Sorry it's been so long since I updated. A lot has happened since the last time I wrote. We moved out of our apartment and into our new house! We closed on Aug. 23rd and that evening Ryan and I loaded the moving van with our boxes and moved the first load over. Friday we didn't move anything to the house, just packed up the rest of the apartment. On Saturday I had to work, but Ryan had about 8 friends come and help us move the rest of the stuff. It was nice to come home from work and have everything moved in and in the correct room. It's been almost 2 weeks and the only thing left to put away are knick-knacks and then hanging pictures on the wall. We are having a house warming party on Saturday with people from church, so it'll be all done by then. It has been a lot of fun getting everything situated. A lot of work, but its OUR house, which is crazy. The cats are getting used to it. Triton still freaks out a bit when he hears different noises. We got a grill and have enjoyed it for two nights so far. On Labor Day a co-worker and her husband came over for grilling. Yummy stuff. I am now on my much needed 4 day weekend. Oh, the reason I haven't updated for so long is technically we don't have internet at our house yet, but we are able to feed off of someone else's in the neighborhood until we get our cable and internet. And for some strange reason blogger doesn't work at work. Anyway, I will be posting pictures soon.

I just played volleyball for a good 2 hours in 90-95 degree heat. Some may call it crazy, however, I call it pure insanity. There was an open house/party for the opening of the new elephant barn at the zoo. Us crazy Rocky Coasters plus a crazy Sonora Deserter scarfed down a hotdog and hit the court immediately. I was only planning on staying an hour or so...two and a half hours later, I was still covered in sweat and sand on the court. I loved it!

I can't wait to move out of our apartment. I was walking in the other day, looking at this gross milk jug that holds everyone's cigarettes and loose garbage, and thought, "I don't have to deal with this apartment living anymore." I don't have to hope for a close parking spot, or smell nasty cigarette smoke when I leave my apartment, or hear neighbors upstairs, etc. Don't get me wrong, this apartment has been great and has been the nicest apartment that Ryan and I have had, which we are grateful for. However, we are getting tired of the apartment life, since we've done it for 6 years. We can't wait to move into our own house, with our own parking spots, where I don't have to worry about the neighbors below when I play Dance Dance Revolution, and where I will never have to smell cigarette smoke.

Ryan and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary on Saturday. 6 years! That's pretty impressive. I was thinking just how long that is. When you think of your years from first to sixth grade, or seventh to twelfth, that is a huge chunk of time. And that's how long we've been married. On our actual anniversary we headed to Fayetteville with Joy and Thor to visit Laura and Krista Griffin. We ate a lot of good food, played some games, went swimming, and had some good old catch up time. Then on Sunday after church Ryan and I had some time together, watching movies, packing, and just hanging out together. It was a low-key anniversary celebration, but it was perfect.

I just got back from a very relaxing day on Lake Norman which is near Charlotte. A co-worker, Katy's, family rented a BEAUTIFUL house on the lake, and Katy invited me there for the day. I arrived around 11 and left around 9. We went out on the boat, layed on floaties in the water, ate a lot of good food, and played Bag-O (where you throw the bean bag in the hole). Katy and I were the champions!

Ryan and I watched King Kong yesterday and today. I'll have to say it's one of the most absurd movies I've ever seen. I don't know if Peter Jackson was intending it to be that way. It was a struggle to get through it. When characters do things that would kill them about 500 times, it gets a little old.

I was very excited because season 2 of Beverly Hills 90210 came out on DVD and I got it. Now, you may be thinking that 90210 is just as absurd or even more so then King Kong, but you are wrong. (I'll just keep telling myself that). It was my favorite show growing up. I was obsessed you could say so it brings back lots of good memories. And I got to meet Gabrielle Carteris (Andrea) from the show which I thought was pretty cool. Growing up I had a wall covered in 90210 posters, so to meet someone that you watched weekly and covered your walls was cool.

House is looking great! I'll post pictures once I load them on the computer. We started packing up some stuff in our apartment.

I started reading Harry Potter 7 but I'm not as far as I would like. Things keep coming up which prevent me from reading. I was hoping for a big long stretch of time to just sit and read, but that hasn't happened in a week. What can I say? I'm a busy gal.

Ryan lost his luggage when he went to MN but it came in the mail yesterday. Hooray! There was some valuable (not $, but personally) stuff in there. Nothing was missing.

This past weekend I had Thurs through Sunday off. On Friday morning Ryan and I headed to the coast of North Carolina. We got to Carolina Beach around noon and laid on the beach for a few hours. It was windy which made it perfect, otherwise it would have been WAY too hot. The water felt perfect. We stopped at a few "beach stores" but didn't buy anything. Then we headed to Wilmington, NC, which is about 30 min or so from the beach we were at. I am a huge Dawson's Creek fan, so I was being a dork and wanted to see sights from the show. We saw Capeside High (actually a college) We weren't planning on going into town that afternoon, but we decided to drive through to check it out. The street next to the river was blocked off and there were vendors and stuff there so we checked that out. Apparently it was a Led Zeppelin cover band, but we didn't care about that so we walked around some more. Then we ate at Hell's Kitchen which was were Joey worked in college in Dawson's. We also saw the wall Pacey bought and painted for Joey and walked on the main boardwalk that is in the show a lot. The next morning we headed downtown again and ate at Leery's Fresh Fish (not called that anymore) and saw some more little stores and stuff that were used in the show. We took a boat over to the other side of the river and toured the USS North Carolina, a battleship used in WWII. Amazing how big it is, but I'm sure it felt super small with all those men on it. The self-guided tour brought you through a lot of the boat. It was cool to see but by the end I was really hot and tired from walking around everywhere. (wimp) Stupid me forgot my camera on this trip so I don't have pics except for on my phone. It was a cute town and I'm sure we'll be back some time because there was a lot still to see.

The progress on the house is going great. I stopped by today. I hadn't been there for about a week and a half. All of the siding is up and our shutters are up too. The sheet rock is up in the house and the ceiling was finished today. The will finish sanding the sheet rock, clean up the floor and then install our vinyl then cupboards in the kitchen. Our stone on the outside of the house should be started tomorrow. Unfortunately Ryan has the camera in MN so I couldn't take a picture today. We are trying to get pictures each time we go so we can track the progress. He'll be back next week so we'll go out then and get pictures. It looks great! I can't wait to move in!

Sleepy Willie

Me with my Abby girl

Cute, but sassy, Vixen

My pretty fox, Mystic

We did it! Ryan and I bought a house! It isn't the first one we were going to get, because we had major issues with the company and we didn't want to deal with them for 4 months while our house was being built. So, this one is it! We love it! It is located between my job and Ryan's job. It is in a nice neighborhood on a caul-de-sac. There are woods behind the house. It is two story, 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms. We will be able to move in the end of August or beginning of September.

Things here are good. Nothing much is going on, which is a nice break. I've been really tired lately. Not sure why. I'm usually falling asleep at like 8:00, which is pathetic. I have three days off for the 4th of July holiday. On the 4th we are going to a Greensboro Grasshopper's baseball game. They aren't the Minnesota Twins, but I'm sure we'll still have fun. Tonight we are going to see Disterbia in the $2 theatre in town. We've been watching a ton of movies because Ryan did the Blockbuster on-line for the summer. Problem is, I fall asleep through most of them. :)

Our new house!

You will be greatly missed, Jersey Boy.

You will be greatly missed, Masha Bear.

My stress level right now is probably at an all time high. Yesterday our seal died. A co-worker and I found him about the same time. We only had him for a month and a half. It was amazing to see him progress in his training. Since he was a wild animal, he would first snap at us when eating. Eventually he learned how to take fish from us nice and calmly. We also trained him to target, which is basically touching a buoy on the end of a stick with his nose. He was doing so well with it. I remember one of the last times I fed him and I was thinking how cool it was to see how this wild animal is learning and beginning to form a relationship with me. You will be greatly misses, Jersey boy. We also have another pretty sick animal in my dept. along with issues with almost every animal we have. Not only is work stressful, but we are having major issues with the house we want to buy. Well, not the house itself but the company. And to top it off, this stress is causing some physical issues to me, which is causing me more stress. Will it ever end? I ask that question, but I know it will. Just please pray for me so I don't have a mental breakdown.

This is the house we are looking to buy. The only difference is we wouldn't get the brick accent on the front and we would get a country porch, which extends infront of the front window.

This is the floorplan of the house we are hopefully going to buy. It is in the works.

Update time...two weeks ago Ryan and I headed to Michigan. We stayed with Tech friends, Phil and Sandy, for two nights. We ate good food, played boccie ball, played cards, and played a lot of Nintendo Wii. Good times. On Friday we headed to the hotel in Auburn Hills for Joy and Thor's wedding. Friday night I hung out with the girls in Joy's hotel room. I got to see a lot of dear friends from CMU that I haven't seen for a long time. Ryan hung out with Thor and saw a band. Saturday was Joy and Thor's big day. She was beautiful of course. The wedding was flawless. The reception had good food and good company. We will be heading back to Michigan in a few weeks for Allyn and Paul's wedding. :)

It is Memorial Day weekend. The weather is wonderful. High 80's. Ryan and I have been spending some time at the pool. We also saw Pirates of the Caribbean 3. I love the south...I get to go swimming in May!

I know it's been a long time. Work is going great. I love my new job! I'm learning stuff everyday. I will start doing behaviors with the bears tomorrow, but have already learned to feed them, service their exhibit, etc. I just learned the routine for foxes last week. I am learning behaviors for the female sea lion as I go. I know most of them now. She's a lot of fun to work. And...we got a new harp seal last week! He was a rescue animal from New Jersey that couldn't be released in the wild. I got to work with him yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The four of us at work take turns. We work him about 3 days in a row, four sessions a day. Since he was a wild animal, everything is from scratch. Even hand feeding him took him a bit to get used to. We are training some basic behaviors, such as following us, going in the pool on command, and using a target pole. He follows us like a shadow when we are in his area. He loves his fish!

This weekend we are heading to Michigan for Joy and Thor's wedding! I am excited that I was able to rearrange my schedule so I could go. Ryan and I are driving up Thursday and will return home on Sunday. I'm also very excited because I get to see dear college friends that I haven't seen in over 2 years! Hooray for weddings!