I Was Right-- Change

I had substitute orientation this morning and after I left I got a phone call offering me a long term substitute teaching position. I was a little surprised, but I'm so excited. It's a half a day job so I'm done by noon, the school is only 5 minutes from our house, and this teacher doesn't work Fridays. There are only 16 students and it's first grade, sounds like fun to me. I'm still nervous though, it's an emergency situation so I'm the teacher.

Raindrops

It's the first day of fall and appropriately it rained at our home all morning long. I woke up with only one goal in mind. I knew that tomorrow I would be stepping back into the work force and shortly after I completed phase one of unpacking I allowed myself start reading Breaking Dawn. So somewhat irrationally, all I want to do was finish the book. It was nice to spend the entire day reading. I just finished and it was weird to read, The End. Which brings we to my next thought. All day long I have felt like change is coming into our lives. It might just be the fact that I'm wrapped up in two sweaters and anticipating the seasonal changes. But I'm excited to finally be embracing this new situation and feel like there will be lots to look forward to here. Let me elaborate on my vague thoughts. I absolutely love our new ward. We fit right in and I can't wait to build a comradere with our new church family! I'm going back to work, not just work, but the classroom; how could I not be excited about that?! We have a new rhythm of life, which includes things like seeing each other, reading together, things feel restful in comparison to the pace of school. I've tried to keep my options open the last little while (not signing into a teaching contract was a big part of that), and I just feel like any opportunity could come my way. I feel like Aaron and I are fully open to the will of our Heavenly Father, we are ready to take the path he puts us on, and frankly I find that so exciting! Anyways, I thought I'd try to share that with you.
p.s. Now I have that song in my head, "Raindrops keep fallin' on my head..." It's in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I love that movie.

Before and After

I just going to be lazy and link you to the very first disaster pictures of our house, to see them click on the word CUCUMBER. *to get back to this post click the top of the blog* Don't you just love my enthusiasm in that post I said, "this will only be an 8 week process" Ha Ha Ha 4 months down the road, that's really funny!

Alright now that you have clicked on my favorite veggie, lets enjoy the progress and beauty that is this home. We're still not totally finished but it was finally clean enough that I felt comfortable taking pictures.

Here we made the front room a little smaller by adding a tile walk way into the kitchen. We also put in a different style of carpet here to set this room apart from the rest of the house.

I know this is dark, but one of my favorite things about this house are all the windows. Every single room has lots of sunshine! I love it! It makes it feel cheerful and open.

We're still working on doors that's why they're all MIA.

This is the kitchen dining area. Shout out to Aaron for hanging that light fixture. It was not easy!

Let's go up stairs...
This is our office. It wont stay completely green like this. We're going to do a high white chair rail around to room to create contrast and make this room feel bigger.

This is the other bedroom that we have set up as a guest room for now. We'll use it as a nursery when that time comes.

This is the extra bathroom. Don't worry we don't like the light blue either with the tile color, it's just what we have for now. Can you see doggy corner in here?
The Master bedroom. I really enjoy having the accent wall in this room.
But my favorite part of this room, again, is the huge window. It's the biggest one in the house and we have a great view. No one will ever build behind us because that's were the city water tank is. We're high enough that at night we can see the entire Salt Lake valley from our window, I like to look at all the city lights. It's also a great spot to watch the sunrise.
Master Bath, all I have to say is...we got it clean! It's a really nice spot now.
Down stairs entertainment room.
We added this walkway of tile from the garage to try to keep the carpet nice.
Lastly, I end with Aaron's handy work. He built me some shelves for the laundry room, and it's helped me a ton. It's the little projects like this that make me step back and look around at all we've done. It really has been a wonderful experience working on this house together and celebrating all the little completions on our to do list. We take turns crossing things off of it. But, we're realizing the list will never end. We both enjoy working on the house and we keep thinking of things we want to do to make it nicer. This weekend we're working on the yard. We're putting in compost for flowerbeds and planting some shrubs. So we have lots of other projects we'll share. Heck, one day we might even frame our basement. I'll have to keep Brooke on speed dial if that day ever comes. Thanks for caring enough to reading this.

Postponed

Sorry, pictures tomorrow. I went to a funeral today and ended up staying much longer than I thought. So sad, my old Sunday school teacher and a good friends father was killed in a car accident. He was only 47 years old, had 8 kids, and was soon to be a grandfather. Life is to short, and so precious! I will be going to Enrichment tonight so I won't have time to post the pictures.

I'm so forgetful

Last post of the day...I hope. I kept thinking there was one more thing I left off.

I'm officially a Substitute teacher for Jordan School District. Boredom got the best of me. I'm hoping Sydney can make it through an 8 hour period alone. We've been trying to ease him into it, but he has struggled a bit. I was really hesitant to be a substitute because it can be exhausting, but I'm thinking this will be a good gig. I can take jobs as they come, if I decide I don't want to work I just don't except a job that day, and it pays pretty well because I'm licensed. Not to mention I don't have to deal with parents, grading, and really unlike full time teaching it's a honest to goodness 8 hour a day work schedule. I'll keep you posted.

I forgot to mention

• My calling is to be the Ward Chorister. I love it! The only hard part is the having perfect attendance all the time. But, even that is a good thing.
  

• This Sunday Aaron and I were both called to be our ward's Young Single Adult Reps. It sounds very involved and I was shocked at how many young singles were in our area. The funniest part for me though was our responsibility to chaperone, because there were maybe 5 of the 30 something singles that were actually younger than me! Yes I laughed and made the 2nd councilor laugh. Keeping track of these people is going to be difficult but I think together we can do it!
  

• We are done with our first phase of unpacking, which means I can promise, cross my heart hope to die, to have before and after pictures of the house for you tomorrow! I'm only a month or so late...sorry.
  

Recent Haps

As I look over this post I'm thinking maybe it should have been called Recent Sydney Haps all of the pictures are of him. We seriously do love our little pup.

Aaron calls me Anastasia when I wear this hat.

While we were out...

While we were in...caught at the scene of the crime.

The two boys in my life.

Sydney likes to be close and he'll go through many uncomfy situations just to be touching you.

Aaron was so proud of his block lettering.

As Aaron mentioned in his post last week we're getting a fence for Sydney, this is phase one of the project. We're hoping that this Thursday we'll have a finished project.

Temper Tantrum Germany Night. I wish I had some Gulash right now. So good! I made B a birthday cake a month late. But, I think the fact that it was a butter yellow cake with chocolate frosting makes up for the lateness.
I love you Baylee Jo!
We're calling this Lost and Found. I've been trying to locate Aaron's graduation pictures for a while and they were tucked away on the computer. We all thought he looked like a Wizard decked out in his Masters Degree gears.