Weekend Recap

We had an exciting and busy weekend! Here's the recap:

Saturday was spent painting at our new house!! We closed on our house last Thursday and decided to do some painting before we move. Here are the before and after pics. We painted our master bedroom, kitchen, and living/dining room. Thankfully, we had great parents who helped us get all of our painting done in one day!

Before

 After

On Saturday night, we watched the movie Captain Phillips, which was really good and had some delicious hot chocolate in our negative degrees weather. 

Sunday, my cousin was home from California so I got to visit with her and meet her fiancé, and their adorable little puppy. 

Sunday night was spent going through some of our clothes before we move next weekend. We did a pretty good job and ended up with a couple boxes for garage sales and Goodwill.

I am looking forward to warmer temperatures this week and for our move into our house! Hope you all have a wonderful first week of March!

Ashley!! I Know Her!!

Not sure how many of you are Ellen Degeneres fans, but I'm a huge fan of her show! It's always hilarious and she's also amazing at giving to others. Well, recently, my best friend got to be on the show and her show aired yesterday! It was so awesome to see her on TV next to Ellen. I was super excited for her (and a little jealous)! She submitted a photo a few months ago for Ellen's "Bad Paid for Photos" segment, and she got picked to come to the show. She got to bring her sister and mom with her and they got to spend a few days in LA. It was pretty cool to see a girl from my small town of 600 people on national TV. Way to go Ash!!

Here is the video clip from her segment on the show (her photo is the first one shown):

I can now say my best friend is a celebrity! Ellen even posted her picture on instagram!

Weekend Recap

This weekend was pretty busy, but very fun! 

1. Friday night and Saturday was spent at the State Wrestling tournament cheering on the 3 wrestlers from our hometown and our brother-in-law, their head coach. All 3 came home with medals, so that was great! I also got to hang out with my sister-in-law and friend (both of the coaches' wives), we had a good time, as always!
2. Saturday morning, 2 other girls from work and I ran the "Trek Up the Tower" race in downtown Omaha. We raced up 40 flights of stairs, 870 steps total! It is super exhausting and challenging, but I felt good when I got done.  My uncle also did it, so I got to see him there!
3. Here is a picture before the finals started on Saturday. The wrestlers come in to the arena to the song, "We Are the Champions" and it gives me goosebumps every year. It's so cool!
4. Saturday night, we hung out with some friends and celebrated National Margarita Day. My margaritas were delicious! We also played some Catch Phrase, and unfortunately, the boys beat us girls.
On Sunday, Ryan and I went shopping for paint for our house and we also looked at washers and dryers. We picked out the paint, but are still deciding on the washer/dryer. Things are slowly coming along, and I'm excited and nervous!

That was our weekend! We are closing on our house on Thursday, it's coming so fast! I also have one prayer request, my baby cousin Adrian, who is almost 6 months old, is having heart surgery today. Please keep him and his parents in your prayers that the surgery goes well!

Advice

Ok...readers and fellow bloggers, I need some help and advice. Ryan and I need to buy a washer/dryer for our new house, and I'm not sure what is the best kind. I've heard pros and cons about top loaders vs. front loaders and I want to hear your opinions!! And if you recommend any certain brand or model, that would be great too!

Thanks!

Casting

Last week, we got Google Chromecast, and so far, we really like it! I'm sure most of you are familiar with it, but for those of you who aren't, it's a device that lets you stream pictures or videos from your computer or phone onto your TV so you can see things on a bigger screen. This is great for pictures, YouTube videos, and shows you may watch online. 

It's really easy to setup and very easy to use! 

Does anyone else have Chromecast? What's your favorite thing to use it for?

Baking Day

Yesterday, on my day off, I did some baking! There were a couple recipes I have been wanting to try, and I finally had time to do it.

Here's what I made...

Red Velvet Puppy Chow from Your Cup of Cake

Ingredients: 

1 cup Red Velvet Cake Mix

5 cups Rice Chex

1/2 cup Chocolate Chips

3/4 cup White Baking Chips

2 oz. Cream Cheese

1 1/2 Tbsp. Milk

1/2 cup Powdered Sugar

To get the full recipe, click the link above!

Valentine's Day Sugar Cookies

I just used the bag mix of sugar cookie dough for these.

Creamy Peanut Butter Dip from Fit Sugar

Ingredients:

6 oz Nonfat Vanilla Greek Yogurt

1 Tbsp. Peanut Butter (I used regular, not natural as the recipe stated)

 1/2 Tbsp. Maple Syrup

1/8 tsp. Cinnamon

News

My husband and I have some news to share...we bought a house! We've been looking for about a month, and found the one we really liked, so we put in an offer, it got accepted, and now we're going through the closing process! If everything goes as planned, we will close on March 3rd and it will officially be ours!

Now, comes all the fun, yet sort of difficult decisions like paint colors, furniture ideas, and decorating! I'm excited to finally have our own place to do with what we want! 

Here's a few things I've learned so far in the house hunting and house purchasing process:

1. Houses are expensive! (ok, I already knew this but it really hits you when you see the actual numbers, including all the closing costs)

2. Seeing a house you really like and then finding out it got sold is really disappointing. We had a couple of these in our search, but I learned you have to stay positive, the right one is out there somewhere.

3. Banks require a lot of paperwork. I didn't realize how much they had to verify as far as your employment, income, etc. I've used a fax machine more times these past couple weeks than in my whole life, constantly sending our lender information.

4. Having a good realtor can make a world of difference in your search. We started with one that wasn't the best, but when we switched to our current one, she was great! She was always sending us new listings, would respond to our questions quickly and has been a huge help in our buying process.

5. Buying a house is a big step in life and we had many doubts about whether we were doing the right thing and choosing the right budget, but lots of prayers and guidance from our parents really helped us in our decision.

If anyone has any tips or advice for us as we get ready to move, please let me know, I would love to hear them! And I will keep you updated with more inside pics as we get settled. I would also ask for prayers that our loan and paperwork go through smoothly so we can close in a couple weeks!

Sochi Sights

Who has been watching the Winter Olympics? I've been recording quite a bit on my DVR so far, and I've been happy with the performances! My favorite events so far have been the slope style snowboarding, figure skating, moguls, and speed skating. It amazes me what some of these athletes can do on snow and ice! What are your favorite events?

Here's the medal count as of last night (around 9pm, when I wrote this post), go Team USA!

Eventful Weekend Recap

Ryan and I had a busy weekend with lots of fun things going on! Here's the recap...

1. Friday night, we stayed home, watched the Creighton basketball game and enjoyed some homemade chocolate shakes.

2. Saturday, I had a baby shower for my best friend from college. I got to see her little girl again and catch up with good friends too. Here I am holding the little cutie.

3. Us 3 Clarkson College girls that were there, including the amazing mom in the middle.

4. Saturday night, Ryan and I treated ourselves to dinner at HuHot, yum!

5. After supper, we met up with some friends at The Dubliner for a couple drinks.

6. The main event at The Dubliner was surprising one of my friends after she got engaged! She was so surprised to see her friends and family waiting to celebrate with her, it was awesome!

7. Sunday, we had our niece's 3rd birthday party!

8. We also got to spend time with all of our nieces and nephews, who are growing up so fast.

9. Sunday night when we got home, we watched some Winter Olympics, including Jamie Anderson winning gold in slope style snowboarding!

I'm excited for a week of my husband being home, warmer temperatures coming soon, and more Olympics! I will hopefully do better about posting this week,  last week I was a big slacker!

Weekend Recap

1. Friday night was spent at home with my husband, watching some TV and relaxing on the couch!

2. Saturday morning, I came home to some delicious French toast after my fitness class, thanks to Ryan. The rest of Saturday was pretty low key. We did meet Ryan's family for lunch in Omaha and got to see our nieces.

3. Saturday night, we played some cards and hit up the local bar with some friends. We took a few shots, including some Rum Chata.

4. On Sunday, we went over to our neighbor's for the Super Bowl. Although the game wasn't that great, the food was yummy!

Happy February to everyone!

Needs

Lately, I feel like a lot of things have been stressing me out in life, and I am constantly reminded that I need the Lord in the center of my life in order for things to work out. He has a plan for me, and it will work out in His time.

Hearing "Lord, I Need You," by Matt Maher on the radio, always helps me to remember that I do need the Lord and that He is always there for me, in all positive and negative situations. I just love this song and the message it has for all of us. They even played it at mass on Sunday night, and it made my day!

Weekend Recap

Not a whole lot to share this weekend...I worked Saturday and Sunday, so that took up most of my time. Friday night, I caught up on a few Ellen episodes, which always make me laugh! I'm a couple weeks behind, but she had the American Idol judges on, and they are all pretty hilarious!

Saturday night, after working my 12 hour shift, I walked out to the parking lot to find this...

Thankfully, with the help of one of my coworkers, we got the spare on and I made it home. However, changing a flat tire was not in my Saturday night plans! And my wonderful husband got it fixed for me while I worked on Sunday. Ryan and I got caught up on a couple of our shows Saturday night too.

Sunday after work, I got to spend some time with my husband and go to mass with him before he is gone all week again for work. 

Hope you all have a great week! Can you believe it's the last week of January?!?

Fans of the Year

This past week, a few of my friends and I went to watch one of our high school classmates coach his high school boys basketball team! We wanted to be great fans at the game, so we brought a little surprise along for our friend to show him our support! 

On our way to the game!

He was nice enough to come out to eat with us before the game!

We had a lot of fun, and our friend was a little embarrassed, but truly, I think he loved all the attention!

Mini Roadtrip Weekend Recap

Friday night, 5 of us girls and one guy (not the one in the pic) took a road trip from Omaha to Cedar County, Nebraska. We were playing in a volleyball tournament on Saturday, so we decided to make a weekend of it. We got to the Blue Devil Bar in Wynot, NE about 11:00 and closed the bar at 2:00 am. We then proceeded to crash at my friend's parents' house near there and were up Saturday morning at 6:15.

Saturday, we fielded 2 co-ed teams in a tournament in Norfolk. It was a long day of volleyball, but fun! We played 4 pool play games and 4 tournament games. We went 2-6 on the day. It's not the greatest, but my team won the game that mattered, in which we beat the other team of our friends. We called this game the "Cedar County Championship," considering 9 out of our 14 total players on both teams are from there.

Saturday night, on our way back home, we stopped and saw our nephew and niece for a little bit and saw our little niece crawling all over the place, so cute!

On Sunday, Ryan and I spent most of the day relaxing, watched some football, and even grilled out for supper since it was in the 50's outside, beautiful weather for January!

Book Review

I just got done reading this book, and it was really good! It was sort of like a mystery, but it was interesting because the whole book went back in time chapter by chapter, instead of moving forward. When I started the book, I didn't think I would find out what happened, but as the time moves back, it all comes together and it's pretty crazy!

This is the first book by Jeffrey Deaver that I've read, but I may have to check out some more of his books! 

Have any of you read this book or any others by this author?

Compliments

Everyone loves receiving a compliment! It makes us feel good about ourselves or what we're doing. And it's especially great when you receive a compliment from someone that sounds truly honest and genuine, even if it's a little unexpected. I received one of these the other days after my workout at the gym. Here's how the conversation went...

I was done with my workout and was putting my stuff away, when a sweet, little older lady with a British accent started talking to me. I don't know her name, so we'll call her Betty.

Betty: I just wanted to let you know, because you probably don't look at it much, but you have a very nice backside.

Me: (trying not to laugh) Well, thank you.

Betty: Well, not that I was staring at it, but I just noticed it while I was working out. It's very nice and tight.

Me: Thanks. (not sure what else to say to that)

But, I did feel a little better about my body after that, even if my backside probably looked better with the tight workout pants I was wearing to keep it all together! Thanks, Betty!

Low Key Weekend

My weekend was pretty uneventful. I spent all day Saturday and Sunday working, so that took up the majority of my time and energy.

Friday night, Ryan and I rented the movie, We're the Millers, which was hilarious! 

I also tried a new recipe this weekend, Stromboli, and turned out pretty good. I used ham, turkey, roast beef, and pepperoni for the meat and then added a little sauce, seasoning and mozzarella cheese before baking it. 

That's all folks...so sorry for the boringness, but wishing you all a great week!

Patience

I've been really trying to be patient with some things in my life lately. Although I want everything to happen right away with the plan I have in my head, I am constantly reminded that things will happen in God's time and that I need to trust in Him and be patient. This psalm is a great verse to read when we are struggling with patience in our lives.

Weekend Recap

I had a nice, relaxing weekend! Ryan and I were home for most of the weekend, and I don't remember the last time that's happened. Here's the recap:

On Friday, I got to go visit my best friend from college and her new little girl! She was so adorable and it was great to see both of them! Friday night, Ryan and I rented The Heat, which was hilarious!

Saturday morning, I went to class at the fitness center and finally cleaned our apartment (I even got some help from my husband). Saturday afternoon/evening, we went to the wedding of a couple that went to college with Ryan. It was nice to catch up with some college friends we haven't seen in awhile. 

Saturday night, I also got to be a proud big sister as my brother scored 21 points in his college basketball game!!

Sunday morning, we visited my Goddaughter and her parents before they go back to Wisconsin. The rest of the day was mostly spent on the couch, which was very relaxing! Ryan went into a slight depression when the Packers lost in the NFL playoffs, but hopefully he will recover soon. 

And finally...I am not looking forward to Monday's weather, as the hourly forecast is disgustingly cold! Although, I know we have it better than some of you further north, so I hope everyone stays warm and safe tomorrow!! 

Goals

2) Exercise more

3) Eat more fruits and veggies, and less snacks and junk food

4) Worry less

5) Try new things

6) Get together more often with my friends 

7) Continue to grow my blog

8) Enjoy life

9) Strengthen my relationship with the Lord 

10) Expand my variety of meals that I cook