Becoming Homeowners

When we were in the process of buying our house, we came across some challenges. First of all, it was bank-owned, and the bank was not in any sort of hurry to sell it. When we put in our initial offer on Thanksgiving, we were told we would hear back from them by the following Monday. We waited all day on that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and kept on waiting into the next week until we finally heard back from them. It seemed like forever!

Like I said, the bank was super sloooooooooooowwwww at closing the deal. The home had not been lived in for quite some time, so the water and gas were turned off. Because of the type of loan we were getting, the bank had to send someone to come appraise the house, but they couldn't do that until they had the gas and water turned on. I wish I knew what bright mind decided to have the water turned on before the gas.... IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER!! Well, that's what happened and you can guess what happened next. The water froze in the pipes and made them crack.

We had the gas turned on not long after we heard that the water had turned on and started heating up the house. We had the faucets on, hoping the water would start running, praying that by some miracle, the pipes hadn't cracked. We left the heat going and kept checking up on whether the water was running yet or still frozen (we kept shutting it off and on of course so it wouldn't flood the house when we were away). When it finally thawed, we quickly found out that we did have a cracked pipe. The ceiling in the basement was bulging from the weight of the water, so we poked holes to let it out.

Well, we couldn't get it appraised with a broken waterline, and the bank said they would send someone out to fix it... Well, it didn't happen that week, or the next... we could see where this was going and it was going nowhere fast! So, we took initiative again and thanks to Josh's dad (who is amazing at welding), we got it fixed. The only problem now was we had a huge hole in our ceiling... Bummer.

While this was happening, we had moved out of our apartment and into Josh's parents house while we waited to close. Our apartment was on a college campus and because a new semester of school was starting, if we moved after the start of the new year, it would have cost us nearly a month and a half of rent for just a couple weeks of living there! We said no way to that and moved the week after Christmas. Because all of our stuff had to fit in their house along with us, there wasn't a whole lot of living space. His parents were so great to have us there and I'm thankful they were willing to put up with a crowded house for a few weeks. :)

Here we are a year later and we finally have the hole in our ceiling fixed. We were lucky to find a guy to do the mudding that had worked with the person who did it originally. Once we have it painted, you won't even be able to tell there was a hole there. I wish I would have taken more pictures through the process to document it, but I didn't. Oh well. :) The picture below shows how big the hole was that we had to cut out to fix the pipe and put new sheetrock in.

Josh and his Dad spent an evening earlier this year to put the sheetrock in to fill the hole, and got it mudded just a couple weeks ago. Here is a picture of it all mudded. It's hard to tell from the picture, but it looks like the exact texture of the rest of the ceiling. I'm so glad! I could have never done that myself so we're lucky to have found someone that could. All we have to do is paint and it will be good as new.

This is just the first of many projects that we would like to do with our house. Now that I'm out of school (YAY!), I hope to spend more time on painting and getting things the way we want them. I will keep you updated on the progress.

Christmas Day

We had a nice Christmas this year. It was our first in our new house and Tito's first Christmas. I waited to put the presents under the tree until the night before because I wasn't sure what he would do to them without us looking. I can't imagine they'd stay wrapped for very long.

We wrapped his presents because we thought he'd have fun unwrapping them AKA tearing them apart. Well, he wasn't really sure what to do with it. He kept ripping off small pieces of paper and running out of the room like he was in trouble...probably because he usually is in trouble when we catch him ripping up paper.

Well, he liked his new toy bone. Here he is playing with it.

And here he is enjoying food out of his new dog bowls.

We spent the rest of the day being lazy and hanging out with family. Sorry if hearing about a dog's Christmas bored you, but he was the most excited one this year, and since we don't have a kid to spoil yet, you get to hear about Tito. ;) Christmas is a lot different being all grown up and married (I can't believe this was our 3rd Christmas married!) 3 years sounds like a long time but doesn't feel like it's been that long. That's definitely a good thing. :)

Christmas!

It definitely feels a lot more like Christmas this year than it did last year! Last year, we moved out of our apartment the day after Christmas so we didn't do anything to decorate! It didn't feel much like Christmas at all. This year is our first Christmas in our new house so it's our first chance to really make it our own. A couple weeks ago, we went up to the mountains and hiked through snow that came up to our hips to chop down our own Christmas tree! Well, I didn't have much to do with the chopping down part, but it was fun to pick out a real tree and it smelled great around all of the pines and freshly fallen snow. We were completely soaked by the end.

Here it is all lit up and decorated. They are definitely not as full as a tree you would find in a store parking lot, but we definitely got a good one here. The best part is, it only costs $10 for a tree permit! It doesn't get much better than that.

Pumpkin Project

For the past couple weeks, we have been making these cute pumpkins for our Young Women's activities (PS: I am in the YW's presidency and I love it! It's fun being so close in age to the Young Women even though the other leaders like to joke and say I look like I am one of them. One even tried to hand me a handout on dating today during the lesson before she realized I wasn't one of the girls.)

Anyways, I think it is safe to say that this is the first sewing project I've finished in the 2 and a half years we've been married. Decorations of any kind are definitely lacking in our home, so I'm excited to have these for the fall!

Patience

I really love this message from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. The embedded video is a little blurry but you can also see it by clicking here:
Continue in Patience.



"God's promises are not always fulfilled as quickly or in the way we might hope."

I am a teacher...

...well, a student teacher. Most of the people who read this blog (if not all) already know that, but I feel like I'm finally to the point where I can say "I'm a teacher" and not feel like I'm lying to myself. School started this Thursday, so I spent Thursday and Friday in the classes where I will be student teaching. It's fun to see the teachers at work in the first week and pay attention to how they build their procedures and the student/teacher relationship. Until now, I never realized how important those first few days are in setting the tone of the class that will definitely affect the whole rest of the school year!

This conversation happened on day one:

Mrs B: This is Mrs. H, she will be the lead teacher for your class. and Ms. S will usually just be sitting in the back taking notes.

Student: Are they student teachers?

Mrs B: Yes they are student teachers.... raise your hand if you've had a student teacher before (nearly everyone raises their hand).....okay, raise your hand if you hated your student teacher (EVERYONE keeps their hand raised!!!!).

Mrs. B did go on to say that this should be a very different experience than they have had before.... that she went to the University and saw that we were the best and handpicked us for her classroom. I sure hope she's right! I have a lot of work to do if I'm going to convince all of these 13 and 14 year olds not to hate me or my teaching. I'm more concerned that they don't hate my teaching, but if they like me that's definitely a bonus.

The class this happened in is the class that I will be taking over by the end of this week. They are a group of 36 fun, rambunctious adolescents that may or may not care about what I have to teach them about math. So, ready or not here I come! My philosophy right now: Fake it 'til you make it. I may be scared to death and feel like I have no clue what I'm doing. As long as the students don't know that I'm good, right?

I Know a Place...

This weekend I was lucky enough to go to the most beautiful place I have ever been to. Not only is it beautiful for its tall pine trees, granite rocks and mountain scenery, but the spirit of love and peace that is there is what makes Brighton my home away from home. I worked in the kitchen at Brighton Girl's camp for 2 summers and this last weekend was the 2010 Brighton Staff Reunion. It was surreal being there remembering how much this place and the people there have influenced my life for the better in the times when I needed it the most. Here I was again at a very soul-searching, and in-need-of-guidance point in my life. In spite of my doubts, Brighton had exactly what I needed to put things into perspective.

Not only was it great to just be at Brighton, but I got to be there with my sister "Paris" and my mom "Sunshine" who worked there before I did. It was so fun to share this experience with them.

We helped out in the kitchen for lunch on Saturday. It brought back so many fun memories of working in the kitchen. I was surprised that I still kind of knew what I was doing and where things were!

I am so grateful I had the chance to go to Brighton and marvel at this wonderful creation of our Heavenly Father. It is impossible to go there and not feel His love and His hand in all things. I desparately needed this reminder that life is beautiful and everything happens for a reason and we are not the ones in control of what happens. Even though hard times come, they will always turn out for the the best. Two weeks ago today, I was 10 weeks pregnant and I went in for my first doctors appointment. As he was doing the ultrasound, I found out that I had had a miscarriage. It has been an emotional journey since then and I know it still will be for a while. It was such a help to me to just talk to people this weekend who understand what I'm going through and even some who don't, but are so compassionate still. I learned that everyone has their trials and the best thing is to just show that you care about them and want to know how they are feeling. I feel like I have been selfish in my trials in the past. I take all the comfort I can get from people and don't really reciprocate. That is a weakness of mine that I am definitely going to work on changing as I move forward. I have started to see what compassion really means. You don't have to understand exactly what someone is going through in order to show compassion and let them know you really care.

One of the hardest and best things about this weekend was all of the babies that were there. It has been hard for me these last 2 weeks to see babies and hear people talk about babies and pregnancy. I knew there would be a lot of that there so I was prepared for it as much as I could be. It was hard at times to be in the midst of so many babies when I just lost mine, but I was able to talk to people about their babies and be happy for them. I am happy for them, but still sad for myself at the same time. It is a confusing way to feel, but I feel like this experience has made me more able to separate those two emotions. I don't think I'll be perfect at that any time soon, but at least it's getting better.

There is so much that is beautiful and positive in the world! I know that better days are to come for us and I just have to trust in that. Brighton, once again, has been exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. I am forever grateful for the experiences I have had there, the things I have learned and the wonderful people I have met.

2 years

Today is our 2 year anniversary! I can't believe we've already been married for 2 years! It's a good thing the time seems so short. Looking back on the past two years I am amazed and grateful for how much we have accomplished together and I know that I am so blessed to have Josh in my life. I can't wait for what lies ahead for both of us! Happy Anniversary sweetie!

When I grow up...

Recently, I have visited the classroom of the teacher that I will be working with when I student teach in the fall (I'll call her Mrs. B.). I will be team-teaching with a friend and fellow student teacher from my program. We will be working with Mrs. B. this summer to put together our syllabus and curriculum for the classes we will be teaching. Typically, fall student teachers begin 2 or 3 weeks after school has already started, but we will be starting from day 1 as the "real teacher." Mrs. B. said that she doesn't even want the students to know that we're student teachers. This is great, because I think I will get more respect from the students if they see me as their main teacher and not as someone that's in the way of their actual teacher, but I am SCARED TO DEATH! The problem with it is that I have yet to see myself as a teacher, much less how to lead a class from the first week on! I still feel so much like a student that I'm having trouble flipping the roles. I've been out of high school for 3 years and married for nearly 2, but I still feel super young when it comes to these things! Since I see myself this way, I feel that others do too. I'm afraid that the students will see right through me and figure out that they can walk all over me. I guess I don't see myself as "adult" enough to tell "kids" what to do. In the teacher education classes I'm told to be assertive, not passive, to be their teacher, not their friend. I agree with this 100%, but I have trouble making it a reality.

I am hoping with the next 3 months to prepare, I can change my mindset and become a genuine teacher in my own mind. Now enough about my insecurities with teaching, here is a short, humorous, video clip (aroung 11 minutes) about how math should be taught and how it is not taught in the best way in most math classrooms. It was great inspiration to me to do what it takes to get kids excited about math and involved in conversations about it because "math is the vocabulary for your own intuition."

Workin' Hard in the Yard

This past weekend, about 10 trees from our backyard have become this:

and this:

It was a lot of work but it feels great to have it done! This yard has been neglected for some time so there is a lot of catching up to do. This was definitely a good start. About half of the wood in the woodpile was already there, but I think we added our fair share. We can't wait to use it this summer with our new...

...firepit! I have always wanted one of these. I think we'll try it out tonight with some tinfoil dinners. :)

If you look close in the picture, this shows how neglected the yard was. It must not have been mowed for a couple of years so we have little baby maple trees sprouting up all over. We've sure got our work cut out for us, but it sure beats sitting on our butts with nothing to do this summer.

Dear Homework,

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I will only be seeing you for 3 more weeks and then we're through! It has been a long road getting here and we've had our ups and downs but I'm happy to say that our journey together will soon be over. You weren't so bad when you were all about numbers and proofs but lately, the past few months in fact, you have been causing me to reflect and reflect and write what I'm reflecting and reflect some more! The pain this causes day in and day out is irritating. I see the value in reflecting, but come on! It has to end somewhere.

I'm sorry that I haven't shown must interest in you lately, but I think it's because I've been counting down the days until we're through. I thought this count-down would be motivating for me to get rid of you sooner, but it only causes me to procrastinate not having to look at you until the last possible minute.

I look forward to the days where I can wake up and not have to worry about seeing or thinking about you because you will be out of my life for good! It's time to move on so please leave me be for a long, long, long time.

Sincerely,
Erinn

A House, a Mouse and a Dog

Finally I'm getting around to blogging about our new house! We closed in the middle of January and moved right in. We love it! We were so lucky to find this house at this time. It is 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms on .44 acres and worth the price! (It doesn't hurt that we're getting a nice tax bonus too). Even though it was a crazy process buying a bank-owned home, having pipes break and waiting for things to get rolling, it was so worth it!

Of course, owning a house doesn't come without it's problems. This problem likes to run in the ceiling above our room in the middle of the night. I've woken up a couple of times to the sound of a mouse scurrying above my head. We had some sticky traps that we put out to catch it with no success! Oh, the mouse sure got stuck on it but it got away, leaving behind his hair and other presents for us. So we bought some killer traps and the next day we had caught a mouse! Yes!! Only, this one had all of it's hair, so unfortunately I think we have at least one little friend left in the house. It's been a couple of days since catching the first one and the traps are still empty so wish us luck on catching those little buggers!

Well, on a funner note, we had so much extra space in the house, we decided to get a puppy! We picked him up a couple of weeks ago and he is 2 months old as of yesterday. He is a fiesty little guy and loves to be in the middle of everything (especially if chewing or biting is involved). He's a Miniature Pinscher and his full name is Titonius Whisky King of 38 Special. We call him Tito. :) The first week, I felt like I was constantly cleaning up his pee every time I turned around, but Josh's mom found some wonderful puppy pads that work wonders at training puppies. Apparently there is some sort of scent in them that dogs recognize that they will keep coming back to when they need to relieve themselves. I'm so glad it's working! (Now if we could only get him to use it when going #2).

Tito's new shirt from Josh's sister

Well, that's what we've been up to in a nutshell. School and work are exactly as you could imagine. I will have more pictures of the inside of the house later on of what we've been painting and adding since we've moved in. I bet you can't wait ;)