Grand Canyon and Vegas

Well hello there! Long time no blog.

I've got a few different things to post about, but I'll start with our trip we took last month!

We loved our trip to the Grand Canyon! In fact we want to go back a couple times and accomplish two goals: Hiking from one rim to the other, and white water rafting down the river. Hopefully we'll get around to it sometime!

It was way more beautiful than I anticipated it being! And of course I cherish the times like that when I get to spend them with the love of my life!

After the grand canyon we stopped by the Hoover Dam so we can say we've seen it. It was large.

Next we hung around Vegas for a night and day. We're not gamblers but Phil did play black jack for about 20 mins. He came into it with $20 and left with $110. Not bad. 

On my next post I'll show you the ottoman that Phil and I built and upholstered for our living room!

All done!

Well...my show officially finished it's run last weekend. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed being a dancer. I'll probably do more at this theater. It seems to be the best community theater I've come across down here in Houston! They're having auditions for The Sound of Music next month and I'm considering auditioning for that! It's basically been my goal since I was little to play Liesl. The only thing keeping me from doing the show would be that it runs during Thanksgiving, so I wouldn't be able to go back to KS. Hmmmmm...choices.

Do you know what else I'm all done with? Being a trophy wife....at least for the time being. (Side Note: a police helicopter has been circling my house and neighborhood for 30 minutes now...I'm half expecting a criminal to burst through my window.) I know I briefly mentioned that I got a job before but I felt I should elaborate.

I'm the activity coordinator at The Friendship Center. It's wonderful! I am basically running my center. I plan all of the activities, work with volunteers and the clients, do lots of paperwork, schmooze people into donating things for us AND spend lots of time with the clients!!!! I went to college knowing I wanted to work with seniors and I left thinking I would love to be an activity director of some sort! Well, here I am...and it really is the perfect job for me! My clients crack me up and even my "problem children" as I call them are bearable. They tend to be my bingo players and they definitely have opinions. But we'll work through that!


In other non-related news...

Phil and I are planning a trip to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas! I'm super excited! We're going to camp at the canyon and hike around for a few days and then spend a day in Vegas. 

In preparation I've started running again. I remembered how I felt hiking in Monterrey, Mexico. It was something like this...

I'm going to attempt to avoid that a bit this time. When I had been running and hiked the mountains in Santa Barbara, CA it was more like this....

I'll let you know how it goes!

Off and Running

I thought I'd share some pictures of a dress rehearsal of Oklahoma!

Lets start with my first scene:

This is before Will sings "Kansas City"

And here's the end of Kansas City. I laugh because we on the bench pose at the end like we've been dancing the whole time, but we sure haven't done a thing! We're great ambiance though.

Here I am getting ready to twirl around and be snotty to Laurey in Many a New Day.

But I get over my snottiness and dance with her in the same song.

This is part of the 15 minute "Dream Ballet". 

More ballet. My poor leg would sure love to go higher.

This is the fight scene in "The Farmer and the Cowman". I'm really happy about my role in jumping on her back like a spider monkey.

A little dance break in Farmer and the Cowman.

I put this picture up because I like the big bow on the back of my dress.

I'm being snotty again.

Saying goodbye to the leads at the end of the show!

I'm happy with how the show has turned out. I think it looks beautiful and everyone is doing a pretty good job! I think I'll try to do more shows with this theatre, they've been fun to work with! 

In other news, this lady got a job. I'm an activity coordinator at a branch of The Friendship Center. It's a senior resource group that does Meals on Wheels, congregate meals, and opens up an activity hall in 6 different locations for seniors to come eat lunch and have fun! I really like my job so far. It's still a tad overwhelming, since I've never had a management level position before, but I think I'll be fine! 

Things related to eating...

As the house is S L O W L Y coming together I get more and more excited about how it's turning out! I'm a big fan of owning a home despite the amount of work and costliness of it! 

Anyways we now have a happily growing garden and a dining room to brag about! 

Here's our happy garden! 

We've got tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, grapes (those will take a couple years), basil, rosemary, chives, watermelon and cantaloupe! 

I've learned that weeding is miserable. I thought my fingers were going to fall off and I didn't even finish. Ugh...there were also a lot of spiders scampering around on me. Oh well, I'll be happy when I get to eat things. 

We finally got a dining table! Now we have real seating for 6 people! I feel like a big kid! 

I'm not going to lie, we got the table and chairs from Walmart. But they're solid wood and most of all cheap! I think it looks much nicer than $250! 

Kasie's painting found it's home on the wall again! There's not a lot of decoration, but I like it like that! 

So now I officially  have 2 decorated rooms! We'll just disregard the amount of painting left to do!

Thanks mom for the pretty bathroom!

My mom came to visit this last weekend and I had so much fun! I really like her!

Part of her reasoning for coming down (at least to my step-dad) was to help us with the house! So we decided we'd tackle the master bathroom while she was here! It was great because I probably would have saved it for last, and who knows when I would have gotten around to it. But, now that it's done I'm really happy it got bumped up on the list!

Here's the before picture again:

and after:

We painted it a light blue that coordinates with the bedroom. I like it...the color feels clean to me.

Then as an early birthday present mom bought some decorations to help make it happier! 

I really like the flowers!

We found the poster at Michaels for $3.50. However a frame eluded us. I'm not sure what to do about that, but for now it's stuck to the wall with magnets. 

Don't mind that we only have two lightbulbs. 

The vanity. I like the double sink. Phil also fixed the cabinets and then I promptly bend one again. whoops. 

That's it! I like it a lot and I like my mom even more!

I hope everyone had a great easter weekend!

House Picture Smorgasbord

Alright, I know I've kept everyone waiting, but I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of the house when it looked like a pit. So after a little cleaning (as much as I've been able to do so far) I've decided I can finally show off the house a little.

So here we are inside the front door. Notice the yellow is gone. We went with two tones of gray.

Take a look up from the entrance to the second floor

To the left we have the "library" as we like to be snotty and call it. This room was completely wallpapered and was a nightmare to do. But I'm happy. I also chose a green color that you can't see too well in the picture for the walls.

To the right is the formal dining room. It's also green but the lighting makes it look much lighter than it really is. 

Now walk down the hall and the kitchen is on the left! Complete with new fridge that we bought, AND a stainless steel sink to replace the ugly and dirty white porcelain one.

A view of the stairs and hall to the entrance.

Our furniture-less living room. We'll eventually fix that.

the dining nook with the door to the backyard on the right, laundry in the middle, and craft room on the left.

CRAFT ROOM! I love the built in cabinets! Oh and we replaced the carpet in the whole house! Now there isn't questionable yellow and brown spots all over the floor!

The backyard from the porch!

Here's the lake from the backyard! Notice the path around the lake! We love it!

The back of our house!

Okay, back inside. Here's a random view of the master bedroom. Also blue, because it's my favorite color.

Our messy bathroom that I have neither painted nor organized yet. But the closet is huge and great!

Now the view from upstairs to the living room.

The one room successfully converted to a guest room! It is quite empty at the moment. There's another room across from this one that's not pictured.

The only bathroom upstairs that is painted and cleaned.

Hallway to the other two bedrooms, bathroom, and media room.

Here's the little boys room! We're going to leave the paint and see if we happen to have a little boy! (don't get excited, I'm not pregnant)

The spongebob bathroom. Unfortunately for spongebob he's going to be painted over.

The little girls room. Also going to be painted over. It'll probably end up being an exercise room.

the media room! It's pretty much all of our apartment stuff! Eventually I will make drapes for the big window!

And there you have it! I'll put up more picture when I get it decorated more and get furniture! 

Phew! It's been stressful but fun to work on the house! I'm just glad we're all moved in and can take the projects on at a slower pace now!