Blackout-Not like those in college

Well it seems that the storm season is not over for those of us that live in K-town.  Last night we had a terrible storm that popped up-caused massive damage-and was gone within a 5 minute period. 



Being the exercise obsessed person that I am-don't hate-I was at the gym when all the chaos happened.  Not being able to see out the windows from my treadmill and never losing power on it, I had no idea that a terrible storm had knocked out power lines, trees, and caused massive damage.  Luckily my husband-god love him-called me and told me to hurry up and get home or else I just would've stayed on the treadmill for a lot longer-yeah I'm a loser, I know. 


When I left the gym it was completely dark everywhere-the gym must have a backup generator so if the power goes out you don't fall off your treadmill?  There were trees down...like this one that blocked our street all  night and even this morning when I was trying to go to school.

Or this one that crushed our neighbor's poor car....eeeek!

Needless to say-all of Knoxville was without power last night and into today.  Our power went our around 8:00 p.m. and didn't come on until an hour ago...yeah count that-almost 24 hours!  Out of the 200,000 people in Knoxvile, 125,000 people were without power.  Yikes! 

Maybe I should start paying attention to the weather-especially when I go to the gym?

Will the traveling circus ever stop?

As I have mentioned before, Brad and I always seem to be on the road for one reason or another.  So it comes as no shock that the past two weekends we have packed up the mamry along with the two dogs and set off on more adventures.  With Winston-our yorkie-who CANNOT sit still during a car trip and Blu-our lab mix-who feels the needs to bark at any and all people we pass on the street-it is one big mess that makes for a much LONGER trip than before we had the furry children.


Two weekends ago-that doesn't sound like the proper way to refer to those dates...oh well-we went to Atlanta-Alpharetta more specifically-to see Brad's brother off on his baseball adventure.  After being drafted by the Houston Astros on Wednesday-GO CHASE-we made the journey to send him off with lots of family love aka lots and lots of booze.  What can I say-I managed to marry into a family that like cocktails as much as mine does-which is saying a lot!  What a fun time for him.  Allow me a moment to be super cheesy and mother like to say that we are so proud of him and all that he has already accomplished-anything past this point is icing on the already sweet cake!  Another highlight of the trip was that I got to see Grammy and Amelia-who is a newer newlywed than Brad and I are!  Grammy came over for the festivities at the in-laws while I got to eat lunch with Melly on Saturday!  We had such a good time catching up-after my hour delay due to Atlanta traffic-aka the worst part of living in/or around ATL.  When I go to Atlanta and see old friends that I miss it makes me immensely jealous of all of y'all who get to see each other frequently!  Y'all are luckyyyy!


Last weekend we had a termite and septic tank inspection at our 'new house.'  All is good in the new hood...no bugs to report, and the pipes are good to go!  How exciting-we are getting sooo close to moving into our new house.  Let's hope that the seller gets all the damage from the storm fixed so we can close on August 1st!  Saturday we went to our friends house for their daughters birthday party-how fun!  I love buying adorable clothes for other kids-especially since after the party I get to go home without a child.  The more often we have birthday parties for little kids, the more I realize we are most definitely not ready for that adventure in life-let's face it, I have too many adult beverages and like being able to pick up and go.  Having 2 dogs is more than enough for us right now-heck, they might be harder to travel with than kids.  After the party we made the hike up to the lake so Brad could fish and celebrate Father's Day with his family.  Instead of basking in the sun-we were stuck inside the house due to the monsoon that ensued outside.  Despite not being able to be a tan beauty, it was a good weekend.  


So there you have it-the circus continues and will continue once again this weekend as we make yet another road trip to Ohio.  Brad has a company banquet there, so we will be heading up there on Friday and stopping to take Grandma Davidson and cousin Dottie out to dinner. Woohoo! 

Our House

Well...it is official.  We are under contract on our house, and we couldn't be happier.  After looking at a bajillion houses, negotiating the price and contract-for what seems like forever-and dealing with all the damage from the storm, WE DID IT!  We have never been so excited to be so poor!  What a BIG purchase...it is definitely scary to think that we are going to be paying for something for the next 30 years of our lives.  Our closing date is August 1st-not as early as we wanted-but the seller needs time to get all the damage from the storm fixed, so we shall wait patiently-kinda. 

Here she is...

Brad better get his lawn mowing shoes on because this house has a BIG yard!  So for now, I'll daydream/obsess about how to decorate the house, and what house warming party invitations I will pick out! 

Two Reasons to Celebrate-Summer School Not Being One of Them!

Last night was the hubs birthday, and it was great!  Yesterday I was super wife-kinda.  After working summer school-longer than expected...ughhhhhh-I hurried to the store to buy the essentials for making the perfect birthday cake.  See, my husband LOVES a fairly girly type of cake.  Wait for it-funfetti.  That's right, the yellow cake with all the colorful sprinkles in it...yep, that would be the one.  To make things even girlier, he likes it topped with strawberry icing-which I mix with the vanilla frosting with the rainbow chips in it.  SO his cake is full of rainbow sprinkles and topped with pink sprinkle frosting...manly, I know.  As if that wasn't domestic enough, I put the cake on a pretty cake stand and put it on the dining room table with all his gifts.  We decided not to have too big of a birthday this year since we are about to buy a house-which the hubs just told me we might be getting the signed contract TODAY!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So here is what the birthday table looked like....not too shabby if I do say so myself!  Domesticity-insert the hairy stick fellow DZ's-doesn't look too bad on me.

After gifts and cake-which he insisted on having BEFORE we went to dinner, we popped open the champagne-from our wedding night that was never consumed because somebody was too 'happy' to have any-and toasted to the second reason we were celebrating last night.  Drum roll.....7 months of wedded bliss!  Woohoo!  Not a year yet, but we haven't killed each other yet-so this is looking promising!

Now onto the reason I am not celebrating...I committed to teaching summer school because it is good money, and I was supposed to be done by 11:45 each day.  WRONG.  When I got to the first day of summer school yesterday, they gave us a schedule that showed us staying until 1:45 A LOTTTTTTT!  Now, I know all of y'all are saying 'poor Rachel, complaining about having to work until 1:45' BUT definitely NOT cool.  Not cool at all.  I should be at home right now instead of sitting at school pretending like I am working hard...boo!

Anyway, here's hoping we find out about the house by 5.  Our offer expires then, so hopefully we will hear back soon.  This process has been long, terrible, and annoying to say the least. 

Nature Chick!

Ok, so you know when people have Christmas lights that are set to music, and they all go off at the same time in specific locations according to the music?  Well, on Friday we went and saw a live version of this in nature.  Who would've thought that in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee you could see a firefly mating ritual?  Not me.  Apparently there are only two places in the ENTIRE world where you can see this...one in Malaysia and the other one...Tennessee.  Crazy.  Our good friends used to live in Japan and took all kinds of crazy trips while they lived over there.  One of their trips was to watch the bugs get it on-cue Marvin Gaye.  So since they knew how cool it was, they took us to see it.


For a person who is scared of the dark and watches too many episodes of criminal minds-walking in the woods to a cemetery, in the dark just didn't seem like a very smart idea.  Ohhh and did I mention that we didn't have cell phone service up there-perfect.  Instead of complaining-well maybe I did just a little bit-I put my big girl panties on, channeled my happy place, and hiked my rear end up the trail-ignoring all the sounds I thought I heard in the woods.  While we didn't ever end up finding the cemetery-Gracias a dios- we did make it to a clearing where we could watch the fireflies.  It was AMAZING.  It was like one big flirting match between the bugs.  One side of the forest would light up, and then the other side would light up.  It was awesome to watch-especially since there are only two places that you can see it.  I left feeling pretty close to nature, happy to have the company of good friends, and even made some promises to go camping-HA! 

insidegatlinburg.com

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Saturday was  a lazy day for us.  The hubs went golfing in the heat because he is crazy, and I spent the day running errands and getting my hair cut.  Goodbye long stringy hair-hello shorter angled bob!  Last night we grilled out at our friends house and had some adult beverages.  This is pretty much our weekend ritual.  We can't wait 'til we move out there! 


My summer vacation will be put on hold starting tomorrow because I am teaching summer school.  Don't get crazy...it is only from 7:30-11:45, so I will still be able to bask in the sun for hours each day.  I mean I didn't want to hit it too hard or anything-work over the summer...foreign concept.

Tomorrow if the hubs birthday...the big 24!

Welcome to Blogland!

Well, I never thought I would make a blog.  In fact, I used to be one of those people who made fun of people who had blogs (oops), and look at me now.  Here I am, sitting in the office, stressing over which background looks best with which picture.  Maybe it is because it is summer time and I have a lot of free time on my hands (don't hate me just because your chosen profession doesn't reward you for a job well done by giving you 3 months off) or because I have been reading a lot of blogs getting inspiration for our new house (fingers crossed), but whatever the cause I hope this blog will provide you with opportunities to laugh at/with me as we navigate life after the ceremony. 

We have been married for 7  months on Monday.  Where does the time go?  It seems like yesterday I was obsessing over my wedding day countdown app on my phone.  Since then we have been to weddings and seen wonderful friends get married, taken many trips as the traveling circus (a name we have affectionately given ourselves since we travel with 2 dogs in my husband's Camry or Mamry, as he calls it), and started the house hunting process.  It has been quite the busy 7 months-whoever said that it 'slows down after the wedding' is full of crap!  The people that said this didn't have a life, friends, or family for that matter!

In hopes of closing on our house at the end of July, I have already started to pick up things to decorate the house.  Luckily, we currently live in a house that is the same size as the one we are buying, so we already have enough furniture to fill it up-but that doesn't mean there aren't things I want to change.  My first project to tackle is FINALLY getting wedding picture made and hung up.  I am determined to have them up in whatever house we get end up getting.  In the house that we are currently trying to close on, there is a 2 story foyer with a perfect space to put a wall of pictures.  Here is my inspiration...

I don't want to do quite as many pictures or as low to the ground, but you get the picture.  Instead of a bench, I will put a slim sofa table with lamps on either side. 

So, today in an effort to be frugal-something that is a MUST for ANY AND ALL projects for our future house, I stopped at the local goodwill to donate a few things, as well as pick up some frames. 

By adding some things that I had around the house, and the frames I scored for $28 total, I think this will look nice once the disgustingly awful pictures are out and all the frames are the same color.

Now, I just need to decide what color to spray paint the frames..hmmm.  Big decisions.  Earth shattering.