Its been a while...

I know I haven't posted in a long time, but to be honest there hasn't but much to post about.  The month of July was spent working at Sam's Club for me.  Geoff's job is really taking off!  He is starting to get clients of his own and making more sales.  I love to see how much he loves his job!   I don't mind listening to him talk about fixtures and bulbs everywhere I go, because it just shows how much he loves what he is doing!

This past weekend my parents came to visit!  It had been a really long time since we had a chance to spend some quality time with them!  Friday, we drove to Omaha and did some serious shopping at Charming Charlies and Cabellas.  We also stopped at Mahoney State park on our way back to Lincoln.  Geoff and I have had this park on our list of places to check out for quite a while.  This state park its huge and has tons to do! It has everything from horseback riding to put-put, mellow dramas to water parks, tent camping to condo stays and some really fascinating views of the Platt River.  Although we were just checking it out and driving through, we really enjoyed it! I'm definitely looking forward to doing some camping there this fall!  AND this winter if it ever snows, they have a pretty sweet sledding run and ice skating rink!

At the top of the observation tower at Mahoney State Park

Saturday was spent going to the Farmer's Market, taking Roscoe to the Dog Park and getting some UNL Dairy Store Ice Cream!! Dairy Store ice cream is about as close as I can get to Braums here.  I LOVE their pumpkin ice cream and cannot wait for fall to be here so I can enjoy it!  Sunday came and we went to church and ate ourselves silly at Dicky's BBQ (so good.  so, so good.) and unfortunately it was time for Mom and Dad to head home.  I miss being near them so much.  Really I just miss being close to my whole family, all of our friends, Chick-Fil-A, Braums, Silver Dollar City, trees, hills, the general hospitality of "the south." I guess you can say, I've been pretty homesick lately.  Oh well, Christmas will be here before we know it and I will get to go home for almost a week! 

Now its time to gear up for school to start.  Still no teaching job for me.  There weren't even jobs for me to apply to.  I know God has a plan, I just wish it involved a teaching job for me.  So another year awaits filled with cutting lamin, pouring ketchup, recess duties and babysitting students...yay.

I Bought A Piano!

Geoff is forever dragging me to auctions and this past one was no exception.  This time I had company, mom and dad were in town and they were along for the ride with me as well.  Lincoln Public Schools holds their auctions twice a year.  When we went in the fall, I really enjoyed myself.  It goes by pretty fast and there are lots of items that I am interested in actually bidding on.  For this auction, the preview mentioned Musical Instruments: tuba, violin, trombone and piano.  This definitely caught my eye!

Once I discovered the Piano at the auction, I was immediately interested.  I was surprised at how good of condition it was in; of course it was in need of a good tune and some TLC.  I wanted it!  We stuck around to see how much the piano was actually going to go for.  The auctioneer started the bids at $100.  You could hear a pin drop.  The 20 or so people standing around probably had the same idea we did.  Finally someone bid $10.  Geoff kept looking at me with "Do you want me to bid?" eyes and I kept looking at him with "I really want it" eyes, so Geoff jumped in with $12.50! No more did Geoff bid that the auctioneer was saying, "Going going gone! For $12.50!" 

At first I was thrilled!  Woo hoo!  I bought a Piano!! But shortly after, my thoughts soon turned to where in the heck are we going to put this thing? How are we going to move it? (we own a Blazer and a Grand Am, my parents were here in the "Flea" aka Hyundai Accent)  I have never felt buyers remorse quite like this one.  I was literally sick to my stomach!  Here I was so excited to actually win a bid that I really wanted and it just wasn't going to work out. Plus I already own a piano! It just isn't here in Lincoln with me.  We are going to move it from my parents house until we are in a more permanent place. 

Luckily Geoff's boss, Bryce, was also at the auction with his truck.  The funny thing is that he was the one who bid $10.  We out bid him! So he volunteered to take the piano and store it in his garage.  We decided to put the piano up on Craig's list and try and make a profit and split it between us and Bryce.  (Like it will be hard! We ended up paying $13 and change with taxes put in.)  

Buying this piano also allowed me to bless a family in an unexpected way.  After we won the bid, this lady approached me almost in tears.  She asked if I had bought the piano and I said, "Yes, do you want it? You can have it!"  All she wanted was the tuning tag.  It belonged to her father who was a piano tuner.  Helping make this family's day really helped my buyers remorse.

$12.50 ended up buying us a piano that nobody wants. (Its currently August 6 and no one has been interested.  We have even offered to donate it for free to several places.  But $12.50 did buy me quite the story! 

The moral of the story, remember to spay and nuder your pianos to keep homeless pianos off the street.  

My Friday Five

1.  My parents came for a visit last weekend and we had a GREAT time!! I love getting to spend time with them.  We stayed super busy going to the Farmers Market, LPS Auction, shopping, Cold Stone, and grilling out on Father's Day. 

2. I bought a Piano at the LPS Auction.  This requires a blog post all on its on.  Be on the look out for that one early next week!

Me and my $12.50 Piano.  I love it!  Too bad we couldn't keep it.

3.  We celebrated our One Year Anniversary on Monday!  Geoff surprised me with having a local bakery remake our cake topper.  It was delicious!  And he got me beautiful flowers from the Farmer's Market.  We ended up staying in because we were both so tired from our busy weekend, but it was perfect!  We did go to Olive Garden last night compliments of Grammy and Grangrad and ate our selves silly. (Thank you!!!)

My flowers and our cake!

4.  We bought season two of The Walking Dead on Amazon Prime and this has pretty much consumed our evenings (hence staying home on our anniversary! haha) Although it scares the living begeesus out of me, I'm sucked in! 

 

5.  We are off to Kansas City this afternoon for the CED Prom!  I'm excited to get dressed up and have a fun evening compliments of CED.  Plus we get to spend time with Kirk and Peggy! I finished packing us up this morning now to drop off Roscoe at our friend's house and head that way.  (Side bonus: We get to stop at Chick-Fil-Et in St. Joe!!! Wooo Hooo!)

One Year Down......Many, Many More To Go!

This time last year, I was one very excited Bride.  This week Geoff and I will both stop and say, "this time last year we were fill in the blank." Its been fun to look back on everything surrounding our wedding.  I may be a little biased, but we had the best wedding!  It was everything I could have wanted and more!  But today isn't to look back on what our wedding was, but to celebrate our first year of marriage!

In one year we've:
Went on our first "just us" vacation AKA Honeymoon
Moved away from everyone and everything we knew
Made a home together with the hound
Started new jobs
Found "our" church
Discovered many recipes we love and many we didn't
Learned how to live together
Been sick many, many times
Visited family
Made new friends
Golfed. A. Lot.
Watched every episode of The Office
 Had fun discovering Lincoln
Disagreed on many things
Agreed on many things
Fallen even more in love with each other

Its been eventful and definitely a year to go down in the record books.  Its had its ups and downs, good times and bad times, but the best part is that we went through it together.  Marrying my best friend is probably the best thing God has allowed me to do.  I love living life with Geoff.  He makes me a better person.  I love him more today than I did yesterday and 365 days ago.  He is the reason I say "us" instead of "I" and "we" instead of "me."  So here's to one year and many more to go! Happy Anniversary, Geoff!

High Five For Friday

This week has been the kick off to our summer craziness.  It was just last week that Geoff and I felt like we were doing nothing, and this week we feel like we're barely going to have time to relax.  But its all ok, because this is what summer is about!! So here we go, my top five highlights of the week

1. This week has been Vacation Bible School at our church.  I volunteered to teach the Bible story to the two youngest groups, and of course I roped in Geoff to help.  At the beginning of the week, I was super nervous and felt like I had no idea what to do.  But last night when I told the kids goodbye (we only had a four day VBS due to a wedding at our church this weekend) I was kinda sad to see them and the week go.  It was awesome and just reaffirmed that I'm supposed to be teacher.  Now if only I could get a job...

2. I've been working a lot at Sam's Club, but I got paid this week.  WOOO HOOO!! That makes all the late nights and long hours sooooo worth it.

3.I finished reading Heaven Is For Real.   I know I'm a little late on reading this one, but wow.  This has completely changed how I believe in Heaven.  I firmly believe that we will recognized and see our family members and friends in Heaven.  I think what I am most excited of all to see when I get there is the face of Jesus.  The way this little boy described it, I can't even fathom in my human mind how beautiful he could be.  If you have not read this, do it. This little boy's story will make you laugh, cry and completely change the way you think of Heaven.

4.  I started teaching music lessons through the YMCA.  So far I have a flute student and a beginning piano student.  I didn't realize how much I missed teaching music.  I'm looking forward to seeing where this job takes me.  Now if I could only get a job teaching music in a school...

5. Peggy (Geoff's mom) and Abby (new employee at CED Joplin) is here with us this weekend to help with inventory at Geoff's work.  We love having company, especially when its family!  Although, I'm sure Peggy, Abby and Geoff would much rather not have to do inventory.  As for me, I just like having company to visit with into the late hours of the night!

Memorable Memorial Day

A little late is always better than never....On Memorial Day we went to Omaha with our friends the Gentiles to visit the Zoo.  I was excited because this was my first trip to the Omaha Zoo.  This zoo is amazing.  No really, its awesome.  We got to wander through the jungle and see monkeys and birds and hippos and sloths, oh my! 

 

I think the aquarium was my second favorite.   I could probably watch the penguins all day, literally.  They were fascinating!  Much more entertaining than the penguins at the Lincoln zoo.  I am looking forward to going back and seeing more there.  We were pushed through by the massive crowds but still got to see the majority of things.  Oh and the shark tank/tunnel was super neat too!  

Joselyn and I may have had to shove some small children out of the way, but we were going to see those penguins!

We also got to go through the Creatures of the Night exhibit where I was the only who could spot the creatures in the night.  Geoff also nearly peed his pants when we were in the "bat cave."  No worries, I held his hand through it.  Geoff and I rode the Skyfari across the zoo as well.  This was neat because we did not have time to see everything that the zoo had to offer.  Riding the Skyfari gave us the option to see some animals we didn't make it to.  

The highlight of the trip for me was definitely the Gorilla exhibit.  I was amazed at how many Gorillas lived at the zoo!  I could probably spend another day just watching these guys.  One came right up and looked straight at me through the glass, I could feel him staring into my soul.  Its like he knew I was a Gorilla too.  So awesome.  

High Five for Friday!!

I cannot take credit for this post idea.  One of the blogs that I follow and love, The Small Things Blog, does a High Five For Friday post every week and I think I'm going to join in as well.  So without further adieu, My Top Five for this week!

1. I've sat poolside twice, count em, twice this week!  I'm loving this summer like warm weather we are having in the first week of May.  It absolutely rocks!  I'm starting on my tan early this year.  By no means am I going to end up as dark as the crazy tan lady that's been all over the news this week, but I will definitely not glow in the dark come June.  

2. I got to see the Google earth camera car today!  It was during kindergarten second recess and it drove right by our school!  This was a first for me, and pretty cool.  I definitely freaked out like a kindergartener when I saw it.  So you all need to check out 5000 Mike Sholl St. Lincoln, NE in a month or so.  If you see a blonde headed girl wearing a plaid sleeveless top and jean capris on the playground, thats me!!!

3. I got a job(s)!!! Well for the summer anyways.  I will be the newest checker at Sams Club North Lincoln and be teaching private music lessons at the Fallbrook YMCA.  I'm pretty excited and hey, at least one of them lets me use my degree!

4. Geoff had super exciting and successful business meetings and a business lunch this week.  I love watching him grown and bloom and be successful in something that he loves. 

5.  Our little porch garden is starting to produce!  We have several cherry tomatoes growing, sprouts of hot peppers and jalapenos and one little bitty strawberry.  I'm excited to see what we get this summer! 

Thats it!  The top 5 for the week!  I'm looking forward to keeping this up for a while, so I hope you enjoyed.  Did you have a top five for this week?  We would love to hear about it!