The Painting Has Begun!

Well my goal this weekend was to get the kitchen painted and finished and I am happy to report that WE DID IT!!!  I started edging yesterday afternoon during the football game and then our friends Titus and Christina came over for dinner and helped us finish it up!  Here are some pictures of our new red "wine themed" kitchen with our pictures hung and everything!  I am SO excited!  :)

Here are the pictures of the kitchen before we started painting...

Let the painting begin!

Titus decided to try the paint out for dessert!

Christina the monkey climbed up on the counters and fridge to get the areas over the cabinets!

And here we go...drumroll please...OUR KITCHEN!!

We are very happy with our finished product and are hoping to get the dining room done next weekend.  We are going to do a striping effect in there so hopefully it will go smoothly!

A Wonderful Gift...

I have come to truly believe that although we LOVE the children that we work with each day, one of the greatest gifts you can give a teacher is a "duty free lunch".  At our school we usually get these lunches once a month where we get to go back and eat lunch in one teachers classroom together while other staff members watch our students at lunch.  Today my grade level got the ultimate gift...a duty free lunch OFF campus where we actually got to go off campus for an hour and eat lunch like real adults!  :)  We chose to go to McAlister's Deli and we sat outside and just enjoyed each others company for a whole hour, it was absolutely wonderful!  Some of the wonderful PTA parents at our school covered our classes while we were gone and I think we are each very thankful to them and hope that they will come back very very soon!

Breast Cancer Walk!

Well as many of you know my family has been going through many things in the past few months.  One of those things is that my cousin was diagnosed with breast cancer and has begun her battle and her road to a hopeful recovery.  We are going to be walking in a breast cancer walk this fall to show support for her and to try and raise money for a great cause!  I am attaching the link here for you all to check out...please do not feel pressured to donate...though you are definitely welcome to and we would love to raise lots of money for a good cause!  If nothing else, please continue to keep my cousin and the rest of our family in your prayers.

The link for my fundraising site is:
http://komenknoxville.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&eventID=506&participantID=3124

Dr. Brown

Well I realized it has been WAY to long since we have updated the blog...since we started school James and I have been very busy getting back into the swing of things and we have also both been sick with the flu in the past two weeks so that was no fun to say the least. 

I wanted to send some props out to my wonderful husband though to let everyone know that he has officially been accepted into the doctorate program at University of Pheonix.  I am VERY proud of him to say the least for what he is doing to better himself and our future family!  It's going to be a busy few years with us both in school but it will definitely be worth it in the long run!

In other news we have decided to take a "mini vacation" this weekend to Virginia Beach.  I surprised James with some tickets to a Creed concert that we are going to tomorrow night and we are excited to hang out on the boardwalk as well!  We will be taking lots of pictures and I will update when we get home to let everyone know how our trip went!  Hope everyone is doing well and I will try to update more soon!

Back To School...

I have to say it seems like the summer absolutely flew by this year and now we are suddenly back at school again. We have been back for just about two weeks now and James has been enjoying getting to know his new class and I have been testing our new kindergartners all week. We got our class lists today so I am excited to get things going with them all next week!

Before we headed back to school "the boys" came in to visit and check out our new house. We had a great time when Michael, Sidney, and David were here and hope they will be able to visit more often! James and I spent more time downtown while they were here then we have in a long time. Here is a picture of the guys before we were getting ready to head out on the town for the night to a piano bar downtown.

Once we got there Michael, David, and I all had a drink to start off the night!

We even got David called up on stage for his 30th birthday...I have to say this was DEFINITELY the highlight of the evening!

The next day we went back uptown and were going to head to the imax theatre but when we got there found out it was all sold out. We ended up going to a farmers market downtown instead and got to hear a band playing and look at some yummy fruits and vegetables that were being sold.

After that we took our guests to a downtown favorite, the penguin. It's just a tiny hamburger joint but it is always packed and known for its great food...we all definitely enjoyed it!

Here we all are at our booth at the penguin!

What have we been doing since Bonaire?

I have realized the last few times that I got online that it has been quite a while since we updated the blog. We have definitely been busy since our trip to Bonaire...we spent a week in Tennessee visiting family and have been back in NC for a little over a week now getting settled and unpacked into our new home!

While we were in Tennessee we celebrated our one year anniversary and since we didn't have much money to spend on a big date after the trip, James decided to plan a picnic that he took me on instead! First, he showed up at the house with two boquets of beautiful flowers...one for me and one for my Mom (way to earn extra points!)

He also packed us a picnic basket

We drove to a nice spot overlooking the lake (a spot where we used to visit when we were dating in Knoxville)

We also ate some of our anniversary wedding cake that his cousin Tammy had been keeping in her freezer for us this year...it was surprisingly good!

We definitely had a good time spending the day together!

We came back to NC on the 6th of July and have been working hard to unpack the house and get it back in order before we go back to school this coming Monday. I don't have a whole bunch of pictures of the house inside yet but we will hopefully get some soon. We have been trying to get some cool things to decorate on a budget and one of my favorite projects so far has been some candle holders that we found on sale at Hobby Lobby that I spray painted to match our living room...here is the before and after!

I think they turned out pretty great if I do say so myself!

Last but not least these past few weeks we have been trying to get in a little rest and relaxation as well...here is a picture of James and AJ doing just that after a hard days work!

How to drive in Bonaire?

Ok so here's a little game I thought we would play...you see one of the first things that James and I had to learn here (at 5am and running on 23hrs with no sleep mind you) was how to drive the streets of Bonaire. After much debate and a few wrong turns we finally figured out what some of these crazy road signs mean. I thought I would see how many of these road signs you can figure out...I will number them and then you can leave a comment with a guess for what each sign means...the person with the most is the winner! Good luck!
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Ok so there you have it...make sure to leave a comment with your guess and we will check back and see how you are all doing after we arrive home!