Texan Summer: Month 1

Well it has officially been a whole month since we moved to Texas! So I figured it was about time for a little update . . . Remember when I said it was a little chilly here? Well that did not last long at all! This summer is starting to feel as hot as everyone warned us it would be, it is not a huge deal for me who gets to hide out inside or cool off in the pool, but just thinking about that poor husband of mine walking around in the scorching heat all day breaks my heart! He is so dedicated and such a great provider, what a man! 

I feel like we have experienced a lot in this little month, good and bad, so here are some highlights from our first month in Austin:

He's My Sales Guy

Kirby, who had only about a few trainings and no pre-season experience, got his first sale on his first day knocking! I had to take a pic of the cutie when he got home . . . I see a "first-sale-of-the-year-picture" tradition in the making ;) He makes me so proud everyday!

A Quick Look at a Day in Our Life

This month our daily routine has looked like this: It starts out with a trip to the gym. Then we come home, he changes and leaves for his meeting while I make lunch. He comes home from the meeting, eats his lunch, kisses me good bye, and then sets out to knock doors. I then do whatever I need to for work (I am an assistant for Kirby's manager), followed by any necessary grocery shopping. Then the rest of the day is spent between playing with my nephews, hanging out at the pool with the other lonely wives, or finding new fun places to visit. This month we have really only been to the outlet mall, and a fun Hawaiian Ice stand, but I'm not complaining! Then once it gets dark I finish any household odds and ends and make a quick trip to the little apartment gym to pass the time (aka we don't have TV but the gym has a personal TV on EVERY machine so it is more like going to watch TV and only happening to be working out at the same time). It works out quite nicely because by the time I get home and showered my babe is home! Because it is normally close to 11 pm when he pulls in he never wants a huge dinner so we snack on some veggies, watch an episode of Parks and Recreation, then go to sleep...once the alarm goes off the routine gets stuck on repeat. I must also mention that being in the south again means at least one new flavor of bluebell ice-cream a week, and we are constantly finding new favorites! Then the send of the week eventually rolls around and Sunday is Kirb's only day off, so we love the chance to attend church and relax together. It's not much, and I miss him so much throughout the day, but we do what we gotta do!

We can't resist . . . his and hers bluebell . . . "Dat cookie dough!"

 I am so glad my little buddy loves these southern thunderstorms enough to sit on the curb and "ooo" and "aww" at each flash of light with me! Just look at how cute his excited face is! This was the first storm we have really been able to watch this summer and it did not disappoint!

Waving goodbye as he heads off for another long day of work! I love that man!

A portion of our apartment gym aka my night time tv spot. I think I need this in my future house!

 

Easter

Easter is such a marvelous holiday, and I must admit that we had a wonderful first Easter living away from parents (which was sad but we did out best)! Check out this post for details.

Student Teaching Interviews

I had a crazy encounter with student teaching interviews, just about everything went wrong leading up to the day. First my scheduled interviews had somehow all been set up as face-to-face interviews even though this would be impossible considering that I am half way across the country. Then when that was all sorted out and I was scheduled for an online interview I got dressed all professional, layed out all of the documents and cheat sheets I could ever need, and sat at my computer for over an hour ready and anxious for my skype interviews . . . only to find out that everyone had left and skipped over me and there was nothing I could do.

THEN after lots of tears I was sitting on my bed a couple days later, halfway through folding laundry when I received a call from an unknown Idaho number. I answered the call and immediately found out that this my interview then and there . . . no warning whatsoever. Just all of the principles I had planned to meet with separately . . . together . . . asking me questions . . . over the phone. I didn't have any of my helpful papers near by, hadn't had time for a personal pep-talk, and was a little flustered. But in the end it went extremely well! This is only a testiment that things will ALWAYS work out the way they are supposed to. Who knows, maybe if I had done it on the day when I thought I was so prepared I would have encountered technology issues, or been too built up with anxiety from waiting that I wouldn't have been able to be myself. Whatever the reason, everything worked out (there may have been a bit of fasting, lots of prayers, and a priesthood blessing that pushed it that direction) either way, I was immediately offered a job at an elementary school close to home . . . YAY! Fate is on our side my friends!

Cinco de Mayo

As I mentioned before, Sundays are Kirby's only day off . . . so knowing that he would be working on Monday the 5th (aka Cinco de Mayo) Kim and I planned a little family celebration the Sunday before. We found the copy cat recipe for Chipotle's chicken burritos and spent the night before and a few hours after church preparing the food for our little fiesta! It was a success indeed! Plus we kind of made a liiiiittle bit too much so we had burritos, nachos, and quesadillas for daaaays after, which was quite wonderful if I might say so myself! Then once the little boys had gone to bed, I whipped out Kirby's "special surprise treat!" I guess it didn't end up being a surprise because he guessed it quite easily, but I made some fried ice cream for the grown ups and it was surely delicious!  Kirb and I make special trips to a local Mexican restaurant just for their fried ice-cream, but I had never attempted to make my own. I found a super simple recipe and am currently kicking myself for never trying it before because it was so easy and so great! Ole!

Mothers Day

Mothers are wonderful creatures aren't they? I at least know that my mother and my mother-in-law sure are! Without these wonderful ladies I know that I would not be where I am now, and while there is so much more that I could say, right now I just want to say thank you. Thank you Mom for always being there, for always knowing just what to say, for always making up the most exciting bed-time stories, for always tucking me in, for being a best friend and a shoulder to cry on, but most of all thank you for being a great example of what a mother is. And thank you Karen for raising Kirby to be the gracious man that he is today, for always putting others before yourself, for jump-starting our married life in so many ways, and for loving me like a daughter. I love both of these wonderful ladies so much and don't know what I would do without them!

So I am sure we all experience the panic of not knowing how to show our love and appreciation accurately on Mothers day, I know I do. It seems to be especially hard when you are so far away . . . but I found a compromise by ordering the moms in my life some fun cupcakes all the way from Washington DC. At least they look yummy right? I wish I could have been there to try one!

Another wonderful thing that comes with Mother's day is the chance to skype my funny little missionary brother in law! I have never had a brother to go on a mission so this whole experience has been very new to me, but it was great to see Kelton and it will be even better to give him a big welcome home hug in a few months!

After meeting with all of Kirby's family over the computer I decided it was time to say hello to my own goofy little family! We had a lot of fun, what a couple of great families I have!

My mom sent this picture after she opened them all, thank heavens for smart phones right??

Madison and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Yesterday was definitely one for the records, two classic bad day stories found themselves right on top of me for one massive crazy day . . .

As a lead in to bad day story number one I would like to tell you another quick story about some treasure: While working with my second grade classroom I was part of a lesson where the kids were all supposed to bring a "family treasure." They brought everything from framed pictures to artifacts from family vacations and everything in between. I had with me the single most important physical item that I own, my very own treasure, an item that I keep with me at all times, an item that carries meaning and emotion with it that I could never replace . . . any guesses as to what it is? I will give you a hint, it is really sparkly and fits perfectly on my left hand . . . my wedding ring! I have a habit of glancing down at my hand periodically to admire just how perfect it is. So after a stop at the gym, an office lunch, a trip to Sam's club, shopping at Target, and loads of laundry, I found myself at an indoor play place with my nephews when I decided to hold my hand up for a quick admiration of the beauty on my finger. I immediately noticed something was wrong . . . see if you can spot it in this picture, it is kind of hard to miss:

My heart immediately dropped, how could this have happened?? Not only is one of the main diamonds GONE but the entire setting just disappeared! I had been so many places that day there was no hope in finding it. I am still kind of in shock and totally heart broken. I called the jeweler and he said that they could probably fix it, but that means trusting the mail from Texas to Idaho with my treasure. . . which I can honestly say I don't. So we will see what happens, I might just have to wait 4 months to get it fixed. 

While yes, I am still heart broken and frustrated, I know that with or without this beauty I still have my husband and while the ring is a symbol of our love and devotion nothing matters more than the fact that we have each other forever and for always!

So while I was in this very vulnerable and emotional state last night I was so happy that my sweetheart made it home way earlier than normal due to a storm so crazy it would have been suicide to have anyone walking around outside . . . which brings us to story number two:

Kirby and I decided to brave the storm and drive out for our first official date in Texas! We had a delicious dinner and that sweetheart got me all happy and smiley even when I was determined to wallow over my ring. While at dinner Kirby's manager texted him and asked us to come over for a little late night training, so we packed up our left-overs and ran through the pouring rain back to the car. Before pulling up to his manager's apartment we stopped the car outside our stairwell so that Kirby could go grab his notebook . . . he was at the door to the stairwell when I realized he had left the apartment keys in the car, after a few attempts at yelling over the dumping rain he finally heard me and motioned for me to thrown them to him. I had a hard enough time seeing him through the rain, and once I stood up out of the car to throw a little better the rain was hitting my face too hard to really open my eyes so I panicked and threw the keys underhand so they went straight over his head and landed right on the overhang from the second story of the stairwell. 

So now it was about 10:30 at night, pitch black (except for the lightning), the rain was not coming in drops, it was more like a large bucket was constantly emptying a waterfall onto our heads, we had no keys to get in to our apartment, seemingly no way to get them back at this moment, and were late to a training. We tried looking from the second floor onto the overhang, but through the darkness and the rain we could not see a thing, tried searching the ground below in case they had bounced off, but again the visibility was way too low. Because the rain was so loud we had to shout to hear each other, so naturally our good friends heard us echoing in the stairs, and Kim, Keegan, and Dominic had seen us running around as they were watching the storm through their window . . . and they all came out to the stairs to watch the madness. So now, with an audience Kirby became extra determined to find the keys. The daredevil first tried climbing the soaking, and slippery window pane below the overhang (I about killed him, it scared me so much!) but it got him high enough to reach over and feel around in the overflowing rain gutter above . . . but he did not find anything. Then (I had to turn around and not watch this part) because he had his friend hold the swinging stairway door as steady as possible as he climbed up the door knob to stand on the top rim of the door (keep in mind that this was also soaked and slippery) but his recklessness payed off for as he felt around in the gutter this time he grabbed hold of the keys and saved us and was left with nothing but a few cuts on his shin! By now we were both dripping wet and soaked through to our underwear, so needless to say a dry change of clothes was welcomed with open arms!

 I would just like to also point out that while this entire predicament was ALL my fault, my husband never once got any bit frustrated with me, he simply went about finding a solution to our problem, and that is one of the reasons why I love him so much!

A soaked couple after a date night gone wrong.

I know that I am not always the best at describing events . . . so I took this picture in the morning, in hopes that it might make the story a little easier to understand. Those windows are the ones he scaled, that door is the one he stood on top of, and that gutter hanging off that little roof is where our keys were stuck . . . oh and that opening right above it is where we all stood to watch the brave act ;)

So as you can tell, we have experienced a lot in this short month, and it has been a growing experience every step of the way! I love sharing these times of constant learning and growing up with Kirby Lee Muir!

 

Thank you for reading!

XOXO