Our Home in Bryan

Bryan's slogan is "A Great Place to Live". And I would have to agree with that. I really do think it is pretty great. We are becoming members of the church we have been going to on Sunday, so that is exciting, and have been learning our way around town.

One day, I got lost for 30 minutes. I'm not even kidding.

Here is a look into our lovely apartment. Enjoy!

This is the view from the front door of our living room.

We have a lot of books... and a very small TV we bought especially for the VHS player. That's right, I said it, the VHS player. Oh yeah, be jealous.

Our fun little vintage, 1960s Neiman Marcus mannequin from Miranda-the-Great, currently sporting my rehearsal dinner dress.

A view of our dining room from the living room. Looks a little messy right now... that's because it is.

Another view from of our dining room. Those are awesome built-in shelves! I have one shelf just for all my cookbooks. Glorious. And yes, that is the book Music Teacher from the Black Lagoon. : )

We also need 3 shelves to house all our board games.... we love board games. You should come over and play with us sometime. The Life, Risk, Careers, and Monopoly that is at the very bottom are from my Mama Kay's house. They are from the 60s and I love them. If you have never played Careers, you need to get over here! It's one of Mike and I's favorite!

Our kitchen that is small, yet still MUCH bigger than our last one! (If you can believe it!)

More kitchen. That door leads out to a patio we have. It would be nice to go out there, but I don't like sitting in 110 degree weather...

Our guest room. The most 'unfinished' of all the rooms.

Mike's Star Wars shrine, uh, I mean collection, yes there we go, resides in the guest room. : )

Guest bath. (I think it looks better than our own master bathroom!)

And our room. Very plain right now. We still need very much so to print wedding pictures out and hang them on the walls. I have a feeling though that won't happen until Christmas Break.

Anyway, so that's our place! You are invited over anytime!!

Welcome to Mrs. Nice's Music Room

Here are some pictures of my room at school. I am very blessed with a LOT of space, and ample instruments. I am even more blessed that my principal has let me purchase 12 guitars for my class that I will be able to teach to 5th grade this year! (With all the budget cuts going on, that is amazing!)

The students get to choose a different way to greet me every time they come into music. Not gonna lie, my favorite is the hug. :)

Right when you walk in you see our 'Composer of the Month', who is currently John Williams. This will alternate between 'Composer of the Month' and 'Mystery Instrument' where the students will become familiar with the different sounds and timbres of instruments and guess which one is posted. The purple posters are cross-curricular posters for music, explaining the music is a part of science, math, and even history. :) The last one with a big map say 'Music we know from around the world'. Here, I plan to show what countries or states different songs the students learn come from!

I have many xylophones and metallaphones!

The big shelving unit to the left contains all my other fun instruments. I chose to leave the doors permanently open for easy access, and so far, has proved beneficial! The one with the red curtain is for recorders.

The circle in the middle (which actually looks more like a mis-shaped egg) is for the kindergartners. They sit in a circle each time they come in.

All the other grades get the great privilege to sit on the risers.

Thanks for taking a look into my classroom! You should really come when it's filled with children's voice, that's the best. :)

Life in the last 2 months!

So much has happened in these last couple of months!

Mike and I have moved from Denton to Bryan...

We left SUPER early in the morning and our u-haul was packed. (in case you can't tell)

Rob helped us pack up some stuff.

Well... sort of.

I'm sure our downstairs neighbors appreciated that.

We have moved from our tee-niny 1 bedroom apartment to a glorious 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment which to us, feels like a mansion. (pictures of that to come!)

All I can say is: I.love.my.kitchen. and everything in it.

Mike unpacking what he loves.

And me unpacking what I love. (by the way, thanks mama!)

So have moved to a new place and it has been great. I am 0.9 miles away from my amazing new job (more pictures of that to come as well)

Mrs. "Nice" for 'Meet the Teacher' night!

We have found a great church that we have already been helping out with at the youth group, and best of all, Mike isn't working at Wal-Mart anymore!!! :) The Lord totally provided a part-time job at Hasting's 3 days after we moved here.

He works hard to put those books away in the right place!

We also took a short trip to Galveston, my second time, and Mike's first. He wasn't very impressed, but he's used to west coast ocean water... and doesn't really like the beach anyway (I know, crazy right?), but he was a good sport. :)

And made his first drip-castle!

I just love being in the water... even if at times it did feel like a hot tub.

And Ethan was just the cutest little thing, braving the water and sand. He would just crawl, going straight for the water, and no one could stop him... Well, we did stop him, but he had that look on his face like no one could. :)

Laurie and Ethan relaxing by the pool. So sweet.

Yay Galveston!

And I have officially finished my first week as the music teacher at Johnson Elementary!!

This is me on my first day. Well, after my first day was over.

This weekend is Mike's "birthday weekend" as he keeps reminding me. Especially when we play games and he want to re-roll to get a better move or something.

Mike's Aunt Laura was doing some work here in Texas, so she was able to come and see us! We enjoyed a great early birthday dinner for Mike at Murphy's Law in downtown Bryan.

So good to see her!

We look like it's Christmas time!

Ok, now, I don't even really like chocolate. Crazy I know, but I just don't really like it by itself. I like it when it's with something, like peanut butter, or strawberries, or milk. But I have to say this chocolate cake was amazing. And this piece was even bigger before Mike started eating it! We came back again to Murphy's Law the next day and got another piece of cake. :)

And because it is Mike's "birthday weekend", Sam came and stayed with us. So nice that we have an extra room!

So these last couple of months have been really great. The Lord has blessed us beyond what we expected and continues to do so. You are invited to come over and stay with us anytime. :)

Happily Settled,

lisa