I am so excited that it’s almost time for the big Fourth of July weekend at the lake! It’s been a long time coming and I know that Kenny and I are both excited to see everyone who’s making the trek down here to hang out. For some, like Scott and Sarah, it’s an 8 hour ordeal. But we are happy to host and can’t wait to get the weekend started. The Theriaults will be the first to arrive this evening and then more and more people will be trickling in as the weekend gets going. Looks like our finally tally will be right around 13, just enough to still fit on the boat. I can’t wait to see all your smiling faces (Kenny that includes you!) and have what I know will be a great time this weekend. Yay for friends! And for those of you who can’t make it, we’ll have a celebratory drink or bite of yummy food in your honor. And if you change your mind, give us a call, grab your swimsuit and hop in your car and head on down!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th and I wish you could all be here to celebrate with us!

Krissy and I have done quite a bit of moving and shaking recently.

I finished up my semester a while back and found out I did pretty well. In my time off, I did a couple of things around the house, then we had to make our way to St. Louis for Krissy’s sister’s wedding. I didn’t really have anything to do, but Krissy was kept pretty busy over a four day span. Just before Memorial Day, Krissy and I went down to FL and got to just relax, hang out, and shop. Bob and Jen joined us for the first two days of the trip, and we spent a couple of days at Disney after that. We even got to see a Up while we were on Disney property. We got back from vacation and Krissy had a bunch of catching up to do and I had to get ready to start my grad program.

I just finished my first day of the program, and this weekend it’s back to St. Louis. Hopefully, things will be slowing down soon, but with an intensive summer session for grad school, designing a new showroom, and an impending move all looming I doubt that’s the case.

Anyone that’s a fan of The Lonely Island and Sesame Street should love this. Anyone that doesn’t know what The Lonely Island is, this is a warning that this is explicit.

Update: By the way, this will be the anthem of the last summer at the lake.

With finals coming up next week, it’ll be nice to just spend some time at home. I’ll get a chance to study between my sessions with the DVR and PS3. Plus, my mom and dad are coming down this weekend for Mother’s Day and we might get a chance to take our first boat ride of the year.

One more day of class and four finals left. Then it’s into the Master’s program in about 3 weeks.

So this past weekend we were lucky enough to have Bob and Jen down for a visit. It’s always fun when they come down to hang out because they’re like family and there’s no pressure to entertain. The four of us are enough entertain ourselves. Friday night we grilled and just relaxed and watched the Blues game. Jen and I went to bed and the boys stayed up for a while to play FIFA.

I had an appointment Saturday morning at 10:00, so everyone else slept in and afterward, we hit the outlet mall for some shopping. We took a break for a little while during shopping to grab a bite at one of our favorite restaurants el Jimador (yum) and then we headed back to the mall to finish up. Jen got talked into buying one Coach bag in exchange for another. Yeah, like I was going to let her leave with out buying something! All in all, not too much damage was done with us all only buying a few things. The rest of the day we hung out and watched the Cards game and snacked on some good food. We had some fun making fun of each other and some strange people competing on the Food Network’s show Chopped. Then Bob and Kenny capped off the evening with more FIFA.

Sunday morning began with our traditional visit to Kay’s. We had a bit of a long wait since we can never get there at the right time, but it was worth it. They really do have the best breakfast. After our venture into Food Comaville, we watched a little t.v. before Bob and Jen took off for the big city again.

All in all, a great weekend with some great friends. It doesn’t get much better than that. Ka-chunk.

It’s hard to believe it, but we’ve been living at the lake for 2 years! I missed the anniversary of the official move on April 2nd, but today marks the 2nd birthday of our store opening on April 10th. On one hand, it seems like we’ve been here for an eternity, and on the other, it seems like it’s flown by. We’ve enjoyed seeing the water everyday and taking the boat out and of course all the visits from friends and family. But we miss a lot of people and events being down here as well. Hopefully we’ll be seeing all of your smiling faces very soon! In other words, get your arses down here and visit!

I found out I got into the SMAR2T Program on Tuesday. This means I haven’t wasted a semester at school taking four math classes. It also means I’ll be a middle school math teacher in the fall of 2010. I’ll be in a very intense program during the summer and then student teaching all next year. Wish me luck.

Great weekend with great friends in Vegas.

One lowlight: Vomiting more than I ever have in my life.

Many highlights: I learned to new fun games, Craps and Crazy 4’s Poker. Scott hitting on the wheel and Kups hearing us half way across the floor. Matt making a huge run at the Craps table. I think 3 of 5 of us ended the weekend up. In-N-Out Burger. Samba Brazilian steakhouse. The Hard Rock Casino (minus the excessive alcohol consumption). Nate getting great news about his company from the Yankees. Pat randomly throwing $5 on 3 and hitting, Scott giving up on life and putting the rest of his chips ($45) on the same number he’d been playing all weekend and hitting (that’s a $1500+ win). Stepping up to a Roulette table and then seeing a bejeweled hand reach out on to the table a couple minutes later. Getting to play Roulette with Flava Flav and seeing him go nuts on a big hit (he’s the same in person as on tv). Flying home on Southwest with Steven Jackson on the plane; yeah that’s right, Steven Jackson on Soutwest.

I’ll say it again, great weekend with great friends.

I know it’s been a while and I’m sure anyone reading this has been on edge waiting to hear more about my school experience, so here it is. School is going better than I thought it would be. My test scores weren’t near as bad as I thought they would be from my week of tests; some of them were actually really good. I still hate homework as much as I used to, but I am doing more of it than I ever have before.

As far as the SMART Program is going, I just talked to the coordinator the other day and things are looking very promising. I took the GRE this morning and scored well enough to qualify for the program. Now I just have to finish getting all of my application material in to them. If I am admitted to the program I start in June and will be very, very busy for the next 15 months.

Everything else is going well. Krissy and I will be in St. Louis this weekend, and I’ll be running the 5 mile St. Pat’s run downtown on Saturday with Matt, Will, Kat, and Yao. It should be lots of fun and if anyone wants to do something in St. Louis this weekend give us a call.

Okay, so I’m really terrible at this blogging thing. I missed two birthdays last week. And whilst I did make it known to both of these people that I wished them a happy birthday on their actual birthdays, I managed to leave it off the blog.

So, a very happy belated birthday to both Kenny and Jen. Jen’s birthday was Wednesday and Kenny’s was Thursday. Fun that two very important people in my life almost share the same special day!

For Kenny’s birthday, I was pretty sure we weren’t going to see each other. Now there are some tough things to deal with when you’re living apart from your husband and being apart on birthdays is definitely one of them. Even though Kenny doesn’t have classes on Thursday, he was unlucky enough to have a test scheduled for 6:30pm and a lab following right after that which wouldn’t end until 9:00pm. Since I had to work, we agreed it would be silly to drive up and only see each other after 9:30 or so. Well, turns out Kenny’s lab was canceled, so my boss let me out a little early and I headed home, packed up the dogs and was off to Columbia to surprise Kenny. Of course it wasn’t much of a surprise because he was actually just expecting me to be there. Seriously, it’s impossible to surprise him. Anyway, we went to dinner at a little jazz restaurant with Will & Kat called Murry’s and had a nice dinner with an awesome dessert of gooey butter cake. Yum. I was back in Osage Beach the next morning for work and Kenny came home Friday evening.

We had a great relaxing weekend catching up on lots (seriously, like 10 hours) of recorded TV, cleaning up a bit, and watching the Oscars.

Hopefully Jen and Kenny will both be able to forgive me for not posting this sooner, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I’m sure Kenny can forgive me, since I was in a bit of a rush to get to Columbia that I forgot to blog. And Jen, I have a gift for you, so I’m hoping you’ll forgive me!