Exhausted!

I'm feeling too exhausted to post all the pictures of the house with our things in it, so that will be coming soon. With moving this weekend and starting summer school on Monday, I'm wiped out! But I wanted to write about a funny situation that happened while we were moving. Gil and I rented a Uhaul and backed it into a parking spot at the apartment so that we could move things all day. Throughout the day we were joking about how funny it'd be if the sprinklers came on while we were moving, obviously not thinking it would happen. But alas, I came down the stairs with a armful of belongings only to find a sprinkler shooting directly into the back of the truck, soaking all of our stuff. Lovely! I quickly diverted the spray and shut the truck. The next part of my genius plan included setting a rock against the sprinkler head to keep it in the new position. Would've worked great if I hadn't knocked the sprinkler head off with a rock. Here's what that looked like:

Ah, the joys of moving!

All Moved In...

Wow! I've never been so exhausted! Yesterday we spent the day packing our apartment up and moving it all to the new house. Let's just say that I feel like I ran a marathon...and then participated in the Ironman Triathalon after that! My arms might never recover. Just kidding...I hope! The biggest challenge yesterday was moving things up and down stairs. I'm pretty sure we'll be getting movers the next time we relocate. Our poor king sized mattress had to be forced up the stairs taco style. And have I mentioned that this house has steep stairs? It was an interesting experience...pictures to follow. Right about now we're feeling pretty proud of ourselves for getting all of our stuff into the house successfully. Gil is snoozing on the couch and it's only 7:00. :) As soon as we get things unpacked and into the right rooms, we'll be ready for visitors. Any takers??

It's Ours!

As of Tuesday around 5:00, we are officially homeowners!! The actual closing process was extremely smooth and only took about 45 minutes. I have to say, Gil was a stud and pretty much took care of everything. He's been the one talking to the bank and figuring everything out along the way. The only thing I had to do was get a cashier's check yesterday. Good job Husband!! I appreciate everything you did! :)

After we got the keys yesterday and were ready to head out, our Realtor told us she had a present for us. She had gotten us a 3-piece serving set from Pampered Chef. How nice was that!? Our plan was to head home and eat dinner for the first time at the house, but we decided against that since it'd be a hassle with no furniture and all. We grabbed Chipotle's for dinner (a fave of mine!) and then stopped at Trader Joe's for a bottle of celebratory wine. Then we headed over to the house for the first time since it was ours! I took lots of pictures of the house and we just hung out for a while. Later, we discovered that our Realtor had left a bottle of champagne in the fridge for us. Again, how nice was that!?! We were super satisfied with our Realtor, Karen Greenwood, and would definitely recommend her to anyone who's looking in this area.

I have this week off, so I'm going to be bringing small loads of stuff over to the house while Gil's at work. Our big move-in day is Saturday. We rented a Uhaul and we'll be bringing all the furniture (sigh, I don't like that part). :) It's so exciting to finally own the house and I can't wait to start decorating!

By the way...have I mentioned that I LOVE our cute red doors??

Royal Oak Clay, Glass, and Metal Festival

Last weekend, Gil and I headed over to RO to furniture shop and stumbled upon the Clay, Glass and Metal Festival. There were lots of people milling around and it was fun to see all the artwork...makes me wish I had an artsy side! We didn't buy anything, but I did see some puppies up for adoption that I wanted to take home with me! At the house, we have a fenced in backyard so it will only be a matter of time... :) We also stopped by the Farmer's Market. It was full of antiques on this particular day. I can't wait to have a Farmer's Market near our house that's open everyday. Fresh fruit and veggies, here we come!

Of course, we had to do a drive-by of the house. It looked cute, as usual. Tomorrow we will be signing all the papers and then it'll all be ours!

Closing!

We've been cleared for closing. At 4:00 on Tuesday, we're going to sign all the papers and become homeowners for the first time. Unbelievably excited!!!!

End of the Year Party...

Friday was our last day of school and on Friday evening, the staff headed to a banquet center for our end of the year party! Gil was not super happy that our work party fell on the same night as the last Wings game, but he was a trooper. Luckily, there were a couple of TVs brought in for the game, so he got to watch the Wings lose. :) It was "Vegas Night", so there were black jack tables and other Vegas-y games set up. We played to win chips and at the end of the night, you could turn in your chips for raffle tickets. Then everyone put their tickets into raffle boxes for different prizes. I NEVER win anything, so I was pleasantly surprised to win an outdoor wireless iPod speaker. Perfect for our new backyard! I also won money through the teacher incentive program for 3rd place in our building. A good night, overall! Of course, they had karaoke set up...so we had to listen to some pretty bad singing. The second grade team decided it would be a great idea to sing, so I was dragged along as a "backup singer". It was a fun night after a year of hard work!

First Picture: Some of the MTA teachers and I

Second Picture: Another teacher, myself, and our school's custodian

Third Picture: Dancing to the Cupid Shuffle

Wedding Day...

One of the teachers on our second grade team, Jen, won her dream wedding through a show on TNT called Wedding Day! One day, we were all coming into school for what we thought was a Professional Development. When I drove into the school parking lot, I saw lots of unfamiliar cars and vans. Right away, I started to wonder what was going on. Walking into school, there were tv cameras and a tv crew all over the place! It was so funny and strange. Instead of having a Professional Development, as we thought, we were really surprising Jen and Sean by telling them they had won the show.

Their wedding took place at the Book Cadillac hotel last year and it was beautiful. It was a fun, strange experience being at a wedding with tv hosts! Jen's episode will appear on July 14 at 8pm on TNT. Look for me and our school, Michigan Technical Academy!


Check out an article about Jen & Sean in Detroit's Hour Magazine:
http://www.hourdetroit.com/Hour-Detroit/June-2009/Fantasy-Wedding-Takes-the-Cake/

School's Out for the Summer!!

...until summer school starts, that is. We will be at school next week, cleaning rooms and taking things down and we have two PD's. Summer school will start the following week. Not much of a break. I will have the second half of summer off, as far as I'm planning. Our summer school schedule is so nice, so I was considering teaching both sessions. We teach M-Th, Fridays off and it's only half days! Plenty of time to do whatever I want in the afternoons!

The last day was fun, but slow. Only 10 kids from my class showed up today and that's more than any other class. It's been like that all week. Some kids didn't come at all this week...didn't even get their things from the classroom. Strange, if you ask me! In second grade, I certainly would've wanted my pencil box and writing journal!! Some of my favorite kids came today and a couple of the boys cried when their parents came. SOOO cute, I will definitely miss my first class ever.

Tonight we have our end of the year staff party at a banquet center in Livonia. It's also the day that awards are given for the Teacher Incentive Program...Let's hope I make some bank! Poor Gil is being dragged along, instead of watching the Wings game somewhere fun. We've been promised that there will be a TV there tonight. Here's a picture of us at a Wings game last year. Go Red Wings!!!

Scoping Out the Neighborhood...

We were in Royal Oak this weekend to check out an estate sale that we heard about, but unfortunately it was the 3rd day of the sale and all the furniture had been sold already. Of course, we stopped by our house just to check things out and it was so fun seeing the for sale sign with a big "SOLD" on it! We walked around the neighborhood and stopped by the local grocery store, Fresh Approach. We met one set of our next door neighbors, an older woman and her son. They were very friendly and had obviously been keeping an eye open for potential buyers for our house. They guessed that we were probably the buyers because they saw us around the house several times and they said they were hoping it would be us to buy it. I have been getting ridiculously excited to move in and start decorating. I've been getting a little lazy around the apartment with cleaning because we're moving anyways, right???? Probably not the best attitude to have. :) It will be fun getting to know the area and I know we'll have tons of things to do. We did some furniture browsing this weekend, which was fun. We didn't make any purchases yet, since we haven't been in the house very much. Once we remember how big the rooms are, it'll be easier to buy what we need!

Anyone who is familiar with the area, what are fun things to do (besides the zoo & farmers market). Also, where have you gotten great deals on furniture in the past??