Life in the fast lane....

It feels like Colton and I have been going, going, going lately. We have been back and forth to Lubbock several times to house hunt and then do walkthroughs plus we have had several wedding related parties to attend so our weekends have been cram packed. Last weekend was the first weekend we stayed in Fort Worth in awhile and we had a shower in Dallas for my good friend Lizzy who is getting married in June. We spent this weekend traveling to Lbk Friday and back to Dallas Saturday for a surprise party for Colton's buddy Lucas, who turned 30. It was a quick but necessary trip to wrap up some details of Colton's job next year. To top all of this off, I have been sick for almost two weeks now. I had symptoms of a cold but could not shake them. I actually missed a day of work due to fever and achy muscles. Finally, I called the doctor this week and got some antibiotics. I now feel so much better.

We have lots of exciting things coming up. We will both be in Austin this weekend for different reasons. I am visiting my sister with my mom and Colton is attending a bachelor party. We have several wedding related parties to attend in the next two weeks and then in June we have back to back weddings- my good friend Lizzy and his cousin JuLea. And the big moment we have been waiting for....our move to Lubbock. I foresee lots of cleaning and packing in my near future. We have stuff everywhere- my parents, his parents, storage, and our apt so its going to be crazy getting all this stuff together.

I found out I will be lead sponsor of cheerleading next year, which I am excited about. It will be fun to go to all those football games and the school I will be working at has a very strong athletic program that competes in that playoffs often so that will be exciting to be a part of.

The countdown to the end of the school year is here...three more weeks. The kids are wound up and hopefully we can make it to the end with no major catastrophes. Everyone has summer fever, including me!

XOXO,
Devin

Our New Home in Lubbock!

Colton and I are proud new homeowners! Here is a picture of our new home in Lubbock, Texas. We are so very excited to begin the next chapter in our life together.

In other areas of good news, I was formally offered a job today by Lubbock ISD. I will be teaching social studies and co-sponsoring cheerleading at Estacado High School. I am thrilled with this offer and cannot wait to continue my teaching career in my new home school.

C and I have been very busy lately traveling back and forth to Lubbock to finalize plans for our move. We are about to embark on a month and a half long wedding crazed frenzy with showers, bachelorette/bachelor parties, and two weddings in the next six weeks. We will be crazy busy! It's a fun time with friends and family, so I will not complain.

Mother's Day is this Sunday and I am looking forward to spending some time with my awesome mother. She is a mentor, rock of support, and, most importantly, a best friend. I love her with all my heart and I will be sad to move five hours away from her. I am excited that she bought season tickets to the Tech football games, though. I have a sneaking suspicion my dad will turn his projected two games only into every home game trips, which will be nice for me so I can see them more often. Dad is already planning away on our backyard. I am sure he will have it done up to a T by the time we have lived there one year.

Current obsessions:

P90X

stalking decorating blogs

stalking furniture blogs

dragging Colton to furniture & appliance stores

counting down the days until summer

XOXO,

Devin

Good things come to those who wait...right?

As you may know, C and I have been trekking back and forth to Lubbock for awhile now in search of our first home (oh...and me a job). Ha! So, we determined the area we wanted to be in and began looking at homes in two specific neighborhoods. Our first two trips were not fruitful. We never really found a house we loved. We did find one we both adored but it was right next to a power grid. Can we say NO loud enough? I do not want my future unborn kiddos playing outside near power lines. Unfortunately, we had no clue what we were doing at first and if we had paid attention we might have never gone in this house in the first place. But...oh well. So, we left last weekend for another trip to LBK as seasoned home searchers (does two or three trips of home searching makes us veterans? I think so!) I was very hopeful as I had decided I was in love with a specific house in a neighborhood we had not really looked in. I had stalked said house online all week. I was sure we would love it. We were met with rain (somehow all of our trips have brought bad weather) and, of course, good ole Lubbock wind. Awesome! Our first stop was a home our realtor selected for us to see that was new construction. We actually met with the builder. Little did we know, as we walked in to our appt, that this would be the house that captured our hearts. I will fast forward through the other houses as they were nothing special until our last stop at the house I thought I would love. And I did love it...except there was no shower in the master bath. C would have to trek across the house to use a shower. The master closet was also a little on the small side. Boo! But...our hearts were hopeful that we had found our new house in our first stop. We went home and slept on it. We went and saw the house two more times and decided to make an offer. SO....here is where I will pause this story because I do not want to gush all of the details only to come back disappointed if we do not get it. Everyone say a little prayer for us that we found our new home. I will update once we know!

XOXO,
Devin

Cadbury Eggs...a love/hate relationship

If I had to choose one seasonal candy to live off of forever, it would be the Cadbury Creme Egg. I love these things so much my husband threatens to disown me everytime he catches me eating one. I even have a recipe saved in my google reader for Cadbury Creme Egg cupcakes. What! I think I have what many might call an addiction. Luckily for me, these sweet treats are only available for a limited amount of time. Not lucky for me, retailers have started setting them out directly after Valentines. That gives me three months of guilt/bliss to enjoy. Oh how I wish the more I ate them the skinnier I got. Dream on, D, dream on.

In other, more interesting Street news, we spent a busy Easter weekend spending time with family and friends. We had dinner with our good friends Allison and Matt at Pappadeux Friday night. Wine, good music, and good friends on a gorgeous spring evening on the patio...can you really beat that? Saturday found me traveling to Rockwall with my mom and sister for my grandma's surprise 80th birthday. It was so much fun. My grandma was surprised, to say the least. It was her first surprise party and her first ride in a limo. It was an all girls affair with the women of my family and my grandmother's gal pals. We had lunch at Gloria's on the harbor in Rockwall. Very fun.

After her birthday lunch, I came back to Fort Worth to meet Colton so we could head out to Possum Kingdom Lake to spend Easter with his family. We spent the evening having fun and fellowship with his dad's side of the family. They are very close to one another. Its something I really like about them and it makes me happy to be a part of their family now. Plus, I am lucky. I have good inlaws. One of my students asked me the other day if I like my inlaws and I feel blessed that I can say yes.

We woke up early Sunday morning to make it back to church services at eleven. After church, we went to my parent's house for Easter. Mom had a great Easter lunch and she even gave us all Easter baskets filled with yummy treats. My mother is aware of my affinity for all things Cadbury so she placed some creme eggs in my basket. They are now sitting on my kitchen table and I am in the process of an staredown with those eggs. To eat or not to eat? That is the question.

I have a wonderful family and I am very blessed to be able to spend time with them and enjoy it. Colton and I are very lucky to have as much love and support as we do.

This weekend is Lizzy's shower and I have been busy planning every last detail. Hopefully all goes off without a hitch. I will try and remember to post pictures of the party. We have another Lubbock trip in our near future and hopefully we will find good news/things when we are there. Jobs and a house would be nice!

XOXO,
Devin

Back to life...back to reality.....

Actually, my first week back has been very nice. Monday was a little on the slow side and I was tired but overall its been a good experience. I must be basking in the glow of today's lessons with my students because I am in a really good mood. We did a review (nothing exciting) for their test tomorrow but we mixed it up with a little competitive jeopardy where they rotated. I think they actually had fun!

What's new with the Streets you ask? Well, I will tell you. We returned giddy from our trip to Lubbock last weekend with five houses as frontrunners to be our next home. It was a fun experience to look for our first home, although it is kind of weird to open closets of homes where people still live. You can see some interesting stuff in there! We saw Colton's family Saturday for Colton's dad and nanny's birthday. It was an all around good time.

We are headed back to LBK this weekend to see those five houses plus two more new ones to try and begin really narrowing down the ones we like. I am excited. I will also attempt to make some good connections at the job fair I am going to so I don't have a home but no job. :)

Our P90X experience began this week. (We hit a speed bump last week with me being on spring break so we decided to scratch our first week and begin again.) We have been getting up in the mornings at 5:45 to do the workouts. Yuck. I wish I could be like my mom who is skinny as a rail and can eat as many Oreos as she wants. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

Here's to hoping this sunshine sticks around!

XOXO,
Devin

Spring Break Euphoria

Did I mention I LOVE spring break? Okay...I just love breaks in general because it means I can do whatever I want whenever I want. Sleep in? Check. Make breakfast? Check. Pedicure? Check. And the list goes on. Let me tell you last Friday when the bell rang after 7th period I may have beat Usain Bolt's 100m time on the sprint to my car! A smile was plastered across my face and I was overflowing with joy. Freedom...aagh!

My break has been just what the doctor ordered. A little Tech-TCU baseball action followed by dinner at the Mellow Mushroom with our friends Luke and Leslie who came to visit us from San Angelo,  Greenville on Saturday for the St. Patty's parade and party, R&R on Sunday (after the quick jaunt to Dallas...see below), a visit with my dad on Monday and a pedicure, shopping Tuesday for my friend Lizzy and Susanna's wedding showers, and lunch yesterday with Lizzy in Dallas at Kona grill. Today is actually the first day I have not gotten up and gotten dressed immediately. I am still in my pajamas as we speak. :)

So...to reference my quick trip to Dallas from above...apparently I must have felt from somewhere deep within that I could not move on to the next stage in my adult life until I completed a step from college/post college years that many people go through. I had somehow managed to avoid this fate until Saturday. I lost my cell phone. In my rational thinking, I thought it would be a good idea to take my phone out of my pocket and set it on the ledge in the restroom on Greenville so the phone did not drop into the toilet. Note to self....next time you employ this bright tactic remember to pick up said cell phone. Lucky for me, the young lady who went after me grabbed the phone and turned it in to the counter. A very generous and kind hearted man picked it up and called my good friend Vanessa but she could not hear him. So, the case of Devin's missing phone began. The saga continued through Saturday up to Sunday morning, when above mentioned man called my husband and told him the phone was in good hands, he had made only calls to a "Vanessa" and to him. He promised to meet us after he got off work training for his new job at the Angry Dog in Dallas, which is how I found myself driving back to Dallas with hubs Sunday afternoon. End of story-my beautiful purple flip phone (no I do not have a blackberry or Iphone) was returned to me unharmed. Colton may tell this story a little differently if you ask him.

My fun laden spring break will culminate with a trip to Lubbock this weekend to begin our house hunt. To put it modestly, I am SUPER excited. We are lined up to see about 10-12 homes. It is also my father in law's birthday so we will celebrate with a birthday dinner Saturday night. Woohoo.

A last thought before I part to pack and prep for Lubbock...I am anxiously awaiting the release of New Moon and The Blind Side Dvds this weekend. Yes....I like Twilight. Yes...I am 26 years old. No, I do not care if it was meant for teens. Oh..and the Blind Side is one of the most inspiring movies I have seen in awhile. It ranks right up there with Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers. And I love Sandra Bullock.

XOXO,
Devin

Spring break...where art thou?

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, while I will enjoy my journey through the light (aka spring break), it will only bring me to yet another tunnel. This tunnel will be much longer considering we have no breaks again until school lets out for summer. Alas, the life of the poor teacher. I know others probably become frustrated when they hear teachers complain about their schedule and lack of breaks when needed but to them I say "Ha! You try dealing with 120 14-15 years old and a smattering of 18 year olds!" I do truly love my job and I would not have any other career (okay okay...I could defintely be paid to travel around the world to "investigate" what is fun to do in exotic locales or to own my own bakery). Spring just brings many obstacles to the average teacher's path: TAKS tests, spring fever, and senioritis that has become magnified times ten. Let's just say each day brings new joys and challenges. What can I say...life always stays interesting for teachers.

To add to the chaos I call life, Colton and I desperately need to begin our house search. Oh..and a job for me would be nice. We are planning to head to Lubbock in two weekends on the last few days of my spring break. Organizer that I am, I made Colton sit with me this afternoon and make a list of things to do and not to do while searching for a house. On this list, I added specifications we will be looking for in a home (for example-lots of storage space) and then I forced him to make a list of the houses we have found online that we would like to see. He constantly tells me he thinks I am a little OCD with all my organizing and specifics about the ways things must be. I just tell him I like to know where things are/what we are doing. :)

My 101 in 1001 list has been on the backburner lately and I feel like I need to get back on the tasks. It's so easy to place it on the bottom of my to-do list but I really want to accomplish these things for myself so more attention must be paid.

I finished my good friend Lizzy's shower invites. I will try to post pics later. They turned out very cute and I even printed them myself, thankyouverymuch! I will be working on her shower and bacherlorette stuff over spring break.

Since I did not update last week, Colton and I have found a new restaurant in Fort Worth we like. Its called the Mellow Mushroom and they serve pizza, beer, and wine. Its delicious pizza and I have a feeling its going to become one of our regular dinner spots on Friday evenings. Usually, Friday is our date night and we have spent the last two at the Mellow Mushroom. Move on over Cheers....you have nothing on the MM. We also spent last Sunday at the Fort Worth Zoo. It was one of the first truly nice days of spring so we decided to head to the zoo and then to the new Cooper's barbecue for lunch. We had a fun time looking at the lions, tigers, and bears....and monkeys and zebras and giraffes....... but, to our disappointment, the reptile section was closed. We will have to wait until the new museum dedicated to all things cold blooded opens. Coopers was good, too, and for me to say that is saying something. Normally, I am not a lover of barbecue but Coopers has a variety of food offerings for all palates. Colton ordered so much food he had to take some home and eat leftoevers!

Spring is showing signs of life and summer is on its way. Tomorrow, we will begin our 90 day love-hate relationship with P90X. We have yet to do it the complete 90 days so we shall see.

XOXO,
Devin