More to do, less time to do it. Bring it!

It has been a while since I last blogged and much has happened!

Heather and I have been trying to increase our income lately. We have become the music directors for our church, Heather is now working at Sears, takes serveys for money, and we both are keeping a small private studio for our respective instruments. In addition, Heather is the secretary for our HOA (unpaid). Things are really going to ramp up pretty soon I think. There won't be a lot of time for vacation, but we are going to try to pay down our student loans so we can do a lot of that later.

The house is good and such a nice investment! We are "house poor," but there is a bunch of low cost things to do around here; we just need to find the time and energy to do it all. We are STILL working on the furniture refurbishing, the garage needs some work and we are STILL moving dirt out of our back yard. This next week is going to be pshyco with work: concerts, lessons, choir rehearsal, and Heather will be working mostly through the week at Sears in the evenings. Needless to say, we won't be getting much done in the next week. We'll see how long we can keep this up. When we are busy, we tend to get more done. With Dawg, things are a little tricky, which is why I haven't gotten an extra part time job. There is so much to be done, I find myself making multiple to-do lists to get it all organized. That's just what I do...

We both just got done with our Veteran's Day concerts. Both went extremely well. Lots of people were happy with the program we put on. It is always nice to see our students do well. It is nice to get a concert out of the way. Now we are both concentrating on the upcoming winter concert. It is coming so fast! In just another week, Thanksgiving break will be coming up (although Heather doesn't get much of a break....I'll be doing all the housework and cleaning to help her out). After that, just a couple weeks later will be our concerts! It's alsways scary to think about the time line. The first half of the year always flies by.

We'll try to keep everyone updated with our lives. And we'll try not to wait months at a time:)

Cheers!
Sam

Ramblings of a crazy person!

In the past, Sam and I have either been in a marching band, or teaching one, for the past 12 or thirteen years. That means that between the two of us, we have a combination of about 20 years experience! Craziness! Anyhow...this year, neither one of us are involved in marching band. We just didn't pursue it this year, thinking that it would be nice to be less busy for one more year before the possibility of starting a family comes to fruition. That being said, we certainly don't want to lose touch with what is happening in the marching realm because eventually Sam WILL be teaching high school if we have it our way, so staying up-to-date is very important. Tomorrow night we are going to go brave the wind and rain and cold to see finals for the Spokane show. It will be fun to see all of the local high schools we have been involved with out there battling it out for the evening's awards. It will also be really fun for me to see my brother Josh, as he is not only the drum line instructor, but also a first time drill writer for a local high school.

In keeping with theme of not being busy, I just changed that. Yesterday I interviewed with Sears to have an evening/weekend extra job through the holidays as a seasonal employee. Apparently, they thought I was great and hired me on as a regular instead of seasonal! Who know how long I will last, but life just got busier.

To take it one step further, Sam and I will be heading up music for the 8 am Mass from now on, as paid church staff. Not great pay, but pay. The music has been...well...less than desirable lately and there have been complaints to our Priest, so he asked us if we would take on the task of fixing it. We agreed, so I am now holding down a teaching job and two part time jobs and Sam is holding down his teaching job and a part time job. We might be crazy. BUT, in keeping with Dave Ramsey's saying: "If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else." We are making a moderate effort to pay off some of student loans faster than we are seeing them dissipate. It is so disheartening to see more of our monthly bills go to interest than to the principal. SO...extra jobs = extra principal = more fun for us later...but sooner! :)

Then, to answer the burning question (I think Marisa just addressed this in her blog, too): we can start thinking about a family. We would LOVE to have kids now. Really we would. And, it COULD happen. But, in the meantime, please be patient with us as you await any little one's arrival. We want it, and it will happen. Just probably not yet!

So, while we work and keep ourselves super busy (I think the last time I was as busy as I am going to be now was high school senior year!), we will make progress and continue working toward our future. Yay!

Cheers!
Heather

Catch up!

Oh my goodness! We haven’t posted on here since the end of June?! Boy did summer go fast!

The Schlaich’s have been busy bees since then…I’ll recap:

At the beginning of July, shortly after our first anniversary, we went to Austin and Dallas to visit Sam’s Aunt Jane and Uncle Jim and my friend Amanda. We had a blast! Austin is an awesome city! One of the highlights was spending time with our cousins and Aunt and Uncle on their boat on Lake Austin both days we were there. While with Amanda and her boyfriend Jon, we toured Dallas and got to see the JFK memorial, several music halls, and Jon’s college (the highlight of THAT was the music library! It was huge!!!). Texas is hot, hot, HOT! We definitely would not recommend going in July during record high temperatures, but we had a lot of fun and look forward to our next visit, whenever that might be.

After Texas, the plan was to do a lot of camping but, as life usually goes, plans changed because I still hadn’t heard back on whether or not I was hired back to my job. It closed at the end of June, and I ended up not hearing anything until I got called to interview at the beginning of August. So, instead of camping, we worked on the backyard. The fence is done, but not the side fences. We have a temporary fence up until probably next spring, as building a fence cost more than we had anticipated. We still have a pile of dirt and some larger river rock, but Sam’s parents will be taking that off our hands and lining THEIR fence will it next week. We have a forest of weeds to pull and then some leveling to do before winter hits (it’s on its way folks!). It really bummed us out that we couldn’t do as much camping as we hadn’t wanted to, but we are happy to report that…

I got my job back! After interviewing in the beginning of August and waiting another 3 weeks to find out I was a finalist and had to do a one-on-one interview with the new superintendant, I was FINALLY hired and started “teacher week” on my birthday. So far, I am loving having my own classroom, love that I already know and get along with the staff and my principal, and LOVE the kids! I feel like I can finally settle in somewhere and make a home for myself in my career. And Sam is happy that I am not complaining about subbing anymore! And we are both thrilled that we can finally start being more financially stable and get back on our Dave Ramsey plan since we will actually be able to budget.

Once I knew I had a job and didn’t have to wait for a phone call, we were able to go camping. Our first camping trip was with the Schlaich family (Jim and Barb, Matt, Bri, their foreign exchange student Daow, and baby on board, Riss and Danny, Steph, Greg, Aidan, and baby Jacob, ourselves, and 3 dogs later…) over Labor Day Weekend to Ike Kinswa state park on the west side of the state. It was nice to continue the tradition from the year before! Our second trip was this last weekend. We tried to go camping up north at a very off the beaten path lake, but our phone gps stopped working (of COURSE…the car gps machines work off of satellites…cell phone work off of cell towers…grrr) so we had to turn back and try plan b. Plan b also failed, as the bridge that would have taken us directly to the campground on the other side of a river was under construction and we would have had to drive 40 miles around get to it. So we set off looking for ANY campground and found a great one about 15 miles south of the Canadian border. We did a lot of resting, which was wonderful after our first week back at school.

We are into the second month of school now and I realized yesterday that I only have seven more choir rehearsals until our winter concert!!! Ridiculous. The next couple of weeks will be a whirlwind of getting the house ready for winter with gutter install, getting rid of the rest of the dirt and rock in the backyard, and winterizing outside faucets/sprinklers, etc., digging deep into school, and then beginning the inside projects.

To wrap up the post…Sam is doing great and is doing well at school. I am loving having my job back. And, more exciting than us…Dawg is such a wonderful addition to our little family. He is so loyal and we love him SO much. We couldn’t imagine our lives without him (thank you Leslie!!!)!

We hope all is well with everyone! I will try and be more regular in our posting now that we have INTERNET!!! YAY!!!

Cheers!

Heather (and Sam)

Stayed tuned...

We are having a computer built for us by my brother that will hopefully be complete this weekend and we are supposed to get Internet by Monday, or a week from that at latest. That means a ridiculously long blog post to catch everyone up on the summer/early fall Schlaich happenings!!!

-Heather

Reflections

Greetings, blog readers!

What a year it has been! I titled this blog "reflections" for several reasons. The first reason is much more obvious...as of Monday Sam and I will have been married for one year and I felt that it is a great time to reflect on all of the wonderful things that have happened for us this past year. The second is to look back at some of what we said we would accomplish and reflect on whether or not we actually did those things we said we would do! :)

This year we have accomplished so much. Obviously getting married was huge, and beyond that we had many other firsts, too! After much trouble and hassle, we purchased our first home together. Stressful doesn't even begin to describe the process, but the rewards of being homeowners have been amazing. We have been working HARD on our back yard and getting it fenced in and are so close to being done with that project. The late nights recently spent painting boards are actually really fun knowing that we are doing something to raise the value of the home, make it ours, and give Dawg somewhere to play freely.

At the end of May, Sam and I made another big purchase, a 2009 Ford Escape. We love it! And we finally sold his car last weekend! So we are down to two, functioning vehicles that we feel safe in and take pride in caring for.

We really wanted to get a dog, which was part of our motivation for getting a fence put up. Things happened a little faster than we originally planned, as a good family friend, Leslie, had the need to make space for more dogs-in-training. And so enters "Dawg!" Dawg was supposed to be a peanut allergy detection dog, but did not pass the training (he gets very skittish with loud sounds - ie gunfire, fireworks - and gets distracted from the search). So, instead of going to a family in need, he came to us, perfectly trained, too smart for his own good (and ours!), and SO loving and loyal. Dawg is the perfect first dog and has been an amazing addition to our little family. And great practice for (one day) having a child! Really...he is like a kid...we love it!

One of our goals has been to make sure to make a somewhat major trip each year. This year, we will be headed to Texas (next week in fact!) to visit Sam's Aunt, Jane, and my very good friend, Amanda. We are so excited and think we must be crazy for going to Texas in the middle of July...not to mention they are having record high temps right now...oye! We were also going to go to Colorado and visit a bunch of National Parks on the way, but that trip has fallen through. Sam was going to begin grad school through Alamosa State University, but, as the program is young, it got cancelled for the year because of lack of enrollment. This was kind of sad news, but will make it easier on our pocketbooks until next year.

Another big goal of ours this year was to get closer to being debt free. This is a mixed bag. As we reflect, we know that we have paid some things off. My car, a student loan, credit card, but we also know that we added debt...a car. We still use our debit card instead of living the cash only lifestyle, but we seem to spend less that way in general. We are no where near where we had hoped to be on everything at this point, but are hopeful that with me gaining fulltime employment (still saying our prayers in this department), things will move much quicker for us.

In the area of our health we are neither here nor there. With budgets getting tighter after the fence and trips, we think this will improve. We having taken a liking to riding our bikes and plan to do so for EVERYTHING (grocery trips, etc) for the remainder of summer to help us get in shape and save money. Legs of steel here we come!!!

In all, life is great. God has blessed us in so many ways and we are as happily married as we were one year ago! Thanks to all of our friends and family for a great year!!!

~Heather

We're grown ups now!

Well we did it. Sam and I took yet another leap into adulthood this weekend and made our first joint car purchase. After a TON of research and way too much shopping around, we purchased a 2009 Certified Preowned (restored to factory condition with a warranty) Ford Escape. Several things happened that we never thought would:

1. We bought a Ford. I am a Chevy girl. This is huge.
2. We bought a used car. I vowed never to buy used again, however the certified Preowned made it okay.
3. On Sam's side of things, he bought a newer car than he ever thought he would.

Crazy stuff! Last night we drive it around a bit for fun and feel so spoiled! It is a great car that will be much safer for us on our big trip this summer and also safer for future children. Now we have to decide whether or not to sell Sam's old car or keep it as a commuter. Well see.

The other funny part of all this is that last time Katie came to visit we got married and started looking at houses to buy. This time we bought a car. So Katie has decided that she has to come back again because the next major life event is having a baby! I suppose we will just have to see about that one! :)

But for now, we will enjoy our home and car and hopefully soon a dog. Cheers to adulthood!

Retaining Wall Status: Done:)

 The retaining wall is pretty much done! See those big boulders? First I had to expose them because they were covered with yards of dirt. The term "dirt" is used loosely, as it was mostly small rocks. After I exposed the first two rows, the top row had to be moved into place by hand. There are some good 300 pound+ rocks in there. Luckily I had some much needed help for that.

Behind the boulder retaining wall I left space for cinder blocks. I will sink 4x4 fence posts into the cinder blocks and ground to give the fence more support while giving the yard above us a mini retaining wall as well. Underneath the cinder blocks, Heather and I will put crushed basalt for draining and settling purposes.

At the base of the boulder retaining wall, we will put more crushed basalt for drainage.

The fence will be pressure treated 4x4's for the posts and treated 2x4 for the supports. We will use ceder planks to finish it up.

The hard work is done. Now the detail work begins: leveling off the ground, laying the basalt, putting up the posts and finishing the fence. We still have to do side fencing, but after this, that will be easy-peasy.

It is a lot of fun getting to be able to do this stuff. I am lucky to have a great family to help get the physical work done. Without them, at the very least, these boulders would not be where they are now.

Off to do some more work!

Ciao!
Sam

Random thoughts of the night...

Sam is at jazz band and we haven't posted any updates for awhile, so here are some thoughts!

* Progress is coming, albeit slowly on the backyard. It truly is overwhelming to look at. The wall is officially dug out. Now we (meaning Sam and his Dad mostly) are moving a row of rocks down from the neighbors yard, building up the wall higher. Then we are placing cinder blocks to retain the grass in her yard. Inbetween the rock wall and the cinder blocks, we will place fence posts and then back fill with dirt. If that doesn't sound like enough work already, then comes the fence and then the yard...the yard which right now has piles of dirt interspersed with rock/gravel. We plan on sifting that out before we determine whether or not we will have to purchase top soil. Wish us luck!

* The front yard is our break from the back. For now, we are just trying to maintain what is already there. Weeding rock beds, pruning plants, thatching the grass (talk about back-breaking labor), mowing, and figuring out the sprinkler system have been our projects there. Yesterday's project was the sprinkler system...that took about 2 hours, but we think we have it figured out now. So far...no leaks or busted pipes...knock on wood. Just one blocked head, and that is a cheap fix! Now if only it will stop raining so we have the need to water!

* Inside we have been pretty unproductive...if not destructive! It feels so nice to get outside, and we have been so busy with end-of-the school year stuff, that the inside of the house has been sorely neglected...laundry, vacuuming, dishes...seem to be put more and more on the back burner. This weekend, while Sam was outside, I began the process of catching up, which continued today, and will probably continue into tomorrow, too.

*Outside of working on the house, we were able to get out this weekend and go fishing on opening day. Friday we spent the night with Josh and Dad in the trailer out at the lake and then got up bright and early to go fishing. I hold the honor this year of catching the first fish, but did not catch any "keepers" all day. Sam and Dad each caught several and then Mom came out and caught the Opening Day Tournament winner: a beautiful 3.7 lb brown trout! It was fun to watch! And she won an $800 all-expenses paid fishing trip for two!

*As for work, things are good. Sam is bogged down but almost done with a few weeks of state testing and teaching PE and history instead of music. He is looking forward to the end of that. I just wrapped up a first/second grade program. So cute! Hopefully I will get to stay at Lincoln Heights next year and will do a bigger, more theatrical music production.

*Lastly, this fall it looks like our lives will be getting even busier as Sam is looking into starting a Masters program at Adams State University in Alamosa, CO. It is a fully online, accredited program through the school Tracy, my CA flute teacher works at. Tuition is cheaper than EWU and it only takes two years. He is very excited about the prospects this program presents and is really looking forward to being back in school. I am VERY jealous, but will patiently wait my turn and focus on being a supportive wife!

I think that about catches us up on the Schlaich happenings. Maybe one day we will be more regular in our postings :)

~Heather

SUN!

I just wanted to announce that the sun is shining! Kind of. Well it was. Now it is kind of cloudy.

Regardless, in keeping with the tradition of the origin of this blog, I intend on going for a bike ride today. I recently went to the doc and we talked about what I need to do to be healthy so that we can have healthy children. The verdict: I need to lose about 40 pounds and then we will have a low risk pregnancy. Easy? No. Not at all. I love food. I think that is my biggest issue right now. That and not being active. Just when I think I have found a fun way to work out (the track meet game for the kinect is killer!), I reinjure my ankle and have to be in a walking cast for a week with it wrapped for any long walks, etc. for several after that. SO, a bike ride it will have to be for now, and less eating!

If the health of our future children are not motivation enough, then I am a lost cause.

New experiences for the Schlaichs!

This weekend was wonderful! Sam was on the tail-end of his Spring Break and I was at the beginning of mine! A couple of weeks ago I was reading the Spokane Public Schools staff newsletter and there was an all call for a very unique experience: hosting two Japanese students from the Mukigawa Ft. Wright Womens Institute for a weekend. We talked about it and thought it would be a great learning experience. And it truly was!

Friday night we picked up Rieko and Mizuki, 19 year old students from Japan who are studying English. They are in the United States for 4 months and the schools sponsors "Homestay Weekend" so that they can experience a normal American family's weekend life. Most families are THE American family: a mom, a dad, and a few kids. Obviously we aspire to be that one day, but for now, it is just the two of us, certainly not old enough to be a "Homestay Mom" or "Homestay Dad." Instead, we turned the experience into what a young American couple does on the weekend, and established more of a friend relationship with these two amazing young women. It worked out rather well!

Friday night was a little tense as we worked around language barriers and the girls got more comfortable with staying in our home. They looked around our house and were excited about how big and new it was compared to homes in Japan. To them, we seemed rich! HA! To kick off the weekend, we decided the most American food we could possibly have for dinner was BBQ, so we went to Texas Roadhouse. Peanut shells on the floor and animals on the wall was definitely new for them. When we got home, Rieko and Mizuki dressed me in traditional Japanese clothing. I must saw, even with Sam chuckling, I thoroughly enjoyed playing dress-up again! You are never too old! And the garments were so beautiful!!!
 We looked at pictures of Japan and their families and then looked at some of our pictures from summer vacations and our wedding before going to bed.

On Saturday morning, we had a big breakfast of eggs and pancakes before taking a drive (one of Sam and my favorite weekend activities) up to Mt. Spokane to see the snow. Unfortunately it was raining, but we enjoyed hot chocolate at the lodge while watching the skiers and snowboarders come out of the fog down the hill. Rieko and Mizuki expressed an interest in seeing wildlife, so to make sure that happened, we took them to Cabelas and showed them the "dead animal mountain" and aquarium. For lunch we went to Sam's parents' house and had a delicious lunch of chili and cornbread. Mizuki and Rieko seemed to really like the cornbread, especially because it was sweet! The afternoon was full of shopping at the mall, where we learned that Hollister is much cheaper in the US than it is in Japan. For dinner, Rieko and Mizuki made a traditional Japanese meal for us. I was nervous at first, especially because when I think of Japanese food I think of sushi and I do not eat seafood...and one of the pictures on one of the packages they brought with them had fish eggs in it...but, alas, the meal was delicious, with rice, beef and potatoes, and soup! I THINK I can make the beef and potato dish. After dinner we made origami and a "teruterubouz" - or snow boy - made out of kleenex to ward off the rain. We were all much more comfortable with each other by the end of Saturday evening an were learning so much from each either!

Sunday morning, the girls expressed an interest in going to church with us. At first this was a very exciting thought, but then we remembered that it was Palm Sunday and things would not be normal and it would be an extra long Mass because the entire Passion was going to be read. Rieko and Mizuki insisted that we did take them. So we did :). We explained as much as we could in as simple terms as we could think of. It was difficult! At the end of the Mass, they didn't think we were crazy so I guess that is a good thing! We went out to brunch and then drove up Legacy Ridge in Liberty Lake to look at the TRUE rich homes! The girls were in awe over the size of the houses and the size of the yards. Our impression is that houses in Japan are very small and are close together. Then we went to my parents' house for lunch. The awe and wonder in things we take for granted is amazing to me. My Dad's badge hangs on the wall and Mizuki was seemingly mystified by it. Sam and I were exhausted by this point so we went home and set up the X-Box Kinnect (which they had never seen) and chilled while they played for awhile. For dinner, we had steak and potatoes au gratin and then just hung out and talked about the differences in culture and language. The most striking conversation we had was about religion. They explained that religion is not common in Japan and that they had never heard of Jesus. While I am no religious nut, my faith is very important to me, as it is to Sam. This saddened us so much to hear! How do you explain how wonderful and amazing it is to believe in Jesus and the Gospel to someone who has never even heard of him?! We did our best to be as concrete with the message as possible without preaching and I think we succeeded. I do believe that everyone has a right to choose their religion and I did not want to force information on them, but it still makes me sad that they do not know faith.

When it was time to take Rieko and Mizuki back to their dorm, I think we were all stalling and wishing we had more time. For one last hurrah, we took them up the South Hill to the lookout point over the city. It was beautiful and a wonderful end to the weekend. When we dropped the girls off at their dorm, they hugged us, told us they loved us, and made us promise we would see them again before they go back to Japan in May. we couldn't be happier to see them again. We were surprised when they started to cry, almost to the point of sobbing! We will definitely be seeing them again before they go, hopefully more than once!

We enjoyed and learned so much from this experience and I hope we get the opportunity to participate in a Homestay Weekend with MFWI. We hope that maybe some of you will take the opportunity as well. These weekends happen three times a year and the students - and you - will never be the same!

Thanks for reading this extra long post - it is my spring break now, so I am sure there will be more, shorter, ones to come!

~Heather

Wet Windows

I was so excited to work outside today on the backyard. I am on Spring Break, I am ready to go...and there is a steady downpour outside. And that is the forecast for the whole week. So, instead, I will try to get some stuff done inside the house and garage.

The house is coming along. IKEA and Craigslist have been good to us, both cleaning house of things we don't need/want anymore and decorating our house and making it functional. It is exciting to think about summer and everything we will be able to do around here. First is the retaining wall and fence out back. That is what I was going to start working on today. We want a dog really bad, so that is what is driving us. That and the fact that our back door stares into the front another home. Privacy is nice to have. Also, painting the interior of the house is on the docet as well. We're painting the whole house the color that you have seen in the earlier post. It will warm the house up and give it a little personality.

Busy, busy! Or at least hope to be. Talk to ya'll soon.

Sam
 

You can't see it, but that is RAIN!

Time flies when we're having fun!

Greetings Readers!

Sam hasn't posted in over a month and I haven't posted in even longer than that, so I figured I might as well jump on the train and get goin' with it!

So much has happened since Sam's last past in February...here's the run down:

We successfully unpacked our entire house and had an Open House/House Warming Party on March 3rd. It went wonderfully! We had 25 people in our dining room and living room enjoying good wine, cheese, and great conversation. It was so nice to see everyone and share our new home with family and friends. Thanks to all who came! If you couldn't...no worries! We love to entertain and will have anyone and everyone over soon and often! We have a guest bedroom, too!

Speaking of guest bedroom, Matt and Bri stayed the night after the party so they didn't have to drive back to Usk so late. We had a great time with them...Sam and Matt enjoyed playing video games (a past time I do not share great joy in, so it was nice for Sam to have someone to play with!) and Bri and I had some good girl time looking through cupboards, etc. talking about organization, something we all seem to need more of!

We have had some decent weather lately so we ventured into our abyss of a backyard. It is small, but it will pack quite the punch financially and physically to get it in shape to enjoy it and house a family pet! The small hill that leads to the neighbors front yard apparently was a retaining wall made of boulders. We are sure it looked quite nice before the construction works moved dirt over the top of it and knocked some of it down...Needless to say that will be our big spring project: clear dirt and rocks, rebuild retaining wall, and build a fence. THEN maybe plant grass. We will  be having an old CV buddy of Sam's coming over to look at the mess and help us figure what to do, how to do it safely, and how to do it while staying within our budget. Ha! We'll see. He owns a contracting business and does that kind of stuff for a living, and those CV buddies are kind of like a brotherhood...they stick together and help each other out. Let's hope that is the case! We could sure use some help with that yard!

This weekend we went over to Seattle to meet our new nephew, Greg and Steph's newest addition, Jacob. He is adorable and such a good baby! Only cries when he is hungry! Not even for a poopy diaper. I got to hold him quite a bit, which I appreciated so much! He was so cuddly! I wasn't in the "Schlaich Picture" when Aiden was born, so it is nice to be able to start from the beginning with this one! Sam better watch out! So many babies or soon-to-be babies in close proximity! :)

We also got to see Marisa and Danny while we were over in Seattle and we had a nice night after the kiddos were asleep celebrating St. Patty's Day and enjoying each others company.

This last week seemed really long to both of us. We are both enjoying work, but there comes a time when everyone needs a rest. That time has certainly come! Lucky for Sam, he has a partial week this week and then its Spring Break! For me...two more full weeks. Yes, that's right. We don't get our Spring Break at the same time. Really a bummer, but Sam will get a bunch of work down on the house (*hint hint*) and then when I am on break I can do lots of Spring cleaning without being distracted!

In between our Spring Breaks we will be hosting two 19 year old Japanese students who are studying at the Mukigawa Ft. Wright Institute in Spokane. They stay in the United States for three months, taking classes in English. Once a session, the students get to do a Homestay weekend with a family from America. While we don't have kids and are not old enough to be their parents, we think this will be a great experience for us and them! Communication is a little difficult, but we will make it work and I'm sure will learn just as much or more from they as they are looking to learn from us!

We hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the nicer weather that has been sporadically showing its face!

Cheers!
Heather

New Home, New Life, Happy Wife:)

Yes. We are still here blog fans! I am aching all over, I can't stop coughing, I am "weezing," a headache is coming on....yup...I worked out. For the first time in a long while. To bring this blog full circle, I ran a little over 1 1/2 miles at a "decent" clip...meaning, a decent clip for someone who hasn't gone for a jog, let alone work out, for several months. I survived! Heather rode her bike along with me to help the cause. I'm going to make a shirt!

It's been a while so here is an update. We are in our new home! It is amazing. We couldn't help but put a little touch of our own in our new home, so we painted a wall:) We'll post more pictures of the finished product and exterior soon!

As of now, we are just unpacking the last boxes (of books....so many books), and organzing everything. We're brainstorming on how to make our living space the most efficiant and livable. We could certainly use some new stuff to make this work a little better, but that will have to wait a few months. That IKEA decorating philosophy certainly does come in handy.

Talk to you ALL soon:)

Sam

Just Kidding!

I was just editing a post from yesterday that discussed how we were supposed to get keys today when my computer decided to be stupid and delete it as I was typing. SO here was the update.

We are not moving in today. We are not getting the keys today. It is a ridiculously long story, but TOMORROW we are supposed to get the keys.

Yea. Right.

Drum Roll Please...

Sam and I will be moving into our new house THIS WEEK! We do not know which day...but we DO know it will be before the coming weekend! Relief? Oh yea! Elation? Mmhmm! *Sigh*

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

What a fantastic holiday season! Friends, family and food:)

This new year, we have decided on our resolution. (drum roll...) Money! It sounds fun, right? Well, we are jumping on Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover to shore up our finances and become DEBT FREE! This will be VERY tough for us because we are not in a very difficult spot. We are not necessarily living paycheck to paycheck, and we have fun when we feel like it. Therefore, pushing ourselves to stay with this isn't a necessity for us, just something that will better our financial lives.

From the onset, we have been pretty concious of our money and have saved when we needed to (i.e. paying for our wedding with cash and not putting it on the credit card). However, when we could save money or put it toward paying off student loans, we would much rather grab a bite to eat at a nice restarurant. We love our food! The hard part of this is going to be not spending frivolously, even though we arn't in such a position where we can't.

I bought the Total Money Makeover (TMM) book and started reading through it. The goal is to "live like no one else, so you can live like no one else." In several "baby steps," the idea is to pay of all debt, create a large emergency fund, invest smartly, and live without any financial hardships for the rest of our lives. Sound good? It does to us, so we decided to take part.

Although Mr. Ramsey says we need to completely invest ourselves in the process, we feel we can avoid the "suffering" part and take it easy, spread it out, and eventually reach our goals. We'll reacces in a couple of months and see how it is going. Already though, just creating a budget and planning, we are already on track to pay off half of our debt (number of debts, not money) by the end of October. It is a pretty fun prospect.

There are lots of great tips and pointers in the book and is geared toward people that are in a vicious debt circle. We are not, so we're going to have fun with it:) I very much recommend it. It gives a very clear picture of how to make financial pains disappear.

Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Sam