Dream Come True

On Saturday Matt and I went to pick out our puppy! We drove down to "just take a look" at some puppies we saw in the classified ads. As soon as we turned into the driveway, a big friendly yellow lab (the dad of the puppies!) came running up to meet our car and wagged his tail as we got out. As we looked over at a pen full of adorable puppy faces, Matt said, "We're getting a puppy today." I could hardly keep in the excitement as we walked over to hold them and play with them. We picked out our little guy, who Matt has affectionately nicknamed Thunderchunk. He is a hefty little puppy. We love him already and it was hard to say goodbye. We can take him home in 2 weeks - by then he will be big enough to leave his mom and we should be all moved in to our new place. We have so much to do before then! Along with moving, we need to get our house ready to share with a wiggly, energetic little ball of fur. Meanwhile, we have some time to think of a name... Until then, I get to think of little Thunderchunk playing with his brothers and sisters, getting ready to come join our family!

Mini-dose of Joy

Get ready to smile.

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Moving On

You wouldn't know it from walking into our house right now, but we are moving in 2 weeks. Right now, everything looks the same around here, with the exception of a few boxes my friend next door has donated. I think the reason I haven't started packing yet is because I just want to enjoy our place the way it is for a little longer. We've only lived here for one year, but in that time it has become home. It will always be special to us because it was our first place together. We made it through the giant snowstorm this winter and the heat wave this summer. We made it through some great meals like Matt's chicken parmesan and some horrible meals like the tropical shrimp and rice disaster. We've had some really great times here and I am going to miss it...

Things I will miss the most about Tara Townhomes Unit #2:

• Our fabulous kitchen with all the brand-new appliances that were here when we moved in. I love all the counter space and the little "window" where I can look through to the living room while I'm cooking. I love how it's so pretty and bright on sunny mornings when I'm drinking my coffee and reading the paper.
• Our pretty hardwood floors. That was the first thing we noticed about this place when we looked at it a year ago. In fact, Matt asked our landlord where he bought the wood because we would love to use the same kind in our new place someday.
• Not having to worry about a yard/home maintenance. No longer will we have a landlord to call when things aren't working. We actually have to go out and buy a lawn mower for that nice big yard we are so excited about. Let's just say that our new yard has potential, but it needs work to look nice and pretty...
• Our monthly rent payment. As nice as it will be that the payments we will now make are going toward our own home and not our landlord, I am going to miss the nice, low rent that we have been paying. I know that first mortgage payment is not going to be fun...

Things I am NOT going to miss:

• Being able to hear our neighbors through the walls...
• Collecting quarters for laundry and walking down to the end of our townhome complex to get to the washer and dryer.
• Living in the "not so nice" part of South Everett and our proximity to Casino Road.
• Vacuuming the stairs.
• Our neighbor's cigarette smoke smell.

It has been great living here, but we are SO excited to move into our new house!

Mad Men

Somehow in the last year, I became hooked on Mad Men. It must be something about the great 60's clothes, the characters, and just how different life was then. I mean, smoking and drinking in the office all day? Anyway, tonight is the premiere of the new season and I am pretty excited. I'm going to watch it with Maddie, Amelia, and Autumn. Here are the Newsomes in Mad Men style. Aren't we fabulous?

Puppy Fever

Daydreaming about getting a puppy has been an ongoing event in the Newsome household. It's one of our favorite things to talk about. What kind of puppy will we get someday? What will we name it? Should we get a boy or girl puppy? It has always been kind of a far-off event in our minds since our townhouse doesn't allow dogs. For Christmas, Matt gave me this book to daydream even more about what kind of dog we should get. After that, it seemed like I had a puppy every week that was going to be the perfect dog. We thought about wiener dogs (like Oscar, Matt's parents' dog) and boston terriers (like Caroline's sweet puppy, Coltrane). Now that we are going to be moving into a house with a nice, big backyard with a fence, we decided maybe we can get a bigger dog. Golden retrievers have always been my favorite, but Matt says they are too furry. I can understand that, I guess. It looks like the dog of our dreams might just be a yellow lab. After all, how could anyone not love a lab? I know we might need to wait a while after we move in and get everything settled, but I am SO excited about getting a puppy - I can hardly wait!

Ahhh... Someday!

Time to finally start this thing!

So clearly it is taking me a while to catch on to this blogging thing.  As you can see, I first started this blog quite a while ago and have written NOTHING since then.  I've been having so much fun lately following some of the great blogs of my friends, that I decided to write a little on here.  There has just been so much happening in our lives lately that I wanted to share it.  In fact, considering that I started this blog in November of last year, let me go through some of the major events that have happened since then:

• Matt's new job:  This is a big one.  After a crazy process of tests, interviews, background checks and polygraphs, Matt was offered a job with the Seattle Police Department.  He started the academy in February and graduated on June 24th - big day, very exciting... but really only the beginning...  Since then, he has been doing more training with his department.

• Last night was his first night out on patrol with his new field training officer.  The way I understand this part of the training is that it is kind of like student teaching was for me.  You are doing everything as a real officer, but you are under the leadership of another, more experienced officer who is basically grading you the whole time.  It is pretty nerve-wracking.  We are jumping right into a crazy lifestyle change, too - night shift in the south precinct.  It is about noon right now and Matt is sleeping.  He got home at 5 in the morning.  It was kind of tough last night trying to go to sleep without him.  Luckily, in about a month he will get to try day shift in the east precinct with a different field training officer.

• As for my job, I am still searching for a permanent teaching position.  I spent the last school year subbing in the Everett and Mukilteo districts and to my surprise, I loved it.  It was really fun to teach a different class every day and to try out different grade levels.  I finished up the school year with a great first grade class that I taught for two months while their teacher was on maternity leave.  Having a long-term position at the end of the school year made me realize how much I want my own classroom again.  Unfortunately, it is slim pickings for teaching jobs this year.  I had an interview earlier this summer that didn't lead to a second interview :(  It has been tough getting those "rejection" emails from some of the jobs I've applied to.  It looks like I will start out the new school year as a sub again.  I actually am really thankful that I can even sub again because most districts aren't even hiring new subs.  Whew!  Luckily I have already been hired as a sub in Everett and Mukilteo.  

• The other big event for us is our new house!  We have been looking for the past few months with our good friend and amazing realtor, Casey Price.  We have seen some houses we've liked, but nothing that we loved.  The advice we've gotten is that we will "just know" when we find the right house - and sure enough, it happened just like that.  We had been looking in the North Seattle/Shoreline/Edmonds area and hadn't looked farther north.  One day I saw a house online that looked cute, but it was in Everett.  I thought it would probably be too far north for us, but I drove by anyway.  I just fell in love with the neighborhood and called Matt right away.  We looked at it with Casey later that week and just knew that this was a great house.  We reached an agreement with the sellers on a good price and have been moving forward with the process of buying it!  We are hoping to move in in early September.  So excited!  

Well, I think that's enough updating for now.  Let's see if I can keep up my goal of adding a new post every week...