front door. Eventually a house blocked part of that though.

BSU Football

Even before we moved to Boise, I knew that Fresno State played Boise State in football. Lucky for us, Fresno State plays here in town this year. I've been trying to get tickets all summer, but found out they weren't on sale. I was waiting, and not so patiently, for them to go on sale. Everyone in town says it's impossible to get tickets to that game. It's played the day after Thanksgiving. Well, tickets went on sale at 10am the day we were flying out to Seattle. Guess who was on the phone at 9:57am trying to get tickets? That's right! We got tickets to the game and I am super excited! You better believe I'll be sporting my red. Brett wasn't too keen on the idea of buying tickets through Fresno State and sitting in their section. I was offended...almost. So the day after Thanksgiving we'll spend the evening looking at the terrible blue turf that people here just love to death. Go Bulldogs!!

Karmen and Jason's Wedding

Last weekend we flew up to Seattle for Karmen and Jason's wedding. Congratulations guys! We had a great time catching up with family and meeting some new faces (Ben and Noah). Here are a couple of photos that I shot while we were there. #1 Brett and Nichole outside the wedding chapel on Fox Island. #2 Brett and his sister Suzanne. Cute! #3 Brett's cousin's wife Tracy holding little Noah by the water. Priceless! (Sorry, I cannot figure out how to get these pictures aligned!)

The Big Meet and Greet

We finally met Noah! It took us about four months, but we were able to see him in person at last! He sure is a cutie. We spend lots of time while we were in Seattle hanging out with him. Here's a couple of the pictures we took with the little guy.

We may not be cute now...

But look at how stinkin' cute we were back then! I was scanning a couple of photos for school and came across one of myself. We also have some of Brett when he was a little tike. I thought everyone needed to see how cute we used to be! Doesn't my head look enormous compared to Brett's?

We've Decided to Build a House

That's right, we've decided to build a house...for Puckett. He gets all the cool things. We actually bought him a dog house back in Wenatchee, and he even used it! Often times we would look out the back window to see a cute chocolate lab sitting in his house with two paws sticking out the front. What a sight! (Maybe I'm easily amused.) Well, the house didn't exactly stand up to the wind we had in Wenatchee so it didn't make the trip to Boise either.

Thank goodness some nice folks of ours have blessed us with the gift of power tools! We used a table saw, jig saw, nail guns (my fave!), and a skil saw to make this masterpiece. Did I say masterpiece? You can be the judge. Keep in mind that the roof is not done yet. We went to get some shingles from Lowe's, but the guy there advised us to just get some from a construction site since it's such a small area we are covering. Here's Puckett's new house! And...there's our handsome handyman! P.S. Sorry about the formatting on this post. I was having issues and then just gave up.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

As you may already know this but, I love the Summer Olympics! Even though MSN was full of pictures and commentary on the Opening Ceremony (that has already taken place), I did not read them this morning. But, be assured that I will be sporting my red, white, and blue tonight as I watch it on TV. I had hopes of eating chinese food, painting our faces, and checking out our athletes, but Brett's idea of hamburgers and no face paint seemed a lot easier. Here are some of my faves when it comes to the Olympics:

• The anticipation of the Opening Ceremony and who will carry our U.S. flag.
• Watching the softball team go for another gold! Root for Andrea Duran because we played softball together growing up!!! Did you know that I once faced Cat Osterman...and struck out?!
• Track (oh, how I wish I could run that fast, that long, or have those bodies!)
• Swimming (again....I wish! I hope Phelps goes for the repeat!)
• Gymnastics (I wish I could do that, too. Remember Keri Strugg in '96?!)
• Checking out the medal race to make sure we are ahead at ALL TIMES. (Did you know that the U.S. has won a total of 2,197 medals TOTAL. The next closes country is Soviet Union/Unified Team with 1,122. We rock!)
• Watching our athletes on the podium listening to the National Anthem over and over!

What a dork, right?! And yes, because of my love of the Olympics I have changed the background once again! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

And the winner is...

The winner is Jabez!! Jabez was officially the first family member to visit us in Boise! Thanks, Jabez!!! For those of you who are not lucky enough to know Jabez, he is Brett's cousin Holly's husband. Did you get that? (They live in Shelby, Montana with their new baby boy, Wyatt.) Technically, Jabez was in Boise doing Army "stuff" like driving around in tanks (I think) and blowing up stuff. We are still going to claim that he "visited" us though. We were finally able to get Jabez off the base and take him to dinner. Nothing like pizza and beer for a happy belated birthday dinner, right? Okay, so now it's everyone else's turn to come visit!!! GET OVER HERE! P.S. That really isn't a picture of our pizza. Anyone who knows me knows that there are way too many extras on that pizza!

Delicious Pulled Pork

After a trip to Knoxville, Tennessee in 2007 we have tried and tried to make a delicious recipe for pulled pork. It's hard to top that southern food! After a few dismal attempts, one of Brett's patients gave him a recipe to try. YUM!!! It's an all-day affair, but well worth the work. Paired with some KFC coleslaw (let us kn0w if you have a good coleslaw recipe), corn on the cob, hamburger buns, and sweat tea, it's a tasty treat for the summer time! Here's some pictures of the work in progress. Puckett was keeping an eye on it out there!

A Big Series = Time at Home

A big what? Yes, a big Series, as in baseball series. You knew that! I was trying to figure out if there was something I could or should blog about this evening. I asked Brett, "Have we done anything this week?" His response, "Well, there's been a big series." Very true. The Minnesota Twins have had a four-game series with the Chicago White Sox this week (all in Minnesota). As a good wife would, I Tivo'd every game and we sat down each night to watch them. But here's how it works: If the Twins are winning or if it is close, we watch. Sometimes Brett likes to fast forward through the opposing team's at-bats though. But if, for example, the Twins are losing by a lot (like they did last night in game three) the game all of the sudden gets turned off. There are often high fives, yelling, cheering, at talking to the tv. In fact, I tried to participate in the telecast a couple of days ago by texting in a question to Dick and Bert. They haven't shown it on tv yet, so I may need to try again! Now we're in the last game of the series and it looks like it will end in the Twins' favor. Consequently, Brett will be in a good mood and we all WIN! P.S. The Twins are now a half game out of first place. Did you know...During the 2006 baseball season we were Circled by Bert (the Twins broadcaster) when the Twins played in Seattle. This is one of the best things you can have happen as a Twins fan. We held up a poster board saying, "Future season ticket holders 2010." Family in Minnesota and some friends in North Dakota were nice enough to call and tell us we were on TV!

Reusable Bags

Back in December, Suzanne (Brett's sister) said she wanted some resusable bags for Christmas. I immediately asked, "What kind of Christmas present is that?" Little did we know, Suzanne was waaaaayyyyy ahead of us! The latest edition of my Self magazine showed a picture of a resusable bag and gave some links to others. I'm obsessed with these Seabags, but they're so costly! Check it out! Basically, the company has taken old sails and made them into bags. Very cute, though I can't see Brett toting one of these babies around at the grocery store. :o)

The last weekend in July?

Our weekend consisted of a couple of "changes of plans." Friday evening we were to meet some of Brett's co-workers at a restaurant downtown. Somehow or another we missed each other in two different locations. Needless to say, we ended up eating by our lonesome in West Boise (our neck of the woods). I had a great idea to check out a new soup and salad place which, of course, was not open yet. We ended up at Fuddruckers, yes Fuddruckers, eating burgers and sippin' on some soda pop. Saturday I had another great idea (you can imagine how this will turn out) to go to the 5pm mass and then attend the Fiesta dinner put on by the young adult ministry group. Call me crazy, but there was no one there but the organizers so we left. That night ended by us going to Chicago Connection for pizza (would not recommend the one on Fairview Ave.). And then there's Sunday. Things were looking up! I found a group, via the Internet, to play tennis with. I was a little nervous about these new people, but it was a blast. There were only four of us, but we played a good 2 1/2 hours of tennis. Watch out Serena! The good news is that Brett made some delicious ribs for dinner tonight! So, there you have it. I don't know that we accomplished a whole lot this weekend, but we were surely on the move in Boise. One way or another we'll figure out this town...and our lives! In the meantime, we're simply enjoying ourselves and each other...I think. :o)

So many backgrounds!

Sorry, I changed the background yet again. I realized that the date I posted things was not listed which really bothered me. I think I'll stop playing with it and just let the background be.