Barney and Fires and Cars.. Oh My!!

*Warning.. Possible photo overload. :)

Ok... Well it all started on a quiet little Friday morning when I watched my niece Aubrey. We had lots of fun. We played outside and watched Barney (ok so we watched A LOT of Barney.) When we were playing on the slide in the backyard, she wanted me to help her even though I know she can do it herself.. and has every other time before. But she just kept holding her arm out.. "Sissy help." (that is what she calls me.. Sissy, or sometimes Saucie.. Kim's dog lol) But I know that my name is not the easiest to say.. so we go with it.
We had fun playing together and I love my little Aubrey-girl.

Isn't she so cool with her hands in her pockets.

We ate cereal (rather just the marshmallows out of the cereal) and were mesmerized by that wonderful purple dinosaur. In my defense, I played other games with her and took her outside, but everytime we stopped.. "mumble mumble Barney." :)
I don't know why these pictures are blurry.. but you get the idea.

Saturday was my birthday. So like everyone does on their birthday.. I did homework.. I know right. But my wonderful husband did take me shopping for my birthday. :) Then Kurt and I went and looked at a new truck for him because Chevy was having a great deal.. but more on that later. So we went to Benji's for dinner. It was really good. basque food is my favorite. It was really nice for everyone just to hang out. Since we had a large party, they put us in the back room. There was going to be a party of 30 in the same room but they did not show up until we were leaving. So the 2 little girls that were there Aubrey and Audrey got to run around the whole room and have fun. Here are a few pictures of family from dinner.

Kurt and his mom

My dad and Kurt's dad. Isn't this picture so cute. :) Classic
Aubrey (in pig tails) and Audrey (in purple).
My brother and Tanessa, his girlfriend

And so the fun begins.....

On Sunday, Kurt and I decided to buy the truck we were looking at. So after church we cleaned out his reliable little pickup and went to get a carwash. While we waited, we walked over to Famous Dave's to eat luch. Then we decided to go home because Chevy had loaned us a truck to try out. We borrowed it on Saturday afternoon before dinner and we were going to take it back.

Well...

On our way home, we say smoke coming from near our apartment. We couldn't tell where it was coming from at the time. So Kurt joked "oh look our apartment is on fire." I told him not to even joke about that. Little did we know....

So we turned the corner to the street where our apartment is... my heart sank. Our Daisy, our little baby was IN our apartment. I was freaking out. Kurt told me to calm down until we got to the driveway to pull in.. there were firetrucks blocking the way. Kurt pulled up as close as he could get, I grabbed my keys and jumped out of the car and ran towards our apartment. I knew they would not let me just go running up into my burning complex.. so I looked for a firefighter. He asked me which apartment I lived in.. He allowed me to open my door with the condition that he looked in and made sure it was ok first. I opened the door.. it was so smokey in there. I called Daisy and she ran and jumped in my arms.. I was so relieved I almost broke down and cried.. I think I let one or two tears go.. But I regained my composure... In all the panic.. I forgot about Skylar.. our other baby... Kurt ran in through the back door and got him.. Our neighbor was kind enough to let us put him in their bathroom. But when Kurt went into our apartment, he said there was so much smoke he could not see 3 feet in front of him. His lungs and chest still hurt.

The apartment that we share a wall with and the apartment upstairs from them burned almost completely. Unfortunately each apartment contained a dog and 3 cats each. The lower apartment was able to get their dog out in time.. but the upstairs neighbors did not get home until the fire was almost completely contained. It was really heartbreaking to see them come home.

Our apartment did not have any fire or water damage.. just a lot of smoke smell and dirt. We opened some cabinets and smoke came pouring out of them. I mean everything smells like smoke: my school books, bags, clothes, my hair brush, my loofah! (seriously?), and basically everything.

Oh.. about the borrowed truck... it was about 30 feet away from the burning apartment. Soo.. ya... the emblem warped and melted a little, and the plastice license plate was melted really bad. We told the firefighters and they gave us a card with instrucitons for the dealership, who were not really worried about the damage at all. It really was not that bad.. but still was not our car.

Here are a few pictures of the damage:

This is the backside of the apartments, where the fire started. Their balconies are completely gone. One of the firefighters even fell through the upstairs balcony.

This was before it got boarded up.

This was after they boarded the windows and huge holes the fire created.

This is the backside of the apartments, ours is directly on the other side of this.

You can see all the debris from the walls and balconies.

This was a bike.
Hmm.. that looks safe.

And last but not least... we got a new vehicle!!

Ya right we WISH we could afford this car.. BUt they did let us drive it back to our apartment to get the registration for Kurt's truck we were trading in. They were very nice.. even after we melted their truck. :)

Isn't he so cool. ;)
That's right baby Corvette...
Ok so this is the REAL car... err truck that we bought on sunday evening.


My mom wanted a little family photo with the new truck. :)

We are really lucky and blessed that our apartment only smells like smoke. Nothing was damaged or burned. The walls are a little brown and grey in some places, like around our front door where (after we got Daisy and Skylar out) smoke was billowing out from under the door.

We are now livng at my mom's house while we move our stuff out. We were able to get out of our lease because.. well. the apartment CONNECTED to ours is completely gone. It was a really scary experience, but we thank God that nothing worse happened to us. We are truly blessed to have the family and friends that are helping us and being so supportive. We also just want to pray for the families that lost their homes yesterday. We are actually moving out of our apartment to live with my parents so that the people who lived next door can move into our apartment. So even as I am typing (I am taking a break from homework) Kurt is loading up his new truck with our smokey belongings and piiling them into the spare bedroom at my mom's.

So we had a weekend full of friends, family, fires, and financing. :)

Happy Birthday!

to me.. :) Today is my birthday!! Woohoo!! I am a whopping 22 years old. Ok so I am really not that excited. It just feels like another day. Hmm maybe I am wierd but I was never really into birthdays when I was growing up. I mean I would have slumber parties and stuff when I was in elementary school. When I was in junior high and high school my family would just go out to dinner, then we would go back home open presents and eat cake (if we had gotten one). Well that is what my birthdays have become, which is fine with me. :)

Tonight will probably be the same agenda, except I have no idea where I want to go to dinner. And I know I will be forced to make a decision.

Party!!

..A purse party that is. So last night my mom and I hosted a purse party at her house. We had so much fun. And all the purses were so cute. We had a hard time deciding which ones to get. (There were a few that several people wanted. You can only imagine how that went... LOL it was not that bad)

Here is our food spread for the evening: We had chips and dip, fruit, nuts, pretzels with this delicious sweet and hot salsa, crab wontons, and little crabcakes, and of course german chocolate brownies. :)

Note: The big plate was empty because that is where the crabcakes and wontons went.. but they were baking.

This is my attempt at being artsy with the margarita glasses.
We had wine-aritas. My mom bought this mix for wine while she was up north wine tasting. It was actully good, I tasted some the other day when she was testing it out. I am not a big drinker so I did not have any last night.
This was only half of the purses. The other half were on another table and were all zebra and giraffe print with reds and pinks and brown accent colors. They also had tons of matching wallets and cute sunglasses.
We sold 10 purses at the party. And the deal was, that if we sold 5 I got a free purse because my mom signed me up as the "host." But since we sold 10, my mom got a free purse as well.

I took home this little beauty. :)

The night ended with no cat fights over purses and everyone was happy. (maybe the wine-aritas had something to so with that)

Finally..

I have posted a picture of my new haircut. I know it has been oh about 12 days since I have gotten it cut, but I decided today was the day to post about it. (only because I have been too lazy to take a picture of myself) So here it is..

I tried to take a picture of the back but it was not happening. They were all pictures of the top of my head or my butt. No happy medium.. at all. :)

Posts...

I have several things that I want to post about.. So I am making a list, to remind myself, of things I can be writing about.. Because, well let's face it, I get a little distracted when I start looking at blogs. Everyone else posts things and I like to read them, much more than I want to write my own. :) Then I get tired of being on the computer and leave the screen and try to do something more productive. Then I remember that I wanted to blog, but am too busy. So, ths is my list:

My New haircut
Father's Day
Kurt and his hobbies
House Decor
... And a few more that I have forgotten but will probably remember later today.

To cut or not to cut? (W/ pictures!!!!)

I have been battling myself ever since I got my hair cut last. (Well trimmed) I have been debating whether or not I should cut my hair short. Here are some reasons why:

• It is so heavy and hot for the summer.
• It gives he a headache somedays.
• When it is up in a ponytail, it hurts my head because it is so heavy.
• It takes so long to do that I find that I just don't do it.
• It usually ends up in a bun or a ponytail.. which hurts.

Here are some reasons why I do not want to cut it:

• I like long hair...
• I think it fits my face and personality
• I don't like change to much
• I love the way it looks when it is done.
• I have not had short hair for a while.. except right after high school when I chopped my hair off.

Hmm.. ya thats about it

Here is what my hair looks like now...

See how long it is in the back.. Its a love-hate relationship.
It is even longer when it is straight. I just like to curl it because it is easier and faster.

Ok so here are some pictures of people who have a haircut I might like on me..


I really like Nicole Richie's hair.. I like that is is like a bob, but longer. I also like the way it looks curled. I am a big fan of curling my hair.. as you can tell.

I also like jessica Simpson's hair here.

I would like to have a change, but I worked so hard to get my hair long.. but I do not do my hair that much because I feel ike it is such a hassle. UGH!!

Well.. I get my hair done on Thursday.. Tell me what you think.

Tagged. :)

-Post these rules to your blog-
Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names

My Joys:
1- Being Married
2- Knowing that I am almost done with school!!!
3- My family, old and new alike. I love having a big family. Both my parents have a lot of brothers and sisters.

My Fears:
1- Losing someone I care about
2- Failing at school.. now I know that I have failed a lot of classes (only because I did not go.. not because I just failed.) But I do not want to fail overall or drop-out.. which I won't
3- Not being a good teacher, or a mom when I become one.

My Goals:
1- Train for Volkslauf with Barbie... we want to run as a team with our husbands this year.
2- Read my Bible and go to church more often.
3- Get down to the weight that I want to be at. (now I know I am not fat, but I have gained a few pounds and just want to live a healthier lifestyle.)

My Current Obsessions/Collections:
1- Reading blogs... my husband thinks I am creepy because I read peoples blogs that I do not know. lol
2- My hair.. I have no idea what I want to do with it.. I am sick of it and want to cut it.. but I am a chicken and do not like change and worked so hard to grow it out!!
3- Taking pictures. I take our camera everywhere we go.. but since I don't have a card reader, I can't post them. I should probably e-mail them to myself like Barbie keeps telling me to do.

Random Surprising Facts About Me:
1- I am the only granddaughter on my mom's side of the family. All 5 of my mom's siblings had boys. So you might say that I was a little spoiled during the holidays.
2- My husband and I dated for 7 years before we got married. We started dating when I was 14 years old, he was 15. We were just babies.
3- Combined, my husband and I have so many hobbies, but we do not do most of them because we just do not have the time.. I will list a few: Rock climbing, cycling, disc golf, rocket building and flying, sewing, drawing, painting, longboarding, throwing pottery.. there are many more, but come to think of it.. most of those are my hubands, and there are a lot more than that. hmm.. no wonder we have so much junk! LOL


Because I have no friends on blogger.. I will only tag one person.. my mother-in-law:

Kim :)