Picture Time!

So here are some pics of what we have been up to lately. Nothing super exciting, but I thought I would go ahead post them. I kinda consider this like scrap book, so I feel like I'm "documenting" things. Things that aren't super important, but I have pictures of them... so they are getting posted!

I have continued to be obsessed with spray painting things. My new found love, is spray painting glass. I had gotten these gobblets at a Christmas gift exchange party like 3 years ago. And I was thinking about tossing them recently, because I wasn't loving them where I had put them. And then it came to me.... what if i could paint them?! So then it began. They were actually kinda a pain to paint, the spray paint dripped really bad on one (I then realized that they shouldn't be standing up right when i spray them..haha!) Added this amazing gold finish to them (that I am also obsessed with). And there ya go! Totally changed their whole look, and I love them now. I put them in our guest  bath and definitely loving it them! Thank you spray paint!

So my sisters ordered some cases for the phones a few weeks ago. We order from Amazon, so you can find some as cheap as $1.00 sometimes. Which is awesome! So my sister Shasta ordered one of these except it is pink cheetah print. And oh my... I was in love. I instantly got on amazon and found this beauty. I have also been obsessed with cheetah print lately. Anything I see that is cheetah print.. i instantly want. I am always looking for cheetah high heels. Haven't found them yet. I found a cheetah vest at Goodwill not to long ago for $3 which I love. I've been wanting to add some cheetah accents to my house... like some throw pillows, but haven't found any that I like yet. Anyways.... as you can tell.... OBSESSED! So... you can sense my excitement when I found this on amazon. This is like my 4th case I have ordered for my phone.. and this is by far my favorite. Thanks Shasta for finding hers... which lead me to mine.. and thank you Amazon for selling it pretty dang cheap.

 So a few weeks ago Josh I and were on our way home from hanging out with friends. It was pretty late, and he turned to me and asked if I wanted a milkshake. When I answered sure...and as I am about to ask where he wants to get one (what place is still open??) He turns in to the QT right by our house. I was like what?? A milkshake at a gas station... no thanks! Josh tells me that his buddy from work had him try one and they are really good! I was very doubtful... I'm not one to buy much at gas station when it comes to food... besides snacks and drinks. Never thought I would buy a milkshake from a gas station. Well we went it and they have tons of flavors! I'm all about orea blizzards... super thick and chunky. When you buy this milkshake, you kinda make it yourself which is kinda cool. So Josh got a strawberry and I chose cookies n cream. It was good.... but it wasn't as thick and chunky as i like it. But.... Josh's strawberry was to die for! Oh my goodness so yummy! I know it's weird, but I def recommend these!! Super yummy!!

 So i have been trying to try atleast one new recipe a week. Well... I'm not doing it every week, but still pretty often. Thank you pinterest.... I have found the last few new recipes on there, and they have been super yummy! So this one is the picture from pinterest... there's no way Josh and I could eat all this chicken. But this recipe was sooo yummy! I'm not in to meat wrapped in meat... but when I found the recipe, I totally had all the ingredients (which there weren't that many.... love that). So we tried it, and definitely a winner! You cover this in cream of chicken soup and a few other things. So good!

 This one is my picture, and it looks like this on pinterest. This one was very simple... and very yummy too!! I love easy recipes!!

 So this is what happens when you have a bunch of older sisters.... that give the younger sisters their hand me downs. Shasta had given Savanna her skirt... and I had gotten mine from Andrea. We showed up at my parents and had a good laugh. Love hand me downs!

 So the night before school started back up for me, Josh came up with these sweet flowers as a "good luck" with the first day of school. So sweet. We are almost done with our first whole week of school, and its going great. I'm seriously loving my sweet class! I'm excited for the year!

 So for Josh's birthday I had got him tickets to see in concert Kelly Clarkson and The Fray. The opening act was Carolina Liars... which i love there songs too. It was probably the best concert we have been too!! And we've been to our share of concerts. The last concert we went to was John Mayor, and Josh looooved him! Anyways, i wasn't familiar with alot of the Fray's songs, but I am in love. They were so awesome! So was Kelly Clarkson!! We grabbed yummy Firehouse subs for dinner, and had a great time at the concert. We randomly sat right next to some old friends from highschool. Crazy!

 Last weekend, Josh's family decided to go to the D-backs game. We went to one back at the beginning of the summer. It was a dang good time. We ended up losing by 1 point, but it was still a great game. They had the roof closed in the field(obviously with this 112+ heat). So it felt so nice in there. We had a great time!

 This is what I walk in to when Josh comes home. He comes home... I finish getting dinner ready... and very often I walk in to our family room and find him like this.

 So back in July we went with Josh's work to go see The Dark Knight Rises. We went to dinner with a few friends before.. and then went and saw the movie. Great movie! Very dark, very intense. It was weird seeing it right after the shooting happened. So sad. That Friday morning when I found out what happened in Colorado the night before, I just felt sick that day. So so sad. But.... we did enjoy the movie. And Josh now wants to be Bain for Halloween. He wanted to be Thor after he saw that movie, and now he is determined to be Bain. We shall see!ha!

 That's pretty much it for now. Josh ends work this weekend... so excited! It's been a good summer, but I'm excited for him to be done working out in the heat all day. Can't wait for this weather to cool down! Can't come soon enough!! Farewell for now!!

Oh Summer Fun!

Well here we are and summer is almost over. It's been a great one!  Aside from Josh being gone all day long and alll evening long working.haha! So about 2 weeks ago I went up to Idaho for a family reunion. Not all of my family could go, but those that went left on July 4th. My sister Ciera and I didn't fly out til that next Monday. Well to make a long story short about my families travels up to Idaho.. they stopped in Utah along the way, and headed though Idaho up to Island park where the reunion was. Well they are jam packed in the car with the trailer not to far behind them. They travel through this small town called Paris, Idaho population of probably 800 people. When... their car breaks down. It's on a Sunday so everything is closed. By the help of some nice people they were able to get the car towed by a tow guy/mechanic guy. He said it would be few days before he would know what's wrong w/ it and to order the parts(he was thinking it was prob the transmition). Well, my family is supposed to be spending the next week at the reunion. To sum up the story... this nice mechanic/tow guy called his wife and told my parents they could just take their Yukon for the week and he'll fix their car in the mean time. Crazy right? My parents are like shocked? He didn't even charge them to borrow his car. Talk about nice people in the world. He was able to fix the car and after our reunion, we drove back down to Paris, and swapped cars... with a brand new transmition in my parents car. The wife of this guy said that he does this all the time. She said last year it spent some of the summer up in Washington. To funny! But bless their sweet hearts because my family wouldn't have made it to the reunion if wasn't for them. (And me and Ciera would have been stranded in the Idaho Falls airport for a few days..haha!) It was a wonderful reunion. We rafting down the Snake River, and spent a few days in Yellowstone... which is gorgeous by the way... AMAZING!

Well not a whole lot else has been going on since then. I've just been working in my classroom almost everyday, trying to get all ready for school to start. I'm way excited for the new year to start, and to meet my new kiddos in my class and get to know their sweet personalities. I'm excited to see my kiddos from last year too... they are sweet little 1st graders now.

Also, some exciting news that we are soooo excited about!!! My sister Savanna and her hubby have been living in Phillly since March when they got married. Lets just say we've been them very very much. Well he got a job out here with ASU and so next week they will be making their way across the country back to AZ. We were soo excited when we heard the news! So glad to have them back here! Good luck to their long drive across the country though.

As you will see that I'm still obsessed with my pic collage apps on my phone. Here some things that we have been up this summer! Enjoy!

For Josh's birthday, we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner with some friends. We had a great time! Yummy food and great company. We love Texas Roadhouse, I especially love what I get there. It's called the "country veg plate", and you choose 4 sides from their sides menu. So i always get a salad, seasoned rice, seasoned veggies, and corn or baked potato. Sounds like a great meal right?? Well, Josh likes to tease me EVERY time we go there. (because I always get that). He just laughs when it's my turn order. But hey you get a variety of yummy food, and I'm always overly satisfied with my choices. And I like to think that it is healthy... w/ all the veggies.haha! I think Josh has a hard time understanding how someone can go to Texas Roadhouse, and not get some form of meat... chicken, steak.. ribs. Well, if you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it. Sooo yummy!

 We had a family dinner at my families' house, and these are our 2 adorable nieces. Love those girls! Hadley is reading a book, and Meg is cuddling with me. So fun! And we have another niece on the way at the end of August! Can't wait!! After that we will have 3 nieces and 3 nephews.

 Here we are on the 4th of July. We went and saw the new Spiderman movie with Josh's family. It was good! I liked the characters better than the old ones. Then we had a BBQ back at Josh's Grandma's house. After that we went over to my parents house and spent the rest of the evening lighting sparklers and hanging out. Savanna and Logan were in town for a few days that week so we were able to spend it with them too! And bottom right picture is Josh around 10:00 that night. With how many hours he works, he is so exhausted by the end of the day.

 This is Hadley taking a nap on my sister Molly's shoulder. So sweet!

 So a few weeks ago my sister bought a shellac machine. So we all got together one evening, and did each other's nails. Let's just say.. there may have been a few tears shed... and some choice words that may have been said.haha! No it wasn't like that.... per say... Let's just say we've gotten a lot better at it. Well... let me rephrase that... My sister Shasta has mastered it now, and is now our family nail tech. It lasts almost 2 weeks with out chipping... it's awesome! Very good investment for a family of 9 girls wouldn't ya say.

 The day after the 4th of July, Josh's company took the day off to spend the whole day at the lake with everyone. There were two boats, wake boarding, tubing, yummy snacks, bees and lots of sunscreen. We had a great time! The water was perfect and so fun! Savanna and came too! Worked out great that they were here! Savanna and I spent some time tubing together... We couldn't stop laughing...(and I'm not sure why were were laughing). So funn!! I must say though... I always forget how dang sore I am the next few days... Oh my gosh I wanted to die. Muscles that i didn't know I had were sore... but so still so fun!

 This is us girls waiting on the dock to be picked up. Most of the guys went out super early like  5am that morning, and most of the girls came down later that morning.

 So back at the beginning of the summer, we started watching the show Revenge. I watched the first few episodes (I didn't think Josh would be in to it. He doesn't like the "drama" shows). So I watch like the first four episodes over a weekend. And Sunday comes, and I tell Josh that it's really good, and even intense. So he says he watch the first episode. Well... let's just say we got to episode 7 by the time the day was over. Ya... didn't get alot done that day. haha! We loved it!! We are so excited for the next season to start! If you have not watched it.... check it out. So good!

Another show that I'm loving is Downton Abbey. This is just a show I'm watching... not Josh. My mom and almost all my sisters watched this. So I checked it out... and once again... LOVED it!!!! It's a Masterpiece Classic on PBS i think. It's a British series, but they air it over here too. I'm just finishing the 2nd season on HULU, and the 3rd season should be out soon. I love it!! I started having the first season playing while I'm working on stuff in my classroom. Love love love it!! Anyways, enough about my favorite shows....I think that is all for now!! We are looking forward to the end of summer, and for the new semester to start! Loves!

Summer Time!

   Hello all! Well summer is here and is flying by! School ended back in May and I must say I was extremely sad to say goodbye to my kiddos. The last day I did cry a little saying goodbye. And that week I had a break down at home with Josh where I just cried for awhile. I just couldn't imagine not seeing my kids every day. Well, the last day came and it wasn't as bad as I thought. I still miss my kids but I'm excited for a new year to come with the new group that I will have. 

Well, Josh has been working like crazy this summer. He works about 70+ hours a week, which sucks but its all good! I'm used to it I guess. ha! It's sad when you're used to making and eating dinner at 10:00 at night. I know that's probably not the most healthy thing to do, but that's the schedule we are on. So it's all good! Well, I have discovered a new app on my phone, it's a picture collage.... as you will see by the following pictures.... that I LOVE it! Obsessed...  well yes maybe a little... haha! Anyways here is an update of what we have been up to!

A few weeks ago we watched Josh's little sister for the weekend. She slept over and she wanted to make her own special "dessert". She wrote out the recipe and everything. And yes it included oreos, frosted mini wheats, starbursts, and some lemon heads. And yes.... we munched on it while we watched a movie together. So fun! Love this girl!

 

This was my b-day present from Josh. These are Nike Frees... and they are so incredibly comfortable... I seriously wear them almost every day, and they are super bright.. love them!! And I had mentioned to Josh that I wanted to go shopping, so he got me some gift cards... to Forever 21 and Ross. Love both stores! Great b-day! Can't believe I'm 25... crazy!

 

We also took a trip to Cornado Island with Josh's family. We went for just a few days, and it was wonderful! We spent both days at the beach. We stayed at a beach house where we could ride bikes to the beach... which was so fun! The weather ofcourse was amazing! When we got there, Josh kept asking why we left... we loved our two summers living over in San Diego... the best ever! And we miss it! We had a great time with the fam!!

We went to this yummy BBQ place that Josh and I had been to before when we lived over there. We waited an hour in a half to order.... the line was out the door and down the corner of the building. It was very good though! I'm not a huge fan of BBQ places... (I like them but I just never request or crave them). Phil's BBQ was very good, we had tons of food left over too! Yummy!



 This is us cruising to the beach! So fun! And yes we strapped chairs/umbrellas for the beach on the back of the bike.... it was awesome!

                                 

 This was my NAU graduation back in May. We went up to Flagstaff for it, and were lucky to have some family come up too! We had a great weekend and I loved having family and friends there to share that time with me. It feels great to be completely done with school!! I also passed my final state test... which was great news!! No more testing, no more school! Feels great!!

 For an activity with Josh's work, we went rock climbing. This place was awesome! So many different walls to climb! It was so fun! I climbed about three, and the next few days i definitely felt it... oh I was I sore. Worth it though! So fun!!

 I had gotten these two table from my mother-in-law recently, and wanted to paint them. So out came the spray paint and there ya go! I also was able to add this gold finish stuff to it that is my sister's... that gives it the shabby look... oh man amazing! Let's just say I added the gold to a few other things in the house.. i love it! It feels good to get some projects done! I love them! The white one I use in my bedroom and it has my big jewelry box on it, and the black one we have in our den with decor stuff on it. Love them both! Thanks to my lovely sister Shasta for letting me borrow the gold, and being able to paint them over at her house.

That is all for now! Hope everyone is enjoying the summer... and the wonderful 110+ heat...ha! Already looking forward to the fall!

 

Fun Weekend!

So this past weekend was filled with lots of fun activities with friends. On Friday, Josh's boss treated the manager's wives to mani-pedis and lunch. We had a great time! We went to this cute salon in Dana Park called Fushia. It was way nice and the ladies there were so fun! We felt so pampered. We all got shellac done on our nails, and I've never gotten it done before. And I must say I love it! I love having my nails colored, and I'm always looking for new colors... but the polish that I buy at the store... literally last like 3 days before they start chipping. The shellac is awesome! I don't know if I'll ever go back to regular polish.....(I probably will... I'm just in love with shellac right now). Here are some pics of our day getting pampered. So fun!! 

         This salon was super cute! Me, Jen and Alyssa enjoying getting our toes done!

 Our nice newly polished toes

 Alyssa, Jen, Me and Ashtyn and Cheesecake Factory for lunch

                Friday night Josh and I went out for dinner and we ended up seeing the Hunger Games. I have read the first two books and love them! We both loved the movie too! I thought they did a great job in the movie. I loved all the characters they chose for the parts. My new favorite actress is Jennifer Lawrence who plays Katniss. Love her! Josh loved it too! He said he wanted to read the books now.

                                       

Saturday night we did a date night with Josh's boss and the other managers. We went to Ruth's Chris... which is so yummy! We had a great time at dinner. One of the things that is so nice about Ruth's Chris is not only the yummy food, but that they don't rush you with dinner. We were there for like 3 hours. We chatted, laughed and ate amazing food! And you don't feel rushed to hurry with your food. And that is so nice. Here is everyone at dinner.

                                 Jen & Brian

                        Austin & Ashtyn

                                 Me & Josh

                                       Trevor & Alyssa

               All of us after dinner.... incredibly full too!

 So on Friday when us girls were at lunch, we had talked about seeing The Lucky One. A few of them had read the book and loved it. So... after dinner on Saturday night, we somehow convinced the guys to come see it with us. I was very shocked that we got them to go. I think they were the only guys in the theater.... haha! Besides a little cheesy parts with the acting... I enjoyed the movie. And Josh said that he actually shed a tear.... haha! Seriously though.... just a little one he said. We had a great time though! We were all very grateful for the guys coming to the movie!

We had a great weekend, and loved spending time with friends! We feel very blessed to have such great friends, and enjoyed every minute of our weekend with them!

Here we go again!

Hello to all! Well as usual... here is an update of what we have been up to. This semester has flown by, and I can't believe it is already April! It's crazy to think that this school year is coming to an end. It seems like yesterday I was having meet the teacher day, and meeting all of my cute kiddos. This year of teaching has been so fun! I have the best class, and the cutest kids in the world. They seriously make me laugh every day. It's been amazing to watch these little kiddos progress... from seeing them on the first day of school... all nervous and shy, to seeing them now with their little personalities, and how much they have progressed and grown. It has seriously been amazing to be a part of these kids lives. I love each of them so much... I don't know what I am going to do on the last day of school. It's going to be weird when summer comes, and I am not seeing them everyday.
    So Josh got super sick back in January with Bronchitis, that almost turned in to pneumonia. He was sick for almost two weeks straight. It was terrible... I have never seen him so sick. But he kicked it and is all better, thank goodness. 
     Also, coming up on May 12th I will be graduating! I can't wait!! The graduation will be up at NAU in Flagstaff. I got my cap/gown/hood this past week and was so excited when it came! So looking forward to be done for good... and forever!
  Here are some pics of what we have been up to the past few weeks. Back in March... my lovely sister Savanna got married so here are some pics from the wedding.

                                                  All the Stradling ladies

                                         The entire Stradling family - love them all.

  All of the bridesmaids, groomsmen, brother & brother-in-laws

                     Josh and I with one of our nieces Hadley. Love her!

                      Me and my gorgeous sister Savanna.. love and miss her!

                        The cupcake table at the reception... they were so yummy!

                          Logan and Savanna dancing for the first time.
                                     
                                       The candy bar.....

                  My lovely sisters Shasta(holding Hadley), Ciera and Laci

 

Us at our friends house for a BBQ.

                                                            The boys!

                                                  We went to the D-Backs game with Josh's work.

                                                         

                                                    

                                                   Josh and me

                                                         Bobbie and me

                                               Me and Ciera at the D-backs game.

                                           Ciera and Josh at the D-backs game.

                                      Easter weekend camping up at the lake with Josh's fam.

                                       This was Easter Sunday. We all show up at my parents house for dinner, and all            wore yellow..... or are yellow sweaters from Savanna's wedding.

                                           All of my graduation stuff!!! Can't wait!!
                                            

                                                        That is about it for updates! Loves to all!!