Random Thoughts

1.) I still have not readjusted to my night shifts from our vacation! Can't sleep during the day, can make it through the night without a million cups of coffee. I am sure the caffeine contributes to the not sleeping during the day, but I can't help it, it is a vicious cycle.

2.) My sister suddenly announced to the world today that she been offered a job to Au Pair for a South African family in India and they want her there by the middle of August...which by my clock is TWO WEEKS! I am really excited for her, a little worried and even a bit jealous. I can see that conversation, "well honey, I am going away for a little bit." "oh yeah? Where?" "Well I will be overseas Au Pairing for a couple months. You carry on here I will be back!" hehe he would probably shit a brick! Actually he wouldn't believe me, well because, I would never do something like that!

3.) I have peed on two sticks since Monday, nothing yet, but of course it is too early. Silly me peeing on stick when I know it is too soon!

4.) We got approved for a special house loan where you don't have to put any money down. So know all we need to do is save up enough money for the unexpected costs. I really want to buy a house like yesterday. But at the same time it has been nice having the extra money to put in savings and just save up. Paying more a month for a mortgage and everything else that comes with owning a house is scary!

5.) Girls tubing trip this weekend!

6.) Mid-August through mid-September I will be working somewhere around 45 hrs of overtime. Yeah of the extra money, boo for having to be at work!

I Think I am in Love!

My new favorite thing, vintage advertisements!

These two crack me up!

These Cosmo covers are gorgeous and fun!

This might be my favorite just because it is so cleaver!

This one is beautiful!

So is this one!

I would love to have a collection of these in my house beautifully framed and displayed somewhere. The bathroom might be kind of a cool place for them. I would have a hard time just choosing a few of them! Would it be to much craziness to have them framed nicely but from floor to ceiling all over? Where else might be a great place to put them? Let me know what you think!

Why I Love Montana!

Yesterday Brian and I headed out into the great wilderness and went hiking! It was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed the beauty of the mountains around us. The hike was on the Spanish Creek Road. We took the South Fork Trail to Pioneer Falls. The trail is 7.5 miles round trip and has an elevation gain of about 300 feet (all pretty much at the end!)

The trail must be popular because there were quite a few people on it. There was also a lot of horse back riders. We did get the opportunity though to spend about 45 min totally alone, up at the top of the falls just relaxing on rocks. It was so peaceful and the view was great!

Sadly Brian and I do not get out enough and enjoy the area around us. I feel like especially in Bozeman it is easy to get caught up in life in the valley and not take the time to get out into the mountains around us. I grew up in Gardiner and the only thing to do in that area is to drive 3-10 minutes and head into the mountains, so we did it quite a bit. In Bozeman the drive is usually more like 20-30 minutes. Which for some reason is too much for us at times. I realize that we are very lucky to be 20-30 minutes away from "the wilderness," and that we are fools for not taking more advantage of it!

The Obsession Starts

"What obsession?" you ask.

The all the sudden we have to buy a house, and it might be more possible than we thought, and I CANNOT stop looking at real estate websites obsession! I literally itch to get on the computer and start searching for our next house.

What happened? I have been casually looking off and on for the last couple of months just to see what is on the market and stuff like that. Yesterday morning at work I was convinced that I found this AMAZING deal on a 3 bed 2 bath condo. I came rushing home all in a thither and told Brian that we could definitely afford it right now and that we should call a real estate agent and go take a look at it THIS afternoon. To my surprise he actually agreed. So I called and set up a showing with the real estate agent and that lead to setting up a financing meeting with a mortgage loan officer and all the sudden we were on the track to start looking for houses.

So we didn't like the condo...at all. And the loan officer told us that while it looks like we are in a good position to get a decent mortgage we will need to save up some more money for a down payment (which we sorta knew anyway.) However, the real estate agent told us about a Montana Rural Development housing loan that we might qualify for which requires a VERY small down payment. So we are going to set up a meeting with a different mortgage agency that specializes in this loan on Monday, and see what happens from there.

All very exciting and now I have one more excuse to spend countless hours wasting my time online at work and home!

Nothing Like the Wii to take a Swing at the Self Confidence Meter

Oh Boy! So did I mention that I got a Wii for my birthday? It is the ONLY Nintendo/gaming system that I have EVER owned in my entire 25 years. Crazy, I know. I contribute my complete lack of understanding and uncoordinated-ness (which is a word...obviously!) with any gaming controller to this fact. Since I am completely inept with any regular controller I obviously suck at playing games.

However, the Wii is a totally different story. I get the motion thing and there is really only a couple of buttons on the remote, so I don't fair to bad all-in-all. I can even beat Brian at somethings...at least the first time we play. He actually got mad at me when we were playing golf and I was simultaneously winning and asking him what a bogey was, and if a birdie meant that I was doing well.

Anyway I digress. The point of this post was the Wii Fit.

Since Brian and I have been married we have slowly but surely put on the newlywed 15. It is sad but true. After our recent vacation we decided that it was more than time that we buckled down and started dieting and exercising like every good overweight American does. So we pulled out the handy ole South Beach Diet book and made a shopping list. I told Brian that in celebration of our starting to diet we should get a Wii Fit. So we did.

On Sunday afternoon when we got home from Costco and the grocery store we plugged her in, getting all excited to see what cool things we could do with our new Wii Fit. She promptly told me that I was overweight and poor Brian that he was even more...you know up there on the weight scale. Poor guy!

I have done two days of exercising on the Wii since we got it. I like that it is interactive and sadly I can feel the workout in my muscles (which is good.) However, I do not like the fact that while you bank minutes for working out, it takes you a couple of minutes to navigate in between screens to get to the next yoga move, or strength training. It makes it hard to have a nice flow to a work out!

So I am interested to see where the Wii Fit will take us on our journey as we eat only salads for now until forever in hopes of shedding a few pounds before bikini season!

Oh So Tired!

We are finally home after a whirl wind three weeks. After house sitting in Bozeman for a week, two weeks in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and a short weekend in Island Park, ID home never felt so good!

We just need to reorder the house after the explosion that happened pretty much the second we walk in the door from unloading everything.

I will hopefully get a chance to post some pictures and give some highlights from the various trips. But first I need to do the laundry, find the bathroom counter under the piles of travel stuff, and try to catch enough sleep to function somewhat properly while re-adjusting to the night shift! Wish me luck!

Fireflies and Bonfires

We are on our vacation in Wisconsin and Minnesota, visiting family. So for our trip has been great.

We spent the 4th of July weekend at Brian's parents house in northren WI. After two days boating and swimming on the lake and campfires and good food at night everyone was pretty wiped!

We are now at Brian's sisters house south of the twin cities. Saturday is the big Nickolay BBQ/reception whic should be fun. The rest of the time we ae just going to spend hanging out with family.

When we get home I will post pictures of all of our happenings!