October

Sorry I haven't posted in a while...I got discouraged with blogging since half the time it does not show up on the main page...sorry for all the difficulties, I figure it all out one day!

So, we've been in our house for about a month and a half now and we absolutely love it. The neighborhood is awesome and the location is in the the middle of everything we want to be close to. God's really blessed us! We did some painting in the entry hall, dining room and livingroom and Daniel even put up a chair rail in our dining room! :) Although we did get much of that done while I was on Fall Break, I haven't had any time to really decorate...I'm thinking that will probably get done over Thanksgiving Break :)

Daniel introducing Coco to her new home

Getting started on the painting

Part of the motivation for getting the painting done was that we hosted a party for our friends whose apartment burned down, we had lots of fun at the "Fire Party" and it was nice to be able to fit more than just 10 people in our place :)

Mid-October also brought colder weather, beautiful leaves and fallish activities

We got to go to a bonfire and hay-ride for a church group meeting... all was well until I tried to feed a horse and the horse bit my pinkie. One trip to the E.R., an entire box of band-aides and nearly three weeks later my pinkie nail is still purple, but most of my skin has grown back...so that's good :)

Chelsea with the horse who bit me...before hand

Chelsea nursing my hand...I won't put the gross pictures on here

Halloween was less dramatic, but was lots of fun to be with a bunch of people from church. Our friends Jen and Craig Hamilton throw a huge party every year and it was pretty fun to see people all dressed up. I forgot my camera, so I don't have many pictures...

Daniel and Scott

Me as Jackie

In other, less entertaining news, the teacher who I have been teaching for this semester will be returning in January, so I have been on the look-out for another job. There is an opening in the main Nashville school district at an arts magnet and it would be a permanent position. I interviewed last Tuesday and they were really positive after the interview and in subsequent e-mails. I'm really excited about this possibility, so please pray that it will all work out!

Daniel is still liking his job and has done really well in his accounting classes this semester. He has also found out that he does not have to complete a degree in accounting in order to sit for the CPA, so that is really exciting because he won't have to wait as long as he originally thought :)

In the lamest news of all time, my college loan payback started this month...hooray for 9 years of servatude :)

We love it out here and hope that if you can come visit, you will soon...I'm loving the fall, it's gorgeous!

Miss you all!

September...

Sorry I haven't written in a while, lots has happened since I last blogged and for the most part its been good :)

I've been working at La Vergne High School in La Vergne, TN (a suburb east of Nashville) teaching U.S. History for a teacher with a long term illness. The students there are good kids (for the most part) but I have found it challenging being a young teacher because they all think I won't mind letting them do things which are against the rules, but all-in-all I've been enjoying teaching and the school I'm at. Due to some unexpected problems with my CA credential transfering over, I have not been able to be hired on permanently, but hopefully I will be able to resolve those problems soon.

Soon after I was hired, Daniel and I started looking for a house to buy. We focused our search in an area somewhat by church and on two specific subdivisions of townhomes. We ended up putting an offer on a townhome and our offer was accepted! We just closed escrow on the house and now have the keys to our first home, crazy!

It is a two bedroom, two and a half bath with hardwood floors on the bottom floor. We will be moving in this weekend and I am SO excited to settle more permanently into a place of our own!

In other news this month, Coco got really sick and had to stay with the vet for about a week :( It ended up that she just ate some string and so it made her sick until she got it all our of her system :) It was pretty scary however because at one point the vet thought she might need really expensive sergery and we would not have been able to afford it so we were trying to gear up for making a big decision about her which was so sad :(

Most recently, I was able to fly home to go to Caleb McCallister's (my best friend, Megan's, brother) wedding. I got to spend some time with my parents, Ed, Kris and the kids, and Megan, so it was a great weekend! The wedding was beautiful and the setting made me miss CA :(

I'm not sure what's up with our blog, but it's not letting me post as many pictures as I would like, so I will try to add what I can when I can :) Love you all!

the end of summer...

Sorry it has been forever since I've posted anything! Life got crazy hectic this last month but all is well!

We made a trip to Jacksonville, FL to see our friend, Sarah Towers, get married... it was a beautiful wedding and I fell in love with a house :)

The bluegrass band performed for the ceremony and reception

The view from the back of the house I love :)

The back porch of the house I love
Me, Daniel and Sarah
The front of the house I love :)

Woo, we have our own city!

At the beginning of July, I ended up getting two retail jobs. I work part-time at White House Black Market (a clothing store that only sells black and white clothes) and at Pottery Barn Kids. I actually really enjoy working at both places. While working, I was also keeping my eyes open for teaching jobs but it seemed like everything was going against me and so I tried to get used to the idea of maybe just subbing for the first year. Of course, as my schedules at work picked up, I found a position at Lavergne High School so I had to run out to the school before work and interview between jobs, but they ended up offering me a position which I formally accepted Monday. It is an interim position which will be for two months, but everyone seems to think it will turn into a permanent one, so that is exciting. I will be teaching five periods of American History and I am very pumped for it! The school is a great diverse school but is safe and from what I hear the faculty is progressive and motivated. God is so great to provide this for me and I am so thankful!

With the safety of having a job, Daniel and I are more seriously looking for a house to buy. We have looked at several houses but we think we might end up with a town home. While we could buy a decent home in our price range, we would probably want to do a lot to fix it up both for ourselves and in order to sell it in the future. On the other hand, the town homes we looked at were move-in ready and had nice features we would not have to update to our likings or in order to sell it in the future. I'll definitely keep you all posted on our progress :)

July also brought our first family even that we couldn't be home for. My brother, Dave, and his wife, Michelle, had their first child, Charlie. When we were in CA and these events would happen, we knew we would be able to go home soon enough, but this time we won't be able to see Charlie for a while, so that's a bummer :-( Daniel's sister, Shannon, also had a baby recently, so it's also a bummer seeing her major growth spurts and development in the first year from across the country :-( We just need to convince both sides of our family to move out here...come on guys, you know you want to! :)

In other news, Coco got fixed but has healed well and is doing fine. She has not gained any weight yet, but if she did it would be OK since she's so skinny anyway. As you can tell, she was pretty knocked out after... she wouldn't even give me kisses when I laid down next to her :)

We've also managed to have some more fun with our church friends...

Our first bowling night (and my first attempt at wavy hair)

Our first Nashville Sounds game!

Hopefully I'll post soon all about my first day of school (Monday)...wish me luck!

Love and miss you all!

K & D

Exciting Times...

The last couple weeks have been much like the previous weeks. Daniel is still enjoying his job and is hoping to go back to school at Lipscomb in the fall to start taking classes toward his admittance into the masters of Accounting program there. Vanderbilt is awesome because they will pay for 70% of one class per semester and he only needs a couple more to get admitted into the master's program. He thinks he would prefer to get his masters from Lipscomb because they have a part-time program (as opposed to Vanderbilt's full-time one) so that he would be able to continue to work while in school. Lipscomb's program only requires two years (as opposed to Vanderbilt's one year), so the time difference would not make a huge difference.

I've been continuing in my search for both summer and fall employment and while I have not heard back from any schools just yet, I have been able to find summer work, so I am happy to not have to stay at home all day doing nothing. I've also talked with a lot of teachers from church who have indicated that it is normal for schools to not start interviewing until the end of July, so I'm trying not to get antsy just yet, but it is hard!

Since I checked in last, Daniel and I have been able to explore the city a little bit more. We went to a puppet show at the downtown library with Scott, Chelsea and Jackie. We also got to visit with the Rilings (Dave, Ramona, and Lindsay). They are all doing well and we had an enjoyable evening with them. More recently, we got to see one of the girls from church perform at Chick Singer Night. Her name is Jaclyn Brown and she is both a singer and songwriter. We really enjoyed being able to go and hear good music and it was really cool to be able to see someone we knew performing.

For the fourth, we went to Chelsea's sister's house in Mount Juliet, about 30 min away from our house. We hung out by the pool, cooked out (in the rain), talked, and watched fireworks in their neighborhood. I think the firework show was the biggest one that I have ever seen and it was really cool because we were so close to it.

We're still really enjoying it here. We have officially placed membership at Brentwood church of Christ and we have jumped right in and are building great relationships with the people there.

All in all, we're still very happy and thankful to God for everything He has provided us with.

Me and Alyson at church girls night out

Emily and Jacqueline at church girls night out

Alyson and Tiffany at church girls night out
Daniel and Coco (she's getting super big) Daniel's slight black eye from Coco
Coco after her bathChelsea attempting to teach Coco to speak

Alyson and Jacqueline at out apt.

Playing the gameChick Singer Night at the French QuarterOur friend Jaclyn Brown singingThe Chicks at Chick Singer NightOut frontThe girls making fun of Daniel's winking problemCoco on the fourthMount JulietNana's cone since she had to have her toe amputated :(The rain disturbed our cook out :(rescuing the seasoning from the rainCrazy Chelsea :)Hiding from the rainThe GirlsThe GuysMushy Picture!!Me and JacquelineCoco needed a cone so she wouldn't chew anything while we were gone :)
She also has a funny and unlady-like way of sitting

This was on our drive home from Mt. Juliet and it was POURING outside

LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL!

Our life so far...

So, Daniel and I are pretty much settled in...ok, that might not be completely true; we have the public part of the house set up and then our bedroom and the spare room are not so pretty, but that's ok.

Daniel has been enjoying his job and has not had any mishaps as far as I know :) I have been at home during the days mostly looking for work online and watching lots of TV. Tuesdays I generally hang out with Chelsea by the pool while she watches her two neices and we see them often during the week just to hang out. Today, I decided I would stop sitting on my behind and that just because no one was calling me back right away, I wouldn't get discouraged, so I signed up to be a mentor in two different programs, so hopefully something will come from that!

Daniel and I decided to place membership with the Brentwood church of Christ, so we will meet with the Elders this Sunday and hopefully they'll let us in :) We got to go on a rafting trip with some of the younger folks from the church the second weekend we were here and they really made us feel at home so needless to say, we're very excited for our work at the church here!

We'll keep you updated as we get more to talk about :)

Love you all and miss you!

Coco and her new best friend Nanna (Scott and Chelsea's dog)

Daniel replacing our ugly gold light fixture

Our first Tennessee camping trip...humid with lots of big bugs...not as fun as camping in CA

Our raft going down the Ocoee (the part they used in the Atlanta Olympics)

trying to stay afloat

There are lots of cool random rain storms...goodbye flipflops :(

Daniel drying Coco after her first bath at home :)

Coco chillin'

Our front bathroom...beach themed :)

The Hallway of love <3>

The quilt of <3>

Our Eiffel Tower has a home away from our dining room table now!

Our Parisian living room

Our kitchen/laundry room