Ready or not...

These last three weeks I have not been working. The people I babysit for decided to send the kids to a day camp for the last few weeks of summer, so I have just been enjoying a LOT of down time. Lots of relaxing, some organizing, visitors, scrapbooking and card making, and just simply enjoying my time with no school or homework to stress about.

These last few days I have NOT been looking forward to school. All the little facts about school I have not put any thought into the entire summer have been starting to surface and I feel that familiar dread about starting school. I always get a lot of anxiety before starting a new semester; so many unknowns.... Being a student does not always come easy to me, I typically have to study a little harder than the next person. Then I find myself asking: "Why am I back in school, do I really want to be a nurse?" I've felt pretty negative these last couple days about going back to school, but the fact of the matter I have realized is, I am BLESSED to be able to go back to school. I am blessed to have a husband that can provide for us making it possible, I am so blessed to have this opportunity. So no more negative I have decided! One assignment at a time, one test at a time, and one semester at a time....in just 16mon I will graduate!

Hopefully Josie adjusts to me not being home all the time. My schedule is different everyday during the semester, some days I am home more than others. Thankfully Alec often has the option to come home for lunch and let her out for a little while. She does seem totally fine though when we leave her, pretty sure she just sleeps the entire time! She is developing such a little personality (funny, sounds like I am talking about a kid!). She is a funny little puppy though, we love her :)

Here is a little bit of my work from the last couple weeks, I think I have made about 20 cards. I will be set for the entire year, which is good because I will have no time to make cards once school starts!

My table and the scrapbook I am currently working on.

These are just a few of the cards I have made:

More and more visitors!

We have been so honored that so many of our family and friends are willing to travel all the way to Milwaukee to see us! Here is a bit of a recap of some more guests we have had over the past few weeks.

My Grandma and Grandpa DeKruyter came to visit us for a few days. They arrived sunday afternoon, and Alec and I were able to show them around downtown Milwaukee a little bit. We had a great afternoon and evening of visiting the art museum and then eating dinner at the Cheesecake Factory! On monday, Alec had to go to work, but I was able to go around town with them some more. We went to Greendale, WI (15min from our house) and checked out the little town there, and then we did the Pabst Mansion tour. They then left tuesday morning in their motor home to head to northern WI.

That same tuesday I went and picked up Alec's mom and sister, Lauren, at the ferry. They had a great ferry ride they said! They came to visit us until thursday evening, and we had lots planned that we wanted to do. Most of our time was spent shopping, in various forms. We went to the local mall right by our house, Goodwill, Bayshore mall (the outdoor one), and we went downtown to Brady St. where there are some small little shops that are fun to browse. Wednesday evening Alec got out of work early and we all headed to the state fair. We enjoyed some cream-puffs, seeing the animals, and checking out all the vendors. Overall we had such a good time together!!

On friday my dear friend, Julia, arrived and her boyfriend, Brad. They also came from west Michigan. Julia and I were roommates for most of college, and still often go through withdrawals of not living together! We had a fun and relaxing weekend with them. We went downtown and walked around a little bit showing them the sights, and then did the Lakefront Brewery tour again. It was soooo good for me to see Julia again, and this was her first time seeing our house.

We are done with having guests for a little while, as I am starting school again in 1 very short week! I am a little bit of a mixed bag of emotions, I am excited, nervous, and stressed about all the stress I know there is to come. It will be a challenging semester, but usually that just means it will be a fast semester! We shall see though I guess.

More weekend guests!

We had some more friends from MI visit us this weekend! Our friends Aaron and Catherine came over on the ferry for the weekend, they said they loved the ferry ride and highly recommend it! We had such a good time, as we always do with them.

Some highlights:

• The Pabst mansion tour - very cool to see how rich people lived back in the day. I just kept saying that I wished I lived during that time and could have lived in that cool house! I would have loved it. I just kept thinking of the American Girl Doll, Samantha, I know that is totally nerdy....but its true.




• Lunch at the Garage - We went out to lunch while waiting for the tour to start. It was a restaurant called The Garage, very cool place! It was really yummy, and we got a free beer from our coupon from the Lakefront brewery.....we like free stuff

• Lakefront Brewery tour - The Lakefront brewery is a small local brewery here in Milwaukee. The tour is very fun to do, the tour guides are always hilarious and make the group have a good time. And we were able to taste a few of their different types of beer.
  

• Wii Mario cart - We developed a small obsession for Mario cart this weekend, we had such a fun time racing each other. Also we discovered that we can hook up our Wii to the Internet and actually play them when they are at home at their house! So we are looking forward to a few rematches, even though we are going to be across the lake from each other.


• Shopping at Crate and Barrel and Trader Joe's - Both are places that they do not have in the Grand Rapids area, so had to be visited while they were here.
  

Overall it was an excellent weekend! We absolutely love spending time with Aaron and Catherine and really miss living so close to them, but we really take advantage of the time we do have together!

Our little Josie

Things with Josie are going pretty great! She is such a little furry bundle of joy :) She is still very puppy though! Here is a list of her, we'll call them pros and cons:

PROS

1. She loves to snuggle with us and sit on our laps

2. Has had very few accidents, potty training is going pretty smooth

3. Is adorable

4. She is so fun to just watch play with her toys, so funny

5. Barks at her own reflection (we find this funny)

6. Sleeps through the night no problem, never whines when we put her in the crate

7. Has been very easy to train, she can do: sit, down, shake, high-five, roller over, and crawl

8. Has gotten much better on the leash and I take her for walks often

9. Has no problem with other dogs, actually loves playing with them

10. Is not a big barker, thank goodness

11. Does great when we leave her for work and such, sometimes I think she actually looks forward to getting rid of us for a while so she can just sleep

CONS

1. Still does the puppy 'biting', its getting a little better but she does still use those razor teeth - OUCH!

2. Anytime she greets new people she lets out a little pee. SOOO annoying and I have absolutely no idea how to fix that. I have tried a few different things, but any guidance or help would be much appreciated.

3. Only will eat if we are standing right next to her, otherwise is way to distracted

4. Loves to lick people's feet, its kinda nasty

5. Recently we have been noticing that she sheds a little, which is a HUGE disappointment since they are supposed be almost a no shed kind. It is still just a little, but definitely noticeable. Maybe she is just getting her adult coat or something....ugh.

Overall it is going great and we love her a ton!

She looks like such a skinny little rat when she is wet!

She LOVES her stuffed monkey, definitely her favorite toy

Alyx got her bows for her hair, so cute, however she has no desire to leave them in for more than a few minutes at a time

She also received a rain coat as a gift, sooo funny. And yes we know it is ridiculous, but still think its adorable :)