I'm still here!

Dang...so much has happened since I wrote last!


One of the biggest things that happened was I got a job!!! I thought I mentioned it on here, but I guess I didn't! Oops! Back in July I went on an interview for a school way far from our house, it sounded promising, so I wanted to meet with them. Interview went well, told me to expect a call back. As soon as I got to my car I noticed I had a voicemail. I listen and it's a principal asking to meet me for an interview.

When I went in for the interview they had 3 positions available. Special Education, 3rd grade and 1st grade. The interview went really well! I wasn't nervous, I felt like I was confident and did my best.

They called me the same afternoon and offered me the job! Not only that, but it was for Special Education, the position I was really hoping I would be offered!

Yep, that's where I have been! Teaching, teaching and more teaching! I teach Special Education at a school that is only about 4 minutes away from where Joey works! It is challenging at times, but I love it!


Other life changes started happening in August (no not babies). We started looking at houses in a particular neighborhood we like. We have friends and relatives in this neighborhood and we really love the feel of the area.

We put an offer on a house and felt that if God didn't want us to get it, then it would not be accepted. Well, they accepted it! We officially closed on the house on Sept. 1st. This house is only about 4 minutes from our old house. It's a house built in 1974 with a nice big backyard and atrium. The nice thing is the owners really kept up with it! The original double ovens and stove top still works! Plus most of the major things were done 2-3 years ago (hot water heater, roof, ac/heater)

Almost all of October we worked on the house. It didn't need any major things. We just wanted to paint, put in wood laminate, and things like that. Joey and I worked and worked. Then when our family friend was free, he came and painted the wood paneling and installed our floor, baseboards, and crown molding.

I LOVE the fact that we had an opportunity to make this home our's. To put our stamp on it in other words. We painted over some not so pretty colors and choose colors we liked. (Our other house we never attempted to paint the perfectly fine white walls.)

Don't worry, I will be posting before and afters!!

As of right now, our other house is on the market and we have all the major pieces of furniture moved into the new house. It was a pain trying to keep it looking really nice for showings, so we wanted to move as soon as we could. We started moving things as we went and then two weeks ago we moved all the major items. Including  the kitties. Turtles are still yet to move, since their tank is huge...but they will be coming really soon.

We are still moving in all the little things from the other house. I think when you move, all the little things start multiplying! Our new formal dining room is making for a perfect staging area when we move things in.

Joey put in the cat door this evening and little touches like that are still happening, but very soon I will share before and afters. The afters will be before all the stuff, since that will take a while.

Other than that, other things have happened which I don't really feel like going in depth about, but I wanted to mention for me to read later.

- My grandma (mom's mom) passed away on 11/8. We celebrated her birthday that Sunday before. We went to 59 diner. She was 77.
    - It was sudden, she fell ill and went to the hospital that Tuesday with normal things that she's had before. Then we found out she had other problems. I went to see her that Friday the 8th. An hour and a half after I arrived she passed away. My mom, Joey, a friend of my grandma's and I were there when the doctors came and told us. I honestly haven't allowed myself to stop and think about it too much.
  - She was so excited about our new house. It's located in the neighborhood she wanted to live in when her and my grandpa first moved to this town. For the past two-three months I would show her pictures and give her updates. She was so excited to come and see it once it was done. She never had a chance though, but I know she would be happy and would love it.

- I got all four of my wisdom teeth taken out the Thursday before my grandma's funeral. Bad timing I guess, but I needed to get it done ( I had one partially in and partially still under the gum....hello cavity heaven!). It went well, Joey said I didn't do anything funny which I was a little sad about. I got my first operation with anesthesia. I was on jello, pudding, shakes for 3 days. Good thing is my pants are a little looser, but I don't recommend the method!

That's all for now. Have a great day! :)

Vegas!

I finally have time to sit and think about what I want to post. I actually feel like writing a post! Yay!!


Since my last post Joey and I went to Vegas!! We went the first week in August. Why? To go to Sony Entertainment Online's convention! Another geeky thing! It was a lot of fun!!

This time we stayed a the Vdara...it's a new hotel in the City Center. When we went in 2010, the City Center was still being built.

Oh my goodness was our room nice! We, of course, got a good deal on it!

This is the view from our hotel room. 

It's hard to see, but there was an In and Out Burger about 5 minutes way! YUM!

This was the lobby:

It was simple and beautiful!

 This was our room:

The bathroom was gorgeous!

Day we arrived we arrived at our hotel and then went to check in at SOE to get our badges. 

Joey and I play a game called Planetside 2, it's made by Sony Entertainment. 

We decided to go because of that, plus they were announcing a big upcoming new game. 

My tag, it included my character's name, server, and the game I play. 

We actually met three other people that played on our server. 

The game is smaller compared to World of Warcraft...less servers. 

So it is more likely to meet someone who you have played with! 

This is one of big reasons we went. 

EverQuest has a huge following. It is a rival of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, which we both played for quite some time. I could never get into EverQuest since I didn't have any friends that played. 

Well, I think I might jump on the EQ bandwagon with this new EQ Next! 

They are basically making it where it will never be the same game for anyone. The land evolves, the quests evolve and change. If you start a new character, you don't have to play the same quest line to kill or collect the same things you've done many times before. It's a great concept!

Then SOE has EverQuest Next Landmark...which is where you can use the tools the developers used and create your own lands! Pretty neat!

 While we were in Vegas, we wanted to do some things that we didn't do the last time we were there. So we found some museums! Joey's cousin was actually met us in Vegas while we were there. He lives near us, but was in Arizona for a job that week.

He found, the Pinball Hall of Fame!! Basically, it's this guy's personal collection and he buys and restores pinball machines. He opens it to the public and it only costs 25-50 cents to play!!

There were some really neat older machines!

That day, we also went to the Atomic Museum, we saw this on Groupon and decided to try it!

**Good tip: Check out Groupon for the city you are about to visit, there might be some good deals on entertainment!

This is actually a museum put on by the Smithsonian! Joey and I were excited about it once we heard that!

There is actually a site north of Las Vegas where they used to test atomic bombs. 

I really liked this picture. I didn't know, but they also used to test atomic bombs underground. In this area, they used to do that and it created huge creators in the Earth.

 NASA used to send out their astronauts to train in the "moon-like" terrain. 

The next stop for that day was jail. 

Just kidding, we went to the Mob Museum. 

It was really neat! There was a lot of interesting information! It was not organized the best (we figured the story would continue room to room- it jumped around a little), but overall we liked it! I also really liked seeing stuff about the real-life gangsters that are portrayed in Boardwalk Empire. 

Abercrombie and Fitch leather alcohol case from Prohibition era. 

The original city map for Las Vegas. 

Dedication of Hover Dam by Franklin Roosevelt 

Coins for the Hover Dam company store. 

That night we went and visited the Neon Museum. When old casinos get torn down, some of the old signs go to the bone yard here to be preserved!

I can't remember the name, but this was the casino Elvis got married at. 

This was by far my favorite sign! 

Weird thing about this one...it was still open the last time we were in Vegas (2010).

The last attraction we went to in Vegas was the Shark Reef in Mandalay Bay. I love animals, so this was really neat!!

This guy was huge, he was just floating by. 

Reminded me of the Hindenburg...without the tragic ending of course.  

They had beautiful lion fish!

These guys were SOO cute! They moved SO fast though. 

They were 12 week old cow nose rays!!

Shark! I've never seen one like this! :)

There was a huge tank that held a bunch of different sharks and two giant sea turtles!

Lastly, I had Joey make sure we stopped by the Bellagio's garden.

They have a beautiful space that they redecorate for each season. 

Last time we were there, they had boats. 

This time it was a garden theme!!

Gorgeous!

The little greenhouse was filled with birds! I heard a lady say "oh they changed it from butterflies". 

I really enjoyed taking pictures of the birds!

 We were very blessed to have been able to go to Vegas again and be able to go to museums as well!
Joey and I had a lot of fun and are looking forward to going back!

Summer so far!

I've had a great summer so far!  This post will be mostly pictures. Don't say I didn't warn you! :)

Back in May, Joey and I attended our second year of Comicpalooza!

Me and my Phoenix shirt (Jean Grey as the Phoenix)

I actually met a lady dressed up as her. 

Joey took our picture too! 

:)

I took this while we stood in line. 

I tried to be all like I'm just checking my phone and not taking a picture. 

That's why it's a little blurry.

We like to watch The Guild with Felicia Day. 

Her character is Codex and this lady was dressed up as her. 

Lego art

This was one of my favorites! 

I saw her while we were waiting in line, but couldn't get her picture.

Luckily we ran into her again.

(She's Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus)

It's a little hard to see, but after Comicpalooza we stopped at Amy's Ice Cream. YUM!

I loved seeing that they had decorated their boards with all kinds of comic book characters!

Too cute!

In the beginning of June, Joey's sister graduated high school. She was the Salutatorian! She's the one right next to the chairs(behind the super tall kid).

We are very proud of her!

Later in June, I had my first ride in a small airplane! I get nervous when I go on commercial planes, so for the longest I didn't want to ride in a smaller one. One day Joey's cousin asked if we wanted to go, I was nervous but agreed. Joey cheered me on while we got in the plane and I prayed for courage. I am so glad I did it!! It was really neat! We ran into a little rain and turbulence, but it was great! I'd do it again!

                                       

The plane we rode in. 

Joey's uncle flies people for his job, so he was able to take us up.

Joey's uncle was the pilot and Joey's cousin was the copilot. 

There were many beautiful views!

This is the rain cloud we went through. 

Looks scary, but I stayed pretty calm through the small bit of turbulence.

I got a little crafty this summer. Pinterest has all these neat crayon melt art, so I wanted to try it.
We own a heat gun since we redid the arcades. So I decided to use that.

This was my first one! 

(That's not black on the outer rim, that's blue, violet, and purple)

I put an old shower curtain liner down on the floor and got busy with my project. 

In order to get the splattered effect, the heat gun needs to be on high. 

I loved the look of it, so I went to Michael's and got me another canvas.

I also picked up a "K" sticker that was in the clearance section. 

I chose colors I liked and started layering. 

It's not perfect, but I like it!

 I wish I could get better pictures of these, they turned out pretty and really colorful! 

After I finished both of them, I placed them on the mantle, they've stayed there for a good while. 

Since we are geeky people, we went to another geeky thing this summer! Video Games Live!

It. was. awesome! The symphony is on the stage playing the music you hear in the video game they show on the screen. Video game music is way better than "bloops" and "bleeps" now days. Some music out there is so beautiful! 

The Symphony and choir on stage. 

We had nice seats too!

We were excited for the show to start!

They played the cinematic trailer to World of Warcraft Cataclysm right away!

Some of my favorites were pieces from Journey(the video game), Skyrim, Zelda, and of course Super Mario!

They had a Guitar Hero contest before the show. During the show, they called the winner on stage.

He had to get 42,000 points playing Foo Fighter's Pretender on Hard. Which that song is not a standard song, it was one of those you had to purchase...so it's not common.

The guy chose Expert and got 99%!!

Not only that, but the symphony played along with the music. 

SO COOL!

At times it was hard to remember that you weren't listening to the soundtrack. 

The symphony on the stage was providing all the sound for the video clips you saw!

We will definitely go again when it comes back in town.

If you are still reading, I leave you with a bit of my randomness. I was on my way to VBS one day and got stuck in some traffic. Thankfully, I had some cute cows to entertain me while I waited. 

Have a Moovellous day!