Monday, November 8, 2010

Uhh, I didn't meant to be this infrequent...

So when I titled this blog infrequent updates, I didn't mean I'd post annually. Oops. So now there is a LOT of catching up to do.

We loved our first little apartment in Oakton. It was so cute, but we decided to buy a house when we found some doctors who could answer some of my medical problems. Or so we though. We still don't have answers, but maybe we will find some soon? Also, the job market hasn't picked up much, and since we both have pretty secure jobs, we thought it would be silly to leave them and be in the last hired/first fired area. So we started our search in March of this year. We finally found a house we liked, although it was far away from my work. We closed at the end of May, getting us a tax credit for 2009, and promptly moved in. We LOVE our house. We've done some little things to improve, thanks to some major sweat equity from Dad. We've also painted and Tony has worked hard to stay on top of the goofy things that come up when you own a house. He keeps the yard gorgeous as well.

We had a great summer, with lots of quality time spent together. We went to Ohio for a week and a half to visit my family, and then had a little vacation for the two of us after. While we were in Ohio I took everybody's picture. Now it's 4 months later and I better get to editing those pictures I took so families can send them out if they'd like! I suppose that should be my mission for this week.

At the end of August, I was feeling a little strange and ridiculously exhausted. I found out that I was pregnant and felt better that at least I knew why I was feeling a little crazy! I'm now 14 weeks and feeling better every day. Food doesn't disgust me quite so much, I can eat a normal dinner, and I might even be able to eat chicken again sometime soon. We'll see. I am due May 9, and we are so excited for our new baby.

Last week we got a letter from George Mason University - Tony got accepted to their business program. We are excited for him to be able to be in school full time and to get his education completed. He is still not sure if he wants to do finance or medicine, but I am sure he will figure that out soon. With attending Mason, he will be doing ROTC so he can finish his degree without being deployed. With graduation he'll also be a higher-ranking officer. And, as far as we understand, he can choose his drill unit, which would mean he could be in the Manassas unit, and not have to leave town once a month. The only down side to that is that he may have to have a 2-week training in June, not long after the baby comes. That would be quite difficult for me to not have any help for two weeks as I'm still adjusting to baby life.

Mom is coming to visit on Friday for a few days and I am excited she will be here. It will be fun to have her at my house and we will do fun things together. I love my mom. She is great. And it will be great to have a little company while my sweet husband is being a soldier for a couple weeks.

Maybe I should work on editing those pictures now...

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Sherlock always outsmarted Watson!

And today I am Sherlock. I got this email in my spam folder today. It just made me laugh. And then a little sad that people actually think it's legitimate.

Please note the ridiculous spelling and grammatical errors. Sure thing, Dr. Watson, I'll send you allllll the information you need to pretend you are me. No problem. You got it. Be looking for it around the 10th. Of what month, you ask? Oh... the 10th of NEVER!!!! Really, who falls for this stuff??? And really? You think I'm going to think an email from att.net is legit? HAHAHAH Just because you put BOA as the sender?? Silly kids....


From: Bank of America (boanyk01@att.net)
From The Desk Of: Dr.Grey Watson
Bank of America
Branch Offices New York
1680 Broadway, New York,
NY 10019, USA.
Vice Chairman on Investment Banking
Director, Credit Control Dept.
Email:boanewyork@ovi.com

Attn: The Beneficiary,

TELEGRAPHIC TRANSFER NOTICE.

We are hereby officially notify you concerning your fund telegraphic
Transfer through our bank, Bank of America, New York, to your bank
account, which has been officially approved by the management of World
Bank Swiss (WBS) to credit the sum of US$18.5 Million into your bank
account.

Note that I have started processing your payment and every thing
concerning the immediate remittance of your funds will be carried out
within the shortest possible time from the time we received your? Below
needed information.

Also be informed that the Governor of Bank in London (BL) will sign on
your payment advice and a copy of the advice will be sent to the World
Bank in Swiss for some record purposes. Meanwhile your information and
your full contact details were received from our research manager, Barr.
Paul Peterson on your behalf to FRB for immediate release of your fund.

This fund was part of the lodged Late President Saddam Hussein of Iraq
discovery fund with World Bank of Switzerland, which the Swiss Bank has
decided to distribute it generously to help few lucky individuals and the
American Government is in agreement with the Swiss Bank to distribute the
fund to 700 hundred thousand people in America, Europe & Asia in other to
help improve their businesses.

Therefore, reconfirm the aforesaid information accurately, because this
office cannot afford to be held liable for any wrong transfer of funds or
liable of any fund credited into an unknown account.

These are the information we needed to be reconfirmed by you.
1.Your Full Bank Account Details
2.Your Direct Cell or office phone to reach you
3.Your address of locations
4.Your full name

Finally, you are required to reconfirm directly to me the above
information to enable me use it to process your bill of payment.

Your quick response shall be mostly appreciated; all your response should
be directed through our alternative email address for the immediate
attention of the credit control department.

Yours Faithfully,
Dr.Grey Watson.
Vice Chairman, Director, Credit /Telex Department.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

in my office...

I have the following hanging on my wall in my office. I think it's fabulous. Make sure your volume is up to get the full effect.




lookie!!!

So I am a family & consumer science teacher. It is really a lot of fun but I am forever exhausted by hearing "oh we have that at our school???" or "where's S112??!!!!" So today, as part of my teacher prep week before school starts next tuesday, I put my artsy fartsy skills to work. And lookie what I've done!




I think they are fabulously cute, and bring quite a bit of attention to my classrooms in the hallway. Nobody else has anything like this in the building, and I LOVE it. Although I have given lots of people the idea, and it is taking off. I'm not done - I'd like to decorate them a little more, add some sparkle, if you will. But the basics are there. And I love it. And I did it all freehand.

Monday, August 24, 2009

a letter to a sister.

Dear Katie,

Remember how you took a video of our house? SOoo uhh... how did that turn out? Will you share it? Please??

Love, Sara.

home improvements.

We've done a few things since family has been here to make our home a little more homey. The very first thing we did was hang a clock we got for our wedding. We love it.

Here is my husband being very manly. He likes to be very manly. When everyone was unloading stuff from the wedding reception, he carried three cases of water up two flights of stairs. All the womenfolk (and maybe some of the menfolk too) were gasping at the manliness of my husband. So Tony is putting an anchor in the wall, on which we will hang our clock.


And here is the finished product. We love it. It'd be even cooler if we put a fun color behind it. We'll work on that. Maybe one day we'll paint.

the party before the party!

So as is tradition, lovely friends (my sweet Sundee and Laura and Cristy) threw the party (who my Dad still thinks is "Sunday" because he says "Sunday" as if it were Sundee. He doesn't do that with any other day of the week. Just Sunday.). We had a little bridal shower at Sundee's home. It was fabulous and I was delighted to have some close friends there, and to spend the evening laughing our heads off. WE didn't play any dumb games (THANK YOU!!!!) (I don't care for shower games much). We just had some dinnerish and sat around and laughed and talked. It was SO MUCH FUN!!! So here are a few pictures from the evening...

(Sister H, Cristy, Sarah, Jenica)


(Cristy & Sarah)
(Laura & Jenica)
(Sundee, Alexis and Karen)

The whole group - I had a great time - thank you all for partying with me!!

above water honey moon pictures

TADAAAA!!! Here we are - just arrived in Cancun after a LONG day in the airports, and we were waiting for our shuttle to the hotel. I was amazed at how organized and structured they had everything. We didn't have to lift a finger our entire vacation. Right there is about as much as we touched our suitcases.




So this is the resort - the pool and one of the restaurants (the roundish building there to the rightish in the picture) and my sweet husband.

Here's the water - oh my heav was it clear and beautiful. Each little dark spot was a spot of sea grass. That's how clear the water was - you could see the sea grass from a distance!! (this is taken from the boat on our snorkeling/isla mujeres trip)

This was the view from our oceanfront room. We didn't pay for oceanfront. They just gave it to us. It was GORGEOUS! Do we look like we were photoshopped in? We weren't. It was just the effect of the flash from being on the balcony.

This was before guitar hero and dinner one night. This was the night we got HOOKED on guitar hero. We have since purchased the game for the wii. We pretty much love it. But not more than we love each other, don't worry.

About the wedding....

I don't have a single picture of my own from the wedding, so we have to be friends on facebook for you to be able to see the pictures that were tagged of me. I'm pretty sad about that. But my sisters posted on their blogs about our wedding, so I'll just link them here.

Alison posted here and Katie made a video here.

Thank you both for making lovely little montages of pictures!!

it was sooo cool!!!

Here are a few trips from our snorkeling trip we took on our honeymoon. We bought an underwater camera and got some ok shots. I think if we take our film somewhere else we may get better-developed pictures, but CVS did NOT do a good job of developing the pictures. They were all kinds of grainy, and really, you shouldn't have that if you're using a film camera.

We loved the snorkeling. We had so much fun and it was so cool to see all the fish and creatures under water.






by request...

...and because it's LONG LONG overdue, I am updating. Briefly.

A lot (which is still a gross understatement) has happened over the last few months.

After Tony proposed, we made plans to visit his family in Oklahoma. We spent Memorial Day weekend in Oklahoma meeting his wonderful family. We had a great time there. His family is great and I was welcomed to the family with open arms. They even threw us a great party to celebrate our upcoming marriage.

In June I got the final assignment for my masters degree which I worked on full time this last year. It was suicidal enough on it's own. And then I met Tony. I really didn't have time. But it's amazing how you can make time for things you really want, isn't it? I just didn't really sleep or exercise all year. In June we also found an apartment and did 90% of the preparations for our wedding. We were VERY busy. This all happened in the first two weeks of June. The last two weeks Tony was gone for his annual training with the national guard in podunk, virginia. That was a horrible two weeks. The worst part of the two weeks was that towards the end, his unit was informed that they would be deployed in 18 months for approximately one year. That means January 2011. This camper was not the least bit pleased about that.

While Tony was gone for his two weeks of training I did my best to keep busy by completing the majority of the final research project with a woman from class. We decided it would be MUCH easier to divide and conquer. And it was. And we rocked it. And now I am a master. And that is fabulous.

The last saturday of June I went tubing with Darin, his wife Melanie, Adam and his new flame. We had a great time, but I was really missing my honey. When we got back to the car, my phone rang and it was Tony telling me that he had gotten back a day early and so I promptly went home after we got back into town from being in WV for the tubing. I kind of offended my friends, but it had been two weeks since I'd seen Tony and I REALLY missed him!!

Wednesday July 1 we moved all of our belongings to our new house - Tony's first, and then mine. It was a very busy evening, and thankfully one of Tony's coworkers came and helped out. It was great to meet David and also great to have another strong man to be lifting and carrying things around.

July 3 we drove home to Ohio so Tony could meet my family. Tony stayed for the weekend where we enjoyed all kinds of Ohio 4th of July festivities, including the parade and street fair. We enjoyed a plethora of street fair foods and had a great time chillin with the fam. Tony got everyone excited about setting off our own fireworks, so we spent some time picking some out and then later in the evening setting them off. Everyone LOVED them!! And we can't believe we've never done that before! It was SO much fun. And I was so proud to have such a clever man.

I stayed in Ohio for another week and sent Tony to drive home by himself. He made it safely, and I enjoyed a few more days relaxing with my family. It turned out it was good that I stayed because of some family things that came up last minute. It was nice to be able to be home to be supportive and help out where I was needed.

The rest of July was busy with getting my family coordinated to come to Virginia for our wedding and making final arrangements for the wedding. August 1 sneaks up on you - you don't have all of August to anticipate the wedding. If you are planning a wedding at the beginning of the month, I suggest you start thinking of it as being at the end of the previous month, so as not to accidentally miss some deadlines. I should have thought of it as July 32. I didn't miss any deadlines, but I could have!

July 30 my family arrived. August 1 I married my best friend. He really is the greatest man in the entire world, and the last three weeks have been really amazing.

August 5 we left on our honeymoon to cancun. We had a fabulous time!!! Tony was disappointed he had to ask for tortillas every time we went to eat, but we really just enjoyed relaxing at the beach, snorkeling, and swimming in the pool at our great hotel. We came back Sunday. I was kind of ready to come back, but I really loved being on the ocean and spending so much time with my husband. I love him.

August 15 we had a reception in Ohio. I got to spend some time with some good friends and see some people I haven't seen in forever! Tony got to meet some of my very favorite people, and while he does not remember everyone's name (can you blame him?!! He just got dumped on with all kinds of people to meet - just the family who came to the wedding totalled 20 people), he does remember the people, and we both had a fabulous time with friends.

For our 3-week anniversary we went with our good friends Darin and Melanie to Ocean City, MD to go to the beach. Darin and I started beach day 3 years ago, and this year we were excited to bring our new spouses along on our excursion. We were glad they were happy to be there and we were also happy to include them on our tradition. We had a great day at the beach. It was forecasted to thunderstorm, but the rain missed us by thismuch We weren't really allowed to swim because of the harsh rip currents due to Hurricane Bill which was working its way up the eastern coast. We could play in the already crashed waves though, and that was more than enough to keep us entertained.

And now it's back to work. Tony starts school tonight, and I was in a meeting today. Tomorrow starts the full days. Not fun at all. But I have a great husband. I love him and he loves me and we could just make you gag with how happy and in love we are. I won't go into details. You can thank me later.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Playlist?

I need suggestions. We need to make a play list for our wedding reception. What songs should we add to our list? C'mon, give me a list. Please please?

Our website!

I have made a wedding website for Tony and I. Go visit!!

The address is:

www.weddingwire.com/tonyandsara

Thursday, May 21, 2009

a sneak peak

Go check out Sydney's blog - she took our engagement pictures. She posted a little teaser there. I think my favorite is the last one!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

yes or no?

I think I like this cut. It should be just barely long enough to pull back the front, but short and sassy and easy to do. What do you think? yes or no? the longer hair isn't working for me - I need to go short and have a good summer 'do.


Sunday, April 19, 2009

Here ya go!!!

Last night, around 8:00 pm, this amazing man you see here....


....took me to the location of our first date and....asked me if I would marry him and love him forever.

And then he gave me this:

And I giggled.


And said yes. I might have shouted it, I'm not sure. I was right near tears.

It's perfect. Just absolutely perfect.

And I have been giggling ever since. That kind of became a problem when we went to church today - it's not exactly appropriate to giggle through sacrament meeting. Oh well!!



I couldn't possibly ask for a better man. We have more fun every day we are together and I can't wait to start our lives together, just the two of us.

Friday, April 10, 2009

my fabulous honey...


The other day I was having a very very difficult day. I had a meltdown, crying and stressing over the results of my stress. Not a hysterical meltdown, just a sad one. I was with Tony, and just started crying on his shoulder. He ran to the store to pick up a few groceries and brought back this beautiful rose - which smells sooo soo soo good!! He's so wonderful. I am so lucky to have such a loving, caring, thoughtful man in my life.


yeah gross...

So I just moved into a new house. I noticed the drain was going slow. So I decided to clean it out. It was dis-gus-ting!!! It took me a good long time to get the thing cleaned out. I should have worn gloves - see how nasty???


And this is what i dug out of the drain....

....and a closeup view. arent you disgusted? It was so horrible. It wasn't just a hairball. I pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled - it just kept coming.




Once I got that mass out, I tried to rinse out the tub. The tub just filled - it didn't drain. So I had to take the plunger to the tub. Nast-o. After a good little plunging, the drain clears like new - too bad it was such a disgusting process to get to that point!!!

Darin got married...

One of my best good friends got married once. His name is Darin. His cute woman's name is Melanie. They got married in the DC Temple. It was nice.


Sorry to the friends who got cut off here - I'm not sure what happened...


My cute honey got to come party with us at Darin's party. We had a good time.

Oh look, Darin and Mel at the temple posing for pics!




Aww how cute - coming out of the Temple! I think they might be a little excited!

Italy...mmmm italy!







My kids made some pasta from scratch before break. I loved how it looked all laid out on the parchment paper to dry between classes. They did an awesome job with making the pasta and the sauce - it was pretty dang tasty! I couldn't help snapping a few pictures of the pasta...