Busy Busy Busy

I just wanted to write a quick post to let ya'll (as we say in Texas) know that I am not ignoring this blog.  We are moving into the new house tonight!  And as a result we have been busy filling boxes with stuff and trying to pick out paint colors.  I had no idea there were 97 million choices for every color.  Our house looks like a patchwork quilt with all the paint samples we've put on the walls.

Also, the school I teach at had our graduation last night, and it was fantastic!  Nothing better than hearing success stories from at-risk kids who are the first to graduate high school (or in 1 girl's case...middle school) in their family. There were tears and hugs, it was awesome.

So I will return with pictures and more details soon.  But just as a side note, we really love our house.  When we first unlocked the door and walked in, we loved it even more than we remembered!  Good feeling.  Especially since we house shopped for over 4 months.  Ya.  Don't do that.

Real Adults

Well people, today is the day (at 2pm) that Dave and I become real adults.  There's nothing we can say or do to prove otherwise because we will have a mortgage. 

Owning a house = being a grown up. 

Honestly it was a little bit of a long road getting here.  Many of you know that Dave and I started out in Provo, Utah, then made these moves:

#1 Lafayette, Indiana for grad school at Purdue (apartment #1)
#2 San Francisco for internship (loved it here, so cool)
#3 Return to Lafayette, Indiana (apartment #2)
#4 Denver, Colorado for grad school (this is when Dave got to pursue his real dream click here)
#5 Austin, Texas (current apartment)
and now...
#6 HOUSE!

Yes, that is 6 moves in 5 years of marriage

Maybe last night we already started talking about the house like it was a person.  Such as, "She is going to love us living there."  We're weird.

Wish us luck with signing our life away.  We heard the hand cramps can be vicious.

Ode to the Ottoman

Dear Ottoman,

I know you have served as our kitchen table for some time now due to the lack of space necessary for a real dining experience.  I am sorry to say that you will soon be replaced (even though I am not sorry at all).  Since we are moving into our new home next week, we will be able to set up Dave's great grandma's antique white table that we love at least 400 bajillion times more than you. In the meantime, we will continue to put our feet on you.

Dave and Jess

Fun Times with Friends

Before I post the photos (and videos) from Disney (I am still in the middle of collecting them all from different family member's cameras) I thought I would share another fun adventure we had.  Our friends came in town from Denver (they stopped by on their way to a CRUISE!) and we had to show them around.

It started out with the usual local eateries (Chuys and Rudys) followed by a trip to the famous Dr. Pepper Museum.
The next day, we headed out to San Antonio to explore the river walk

See the ring on Jeremy's hand?  It's a fake one that they bought at a store to the right of this photo.  They didn't want to take their real rings on the cruise and run the risk of losing them. Jeremy bought Jessica one too and how did he give it to her?  He pretended to propose to her, right there on the river walk.  We got the whole thing on film.  People were watching and clapping. She said yes, it was a very happy moment.

 Then we walked around downtown San Antonio.  We even got in trouble by the police for climbing on some ancient water fountain that cost over 3 million dollars.  Oops.

While we were out and about, we dabbled in some trick photography...some photos turned out looking pretty cool!

Some didn't work so well

The next stop was Six Flags!  This place isn't up to the caliber of Disney, but I will say it has some real thrills.  The superman ride was our favorite.

Luckily we weren't one of the 30 people stuck on a roller coaster for 45 minutes...in a vertical position!

 Thanks for coming out to see us guys!  Glad you had fun on the cruise, "You look 5 year younga."

Back in Action

Last night (at 12:30am) we got back from a mini reunion with Dave's family. We went to Disneyland (it was a first time visit for me). Let me just say that Disneyland is amazing. Basically it is a happy, clean, and all around fun place to be - you can act like a kid (skipping through the streets, which I did).

Trip highlights:

• Being IN a parade on Friday night. We were walking down the sidewalk and some employees asked if we'd like to sit in a parade car because we were volunteers (Dave's mom, sister, and grandma made hand sewn school bags for discounted ticket prices). It was so crazy to see hundreds of people...filming us...and possibly posting it on You Tube.
• Discovering what Space Mountain was all about. Dave always talked about how it was his favorite roller coaster as a kid. I wasn't sure how it could be cooler than any other roller coaster. But it was. A humongous ride completely in the dark? Are you kidding me?
• Eating at a cute little street restaurant @ Magic Kingdom where the chef came out and talked to us about how he's worked at Disney for 54 years. He even gave me a copy of his famous baked potato soup recipe (I will post later). Thank you Oscar Martinez.

It was great to see everyone and have the whole Shumway clan (9 of us now) in the same place at the same time.
Now, I am home, and back in action preparing to move into our new house at the end of this month! Yes, we did it. We finally bought a house. After 3 (ahem, more like 4) months of house hunting, we found the one. It's only about 5 miles away from our current place, has 3 bedrooms (Dave has already claimed one for his recording studio), 2 bathrooms, a cute little backyard, and lots of potential. Dave and I wanted something that had good bones but needed some work so we could spend some time making it ours and fixing it up. This was the one.
**Warning** over the next few months, I am anticipating this blog will contain many posts about home renovation.
Here she is now:
This should be interesting, we don't even own a drill...or a toolbox bigger than a shoe box.