Wedding is OVER! :)

This past weekend, Jason's sister Teresa got married. She asked me to take care of decorating the reception hall, so I have been busy for the past several weeks shopping for decorations and making centerpieces. We're all thrilled that it is over and the happy couple is married! :)

Here are some pictures from her big day:

This was sweet. Jeff kept looking at Teresa and would make little comments to make her giggle.

The entrance to the reception hall...

The hall. I was pretty impressed with how everything turned out. :) (Not to toot my own horn, but it turned out better than even I expected! LOL!)

The head table.

Another picture of the hall.

Their cake was actually really neat. It had a fountain under it with chutes to different levels of the cake. It was pretty cool! :)

Congrats to Teresa and Jake! (And it's nice to be able to get some rest this week! LOL!)

Our new house...

Jason and I are in the process of buying a house in Wauseon!! :)

We found a house a couple of weeks ago that we both loved! We looked at it on a Friday evening, came back Monday (and brought Jason's parents) and then made an offer Tuesday. After making our initial offer (and waiting the two loooooong days to find out if they accepted our offer), we learned that someone else had made an offer on the house too, so the couple selling the house said that we both needed to submit our best offer and they would decide who they were going to sell the house to. We did what we could and figured we weren't going to get the house. We even made a list of other houses that we wanted to look at that same night! LOL! But...our realtor called the next morning and said the house was ours. :) Yippee!!! He said it wasn't the best offer, but since the couple knows us (they're moving in across the street from Jason's parents), they wanted us to have the house.

The house is a ranch-style house with 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. It also has an attached 2 car garage and a full basement that hasn't been finished, so we can eventually finish that for additional living space. We had an inspection done last week and I was able to take some good pictures of the place:

This is the back of the house and our back yard. I didn't get a picture of the front of the house (oops), but this is what the back looks like. The yard is a lot bigger than I thought it was!!! :)

This is our view of the back yard and the 11th hole on the golf course (The hole is blocked by the tree from this angle. :)). I took this picture from the family room in the house.

This is a picture of our patio. In the picture above, you can see the deck. The patio is just around the corner from the deck. I am REALLY excited to use both of these this summer!!! It will be really fun for barbeques and just sitting out enjoying the sunshine! :)

I think this is my favorite room in the house. The kitchen is BEAUTIFUL and very open. In this picture, I am standing in the family room looking back into the kitchen. If I wanted to, I could look from the kitchen all the way through the family room to the back yard. I love it! I'm really looking forward to spending a LOT of time in this area!!!

This is the rest of the kitchen area. We get to keep the table and chairs, which is really cool! They look great!!! I had started looking for a set to put there and haven't found anything that would look nearly so great! Brian (the guy selling the house) said they looked for a LONG time before they finally found a set that would look good there!

This is the living room. (Yeah, the big screen and the surround sound--which you can't see in this picture--stays. They didn't feel like moving it! LOL!) I think when we finally move in, this will be the barest room in the house. :) We're eventually going to have to get a new set of furniture, but I'm not sure when we'll do that.

This is the master bedroom. There is a bathroom off this room. I like the way she has decorated this room, but I think we're eventually going to repaint (it's way too dark for me! :)).

This is the second bedroom. (The window was damaged in the hail storm from a couple of weeks ago.) Before the window was broken, this room was very bright. It was a nice bedroom! It will be our guest room...probably until we start having kids. :)

This is the fireplace in the family room. This will be a lot of fun when it starts getting cold outside! It is a wood burning fireplace, so Jason is very excited to create fire. LOL! I think it's a man thing. :)

I'm going to meet with our realtor today and we'll probably set a closing date. I'm thinking it will probably be around the beginning of June (maybe the 4th or 5th). We'll be able to move shortly after that!! :) Sooo...if you're in the area, we'd love to have you stop by and hang out!

Happy Birthday!!

Just one more thing (for today!). Today is my mom's birthday, so I just want to wish her a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Hope you have a great day, Mom! :)

SOLD!

We finally sold our house in Marion!! We closed this past Monday (a week ago today), so we can finally start house-shopping here in Wauseon! We're pretty excited! (And a little sad about the house in Indiana, but we're not moving back, so it's nice to sell it!) I'm not sure when we'll purchase something in Ohio, but we've started looking some. We went to a couple of open houses yesterday. There was one house that was really neat...I liked it quite a bit! We'll see what happens. We need to keep looking just to see what else is still available! :)

More updates...

Here are a few more updates and pictures! :)

March 25th was my birthday, so Jason surprised me by taking me out to dinner.

He took me to a restaurant in Toledo called Rockwell's. It was a fantastic surprise...especially since he told me we were dressing up! :) We had a wonderful evening out!

That same weekend, my friend Kristi got engaged! Her now-fiance Travis had called me a couple of weeks prior to the big day to enlist my help. Kristi and I arranged a "girl's day out" to go get manicures and pedicures in Indianapolis. While we were gone, Travis was busy decorating her living room with over 80 tulips and a BUNCH of candles. Her living room was beautiful when we got back!

Kristi and me...on our way to get manicures and pedicures!

Kristi getting her pedicure. They were so relaxing! :)

The big proposal! Travis met Kristi at the door...and even had a little sign for her to circle her answer. (I guess that way he had it in writing, LOL!)

Also, over Easter weekend, Jason and I took a former student of his, Dave, to New York City! We had an awesome time and did TONS of walking! We were able to see a couple of shows, which was fantastic! We saw Spamalot (Monty Python) Friday evening and Rent on Saturday evening. Both shows were great!!! Spamalot was hilarious!! They had spoofs from the movies and some new stuff too. We all loved it! Rent was also really good. I've never seen the stage performance of Rent, just the movie. The Broadway production was really good!!!

A picture from Central Park in NYC...

On Thursday, we went to the Metropolital Museum of Art. They had some neat stuff. Also, we saw some art students in the museum painting copies of some of the paintings. The artist above did a great job on his! I stood and watched him for several minutes. Very cool! :)

On Friday, we decided to get up early and stand outside the Today Show. It was SO cold that morning!! We were more than happy to leave and get some coffee! :)

This is me standing in the line to get in. The guys weren't thrilled and wouldn't even smile, so I'm not posting their pictures! :)

Matt Lauer and Anne Curry did a piece in front of us. They didn't spend much time outside because it was so cold, but I did get a chance to shake Matt's hand! Woohoo! :) We were also able to get on TV briefly, but no one (that I know of) taped it. Bummer!

A really neat building in Times Square!

Other fun things from that trip: We visited many of the typical touristy spots in NYC...Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Financial District, Times Square, and Central Park. We also took a tour of the NBC Studios. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but we got to see where they film The Nightly News with Brian Williams, Saturday Night Live, and Conan O'Brien. It was amazing how small the studios were! They shared some of the tricks they use to make the studios look bigger to the home audience. We also spent some time at the UN Building. We didn't take the tour, but it was still neat to be there. We definitely had good times on the trip! :)

Argh!

I'll have to post more pictures later...Blogger isn't letting me upload any more pictures at the moment. :(

What's to come:
-My birthday
-Kristi's engagement
-Our trip to NYC
-Our house

I'll try again later! :) Have a happy Monday!

Fire!!

Hey, all!

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted. I've tried logging on several times, but they have updated Blogger and this is the first time I've been able to get logged in since the changes. I'll post a couple of times to get all of the updates!

The most recent news is a fire that destroyed a vital section of downtown Wauseon over the weekend. We got a phone call at the house around 4:45am Saturday morning that downtown Wauseon was on fire. Jeff and Melinda's office is downtown and we weren't sure what was going on exactly, so we quickly threw on some clothes and headed downtown. We could look out our back doors and see the orange glow from downtown from where we live.

We got downtown to find that the fire was across the street from Jeff and Melinda's office. The fire start at Doc Holliday's (a restaurant where the Robinson family frequently eats) and quickly spread to the surrounding buildings. It destroyed several businesses: Welles Bowen Real Estate, Doc Holliday's, Shaw's Clothing, JBW Computer, the Health Food Store, a Spanish church, another tea or coffee shop (I think), and Gallippo's Photography.

This is what we saw when we first got downtown:

When we realized Shaw's clothing store was on fire, the reality of it all suddenly hit a VERY personal note. Jason's sister, Teresa, is getting married May 12th. She had her wedding dress at Shaw's for alterations. When we saw Shaw's burning like this, we thought for sure that her dress was gone. Fortunately, though, we found out later that the owners were able to get in the store for a few minutes to save what they could. The store owner's wife, Cheryl, was able to save some wedding gowns and prom dresses--including Teresa's! In fact, if you look in the Toledo Blade, there is a picture of one of the wedding dresses saved. It's Teresa's dress. :)

Also, (ironically) the family and bridesmaids were planning a wedding shower for Jake and Teresa Saturday night. The shower was supposed to be upstairs at Doc Hollidays. The family had a busy morning/afternoon replanning an entire wedding shower. (It all came together wonderfully and was a good time!)

Some more pictures from the fire:

Newspaper reports said that firefighters pumped over 2 million gallons of water on the fire. Wauseon doesn't have that much water, so trucks were bringing water from nearby communities and filling these pools so there was enough water to fight the fire. I've heard that there were over 300 firefighers called in (some from Michigan, even!) and nearly two dozen departments. It was amazing looking down Fulton St.--all you could see were fire trucks and firefighters!

Another plume of smoke. The whole town smelled like smoke for two days! (I haven't been downtown today to see if it still smells like smoke.) Fortunately, there was a fire wall between Welles Bowen and Hammontree's, so the fire didn't spread any further that way.

The smoke down Elm St. This is where the church and Gallippo's were located. The further you worked you way around the building, the more smoke there was.

The smoke from the back side of the building. We were the only ones back there (go figure!).

A firefighter fighting the fire from above...

The aftermath. This is the white building that was on the corner of Fulton and Elm. They finally had to demolish it in order to put the fire out. Most of these buildings were 100+ years old.

This is what used to be Shaw's Clothing (the brown building to the left) and to the right, the Health Food Store (along with the church and Gallippo's). The whole building is gone now.

The mayor is meeting with a task force this morning to discuss rebuilding and what to do next. Hopefully, they are able to rebuild this section on town!

Exciting-ness!

Well, I know it's been awhile since I last posted, so I have lots to great news to share!

First and foremost, Jason and I received an email today from our realtor: we sold our house!!!!! YAY! We received the initial offer last week and promptly accepted it. They still needed to get the inspections done, and we received the results of those today. We close April 13th! We are so incredibly excited and relieved that we were able to sell it! Yay to God! :) I've heard of people in the area who have been trying to sell homes longer than we have with no results. We're very glad that this is working out!

We've casually started looking for homes in this area, but I'm sure it'll be a little while before we actually purchase a home. All of the pieces are falling into place! :)

Jason and I were both involved in weddings over the weekend. My good friend, Karisa (from college), got married Saturday and I was one of her bridesmaids. Jason was in the wedding of a couple from church. I don't have any pictures of Jason's wedding, but here are a few from mine:

Missy and me after we got our hair done! :)

Karisa, all dolled up for her big day!! :)

All of the nuns together (Missy and I were trying to decide how long it has been since we've ALL been together--we decided it's been 2 or 3 years!)

It was a great day! Karisa and Eric are a great couple and I know they'll have a great life together! Yay for them! :)

I'm looking for a place in the community to volunteer. My favorite place so far is a horse ranch that works with handicapped kids. The place is called Horseback Haven (http://www.horsebackhaven.com/). It looks like a neat way to help kids and also do something outside and fun. I never got to have a horse as a kid. :)

I think I'll finish out this post with some pictures of my oh-so-cute nephews! :)

Shawn is playing on the pillows from the couch. I couldn't get him to sit still long enough to make a "Shawn sandwich"...:)

Zach was pretty absorbed with his trains, but I got him to stop and take a quick picture. :)

Shawn was fascinated with the camera. My mother-in-law and I kept passing the camera back and forth to try to get a picture of Shawn, but every time we did, Shawn moved with the camera. I know he doesn't QUITE understand the concept--it cracked me up! :)

Pictures...

Here are some pictures from campus!

This is the bell tower on campus...

Johnson Hall:
This is the Administration building. This is also where the book store is...
York Hall (men's hall)...
Chapel...

Gainful employment!

FINALLY!!!

It seems like I haven't worked a "real" job in forever, but I just finished my second day today!! I accepted the job with OCU and spent the last two days on campus getting things set up and trying to learn as much as possible. My poor little car is packed to the gills, but it is SO NICE to be able to work from home!!! Yay!

This is going to be a very quick post because I've been gone all day and I'm pooped! :) I do have pictures of the campus and some stuff to post later.

I'm going to go relax...and catch some zzzz's. :)

Hello, hello!

Since it's been awhile since my last post, I have lots to give updates on (as some of my friends have so helpfully pointed out...:)).

Let's see...I think my last post was when I had the interview with NwOESC. It didn't work out. :) I don't know what the full story is, but they wanted someone with more HR experience, I believe.

However, things have been looking up on the job front. I have been interviewing with the University of Toledo for a recruiting position with their College of Pharmacy. I was supposed to have a second interview today, but the dean was sick so they rescheduled. I also got another job offer from Ohio Christian University. Things with OCU happened very quickly, but it's really a great offer! The school is a little over 3 hours away, so they would let me work from home and give me a territory to recruit in. I'm pretty excited about it! Either way, I'm going to be working soon!!! :) :) :)

Jason and I joined a gym, so we've been making the most of the membership and going nearly every evening that we're free. I think our racquetball racquets are still in Indiana, though. :( Regardless, it is nice to get the excercise and be doing something together.

Oooh...and on a very exciting note, Jennifer Garner's new movie Catch and Release opens this weekend! Kristi and I made a movie date for next week to go see it. I'm really looking forward to it...and spending time with Kristi! :) Oh, and Jennifer Garner was on Martha Stewart yesterday! It was a fun segment! :) She brought her dog and showed Martha her new tricks (distinguishing between homemade and store-bought treats--very funny!).

I've been watching the Travel Channel while I'm doing laundry and housey stuff today. The next show is about expensive room service. Looks interesting! I'm going to go watch!

See ya!

Interview!

Well, I had a job interview today with the Northwest Ohio Educational Service Center (they provide support and additional services to area schools). It was an interesting interview--I really enjoyed meeting the two people I interviewed with! They spent about 15 minutes with me and then sent me back upstairs to complete a skills test. The skills test was not what I expected AT ALL! :) I had 45 minutes to complete the test. I made it through the test with JUST enough time to finish. There were some things that they asked me to do that I have never done before in my life! But, after I got home, I did some research and I'm pretty sure I did it correctly. :) Soooo, hopefully, I'll get good news next week! Keep your fingers crossed!

Aside from that, things have been great here! Thanksgiving was good, though different without Grandpa. Jason and I spent a couple of days with my family. We even visited the circus again! :) (Hopefully I can get some pictures from my sister to post!)

Jason has a speech tournament in Wauseon this weekend. We're going to spend time tonight and most of the day tomorrow preparing for the big tournament. Due to the structure of the program, we're going to have the tournament divided between two schools. Right now, the plan is to have me at the other schools. Because of that, we'll have walkie talkies to communicate back and forth. If you have any good (or even funny!) code names to use, let me know! :) I'm trying to come up with a list to keep Jason's eyes rolling all day! :)

Well, that's all for now! I need to go run some errands!

Tootles!

Something I've discovered about me...

I don't hate blogging, really. I've just discovered that I'm not very good about doing it regularly! OR, I'll sit down to write a mondo catch up post only to get distracted and go do something else for awhile. Of course, I never make it back when I have time to write. So, for those of you who check regularly just to SEE if I have made a post in awhile, I apologize! I'll try to do better!

Life in Ohio is good, so far! Jason loves his job and is keeping REALLY busy with it! He's right in the heart of drama and speech season, so he is putting in lots of hours. He was thrilled the other day when a few students came up and actually thanked him for what he's been teaching them (Several took their ACT over the weekend and were happy to discover that the English section was very similar to what they have been learning in class.). I think the gratitude from students blew him away. It's not often that students actually thank teachers for what they are learning. It was good to see him feel good about what he is trying to do with his students!

I'm still looking for a job. I've had some interviews and done TONS of applying at different places, but still no job yet. I'm getting antsy. (I've been antsy!) :) To make a little money, I've been doing odd jobs here and there. I've been driving an attorney at Jeff's (father-in-law) practice all over the state to different court hearings. This has been incredibly fascinating! If you've heard about the Tom Noe hearings going on in Toledo, I was actually in the same court house during the trial. I got to see him! (Not that that is SUPER thrilling, but I gotta take what I can get.) I've always been fascinated by our judicial system, so it's neat to sit in on these different hearings and appearances and just observe what happens. (It's actually reminiscent of the time that Kristi and I had to go to Elwood City Court for her traffic ticket! GREAT stuff! :))

Actually, now that I look at the time, I have to get going! I have to be at the office around noon to drive again...and I'd like to grab some lunch first!

Till next time...:)