What I've Been Up to Lately

Well I've kind of been out of it lately and haven't been able to blog much about anything because I've been very preoccupied the last few months. I started real estate school back in August and finished my classes at the end of September. I've had 4 tests to pass, 2 being the school exams and the other 2 being the state and national exams (the ones that really count). Well I am officially finished with ALL real estate exams as of last night!! Man was I so happy to be done with studying. I didn't know if my poor brain could handle anymore studying day and night. Real estate exams are not a walk in the park if you are not prepared for them. I don't think the school that I went to was all the great, making me feel very unprepared so I got extra material through other avenues that covered everything and anything pertaining to real estate. Throughout high school and college I was always an A student, thus setting very high standards for myself for real estate school. I never knew how difficult these last 2 tests were going to be and compared to finishing college, I felt that this was much of a bigger accomplishment probably because I had to work extra hard at learning all of this new information. It really seems like a different language when you are unfamiliar to the verbiage and/or concepts.

It's so nice to get back to my regular routines without having to worry constantly about passing these tests. Yes, I am a perfectionist and when I have a task, I like to do it and be done with it. This was a situation that wasn't moving along as fast as I wanted it to, so it began to be very frustrating. Thank god for a patient and understanding husband and dog who weren't upset with me when I was neglecting them from visits at the station and nightly walks. Well all of the hard work of studying 24/7 has finally paid off... yippee! Now it's time to relax and enjoy the Halloween weekend! We have some great plans for this weekend, so I'll be posting soon with pictures! Thanks to everyone for all of the love and support throughout this endeavor (i.e. Houston, Mom, Dad, Sherlyn, Sheena, brothers, friends) it means more than I could ever tell you. I feel so loved and lucky to have such amazing people around me. Most people don't even get half of the support that I get on a daily basis and for that, I am grateful.

Just Love this!

I found a link on youtube of one of my favorite scenes in P.S. I Love You and I had to post it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PyuSSP63Dg

Enjoy :)

Happy 30th Birthday Mike!

Today is my oldest brother's 30th birthday and I planned a surprise party for him last night. We had a great turn out from his many friends. It was definitely a challenge for his buddy to get him there because he can be so difficult sometimes but that's why we love him. Or at least sometimes :) Happy 30th Mike!!! Here are a few pics from the night...

We're so very thankful...

This month has kind of been a blur. We had an unexpected family situation when Houston got a call late one night earlier this month from his sister's boyfriend saying that he couldn't find Rachael. Houston immediately called the local hospitals asking if she was there and the first one he called, he found her. Not knowing what had happened, just that she was in a bad car accident, he went down to the hospital to be with her. She ended up getting into an accident on the freeway and broke 6 ribs, fractured her pelvis in four places, punctured both of her lungs and a list of other things. She was in extreme pain for quite some time but luckily got better as every day passed. We spent a few weeks there going back and forth to the hospital all taking turns with her. Houston's oldest sister, Sherami, came into town with her husband and son from Salt Lake City. They stayed with us for a few days and visited with Rachael everyday at the hospital. It was so nice to have them here and to spend a few days with them. And Harrison even got to take a ride in a fire truck! He is obsessed with them :) What a cutie he is!

A few days after Sherami arrived, Houston's mother came in to help take care of Rachael also. She stayed here in AZ for a month and shared time between our home and the hospitals. It was so nice being able to spend so much time with her and really get to know her. Houston and I both felt so fortunate to have had that entire month with her that most likely we never would have had. She is so amazing and I feel so lucky to have a mother in law as wonderful as she is. Although we wish the circumstances would have been different, we had a blast with each other! It was also so nice to have her support with Rachael's situation, we couldn't have done it without her. When none of us live in the same state, it makes it very challenging to ever see each other. All of my sister in laws are wonderful and I feel so lucky to have them as part of my family. I just wish that I could see them more.

We had to give her a toast for her first day home :)

After we got Rachael out of the hospital, she and her dog came and moved in with us for about a month or so. It was very nice to be able to help her out and spend lots of time with her. She is a beautiful woman and has so much potential to do many great things. She truly is a sweetheart and I loved watching her get better everyday! We miss her since she has moved back home. On the last day of Sherlyn's stay, we were able to sneak away to Sedona for a day of cool weather relaxing by the creek and eating yummy food. There was an awesome storm that came in towards the end of the night too which was fun! We were all so sad to see her go back to D.C.

It was such a beautiful day in Sedona and we all needed it so much!

Next Stop San Fran...

So here are the pics from the last part of our vacation. We went up by the Muir Woods area in Marin, CA after we left Napa because Houston wanted to show me where they used to camp all the time when he was growing up. It was SO beautiful up there and everything was so green and lush. There was ivy growing everywhere and the air was fresh and clean.

The trees were massive!!!!Here we are at the Tea Gardens in San Francisco. This was a really neat place!San Francisco was absolutely amazing. It was kind of a culture shock at first because I had never been there before. The city was so different than any other place I had ever been before. We stayed at the Westin St. Francis Hotel right next to Union Square. Our room was awesome and views were insane! After we left San Francisco, we went to visit Clayton, Houston's hometown. I had never seen it before but had heard a lot of stories about it. What a cute town that was, I absolutely loved it there and could see us raising a family there in a heartbeat! I don't think he would be up for that though ;) We stayed with one of Houston's best friends from high school. It was so nice to meet all of his friends from back home, everyone was so nice.

Houston, Jereme and I also went to the Discovery Kingdom Six Flags that was nearby Clayton. We had a blast!

This was such an amazing trip and we are so grateful to have been able to take this trip this summer. We definitely needed a trip like that! Hopefully we'll have some more vacation pics to post soon.

Summer 2009 Trip Continued...

Our next stop after Reno was a cute little town of Nice, California right next to Clear Lake to visit Houston's Grandma and Uncle Rick. We picked up our rental car and we were on our way. We had such a nice visit with them and we don't get to see them very much at all, so it was great catching up and hearing more stories about Houston when he was little. We all went out to dinner together and then Houston and I headed down to Napa. Here are a few pictures from the visit there.We arrived in Napa and stayed at the Meritage Resort, which was fabulous! The first day we did not set up any wine tours and decided to just drive to a few that were close by our resort. We stopped at Sutter Homes and a few others but one of my favorite ones was Domaine Carneros, who specializes in champagne and sparkling wine. This place was outstanding! The service was great, the views were spectacular and the champagne was to die for!

When we finished here, we headed back to our resort to check out the underground wine tasting room that they had there. It was so neat! We had dinner in downtown Napa that night and really had a blast!So the next morning, we got up and got ready for our wine tour and it was far better than we ever anticipated it would be. We were the first couple that the wine bus picked up and then we picked up 4 other couples to join us for the day. We had a platter of fruits, crackers and cheese for in between the stops so we could clear our palates and get ready for the next one. Everyone that was on our wine bus was so much fun and our driver was awesome! Platypus Wine Tours...I would recommend them to anyone, they are wonderful! So we started at Elkhorn Peaks Vineyard and the gentleman there taught us a lot about how they grow and harvest the grapes and how to taste the wine :) I felt much better after leaving this place because before that I really didn't have a clue how to do it. We tasted his wines on the second floor of his old barn. He was a really cool guy and had so much knowledge to share with us.

So from there, we headed over to Hopper Creek Winery. This place was where our driver set up a picnic lunch and we hung out on the back patio for quite a while just drinking and playing with the winery dog. The best part about all of these places was that our group was the only people there, so we had their undivided attention. The didn't even care about how many wines you tasted, they just kept pouring them. We got to eat chocolate here with some of the wines too! It was delicious! From here, we went to Black Stallion Winery which was a cool place but there were lots of other people there tasting wine with our group. We were so spoiled before at our first two stops that we didn't care for that much. The next place we stopped at was called Hagafen Winery and that place was really nice too but I don't remember much from there :) I'm sure at that point I had a little too much wine.