Sunday, August 21, 2011

Twas the night before school started...

I started to write a little rhyming poem but it was too much, so this is all I've got. It is the second year that Jason is getting his notebooks organized and his backpack packed for class in the morning without me. I must say the first day of each school year is something I have always treasured and it is hard for me to believe I have been out in the "real world" for more than a year now. Maybe it is growing up with a mom who is a teacher, but there is something I really enjoy about the school year. I love buying school supplies and writing on divider tabs attempting to begin the year in an organized fashion. I basically had to force Jason to buy any school supplies and he only needed a total of about $5 of items, how practical he is. There is something that I miss about going to school that I just don't get going to work every day. I really enjoy my job, but sometimes in a sick and twisted way I kind of miss homework. Perhaps this is why I always like to check in on how Jason's homework is coming and boy does he really love that :) We have had a nice summer finale and so I guess we are ready to get back to the school year schedule. I took some time off of work last week and we visited Ikea and just did some well deserved relaxing. We spent some time with my family and recently visited Jason's family as well. So, here's to another school year and another work year - I guess we are ready!



A takeaway quote from my mother yesterday : "Respect is more important than being right." Think about it...

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Life as we know it

My friend Charmaine and I at work after I recieved a "Code Brown" award....

Jason getting the gnomes ready to attend Gnomeo and Juliet for his birthday



I haven't blogged in quite a while so I have several updates for anyone who may stumble upon this blog about our lives. We had our first married holidays, Valentine's day and we have officially become the hosts of every event in Greeley for our friends. Everything is still going well for us. I am really loving my job and Jason is enjoying school (as much as one can enjoy 2.5 more years of school) and he is getting everything up and running for orientation this summer. Overall, we are really getting the hang of being married grown ups. Recently, my cousin Luke came down for a conference and as he and I were hiking through Red Rocks together talking about benefits and health insurance we both looked at each other and he said "when did we get so old??" Another realization that jolted me in to reality was when Jason said "should we do anything for spring break?" Well, I no longer have spring break and instead I will be attending a cadaver lab which will actually be somewhat of a vacation for me...strange. Mostly working every day, doing laundry, paying bills, etc makes me tired. Kudos to my parents and all of my co-workers who go to work and then take care of their kids and then do it again every day. I think I need to build up to that :) Right now Jason is laying on the couch next to me snoring...yes snoring which I have discovered is something he does on a nightly basis. It is 7:30pm and he has already been "napping" for about 30 minutes. Usually I am in the dozing spot instead of him, so I feel as though I needed to document the occasion on this blog.





We have been married for about 8 months now and I have learned these things:
  1. The laundry sorter was by far the most useful gift we recieved and I am thankful for it every Saturday
  2. Jason does not like me to put dirty (more like already worn) clothes on the chair in our bedroom - it is a clean chair
  3. I like Jason to wipe out the sink after loading the dishwasher to ensure no goobers remain, he does it for me
  4. Our dishwasher is excellent and I am thankful for it daily
  5. We must grocery shop together - Jason only buys things that don't create meals when he is alone and when I am alone I only buy things that make in to meals
  6. We love to cook together!
  7. Jason will require at least one nudge (more like punch) every night to stop the growling snoring in my ear
  8. Jason does not like to clean with bleach but I love it!
  9. Jason will make a sauce with just about anything to top our dinner (most are delish)
  10. Jason loves to put his counseling skills to work on any little disagreement which is helpful most of the time
Basically all of those things were about sleeping, cleaning and eating but aside from work I feel like that is pretty much all that we do these days, at least during the week. We recently have embarked on a fitness challenge which is going well so far so if you add that in to our routines then that seems pretty complete. Although we are a little boring, we are very blessed!









Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The latest...

Nothing too eventful has happened in our lives lately. We have had several good weeks since my last post. Tyler came to stay with us for the weekend. We had a nice, relaxed time with him despite the lack of groceries in our house. We visited Amanda in Wyoming and saw her very cute apartment. I am so excited for her that she has such a nice place to live! She seems to be enjoying her year. Jason gets to work more hours at work which we have been hoping for, so that helps solve some money dilemmas for us. For the past several weeks we have been in sort of a money rut. Now, with two nursing paychecks under our belt, we are able to really buy groceries! We have again had some delicious food adventures. We made pretzels for the second time and ate them with bratwurst for a real "Oktoberfest." We played our own "chopped challenge" which is a little game we modeled after the Food Network show Chopped. Our challenge left us with some delicious chicken, sweet rice and fried ice cream complete with a flambee! I would say we have settled in to married life quite well. We have developed a weekend routine of cleaning and laundry and if you saw our bedrooms before we were married, I am sure you would be impressed with how clean our room continues to be.

I started my new job over a month ago now and it is going well. It is fairly overwhelming and there is lots to learn, but I am enjoying it. Jason is still enjoying his classes and has his first round of exams coming up soon. Perhaps my greatest accomplishment over the past few weeks (and quite possibly my lifetime) is the fact that I have a 3-0 record on my fantasy football teams. Yes, my husband taught me all I know but I feel quite proud of my ability to continually win each week. I am currently ranked in the top in both of my leagues :) Some of you may have never thought you would see the day that I would even know what 1st and 10 means...but here it is folks. Really, I still have no idea what is happening half the time but I at least know if I am going to gain or lose fantasy points which is really all that matters in my football world. The best part of the whole thing is I have earned aout 1000 wife points which is pretty great :)

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

A real nurse

Finally, after 4 years of school and a busy summer I have begun my job as a "real nurse." I am now a perioperative nurse and, after completing my week in sterile processing, will begin in my OR classes next week. There is so much to learn and I am excited to take it all in! Also, I would just like to add that a job where I get to wear a hat all day was clearly made for me :)

Jason began his grad classes last week. He likes all of them so far and is thankful that his books finally arrived from Amazon. He has lots of reading to keep up with, but he seems to be enjoying the format and structure of his classes.
Today, our BluRay complete series of LOST arrived. Jason, clearly, is thrilled! It came in a really neat box with special features, a game and a mysterious blacklight (use still TBD). Also eventful this week was a plumbing situation. Last night, our toilet sprung a leak. The head of a bolt rusted through and came apart, leaving a hole in the toilet tank. Jason quickly jumped to action and turned off the water, so after saturating about 5 towels all was well. Today he made a trip to Lowes to repair our toilet, I am very proud of his handyman skills!

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Foodies

After hearing Nancy Pelosi call herself a "foodie" on The Next Food Network Star last week, I have decided that Jason and I qualify also. Urbandictionary.com defines a "foodie" as a person that spends a keen amount of attention on knowing the ingredients of food, the proper preparation of food, and finds great enjoyment in top-notch ingredients and exemplary preparation. Seems to me that we are morphing in to foodies. In our married life so far, we have cooked almost every day and eaten out only on a couple of occasions. I am really enjoying cooking in our kitchen and especially using our excellent dishwasher! This is quite a change from our usual eating out trips. We have really made some very tasty things! For the past few days, I have been wanting a soft pretzel. So, yesterday Jason looked up a recipe for soft pretzels from Food Network's Alton Brown. Today we walked (yes walked!) to the grocery store to buy a couple of needed ingredients to begin our pretzel adventure. The dough was very easy to make, then it had to rise for an hour. When the dough had risen, we shaped it in to nine pretzels. Then, to make the authentic pretzel crust, we boiled each pretzel in a water and baking soda mix for 30 seconds. Jason was the boiler, I was the shaper.


Once all the pretzels were boiled, we brushed them with egg wash and put on the salt. Jason made a cheese sauce while the pretzels were baking. Clearly you must have a scrumptious cheese sauce to go with any pretzel. The pretzels baked to golden perfection! They were so pretty and delicious! I must say, we were quite impressed and already have ideas for things to try on our next pretzel adventure.


Before baking...

After baking...


Monday, August 9, 2010

A Sifrit Adventure

This past weekend, we went on a road trip to Iowa with Jason's family to celebrate his grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. The drive was long, humorous and filled with a wide array of music choices. Tyler's dance moves definately enhanced the drive for me. On Saturday, we went out on a big pontoon boat with the whole Sifrit clan. It was a very nice day. It was hot, but minimally humid. The state park we were in was beautiful! We floated around the lake for a couple of hours, stopped to grill for lunch and then hopped back on the boat. We rented some little boats that held two people and took turns riding and switching drivers in the middle of the lake...slightly trecherous. We had a great time! At the end of the day, nearly all of us jumped in to the lake for a little swim. There was a little "salad"(in Jason's words) in the lake, but a little algae never hurt anyone. I really enjoyed getting to spend some relaxed time with the whole gang. In the evening, we ordered a TON of pizza to feed our hungry stomachs. We did some serious damage to three jumbo taco pizzas...good work everyone. Jason also got to eat some cinnamon rolls and kuchen that his grandma made, definatley one of the highlights of his trip! The next day, we attended the Lebo family brunch. It was fun to share our wedding pictures and meet some more of the extended family. Jason and I both enjoyed the time with his family this weekend!
On another note, my family has been on a New Mexico vacation for the past couple of weeks. I missed them! My mom sent us a postcard from White Sands and I remembered how much I love visiting sand dunes. Sledding, writing your name in the sand, finding huge beetles crawling on the sand...so much fun! I can't believe Seth will be in high school this year. He is turning out to be quite cute and I am really enjoying him more and more as he gets older. Love ya little bro!

Seth, Jason and me when we first started dating almost 4 years ago.

Seth, cousins and me a couple of weeks ago.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Our Favorite Little Munchkins

This past weekend, my parents were out of town. Jason and I went to stay at their house to water their many plants. We decided to invite our favorite youngsters over for a sleepover! Together with the Henricks' kids we pulled out all my old dress-up clothes, my dolls, Seth's remote control cars and made quite the mess. Meredith and Maddie put on a fashion show for Marky and me. Jason and Michael played with cars and tractors. The girls played the Pretty Pretty Princess Game and Meredith won twice and was quite proud to wear all of her princess jewels.


We ended our evening with a baseball game with our friends Kelsi and Erik. Once the sun set, we made the biggest s'mores in the history of the world. We had these HUGE marshmallows. There was marshmallow everywhere! Sticky, but delicious! Everyone piled in to the basement to end the night in a movie and eventually sleep. Thanks for a great night kids, we love ya!