Tuesday

Engagement Photo Video..


I just thought I would share our engagement pic video by Abbey Ray Photography. Issac does pics of families, weddings, newborns, graduates, sports events..etc. He is an awesome photographer and I trust him completely. He actually took my boudoir pics for Nate's wedding present too. If you are looking for a great photographer please check him out.


Memorial Day Weekend

Look at my awesome dinner plate Hibiscus plants! I told you that they are beautiful!! I love how dense they make this side of the yard.. too bad the frost hurt my flowering plants on the opposite side of the yard!

This memorial day weekend started out with Nate and I going to the grocery store to get items for the party and coming home to a house with NO AC and it is 100 degrees outside. We unpacked the groceries, canceled our Friday nite plans and called the AC guys.  Thankfully Texas Comfort AC who came out last year came out and worked on the AC for an hour and half. It is so nice to have ac for the party! Plus after they fixed it I went and had a glass of wine with my gfs so the whole evening wasn't ruined!

Saturday I woke up early to clean the floors and pick up before our pool party. Which we grilled out, had sangria and margaritas plus my lovely stars n stripes cake.. it was a blast. The kiddos swam theirselves exhausted! The Wickie twins and Walker Twins ended up exhausted and on the couch watching Toy Story 3. 
 But I do have to say I prefer parties under 30 people versus 70 people. I felt like I didn't really get to talk to everyone since I was running around with my head cut off playing hostess with the mostess. I didn't really relax until the party was dying and the kids were inside watching the movie and out of the pool. 

It was nice to have the party and make new memories on the anniversary of Jacob's death last year (if you didn't know, we lost a coach's three year old last memorial day at a friend's pool party- I found him). We will never forget it but as a group of friends close as family, we needed to make new good memories. But we were all on edge I think because it is still fresh.  


Sunday we had a relaxing day in the pool with my mom, Shay and my sister Michelle. Michelle just got back from Germany so it was nice to see her and relax in the pool. Than we went to the movies to see Hangover 2 with Kristin & AJ at Studio Movie Grill. Which is the best way to go to the movies- margaritas and food while watching!!

Monday Nate played in a golf tourney- so I took Scout to the groomers which happens to be right next to HOME GOODS!! OMG I love that store. I had to kill some time while he was there.  I went in just to look and found so many things I could go home with.
Check out a few:

Love the turqouise lamps and the green one with the cork lamp shade..so fun!

This one reminds me of a PB one that was for 99 bucks without the shade!
I LOVE LOVE this cane chair..
I wanted this one!! But I have enough lamps!
They had two of those bamboo cane chairs for 29.99 each and I almost snagged them but Kristin rationalized me and said where would you put them..umm good point. But they are so spectacular! I absolutely love thir nautical beach section, as well as pillow and lamps section. They had awesome huge floor pillows as well as outdoor pillows. I could spend hours in that store just looking at everything. And if you don't know if you don't pick something up at Home Goods it could not be there next time.. so I had to
 leave with my own goods at such great prices. I purchased the PB BOTTLE IT LAMP look alike but not for 99 bucks for just the base. I got the base and shade for 39.00. It is so cool that it opens up at the top. I thought it would be the perfect kid lamp eventually to fill with shells, golf balls, sports cards, post cards..etc. Since we are doing an ocean themed nursery I thought I couldn't pass it up.I think it would look awesome filled with wine corks too. I put it in the entry way till we have our own little wee one.
Here is how it looked in the store & than at home filled with sand from our wedding, seashells and sea glass:




I also purchased two new pillows and a sea fan for the fire place to go with the coral Nate brought me:




 I absolutely loved these big pillows with the pink hibiscus and greens, blues and browns. The patterns drawn me in and make me happy. I thought they looked tropical and summery! Nate actually liked them too, which is suprising because he hates floral patterns. But for two huge pillows at 30 bucks it was a deal! Nate says I obsessed with throw pillows. I love how they can make a quick inexpensive change in a room.I would love a white couch but if I can't afford to change the whole room a quick change with throw pillows will make it.  Check out Nester's love of pillows too. I am glad I am not the only woman obsessed with throw pillows! I think the floral plays off the aqua in the other pillows and it also has tan and brown too-so they are not matchy matchy but they work well (plus they are down filled).

Pillow & New Lamp ( oh look more coral on the entry way from nate too).

Coral from Nate with new purple fan coral on the fireplace..

I love how our house reflects us now.. and is complete! I hope you enjoyed my little outing to Home Goods.. I might have to go get the cane chairs.. I could use them in the Kitchen as extra seating or our master, or even the pool table room..lol. Eventually that room will be a kid room anyhow and those chairs would work awesome.
After Home Goods, Kristin & I floated the pool for a couple hours before picking up Scout. I got too much sun yesterday and could barely stay up to complete my Master's Assignment. (Summer School ends July 20th Can't WAIT).

Oh here is Scout all groomed. They shaved his back legs and belly for the hot weather. I think he looks hilarious but I am sure he feels so much better. The octupus he insisted on at Petsmart.

 Have a great week. It is my first week on summer vacay! I go to the hair salon tomorrow and to the court house to turn in my records for defensive driving for a speeding ticket..opps.

Monday

Gallery Wall Finally Completed..

Remember that post way back when I asked Inspired Room to have a gallery wall party (and I bragged about her mentioning me and feeling famous-gasp!).. well I finally got around to taking all those photo frames I collected from Ikea and Target and filling them and placing them in the stairwell last Thursday. I really love SawDust & Paper Scraps wall and wanted to recreate that.. but got lazy and did all black frames to tie in with the black mirrors over the fireplace which are visible as you walk down the stairs. It started out like this..


I let it soak in and decided it needed changing.


To hang them I just laid them out on the floor to see what is best.. but hope on over to YHL-Hammer Time and see how they hung them using paper to measure the perfect measurements, make sure their level..etc. I am not a perfectionists and I have learnt that to fill holes in the wall,  toothpaste hardens and you can paint right over it. I am not afraid of nail holes. So I just started nailing em up and if I stepped back and it didn't work I took it out and tried again. I am sure YHL way of the paper templates is much easier and faster since the finished product took me 3 hours to do. But I completed it and I love the way it looks.

Looking Up stairs
 Closeups




Than I decided I wanted to add more especially the hibiscus painting is from one of my sweet students and I love it soo much. The other pics are from our wedding, trips to Saint Louis, Washington D.C., Key West, Bahamas and Hawaii of course plus other random good memories from our seven years together. There are two pics of sea turtles we swam with in Hawaii, two shadow boxes filled with trip memorabilia (one has our wedding invitations in it) and maps also on the wall. I love that we still have room to add pics when we have kiddos.Two of the frames are these awesome art frames from target. They open and you can store art work inside.. you can see them on YHL wall too: Art Frame!! and Here TOO!!



Here it is looking down the stair well...  I am so happy with the end result and Nate loves it too!
I also hung at the top of the stairs our sign from Hawaii. I put maps from the Flordia Keys behind it.

It says The Embley's and every letter is a different mural in itself. It is very cool.

In other news I have pulled out all the bathing suits and summer clothes because it is soo hott. I love sporting the shorts, flip flops and tanks. But I also own a ton of capris since I can wear them multiple places. I wore this last week while cleaning my class room out. I love the hawaii lei look of the tshirt.. and boy was I dusty, sweaty and worn out after cleaning my classroom out.

Well I'll post about our Memorial Day Weekend soon.. hope you are enjoying summer!



Friday

Last Week at School

Wednesday was graduation day for my fifth graders I had to push them out of the nest and hope that they could fly. Hope that everything I had taught them this year would be instilled in them for life.  It was a sad but happy day.. here is a pic of the celebrations in the classroom (looking bare since I took everything down for summer already).. I would show a close up of the cake... but privacy issues I shouldn't publish any students names or pics of them. Sorry I can't show you the awesomeness of it or any pics of my happy fifth graders.. but you can imagine!

The cake was hawaiian with hibiscus flowers and their names with Congrats 5th grade! They all loved it! In addition I got lovely lovely gifts and very kind words from Parents. It was a great ending to my first year teaching and I feel so confident about next year.

In addition to it being the last week of school, Nate's mom and stepdad were here and helped paint the 3rd bedroom which will eventually be the nursery. I told you there was a change in store.. so here are a few pics of what happened. More to come later ( I still have to pack my classroom for summer).
Here is the room before.. no close up of the awful ceiling  which had holes from the previous owners stereo speakers and horrible dirty walls and the yellow baseboards with gaps between the walls.. uck but you get the idea-

Than Arnold prepped the room by filling all the holes with putty, painted the ceiling and than the first coat of blue..

This is the second day after three coats of paint. The rocker looks awesome it really takes the turqouise out in the fabric and I think the color will be great for boy or girl (Nate picked it out)..we hadn't put the blinds up yet.
Here are the finished pics

Doesn't the dresser just speak volumes against that paint.. like it was meant to be. I love having family peices redone in this room.  We still need curtains but the room is ready for use and the rest of the decorating will have to wait till we are expecting.
And here is a pic of the hard workers- Nate helped out too.. it was such a relief to have it done so Nate doesn't have to do this huge job alone later.

 It took them two straight 8 hour work days to prep, paint ceiling, walls, and trim. Remember that black trim on the window. Nate's mom even caulked the trim so it looks professional- no more gaps for our future baby. The next day Nate installed the blinds again and the room looks so lovely and peaceful! I love it.

Here is a pic of the day lillies I cut from the front yard aren't they gorgeous.
We're having a memorial day party this year since we'll be gone for our typical 4th of July party. So hope everyone has a great time this weekend.

Monday

What's New Around Here..

Well other than my new background on the back of the blog.. things have been go go go around here.  I know for the past few weeks I have been saying I have been busy busy busy. And I don't mean it in a bad way. It is just the end of the year is so busy and can be stressful I feel like I don't have a moment to breath. But I only have 2 more days with the kiddos at school than 2 days to take apart my classroom. I am kinda in shock that my fifth graders are graduating Wed. and I am done with my first year teaching.. tears.. seriously!
So here is the recent scoop-
This past week Nate's Mom Cindy  and Stepdad  Arnold came in for their annual summer visit from Illinois. Nate & I  also meet with benefit HR people at Cyfair to learn our insurance was changing and not for the better! In addition I went to the nail salon, cleaned house, wrote a paper for my masters, and taught- oh don't forget started my end of the year list of stuff to do (clean, organize, permenant files, grades..etc)!! This weekend we went to St Arnold's Brewery with the rents and our good friends Alice & Jon. Than after the brewery we relaxed before a BBQ at Kristin & AJ's House. It was a nice evening. Sunday we went to church, Lowes for paint and than floated the pool the rest of the day. It was nice to get a little relaxing in before this busy week. I have a paper due tonight, tomorrow to clean my classroom up after school.. spend time somewhere in there with our company and Wednesday is graduation day at school. Thursday I have no kiddos but will be in my classroom cleaning and a paper due for my masters that day. Friday is repeat of thursday - the master's assignment. Also Nate's school prom and Saturday is our Memorial Day Party.

Here comes the pics..
After months of having off my fake nails and letting them try to harden and get healthy to  no avail.. I just learnt that there is shellac that they dry by UV rays that hardens and doesn't chip for two weeks. I went straight to my old salon and got it done. It is perfect since my nails are growing like no other but still so weak. They have it available in colors too. They look shiny and I love it.
 I also got my toes painted in my favorite color- turqouise and got a pink hibiscus flower on it.. two favs pink and hibiscus.
Well like I said earlier last week I prepared for Nate's parent's arrival. They come once a summer to help with the house- well when we first moved in they helped alot in painting, remodeling, gardening.  But now we have every room except the future nursery (if we ever have a baby) done.. so they are  just enjoying Texas really now.  Since this time before the visit I had time to prepare (last year was before the wedding reception in Texas) I kinda wanted to make them feel like house guests instead of work slaves..lol. So I cleaned the guest bath as I always do and set out the bath towels for them with nice soaps from Hawaii for them to enjoy. Here are the pics below.



In addition Nate and I finally moved the baby stuff into the guest room closet (what would fit) and the rest to the nursery after I finished cleaning the floors. Here are the pics of what it looks like now..
This is the guest closet packed with bouncy chair, boppy pillow, activity mat, swing and other misc. baby items given to us by friends (lightly used!!) Since the nursery isn't painted and doesn't have a door we felt these items could stay in there for now.
Here is the nursery remember this room hasn't seen any improvements since we moved in except new floor.
 
Notice the dresser hasn't been moved up just yet. We are waiting till the paint is done.  But the rocker, side table, mirror and the basket of books have been moved in. See the Eric Carle Catepillar! I love it!

Here are the pics of the guest room currently in addition to the wine glass I left for cindy on the bed. I think I talked about the new mirrors on the side wall. I love mirrors because they help bounce off light in a small room. Because the walls are not the ideal color (accident by painter and didn't have the heart to say change it) I decided to use white and black accents to level out the bold turqouise.

This wall with the mirrors  is the same wall with the zebra chair on it. Weird room to take pictures. The wall with the window just has the bed placed against it and you can see that in a couple pics down.

This corner is the wall with the other closet and the mirrors are on the same wall you are looking at. There is the spray painted table and my glass floor lamp with the zebra chair. I added the fun circle pillows for summer because they match the paint color and I thought they were fun and bright.

On the left side of the bed would be the windows.. that is the door leading into the room too. I moved the sun burst mirror over the bed. This is the bed Simple Matters did. It has a foot board also.. but I am not sold on the foot board in this same square room yet. I kept it in case I change my mind.
Here is the wine glass for Cindy. She loved the glass. I bought her the glass for Mother's Day but since we sent flowers and I knew she was coming I just saved it for her. It is hand painted with flowers and says Mother.  Hope you like all the changes and big suprise coming soon in the room that is pictured below.. :)

Wednesday

Life In the Fast Lane! Continued.. Post 2

Yesterday was my fifth grade class field trip to Galveston Texas to visit the NOAA Sea Turtle Hatchery and have our end of the year bash at the beach.
The Hatchery used to be open to the public but they closed down due to staffing issues to work the tours and the National Security issues. Nate teaches aquatic science and used to take his class there each year and was able to link me with the department head and she arranged a private tour for my students. They loved it!
The lady who gave the tour was very informative and the kids soaked up all the information. The doors had signs on them about not to stick fingers in the tanks the turtles would think they were squid. This is a working lab so it isn't beautiful like an aquaruim but it was a teaching environment for the kiddos to see.
The turtle hatchery hatches and raises all five speices that live in the Gulf of Mexico. They had just released 500 kemp ridley turtles in Flordia so the only turltes we saw were Logger Head Turtles. They also have on site a rehabilitation center which is for wild turtles that are hurt. A vet from the Houston Zoo comes and works pro bono on them.



Here are the pots (that is what they call the containers ) for the one-two year old turtles. They are kept seperated because in the wild they live in solitare other than to mate.  They are released after two years old. They did have a set of four and 6 yr old turtles because a student was doing a trial on hearing of sea turtles. The reason they raise them till two is because they are so small when born and they don't dive in the ocean till after two that they become bait to many animals and 1/4 of the population would survive in the wild. All five speices are endangered and threatened.
We also learned that a sea turlte nests at the same beach she was hatched and lays 100 eggs per nest and 4-5 nests a breeding season. But sea turtles don't bred every season. Out of the 500 eggs about 200 will make in the wild. A sea turtle doesn't reach maturity also till 25 yrs old.


This is close ups of the larger 4-6 yr old turtles.

This poor guy was alone away from the rest because he was sick :(

This guy was also sick- but all the sea turtles thought we were there to feed them so this one sat at the top with his mouth open!! Hilarious

This cutie had his flippers perfectly over his shell just chilling at the top!


The kids had a great time at the beach too!
After the field trip I came home and helped Nate empty all the book shelves and move them to the garage. Than I scoured the floor (since the cat litter used to be in there) and mopped and wet vac it since it is a wood floor.
Looking into room- long and narrow (estimated it is 13*9)

Looks like Nate forgot some boxes of books!!

I really wish I had a before picture because it has come a long way already- but there is so much to do still. This is the only room not to have been painted. The baseboards need to be done, ceiling and walls. Love the black window sile right.. not!! Also notice the closet has no door.. hmm. So I am going to re hang the rod I had up there and make new curtains for it. It will look something similar to this closet from Young House love once I work my magic!

In addition to painting the closet and adding curtains. I want to add wicker baskets to the top shelf for storage and there is a nitch in the closet on the side that I want build shelves up for additional storage. I haven't decided if I want to paint the closet a different color than the rest of the room like Baby Clara's first room on YHL.

I love Baby Clara's Room.. but it is a little too modern for me. Our room will have more a vintage flair.

So since all the baby items we have collected from friends and family (who so lovingly donated) have been stored in our guest room. We can now move them into the baby room so that Nate's mom and stepdad have somewhere to sleep! Horray!

So tonight after work I will move the baby stuff from the guest room to the third room.. maybe Nate's Mom will paint for me while she is here. She loves painting and this is the last project. We'll keep the bedroom door shut until we are preggo one because I can't handle seeing it all but two because I want the room to be pet free!

Hopefully soon I will have good news to share with yall and we can open that room up to a baby!


In other news I just tested my kiddos over State Geography. I covered the map in class with this-

I thought it was pretty clever and I didn't have to take the map down..lol. My students think I am crazy- but I know that is why they love me..


Updates on the room to come.. Happy Hump Day.