New Addition

We have a new addition to our family! Brent and I are now parents to a new puppy! I introduce you to Lacey.

We are told her mom was part Boxer/German Shepherd and her dad is supposedly a lab. I think that's the default breed...lab. She has been an absolute delight.

We adopted her from a shelter: www.circletail.org . One of Brent's patients, Sarah, volunteers at circletail and had been telling Brent that when we were ready to adopt a dog, she'd be happy to assist us. And assist us, she did. She introduced us to our sweet Lacey. I have to say, it was love at first sight for both Brent and I.

The ride home was like taking home your baby from the hospital for the first time. I sat in the backseat with LAcey while Brent drove. I couldn't keep my eyes off Lacey as she perked her ears at the sights that she could see and the bumps she could feel. The sweet puppy slept on my lap the entire way home. It's a 50 minute ride too! Precious!

My parents were here for Thanksgiving when we brought her home for the first time. They tried to give us a hard time about adopting a puppy ("are you crazy?!"..."they're so much work!"..."they chew on everything!"...), but once they met her, I think they fell in love with her too! They've got a grandpuppy! Hee hee!

Right now, she's asleep beside me on the floor in the living room.

Home Improvement Part 2

In addition to the outside lights, we painted and refloored the downstairs half bathroom. I should note that by "we", I mean Brent. He did it all. He did a great job! We painted the stark white bathroom a warm mocha brown. If it looks familiar to you, we used the same paint we used to paint our "feature wall". We were nervous at first that the bathroom would look to dark, but we were pleasantly surprised when it made the bathroom feel warm and homey - as much as a bathroom can.

The new flooring and paint almost makes you forget that the cabinet, sink and faucet are of the 1980's decor. The door pulls can only do so much...

Home Improvement

There have been several home improvement projects happening in our home. First, we replaced all the outside lights with matching sensor lights. Now, if only we could get them to stop turning on when someone walks along the sidewalk on the other side of the street.... The old light....there were so many gross webs and stuff I don't want to think about behind the light.

The new light! Pretty!

Now if only we could get the garage lights to stop being so sensitive (despite being on the lowest sensitivity setting) and tripping when someone walks on the sidewalk on the other side of the street!

Cozumel

You'll recall our adventure in getting scuba certified and planning for our trip to Cozumel. We are now back and our trip to Cozumel was FANTASTIC! Having my parents become scuba certified last year spurred this whole idea of Brent and I becoming scuba certified and all of us going on a trip together to flex our scuba muscle. We're looking forward to when we can all scuba again together! There are 3 other members in our family that are scuba certified so our hopes is to make a family reunion of sorts while scuba diving.

Here are some pictures from our trip. Side note - all the underwater (read: cool pictures that everyone wants to see) are in another location, so please be patient as I will upload those on another date.

My parents are they are leaving for a dive. They're officially Advanced Scuba Divers! While we got our Open Water certification in Cozumel, they too performed skills to earn them their Advanced certification.

This last photo is one of my favorites. I have high hopes of creating a photo collage...but considering I'm an "idea person" and sometimes not-so-much a "follower-through person", we'll see how that collage comes to be.

Scuba!

Brent and I are well on our way to being scuba diving certified! What a great adventure that we're experiencing together and what a great adventure we will experience together!

It all started last year when my parents got scuba certified to go on their cruise through the Caribbean and down to Brazil. Well, it was love at first dive. They have now caught the 'scuba bug' and now plan all trips around diving. After they came back from their Caribbean/Brazil trip, they proposed that Brent and I get certified and then we'd all go on a trip together. Didn't have to ask me twice; I was in! Brent not being a water boy was a little hesitant, but he's always up for an adventure.

We finish up our classes on Septemeber 26 and then we leave September 29 to go to Cozumel, Mexico. We will do our "open water dive" to prove our skills and then get officially certified while we're down there. How awesome! Stay tuned for pictures from our trip!

I was at a baby shower last weekend and we were commenting how our lives have dramatically changed since this time last year:

Several babies have been born.

Several babies have been created (but not yet born).

People have gotten married.

Houses have been purchased and sold.

Several moved (or will move) away to different states.

New jobs have been obtained.

Couples have broken up.

New couples have been formed.

It's crazy to think back to last year and what we didn't know was going to happen this year.

Makes me ponder what will next year bring??

Busy? Nah. Changes? Maybe a Few...

Brent and I have been a little bit busy. Let me explain.

We bought a house. That meant lots of wallpaper removing, spackling, sanding, taping, painting, etc. That in itself is tedious.

You can see pictures of the house and it's transformation on our picasa site. Our kitchen, dining room, living room and hallway have been painted. Now Brent is working on the guest bathroom. The toilet is sitting in the tub right now as he paints the bathroom and lays some new tile. Our deadline is next weekend when my parents come to visit. This will be their first time back to Cincinnati since the wedding.

I then started the orientation process at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. What a greuling process! All sorts of lectures, tests, paperwork to go through. I will say, that everyone that I have encountered at CCHMC has been kind, helpful and overall very welcoming. That's been 4 days this week of orientation and then 2 more days next week! Seriously! I'm anxious to get started and see for myself how other speech pathology departments function and how I match up.

Where do I find time to have another job? Well, I have to quit one. I worked my final shift at Cheesecake. After nearly 6 (!) years there, it was time to say goodbye. People keep asking me if I'm sad...and I'm really not. Is that wrong?! I know that bigger and brighter things are to come, so I'm not sad about leaving. Besides, they're not going anywhere. If I want to stop in and say hi and eat, it's a public place, I can do that.

Our apartment will no longer be ours at the end of the month. Since we moved our stuff, our apaprtment has just been sitting there in its dirty state for a couple weeks. This weekend it's my task to clean that to our landlord's satisfaction (hopefully she doesn't have high standards...because I'm sick of cleaning!).

And then, not necessarily a change, but another excuse to have a party, really...

Brent passed his CCSP exam!

Remember all those trips to Chicago Brent has done for the past 8 months (September through April) to earn a certification as a Certified Chiropractic Sports Physician. Well, we just got the results in the mail last week and HE PASSED! YEA! Hopefully this will allow him to market himself to a new target audience and bring is more business.

THEN...come August big changes are coming at my Butler County job. I know, remember that job? I'll be moving offices and adding some roles and responsibilities. Still an SLP though!

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Hyde Park vs. West Chester

With the upcoming move happening, I've been very sentimental about leaving Hyde Park. I LOVE Hyde Park. Let me say that again, I LOVE Hyde Park. I love the feeling, the vibe, the sounds, the accesibility, the people... I foresee tears in my future knowing that I'm leaving this fantastic area of town and moving 25 minutes north.

I know moving up to West Chester is the thing to do. I will be so much closer to work. Seriously, I did the math...I'll be saving myself 5 hours in the car a week! Brent will be so much closer to his office too. We needed to buy a house and this is the perfect house for us at this time.

I've been making a list of what I will miss about Hyde Park. Here is what I've come up with so far:

1. Walking places. Right now, we are withing walking distance to the bank, the library, my hair stylist, our dentist, CVS, UDF, bars/restaurants and parks.
2. Friends clsoe by. Most of our friends live in this area and our fear is that (maybe our friends' fear too) is that we'll be sucked into 'suburb world' and never been seen or heard from again. I think Brent and I are determined not to hide, but it will take a conscience effort to see friends.
3. Restaurants. They're not chain restaurants, they're just good HP restaurants. Arthurs. Indigo. Teller’s. Echo. Awakenings. Ramundo's. Lucy Blue's. Zip's. And did I mention they're all within walking distance?
4. City Life. We live on a relatively busy street now and we are constantly hearing cars, traffic, emergency vehicles with sirens drive by. I used to be so aware of the sirens, but now, I don't even hear them. Even though sometimes we don't open windows now because of the noise, I'll still miss the hustle and bustle.

However, on the flip side, I am looking forward to owning a house and finally getting rid of apartment life. I've been making a list of things I'm looking forward to getting a house (note that it's not a list of things I'm looking forward to living in West Chester...besides the new SHORT commute, that's about it).

1. No more coin laundry. For years I was constantly on the look out for quarters. If I got change, I'd set aside quarters for laundry. I'd even pay cash in a certain amount so I'd get quarters in return change.
2. While we're on the subject of laundry...I can't wait to have my own washer and dryer. I can do laundry whenever I want, however big or small. And I don't have to hurry back to it to accomodate other tenants who might want to do their laundry too.
3. Garage. I've never had a garage and I can't wait to pull my car into one. Bye-bye window scraping. Bye-bye running in the rain to load my car up with gazillion bags I carry to and from work.
4. I can now choose which bathroom I want to use. We have 2.5 bathrooms...I've never had an option before. We could also have two people showering in two different bathrooms at the same time!
5. Backyard. Right now, we don't have a patio. I know, how did we survive 6.5 years in this apartment without a patio? We do have a 'grassy knoll' outside our window that I've crawled in and out of to lay out on. Brent often talks about inviting people over to enjoy a beer on the 'grassy knoll', but it's not much of scene to do that. You can't see anything except for the parking lot. You can't see the street and you'd have to climb out the window to get more beers. Doesn't sound appealing to me. So our new house has a walkout patio that we're really excited for. Hello outdoor furniture!
6. I won't have to hear our neighbors. For a long time, we had an older QUIET woman living above us and we rarely heard her. I just thought there was good insulation. Then the current neighbor moved in. Nope, little insulation. We hear everything, and by everything, I mean everything.
7. The woman upstairs also smokes (out on her patio), so we can smell the wafting smoke when we have our windows open. And yep, that's another reason we have to close our windows. The woman across the hall smokes, but in her apartment, so the hallway is often a smokey-smelling walk through. yuck.
8. Spreading out. We'll finally be able to spread out our stuff and decorate the way I want.

This move really is a bittersweet event. I will miss Hyde Park and our life that was in Hyde Park, but we are looking forward to the luxuries a new house will bring.

Update

We have some updating...

I got the job at Cincinnati Children's! I got the job at Cincinnati Children's! I got the official offer this week and I couldn't help but do a little dance of excitement when I got the call.

I have orientation the week of June 21, so I'll be starting once all the physicals, orientations, trainings and such are completed.

We are also closing on our house next Friday. Couldn't be more excited! I feel like the 30 days inbetween our initial offer and our closing date is DRAGGING! Can't May 21 get here any quicker?

In the mean time, we've been packing and our dining room looks like a storage room more than anything else. Not that it ever really looked like a dining room anyway in the past couple years as most of our wedding gifts have been piled there since we got married! It'll be like Christmas once we open all of the boxes and get to put them away in their permanent home. Aah...

New House

Big news....

We are under contract on a house!

I knew we would be the dumbest people on the planet if we didn't take advantage of the new homeowner $8000 tax credit. So quickly we got in touch with our realtor and began the search. We looked at 10 or so houses with our house being the very first one we walked into.

Inspections are completed and we are due to close on May 21. Coincidentally, I had already planeed to give myself a "spring break" and took the following week off work. We weren't planning on going anywhere, it was just a week off, but I know what we'll be doing that week!