Busy Weekend!

This weekend has been a whirlwind! Thank goodness we have a 4 day work week. Looking forward to a long holiday weekend!
Jeremy had some of his good friends come in to town starting Tuesday of last week. He was thrilled to be able to golf 3 days in a row. He participated in a golf outting in Gibson City Friday for the Booster Club & Rotary. His Dad came and played as well as Jeff & C.J. Jeff & C.J. both live in or near Chicago. A good time was had by all and the cool thing was, he won a fan pack in the silent auction. It had 2 bag chairs, 2 shirts, a hat, visor, a GCMS Falcons flag (we will be able to hang in our garage), and 2 little flags to take to games, as well as a yard flag and a pass to all games. We were needing to get some GCMS stuff!
My weekend started out Friday night by meeting some great girlfriends downtown Champaign. We enjoyed a nice dinner outside at Cowboy Monkey with a few cocktails. We then went to the cupcake bar and had a cupcake outside. It was a great evening and not too hot so fun to be out and people watch! Great girls night out! My friend Jessi lives near Milwaukee with her husband Jon and their kids Liam and Briella. My friend Jen lives in Champaign with her son Corbin. Thanks girls for a fun night!

Saturday we worked our tails off to get the house good and clean. We had an Open House today and a showing this evening! Keep your fingers crossed. We buried the St. Joseph in our front yard to wish us luck in the selling process.
Saturday evening we got invited to our first party in Gibson City. A parent that was on the interview committee to hire Jeremy invited us out. We now have the invite for every year the weekend before 4th of July. The party was fabulous! The people live on a farm about a mile out of town and their property is beautiful. They had it all decorated for 4th of July. We met a lot of people and don't remember all the names but really enjoyed the invite. They provided one nice fireworks display! It was a great night!
Today we enjoyed brunch at our favorite place in town for brunch Jim Gould's! We had to get out of the house for a while for the open house so we went to my Mom & Steve's to hang out for a couple of hours. Our dogs got to play with my little sister Chloe! They had a ball. I took a few pics of all 3 dogs. Lucie is sitting pitiful on the couch because she has a boo boo. One of her duclaw's split in half. She has been a little mopey since yesterday when it happened. Dee thought she could fit into one of Chloe's dog beds...yea, not so much! Chloe went and hid all the bones under the couch so Dee & Lucie could not get them. These dogs are something and all are very spoiled!



Since we had a showing this evening, we then headed to Monticello to my Dad & Sharon's house for a little cookout to celebrate my Step-sister Julie's birthday. Even the doggies got to go along since we were having a showing.
We hope to hear positive things from either the Open House or the showing.
On the GC house front, it has all been wired for electricity, installed insulation, heating and cooling. They are moving right along and it is looking fabulous! We are getting very excited. I still can't believe we are going to have a brand new house!
This week Jeremy starts his new job on Wednesday! Principal Darnell will begin his new endeavor! Wish him luck in his new journey.
We have not made definite plans yet for the 4th. We have talked about traveling to Lake Geneva to see our good friends Chris and Kelly and their 4! children!
For now, hope everyone has a great week!

Martha Stewart!

Well this weekend I was feeling a little Martha Stewartish! I had purchased some things from Uppercase Living a while back and had not done anything with them yet and I also got 2 cute little sayings for free at a party I attended. So this weekend I decided to do something with the items for our new house. First I found a rather large medicine jar at TJ Maxx for $12. I had the "D" monogram and decided it would look cute on there. I am not sure what we will put in the jar, but I will find something I am sure. I also found 2 smaller medicine jars on clearance for $5 when I was grocery shopping last week. I plan to put them in our guest bathroom with cotton balls and q-tips.
I have a few other summer projects planned for things for our new house. I want to attempt to redo an old dresser we currently have in our garage for our guest bedroom. We do not have much to put in that room other than a bed and nightstand. I have some fun funky bedding picked out for that room so I plan to paint the dresser a fun funky green and put a black mirror over it. I also have an old wicker foot stool that I hope to spray paint to match one of our rooms in our new house. I will post pictures of those once I do them, but for now, here is the first of my fun summer projects. (Don't mind all of Jeremy's fishing lures on the table, he was doing a reorganization of his things:))



At our trip to TJ Maxx this weekend, I found a couple of other items for our new house. I am pretty excited about my bargains. I hope to do our half bath on the main level in a fun yellow color and accent it with black and white decorations. So I found the black and white rug at TJ Maxx and I got the zebra print towel at Target. I am wanting to do our master bath in a spa retreat type theme so I got the 2 pack of white rugs at TJ Maxx as well. And since yellow is my favorite color right now, I could not help but get this cute little yellow vase for $4.

We hit our local Farmer's Market this weekend for the first time this year. We just heard on our local news tonight that Urbana Farmer's Market is ranked Number 12 in the nation out of Farmer's Markets. I had to show off my rather large head of broccoli that was only $2.50. I made the yummy broccoli salad recipe I got from our friend Tiff, she had made this when we visited Kalamazoo a few weeks ago. The picture does not really do the broccoli justice, I think you had to see it in person to believe how big it was!
Broccoli
Bacon Bits
Raisens
Sunflower Seeds
Cole Slaw Dressing

Another exciting piece of info from the weekend, WE HAD A SHOWING!!! Woo hoo! We have not heard from our realtor how it went, they haven't given an offer, but at least we finally had a showing.
I would like to add a few pictures of my two pitiful precious dogs. They are so spoiled and so lazy. We had two dogs come in our yard this weekend while Lucie was out on the chain, one dog being a pitbul. When Jeremy opened the door, Dee ran outside and got between the pit and Lu Lu to protect her little sister. She was showing teeth and barking and growling at the dog. The dogs did not cause any harm but still kind of scared us. One pic is the two of them relaxing Sunday evening and the other is me trying to get them up so I can go to work....notice the time is 8:11a.m....hello running a little late since I have to be at work at 8:30. Get your butts up girls!!!


Welp, better sign off for now....I am gonna watch Jon & Kate Plus 8 to see their supposed "big announcement"! Jeremy is soooo excited he can hardly stand it!

Happy Father's Day!

I'd like to dedicate this post to my Dad and Jeremy's Dad and wish them a Happy Father's Day.
I can always count on a good laugh when I talk to my Dad. If I am having a bad day and he calls it always seems to cheer me up! Although my parents split when I was younger and I don't get to see my Dad as often as I'd like, I love my Dad very much. He has done so much for me over the years and been there during good times and bad. Today, I am going to spend Father's Day with my Dad by going to a cookout at my stepmom's sister's house.
Jeremy and his Dad are very close. As I type this, they are enjoying Father's Day together by fishing. They met halfway and decided to do a little fishing trip today. Every year Jeremy and his Dad like to go to Canada on a week long fishing trip. Since Jeremy does not have much time off this summer between jobs, and because he had wrist surgery in January, he was unsure if he would be able to go to Canada this year so they did not book their trip. We will see if they both will be able to survive this year by not going to Canada:) I like to tease Jeremy's Dad because he always has everything packed and the boat ready months in advance.
Below are special pictures of us with our Dad's on our wedding day! My Dad was proud to walk me down the aisle to Jeremy! Later in the night my Dad was also out on the dancefloor doing the jump rope with all of our friends....hilarious! I am sure his hip was paying for it the next day.
Jeremy could not think of a better person to have as his Best Man for our wedding than his Dad. Yes, he has close friends, but him and his Dad have a special friendship that no one else has!
Happy Father's Day to all the other Dad's out there!

Bittersweet End!

Today marks a very bittersweet end to Jeremy's career at Urbana Middle School. Jeremy has been at Urbana Middle School for the past 11 years. Urbana was Jeremy's first full time teaching job out of college. During Jeremy's career at Urbana Middle School, he taught history and literacy as well as coached High School football and baseball. In the last 2 years, he advanced to 8th Grade Dean of Students and Athletic Director at Urbana Middle School. During his time at Urbana Middle School, he completed his Master's degree in Education. Because of his accomplishments over the years at UMS, he was able to land a job as Principal of Gibson City Melvin Sibley Middle School.

I can't begin to express how grateful I am of my husband and how proud I am of him and his accomplishments. I have met many students he has encountered during his time at Urbana and I have seen first hand that he has made a significant impact on many kids lives. Jeremy's personality and traits make him a great person as a husband and as an educator. Even though his latest role was disciplining kids that were stinkers, they still loved him! Jeremy has gained many friendships from Urbana as well as become close with many parents. I know he will cherish his memories of Urbana and I will cherish the memories I have had just since we have been together. I also know that he will be missed by many in the Urbana School District. Although we have to move to Gibson City, we hope to remain in close contact with many of our friends at Urbana.

Although he is sad to leave Urbana, we are both very excited about his job at Gibson City. This will be a great career move for Jeremy. We have been told by many that once they have moved to Gibson City, they have stayed there for many years or forever. We have heard all positive things about the community and that it is a great place to raise kids. Because of that, we can't wait to get there!

As many know we are building a house in Gibson City and it is progressing rather well. We are very excited and can't wait for our current house to sell so we feel better about the purchase of our house in GC. Jeremy was able to travel to Gibson last night and take a few pics of our house and the progress.

Again, Jeremy, I am very proud of you and your accomplishments. Thanks for being a wonderful person and a wonderful husband and giving me the opportunity to decorate a new home (hee hee!) All your hard work and dedication is appreciated and has paid off. (Thanks to John and Jan for raising such a wonderful person, you excelled in the parenting aspect, not only with Jeremy but with Darci too, I can only hope we are as good of parents as you two)

Enjoy the pics of the progress....I had to take the time to brag about my husband a bit!

What a great weekend in Kalamazoo!

This weekend, Jeremy and I traveled to Kalamazoo Michigan to visit our good friends Sean & Tiffany Merrick and their dog Gunner. Also Baby Merrick that is in Tiff's belly:) What a great weekend we had! Sean and Tiff were awesome hosts! Thanks so much Sean & Tiff. We love your house, it is beautiful and love to visit. Sean and Jeremy grew up together in Pekin, IL and have remained close ever since. Both were in each other's weddings in 2007! Just 3 weeks apart.
Jeremy and I left on Thursday after work and errands. We were able to get to the Merricks at a decent hour, the drive was about 3 1/2-4 hours. We stayed up talking pretty late so we were all pretty tired. Jeremy and Sean were able to go fishing both Friday and Saturday mornings, Friday at Gun Lake and Saturday at Gull Lake. Friday, Tiff and I relaxed at the house, chatted most of the morning, went on a great walk around their neighborhood, sat out in the sun. We grilled out awesome burgers for lunch (Tiff, tell your Dad the burgers were awesome). Later, Tiff and I went to a few stores and had a Starbucks stop. That night the Merrick's took us to their favorite restaurant downtown Kalamazoo, Fandango! It is a tapas restaurant which was fabulous! We were all miserably full!
Saturday was a great day! Although it rained and we wanted to go golfing and was not able due to the weather, we visited 3 different wineries. Jeremy and I came home with 6 new bottles of wine!! How fun! We stopped at a roadside fruit stand and got fresh strawberries! They are awesome! We also went to a chocolate shop! The guys were troopers! Even though they really wanted to golf, they went along to the wineries. Poor Tiff got to drink some juice:( Saturday night we had an awesome dinner! Grilled steaks! I am telling you the Merricks were awesome hosts. And we woke up Sunday morning to a yummy breakfast.
Jeremy and I stopped on the way home at the outlet mall in Michigan City, Indiana. It was a good thing we stopped. I was able to get a few work things at Banana Republic and Jeremy was able to get a few work things from Haggar that is going out of business. With Jeremy's new job he will have to get rid of the warm up pants and t-shirts and wear dress pants and shirts and occasionally suits. He went into the Haggar store and got 2 new suits, 5 dress shirts, 2 pairs of dress pants, 2 ties and 2 belts. We were also able to get our Dad's some father's day gifts, all for about $300! What a bargain. We knew he would need to purchase new clothes eventually so it was well worth our stop!
Now it is about time to go back to work tomorrow! Thanks to my Mom and Steve for watching our dogs Thursday night and Jeremy's family for coming over and watching them the rest of the weekend. I am sure they loved seeing their grandparents:)

Please enjoy the pics below from our weekend!

Gunner, Dee & Lucie's boyfriend!

Me & Jeremy at the Merrick's

Jeremy & Sean at Fandango!

Me & Tiff at Fandango!

The four of us at Karma Vista winery! Beautiful view, awesome winery!

Me & Jeremy at Karma Vista Winery!

Sean & Tiff at Karma Vista Winery!

Jeremy with his bargains!

Kalamazoo, Here the Darnell's Come!

So, this weekend we are taking a long weekend and heading to Kalamazoo Michigan to visit our good friends Sean & Tiff. They are the parents of Gunner, Dee & Lucie's big black lab boyfriend! They looooovvvee Gunner! We are looking forward to relaxing with the Merrick's and just hanging out and chatting. I am sure Jeremy and Sean will get some fishing in as that is what they both love to do. Stay tuned for pics from our weekend...
Today, Jeremy got to participate in a golf outting with some people he will be working close with in Gibson City. He was really excited because it was a golf outting that goes along with his Athletic Director position at Urbana but he was invited by Gibson City people. So it actually counted as work:) Can't beat that!
I have been cleaning the house because while we are gone this weekend, we will be having house guests. My in-laws will all be coming this weekend for a wedding in the Champaign/Urbana area so they are staying at our house. Works out great. House sitter/dog sitters all in one, plus a free place for them to stay!
Nothing new on the house front...hopefully something happens soon. House in Gibson is coming along great!
Have a great week and weekend and will be back on Sunday. We are taking off Thursday after Jeremy gets home from work (yes, he is still working).

We've Been Framed!

Jeremy and I took a trip to Gibson City this morning to see what kind of action has taken place on our house. We were happy to see it has been most of the way framed. Still needs a roof! I was so excited I squeeled when we came down the road. Here are a few pics of the house...

The back view of our house...
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The front view of our house..it looks a lot smaller without a roof!


The Golf Course Clubhouse from our backyard.


Now if we could have everyone pray for us and think positive thoughts as we try to get our house sold in Urbana. We are getting very anxious and just pray that everything goes as planned.

We had a great weekend. They always go so fast. Good thing is we have a short work week this week. We are leaving Thursday after work to head to Kalamazoo Michigan to visit our good friends Sean and Tiffany. We are looking forward to getting away for the weekend.

Friday evening we just relaxed at home, it was nice because we had to get up early on Saturday. Saturday morning we headed to my Grandma's house in St. Joe. We had a multi-family garage sale. St. Joe always does really well having garage sales. Our sale made over $700.

Saturday evening we headed to dinner with friends to celebrate with our good friends Stephanie and Dave Haas. There were several couples that dined at Alexander's Steakhouse. It was a night to celebrate the fact that Steph and Dave will be having a baby girl in a couple of weeks. Steph and Dave are already blessed with 2 girls and are going to be having another girl soon. Congrats Steph and Dave.

In addition to wishing Steph and Dave well in the birth of their baby girl, I want to send out a big congrats to one of my best friends Chaley. Her and her husband Ryan just found out they are expecting a baby in January. She went to the Dr. this past week and heard the heartbeat so that is very exciting for them! Chaley has two children from a previous marriage, Brianna and Brody. All in the family are very excited.
Our friends that we will be visiting this weekend, Sean and Tiff will be welcoming their baby in September. They are not going to find out what they are having so the anticipation will be killing everyone!
So lots of baby stuff going on in the near future. Please continue to pray for us that we will have success in conceiving a healthy baby in the hopeful near future.
Today, we were able to enjoy the day by heading to Gibson City as the above mentioned. Jeremy was able to fish and I was able to get a mani & pedi and go to Target! My type of day. We had lunch together at one of our favorite little cafe's Za's.
As I type this, Jeremy is looking over some material for his new job that begins July 1st. He has his work schedule for the month of July planned. He will be working Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Taking Tuesdays off because someplace has discount golf on Tuesdays and Fridays to have a 3 day weekend. I wish my schedule was like that all the time:)
That's all we have for now. Wish everyone a wonderful work week. My dogs are being so precious, I best get off and snuggle while I can!

Glad it's the weekend!

Jeremy and I are both very glad it is the weekend. He had his last full day with kids today at Urbana Middle School. He will still have to work for about another week because that is what his contract is thru. Then July 1st begins the new job.
We have been taking it easy at home tonight, relaxing, with the windows open. Jeremy grilled some chicken. He fished and I took Lu Lu for a walk to try and wear her out. She is now cashed out on the couch:)
Tomorrow we are working the garage sale at my Grandma's house. I am lucky to have wonderful family that was willing to work it last night and today. Tomorrow evening we are going to Alexander's Steakhouse with a group of friends to celebrate with a couple Steph and Dave. They are due to have another baby girl later this month.
As of right now, Sunday, we have no plans. So I am thinking a pedicure is in the plan.
This post is somewhat boring as we don't have much going on this week really.
Next weekend we look forward to traveling to Kalamazoo Michigan to visit our good friends Sean and Tiffany Merrick.
Hopefully this weekend we can take a stroll up to Gibson City and see what has happened on our house this week.
And let's just pray we get some showings for our current house. It has been kind of slow lately and we are getting anxious to get some action.
Have a great weekend everyone!