Life with the Aronsons

Thursday, July 18, 2013

First Part of Summer...BUSY!

Like usual we are BUSY BUSY BUSY! Thank goodness we have the summer to be busy in :)

This summer is probably not quite as crazy as last (remember....wedding, honeymoon (in 2 different places), moving to MN, finding a home, New jobs, etc.) But we are defenitely traveling a good deal, almost as much as last year!

The summer started out pretty low key. We bought our house, so we started to work on some updates on that. First I took on painting our kitchen cabinets... the inside! They were just so dark, unfinished, stinky and gross that I wanted some BRIGHTNESSS in the room, and thus painted them yellow. I think it's an improvement. I still have yet to paint the lower cabinets, but the upper took me all day so I'm trying to work up the courage to finish!

Before

After

I got a little paint on me

Shortly aftter this, I finally tackled the wallpaper in our office, and realized what a PAIN wallpaper is! I started painting it TEAL :) and it's really looking good!

Lastly I've been painting little wall hangings for various rooms in our house and trying to figure how how we are going to decorate all of these rooms! Things like the saying below are what I've been doing, and I promise more pictures are to come soon of the house! I just hate to send pictures of a project that is not yet complete... but I think the furnishing/decorating of the house will be a long ongoing project!

While we are in MN we are also doing a little bit of work. I've been teaching quite a few more classes at the YMCA, and both Mark and I have worked a little bit at our schools. I did a week of community ED with some of my old students, and it was fun to get to work with them again (and keep practicing my Spanish!)

At our house we've continued to enjoy our yard, and spend time with family. We've loved watching Maxwell Staum grow up. He can finally say both Mark and Sandy so that's exciting! We also got to go with Anne, Mike and some friends to the Bob Dylan, Wilco, My Morning Jacket concert and that was fun (aside from the fact that Bob Dylan is so old you can't understand a word that comes out of his mouth).

At Bob Dylan

Though I must say, babysitting Max is not all fun and games. Cici is not very happy to lose the attention, and thus either pouts, or gets in your way. Thanks to her I broke my toe whilst holding Max on our deck...

In addition to enjoying our home the last few/the next few weeks are tons of travel. We started by spending a few days in Afton to celebrate Charley and Shelby Bruce's wedding! The same weekend as our ONE YEAR anniversary! So crazy! Mark was in the wedding, and it was a beautiful venue at the Stillwater Courthouse, on a nice cool summer day :) (Much different from the 105 degrees at our wedding).

From Stillwater we head to Wisconsin to spend the 4th of July on Lake Superior at Mark's cabin! It was a nice peaceful quiet time, just us and his parents. It was surprisingly cool, but it made for great hiking weather above the sea caves! We were also able to take the boat out a few times (although we had to wear hoodies it was soo cold!) The last day we were there we tried to go swimming, but if you got in past your shin bones your body started to sting/burn. While there we also got to see some family friends the Claytons, and I got to meet one of Mark's old HS friends, Andy.

Sea Caves below us

From the cabin, we head home for a few days and then drove down to Iowa to visit my parents on a llama farm. :) They are visiting some friends in IA for the summer, and staying on a farm with 250 llamas! It's in a small town, and it's super cute and was a nice visit with them (Although we did have 4 dogs in a small house... a bit crazy!) We went from IA to Kansas City to visit old friends! We got to eat barbeque, walk around Westport, see our old homes, see Loose Park, I visited Kauffman School's new campus (which is GINORMOUS!) and we had dinner at McCoys. Oh, and I must mention of course getting Yogurtini my favorite frozen yogurt place :)

BBQ-Oklahoma Joes

Cici/Buddy

We are now back home and will be here for a few days and my mom and dad are coming tomorrow! It will be the first time they see our home which will be neat! They will get to see our new city Eagan, and if they are lucky get to have some of my freshly grown vegetables like my lettuce :)

Once they leave we have a few days of rest, and then we're headed back out again, a weekend in Omaha to celebrate another friend's wedding (have you noticed that we've had a lot of weddings the past year?!) And then back out to the cabin, but this time with ALL of Mark's family, 11 adults, 2 teenagers, 3 kids, 2 toddlers and 3 dogs. It should be a wild time. Stay tuned

Friday, June 14, 2013

NOW we are adults?

Like always I feel like I have waited too long before writing this post, but the last month has been INTENSE busy and fast-paced. In it I have started a new part time job, finished my first year teaching first grade, traveled throughout 3 states, been in 2 wedding and bought and moved into a new house!

Let's quickly start from the first of those thoughts, started a new part time job-a fitness instructor. When people ask "WHY!?" I just have to remember back to being a middle/high-schooler in my parents basement, doing workout videos, and pretending to be one of the instructors! As silly as it sounds, I've always wanted to do it, and now I am! I'm currently just teaching Boot Camp, (which is intense and based on drills and pain :) ), Core Conditioning (ab workout), Water X (more intense !) than you'd and something called Tabata (going all out 20 sec, 10 sec rest). Plan is to train for my things, however every type of class you are certified to teach costs between 100-400 to train for! So eventually I'll teach other things I like more like Yoga, maybe zumba? etc.

Next, FINISHED MY FIRST YEAR IN FIRST GRADE! Below you'll see my babies on field day. I have to say, I was ready for the year to end, but it was a GREAT first year, in a new school, teaching in a new language and at a new grade! My staff is great, couldn't ask for a better principal (Except maybe my old one Hannah L!) and the kids are sweet. I'm excited to get to see some of them this summer in a couple of 3/hr a day classes I'll be doing (but only for 2 weeks!).

Alright, where was I? Oh yes, Weddings! I had the immense pleasure of being in my 3rd and 4th weddings this year! (also count as attending the 6th and 7th!) Cammie got married in lovely Boulder Colorado, and Nicole got married in Winston-Salem NC! Colorado first, beautiful weather, no humidity! We hiked in the Rockies, got frozen yogurt, pranced around a farm, ate pies and danced all night :) It was a lovely time!

Now onto Nicole's wedding! It was 2 days before school ended, so I took Thursday and Friday off so that I could be back at school for our last day Monday! In addition, because we were in W-S I got to spend time with my family! Paul and Susan were there which was great! We made sushi together and got yogurt (seeing a theme in what I like to do with friends and family?) We played board games and went for a long walk. The only thing missing was my husband, but who really needs him anyways :) Nicole's wedding was also perfect. It was neat for me because I knew both Nicole and Matt decently well (Nicole being a childhood friend, Matt going to WFU with me-Yes... I am responsible for their relationship in case you were wondering; Two words-Disney Party). The wedding took place at my childhood elementary school...slightly weird....but it was neat to see all my childhood friends grown up and in one place together. Nicole does such a good job keeping up with everyone, and she helps keep us all together :) The only difference in our actions from being children to now, is now half of us are engaged and married, some have kids and we live on our own! But we're still silly and had a great time being a part of Nicole and Matt's special day! Not to mention the weather cooperated and although it rained almost every other day I was there, her wedding day was sunny and low 80s!


Slightly awkward but the only picture I have of	our beautiful dresses!

Alright, last but definitely not least... we bought a house! Yes, we did. And we love it! When we found it we had to make a move right away, and the process was long, and not fun... but now we are homehowners! We are now in Eagan, MN. It's a suburb of the Twin Cities, and we're actually closer now to St. Paul than to Minneapolis. In fact, sometimes our address comes out as St. Paul, but we're still technically Eagan! We live in a cute little neighborhood across from a little park with a BIG pond (I'd call it a lake) and a walking trail that takes about 10 minutes around. At the end of our street is an entrance to Patrick Eagan Park walking/hiking trails that go around a "real" lake. The entire city is just bursting of parks and trails and that's one of the biggest things that attracted Mark and I. One of our favorite things about living in Minneapolis was all the access to Wirth Park and Cedar Lake, but we still have that here! To celebrate our last weekend in Minneapolis we enjoyed the weather and head out to my first Twins Game! And went out to eat downtown. We will miss that 5 minute drive to downtown (and my 10 minute commute) but we really do love our new place!

Last hike at Cedar wore her out!

So now for pictures. I have to first say, we are far from done! We moved from a 1 bedroom less than 1000 square foot house to over doubling it... and we don't have enough to furnish it :) We know it'll be a house that we grow into, so we're ok with that, but do not judge the empty rooms and poor decorating. I'm waiting to really decorate when we have fully furnished rooms and know where things are going :) So I think that's it for the writing portion of this post.. Oh wait, I forgot to mention Mark and I's next door neighbors... Mark and Sandy. Not even kidding. Ok, now to pictures.