life

I get to snuggle at night with my lil guy and I am woken up by my husband when he gets home from work to get a kiss goodnight...

Taken by Mark on his iPhone one morning

And when I drive to work on clear mornings I see this

And even though life may not be perfect, there are still those days where you wake up and think to yourself that today is going to be a great day, it is those days that you realize that there really is a lot out there for us and that you just need to let life happen.... 

What A Difference!

What a difference working a full time job makes! I am exhausted and I feel bad for Mark because I am probably always complaining, although he tells me he understands!  I have started my new teaching job and boy is it a LOT of work! I am teaching a class that I have not taught before or never thought I was ever going to teach.  I am a Biology and Chemistry teacher and I am teaching a Research Core class.  I plan week to week and never know where I am going with it so far! I work at school, I work when I come home from school, I work on the weekends, its never ending so far and I did hear that is how it is your first couple of years of teaching! Its hard and overwhelming but I am very GRATEFUL to have a job at all, I am very lucky.  I commute almost an hour and a half each way and work a part time job still.  Mark starts his new job next week and will be working some late nights and he too works another part time job as well... so it is going to be hard to not see him every night, but I know we will get through it.  I guess I just needed to write this all out but thanks for "listening" and sorry about all my complaining!

Off to do more work for school.....

Oh and one thing that is keeping me going through all this crazy hectic work stuff....


Fall....its almost here...I can smell it!

Cannot wait for bonfires, cozy nights with the windows open, caramel apple cider from Starbucks, football, family time, changing of colors....mmmmm it gets me through these hard days!

incredible.

i believe in the saying, "good things come to those who wait."

actually I would revise that to incredible things come to those who wait....

this post does not have fun pictures and cute stories

just plain, simple, and to the point.

i was blessed to get a job for this school year, i will be a first year teacher

and

mark was blessed to get a new job as well

im proud of mark, proud of myself and proud of us...life is good

we are two very happy peas in a pod, well three peas if you include cooper :)

just proves to you that incredible things really do come to those who wait!

Our Home: Before and After

Mark and I started the process of looking for a home back in March.  The process was stressful but fast.  It went by a lot faster than I thought it would and we were lucky to find a house so quickly.  By the end of May we closed on our first home.  We were one of the lucky ones who found an approved short sale so we were able to get our home quite fast.  It was a great deal and a home where me and Mark can start a family. 

The home was in pretty good condition, there were a few things here and there that needed to be changed but it was pretty much just cosmetics that needed to be changed.  Without further ado here our pictures of our home, before and after :)

This is the outside of our home, the only thing that we changed is we painted the shutters and everything that is hunter green to a berry color (Came out a little more pink than anticipated but I love it!)

They were using this as a TV room (Before)

We made it into a comfy office (After)

This was their kitchen (Before)

We made it more colorful! :)

This is the family room (Before)

We made it neutral with greenish/gray couches! That blanket is where Cooper likes to sleep during the day when we are gone (After)

This is the downstairs bathroom (Before)

(After)

Shared master bath (Before)

We did light gray with black and white decor (After)

I actually did not take any before pictures of the bedrooms.  The master bedroom was a yellow color and the spare bedrooms were beige and dark blue.  Here is how they look now!

This is the master bedroom (with Marks dream bed! (King size that is!)

The spare bedroom pictures did not come out as good but they are painted a blue/green color, this will be our babies room when the time comes since we can decorate with pink if a girl and blue if a boy, and a beige for our other spare bedroom!

All and all it was a lot of work and there are still things that need to be done and decorations that need to be bought and put up but overall we love it and we are slowly making it home for us! :) So, if you are ever in the area please come visit....I will cook for you! :)

Steak and Potatoes

Once again I am back to post another recipe.  Although this one is not so much a recipe as in another way to cook!  I cooked us steak and roasted potatoes, the only problem was.....NO GRILL.  I used a stove-top grilling pan and the oven.  First up....Potato!

Oven Roasted Potatoes

4 potatoes sliced into quarters

Olive oil

Parsley

Salt and pepper

Preheat Oven to 400 degrees

1. Wash and cut potatoes into quarter slices, you can peel them if you want but I prefer the skins on (added nutrition! :)

2. Put on baking pan

3. Coat in olive oil

4. Put some salt and pepper on

5. Bake for 30 minutes until crispy on the outside and tender on the inside

Steak

1. Heat up stove top grilling pan dry until it is super hot

2. Season steaks, I used salt and pepper

3. Place steaks on grill pan, about 2 minutes on each side

4. Place in the oven with potatoes (on a different rack of course!)

5. Cook until you get desired temperature.  I cooked for about 10 minutes (It was a little too long but at 6 minutes they were still really red inside)

I served the steak with sauteed mushrooms on top......Here is my end result!

I served this with a package of the steamfresh mixed vegetables...a perfect summer meal!

Honeymoon Part 2

Riviera Maya

So we left behind our beloved Cozumel, jumped back on the ferry, and headed over to Riviera Maya.  We stayed at another all-inclusive adults only resort.  This place was HUGE compared to Cozumel.  Cozumel had about 80 suites and The El Dorado Royale had about 750!  It had like 9 restaurants, 10 pools....it was crazy!

This was a view from the lobby of the resort.  No way could you see all of it in one picture like you could have at the resort in Cozumel

Our room here was also quite amazing.  We did not do the swim up suite here but we did have an ocean view jacuzzi suite!

Our jacuzzi!

Our wonderful bed! It was coooommmmmfy!

View from our balcony.  This was the activity pool.  We played water volleyball and Mark dominated on Water Polo...

While in Riviera Maya we did not do as much as we did in Cozumel (I think we were a little depressed to be leaving such an awesome place and awesome people), but we did manage to get in a couple things!  We did a couples massage.  It was called the Romantic Journey.  We each got an 80 minute massage followed by a 20 minute facial.  Mark does not like facials so he was going to get a full body exfoliation, needless to say, they messed up and I got the exfoliation and Mark got the facial.  Right when the ladies left after we were done, we just looked at each other and started cracking up.  Mark looked like his face had a pound of butter on it, with his hair all sticking up, and I have exfoliation all over my body. It was quite funny.

We also went on an excursion. It was called XPLOR.  We did zip lining through the trees, about an hours worth...it was crazy!  If Mark wasnt there, I would have stopped after the first zipline because I was so freaked out, but I kept going for him :)  We rode ATV's and did some underground river swimming.  It was pretty crazy.  It was an awesome experience but we were exhausted afterwards!

Okay Okay...go ahead and laugh....we both look like we are special people here!  They make you wear a helmet throughout the facility no matter what you are doing.  It was caves full of stalactacites!

Inside XPLOR, the whole thing is underground.  You zipline right through that waterfall there!

To end our awesome honeymoon we enjoyed a candlelight dinner on the beach.  Our travel agent (Barb) gave us vouchers for a free candlelight dinner! Or else it would have been 140.00!  It was calm and peaceful and it was a great end to our trip!

Menu, winelist, and view of the ocean!

Ring shot once again!

Happy Honeymoon to us!

By the time our honeymoon ended we were excited to go home!  We ate way to much, relax too often, and were ready to get back into the swing of being husband and wife! (You can see in the last pic we looked like we gained about 15 pounds! haha)  Overall, it was a great honeymoon and well worth every penny :)

Honeymoon Part 1

                                       

Cozumel

Our honeymoon journey began with a 8:35 flight out of O'hare Airport.  I hate flying and so my morning started out with an upset stomach because I was nervous to fly.  Turns out the flight to Cancun wasn't too bad at all!  We landed safely at noon and then we headed to the ferry to head over to the island of Cozumel.

This is the ferry that took us over! It's huge. I was expecting a little wooden boat like The Oregan Trail! :)

Once we got to Cozumel we checked into the Aura Grand Bay Wyndam.  It is an all-inclusive adults only resort.  When we arrived they gave us champagne with a cherry on the bottom.  When we entered our room there was a bottle of champagne and fruit waiting for us.  The room was breathtaking!

This is a view of the room looking from the sitting area.  The room was gigantic! The big hole with the blinds is where the bathtub is! They had a bathtub and a open shower...it was awesome!

Our bed.  It was so comfortable like you were sleeping on clouds.  The light in the headboard was turned on for us at night when they came to our room and did turn down service while we were at dinner.  These people were good!

This is the balcony.  We went all out here and had a swim up suite.  There was a bed on the balcony and we could just walk right into the pool...it was well worth it!

Next thing I must talk about is food.  The food here was not as good as Riviera Maya but was still fantastic.  Since it was all inclusive we ate, and ate, and ate some more!  We would have breakfast, then have some pico de gallo and guacamole by the pool, maybe some nachos, lunch, then dinner.  We ate non-stop!

Our breakfast usually consisted of egg-white omelettes with fresh spinach and muchrooms (Mark opted for ham and mushroom and he also always ordered another meal with his like french toast or pancakes!)

One great thing about Cozumel is the water. It is crystal clear.  You could be in forty foot deep water and be able to see the bottom.  It looked as if you could stand.  The hotel had its own pier and you could get snorkling gear for free there and just snorkel off the pier.  It was awesome and breathtaking.  Here is the view of our pier, we saw this everyday, all day! (We even rented a waverunner one day and took it out into the blue!)

This was a view from breakfast one morning :)

This was when we were walking down the pier.  You just jumped in wherever and could snorkel! Jealous yet?! :)

Next was the pool.  There were two pools but we stayed by this one everyday because it was the pool that was attached the lazy river that went right by our room!  The view was unimaginable.  To sit there everyday and just look out from the pool to the ocean was inspiring.

Missing this place right about NOW!

I have a minor obession with my feet and even more so now that I have a tattoo on one!  Mark and I always laid on this pool bed...it was comfy!

Although it did rain from time to time, almost every day.  It would be random.  It could be completely sunny there and it would downpour!  Even so we did not let it bother us, we enjoyed Cozumel rain or shine!  We met a great couple there, Andrew and Weslyn, that we did some activities with.  It was fun to hang out with another couple and enjoy some sites!  First up.....Moped rental.  We took these scooters around the island.  We literally drove around the whole island!  Mark and I leading and Andrew and Weslyn close behind!

This picture just shows how much fun we were having!  We laughed the whole time! We were talking about how we felt like we were on Dumb and Dumber when they are riding the scooter in the freezing cold.  It did start to rain when I was driving!

Thats Mark and I along with Andrew.  The boys were feeling the need for speed! ha!

We also went snorkling with them where we saw a gigantic green eel (looked like it came right out of The Little Mermaid), a sea turtle (Just like Crush from Nemo! Just huge!), barracudas, and everyone else but me saw a 7 foot shark!  It was awesome!

Our second to last day there we met some great people.  We had a whole crew of us from all around the United States (but mostly from down south).  When it came time for Mark and I to leave the island, I must admit, we were a little depressed to be leaving such great people!  We were just getting started!

All of us, minus me cause I'm taking the pic, at the pool.  That lady in the background decided she wanted to join us right before the pic! haha

Overall, it was a great start to our honeymoon.  We soon packed our bags and were off to another great destination! Riviera Maya.....

Here are some extra pics from our trip to Cozumel....

Must do ring shots on your honeymoon!  These were after dinner drinks we had one night....

Could not get over the towel animals...I think I had a snail, dog, and swan....

Mr. and Mrs. Humbert :)