3 weeks

It has been a very very long time since I've written on my blog and I figured it would be bad form to not have at least one entry in the month of July. So here it is.

This summer has been quite different from what I expected. I've been incredibly busy and so has Steven. I think we were both expecting a pretty chill summer with lots of hang out time and plenty of time to plan the wedding. Hmmm... yeah right. It's gone by in a total blur.

My mom and sister got a kitten a while back. He's pretty cute. His name is Charlie.


Steven and I took a fantastic road trip to Bass Lake, CA. We had a marvelous time and got to see Paige and Hilde in the process. It was the best.


We've been working a lot on the apartment. I took ALL of the weeds out of our "garden" and all that was left was this sad look azalea. We did get a brand new dining table last week, which was very exciting. Our first real piece of new furniture that's just for us!!



I've also been trying to get out to some of the outdoor movies. They're pretty fun and they have free popcorn. I went with Nicole (standing in line for popcorn) and Tara and Lindsey even came once. It's a lovely summer activity.


Other than that, things have just been crazy. Paige came for a visit a while back and we got to work on some wedding stuff. I've been nannying a bit. I got to go work in Winthrop for a week while the boss was out of town -- it was so great to be with the horses and get nice and tan!! I brought my wedding dress home last week. I love it and I want to wear it everyday. And Laura and Victoria are coming from England this Wednesday, which I just can't believe. How can it possibly be August already. Now is when things start to get really excited. I can't wait to see all of my friends and to spend this next month celebrating with them. Just three more weeks until the wedding!! Ah!

A Time to Celebrate.

Steven graduated from the Fire Academy this past Saturday. It was very exciting to see him graduate. It just makes our new life seem so much more real to know that he's that much closer to his career. They gave out awards and had a slide show and then gave everyone certificates and badges.

Steven was given the Chief's Company award. The chief said that he chose the top five people who he wouldn't hesitate to take on a call with him at any time because they're the people who never stop thinking and are always willing to try something new.

I'm so proud of Steven. It's been a long six months with the academy and Steven working full time and us living so far apart but he's worked really hard and having this out of the way is a huge accomplishment.

Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures of us together (shoot! it was a sunny day and I had a cute skirt on and he was looking pretty darn good in his uniform... we just totally spaced on the photo opp.) but we got a few cute ones the next day so it's alright.

Sunday morning I took Steven out to brunch at Salty's on Alki to celebrate. I love going to Satlty's! I think I like the atmosphere more than anything but the food is quite good too. It was fun to take Steven there and the buffet was excellent!

I got to teach Steven how to crack crab legs. Of course this also means that I got to sit and watch as he played with the joints before attempting to crack and eat the crab.

Dessert!!! Seriously, I don't need to eat anything else. Just dessert. And I'm a happy camper. So tasty.

After Salty's we were off to see Cirque Du Soleil's Kooza!!

I got these tickets as a Christmas gift and it feels like we've been waiting SO long to get to use them! This was another new experience for Steven and even thought I loved the show and thought it was phenomenal I think I loved watching Steven's reaction even more.

We got there a little early...

The masks were hard to resist. Don't worry, we didn't play with the $200 ones... these ones were only $20 or $40 or something.

The show was fantastic and I can't wait to go again sometime. Thanks Steven for giving us a wonderful excuse to have a day of fun, fancy dates!! I'm so proud of you.

Good News.

Only 100 days until the wedding. That means tomorrow we'll be in double digits. I don't actually keep track but all of the wedding related websites that I'm registered with count down for me : )

Flashback.

I'm working at Inglemoor High School again today -- Thank God, I haven't worked since April 30th (the last time I was here for this same teacher) and I've been going a little crazy. That's something that really stinks about this job. I woke up ready to work every single morning last week and ended up just laying in bed waiting for my phone to ring, but I didn't get any sub calls. It just seems so unfair. However, on the flip side, nice to know that our teachers are well and healthy and staying in their classrooms and getting things done... not a whole lot gets accomplished when there are subs in the classrooms. Sad but true. Even right now, the kids all have a review sheet in front of them and some of them are working, but, mostly, there's a lot of talking. You can't really force high schoolers to do their work. When we first got in here I asked if anyone would take the attendance for me so I didn't have to shout out all the names (plus, I can't pronounce half of them!). One girl suggested I wait about 20 minutes until everyone arrived. I don't think so! If I can be on time so can they!! I told her I would be taking attendance now and they would be marked tardy. I had 8 people absent at the beginning of class and 4 have shown up with late slips.

Anyhow, when I was here the last time, I got to take my class to an assembly. It was so weird to be in there as a teacher and not a student! It was a really cool assembly and there were a bunch of performances (dancing, singing, martial arts, ukulele playing...) and I was really impressed with how the ASB students planned and ran the whole thing. They were so efficient. Huge change from the assemblies I used to attend here where we spent half the time trying to quiet everyone down. When you think about it though, it's not easy to get 1800+ people to all be quiet at the same time. Other than that, not much has changed here. Sherwood Forest is looking a little over grown (there are trees in the corridor that you walk through to get from the front parking lot past all of the office areas and into the main campus area -- our principal's name is Mrs. Sherwood so it is fondly referred to as "Sherwood Forest") and you kind of have to duck to walk under the branches when there's a bunch of people just standing around, as there tends to be. It's strange running into teachers that I had when I was here. I was using the "teacher" bathroom in the office after the assembly and I saw one of my English teachers in there. She's very pregnant and stunning, of course, I'm so jealous, I want to be pregnant and stunning, and she was quite surprised to see me. In some ways, I feel grown up but in others, I feel like a little girl playing pretend or something, like I'm too young to be here. The best thing about being here is that it's familiar. I know where everything is and I'm not scared to be here. High schoolers are scary, yes, but being at a school that I know so well, with teachers that smile and greet me warmly, puts me right back into my comfort zone. It's a good day.

"Miss...?"

"Miss Sodium? It's 'Miss Sodium' right?" This is my favorite so far. It's always interesting to hear what the kids come up with when trying to say my name. Some of them are rather ridiculous like... "Mrs. Tara's Sister" for example. And of course "Miss Soda," they think this is quite funny. One kid actually said it right the other day when he was just reading it off the board! Amazing.

A Taste of Britain.

There's this shop in Redmond called The British Pantry and it has a restaurant on either side of it. In celebration of Steven's birthday we visited Neville's yesterday, the restaurant to the left (we're saving the Three Lions Pub for another night). I know that it wasn't exactly as British as what we experienced in England but it was so fun to be there. Quite a few of the customers there had British accents (makes it seem pretty legit if the Brits go there...) and it was so wonderful to eat fish and chips and steak and ale pie while listening to the accents and enjoying the pub-like atmosphere. It was so cute! We walked through the shop afterward and saw many of the things I used to enjoy cooking with or consuming in England -- OXO cubes, Paxo stuffing mix, Cadbury chocolates, squash, P&G tips tea, cans of mushy peas!!! Unfortunately everything costs about five times as much as it should so we didn't buy anything. It was just a lovely little nostalgic experience : ) And now we're both ready to go back to England.

Our New Home.

Guess what -- Steven and I have signed contracts (and written some big checks) and we are now the proud renters of a lovely townhouse in Enumclaw!

We're so excited!!!! Oh my goodness! It's just making everything seem so real and all of the sudden, moving to Enumclaw doesn't seem so bad : ) In fact, I clocked it today and it's only 47 miles from my mom's house (that's exactly an hour in really really really good traffic).

We didn't have much time in the house this evening before Steven had to go to the fire-station for drill, but we got the keys and stayed long enough to draw a quick floor plan and measure everything. This way we can figure out what furniture will fit before moving a bunch of unnecessary stuff down there.

Check out our new room! There are two bedrooms upstairs. We were so glad that we got a place with two bedrooms -- we expect people to come visit us (Paige -- you have your own room!!).

Downstairs there's a living area, smallish dining area and a kitchen. The kitchen isn't fabulous (at least not by my standards) but it's clean and functional and once I get my beautiful red Kitchen-Aid mixer in there, all will be well.

Steven will probably move in sometime in the first couple weeks of May. I'll have all summer to move things in and get settled/organized before I join him after the wedding in August. In the mean time, I'll continue to share a room with my mom -- love you Mom! (but I still can't wait to move in with Steven--how grown up are we??)