summer. . .

our summer is quickly coming to a close and i honestly

can't believe how quickly it's gone by!

time is flying by, but we've still had plenty of time to

hang out, explore our new neighborhood and

put some finishing touches on our new place.

probably the most exciting news as of late

 is that i got a job!

yay for jobs!

i'll be working as a teaching assistant at a specialized

school for children with autism.

i'm SO glad that i was able to secure a job so quickly

and i'm also thrilled that logan & i will both be

working at schools so we will have similar schedules :)

 we decided to stick to a classic and went to 

the cheesecake factory to celebrate.

since work doesn't start officially till the end of 

the month for us both, we have had plenty of time to relax.

we have been enjoying our amazing pool, & logan

has been inspired by the olympics to become the

next michael phelps.

after a mini swim lesson he was actually pretty good:)

look for him in rio 2016.

we ventured out to the down-town area one afternoon

to check out the school logan will be teaching in.

he got pretty excited.

i'm not lying when i say that his school is in the ghetto.

that's pretty much the whole point of teach 

for america though-to get people to teach in 

low-income areas, but there is actually a really beautiful

university just down the street from his school that 

really makes the area a lot prettier.

we decided that since we've become texas residents we might

as well brush up on our texas culture.

thus, we went to the institute of texan cultures and had a grand time.

turns out texans truly are very proud of themselves.

they had an entire instillation at the museum called 

"made in texas" which literally showcased hundreds of 

items/companies/brands that originated in the lone-star state.

one evening we explored an area that had 

a bunch of food and dessert trucks.

the weather actually cooled down a little bit and we

were able to have a fun time without sweating too much :)

perhaps the most exciting thing for logan recently

has been purchasing him a car.

we knew when we came out to texas we would have

to buy another car because we would most likely be working in 

different parts of the city. 

we were able to make one car work in utah with some help

from family and friends, but san antonio is a lot bigger than

provo so it was time to bite the bullet and get

another set of wheels.

logan researched cars for mooooonths before we

found one that was in our budget and would be reliable

enough for the 2 years we are out here.

after test driving some real clunkers we successfully

came away with this little truck that we've named pedro.

logan loves pedro and i love that logan loves pedro.

i won't ever have the pleasure of driving the truck

because it's a stick shift.

oh well :)

other than that, we have really been spending a lot

of time in our new place doing some DIY projects

and putting the details and final touches on our new space.

we feel right at home here and i love our apartment!

i've loved using my new kitchen.

it is literally like 109470387 steps up from my kitchen

in provo-where the cupboards came down so low

i couldn't fit anything on my countertops.

aaaand we actually have a dishwasher!

needless to say, i've had a blast using all the space and

baking some yummy things.

we will be sad when summer is officially over and we 

have to go back to the real world of work and routine.

but until then we will enjoy our new place.

on days like today where the temperatures are insane

and it's like a billion degrees plus %110 humidity, we are 

perfectly content staying inside and catching up

on the olympics, or my favorite show that i recently

converted logan to:

they say july/august is the hottest time of the year with

the worst humidity.

i'm glad to know that this will be the worst of it.

in utah i could stand the heat-but it's the humidity here that

literally has me sweating my guts out by the time i've walked from

our front door to the car.

and don't even get me started on my hair.

i step out the door and in .002 seconds it looks just

like it did when i first woke up.

i've actually contemplated shaving my head so i

won't have to deal with it.

no joke.

happy birthday logan. . .

this weekend i threw a birthday party for logan.

he is turning the big 2-5.

i knew i wanted to throw him a big party but

couldn't decide if i wanted to make all the food or

make all the decorations.

there was no way i was doing both.

i decided to make the decorations because i've never

done anything like that before, & i just wanted to see if i

could actually do it :)

i started with a DIY birthday banner:

i picked the color scheme and cut flag shapes from card stock.

i bought some cute letter stickers and used those to spell

out the 'happy birthday' message.

once i had my message all spelled out, i started sewing!

let me just tell you, i was terrified to try and sew the paper.

i didn't think to buy any extra just in case i messed up or anything, so i

basically had one shot to get it right.

sewing through the paper was actually SO simple and i was

pretty much thrilled with how easy it was.

i just lined up the flags & sewed right through the top of each one!

it was the perfect accent for the party & now i can have it

forever to use in the future:)

the next little DIY project i made was a little banner

that displayed some pics of logan when he was little.

i picked a few pictures and had them blown up to 8x11 size.

it was literally like 25 cents per picture which came to a grand

total of just over one dollar to have them blown up.

i used some twine and wooden close pins to hang the banner.

i attached each picture to a wooden pin and that was that!

nbd that the banner fell down like

every 12 minutes at the party.

for some reason i could NOT get those wooden pins to

stick to the wall.

whatevs.

it looked cute while it lasted.

logan loves pie so we decided to have an assortment of them at the party.

i wanted people to know the flavors of each pie, so i had logan

help me made these little flags to stick in each one.

logan helped by cutting the wooden sticks in half for me.

i figured it was a pretty "manly" job since it involved cutting.

he was glad he could help:)

perhaps the biggest project i decided to make were the pinatas.

i saw the idea on pinterest.

they didn't look too hard to make, so i figured i would

give it a shot.

all i can say is that if i didn't have help from the lovely ashley

these pinatas would have been a total disaster!

i decided to make an "L" first by myself to see if

making the 2 & the 5 would be worth it.

i cut out the shape in cardboard, taped it together,

wrapped it in crepe paper, & voila!

i didn't fill the L with candy or anything,

it just served as another decoration at the party.

making the "25" was a little more difficult.

ashley & i cut out the shapes from large sheets of

cardboard like i had done with the L.

we may or may not have seriously struggled when we were

trying to cut out the 5.

for some reason we couldn't visualize a giant 5 and literally

had to draw little 5's on scrap pieces until we got it right.

after the challenge of the 5 we got the letters all

cut out and taped together.

then came the crepe paper.

i bought colors that went with my scheme and we cut out

strips of each color.

then we made little cuts to the bottom of the strips

to give the pinata that awesome texture.

the tutorial i found on pinterest said that cutting and taping the

crepe paper onto the pinata took a lot longer than

cutting out the letters and taping them together.

we laughed at this and thought that taping paper in a pattern

onto each letter would be a breeze.

4.5 hours later we had only decorated the 2.

i couldn't believe how long it actually took to tape all the paper

on to the number.

we had to figure out how to make it work with the

curving of the letter, etc.

i took all my stuff home and finished the 5 the next day.

i also bought candy to stuff the pinatas with.

i bought exactly what i wanted to go inside the pinatas.

i figured i had spent so much time on them i was going to fill

them with whatever the heck i wanted to eat:)

when all was said and done, the pinatas turned out exactly

how i pictured them.

if i ever make any again there will definitely be some

tricks i learned along the way that will make the

process go A LOT faster the next time.

the pinatas were super fun at the party.

we destroyed them one at a time, & i may or may not

have shed a tear watching all my hard work be demolished.

everyone had fun taking a turn batting the big "25".

i would like to say the pinatas were just for the kids

to enjoy, but we had a fair share of our friends take a whack

at breaking each pinata.

i think they enjoyed it more than the kids.

tanya ended up breaking the pinata & i got a great shot

of her hitting it & all the candy flying out.

expert photographer right here.

i had so much fun making all of the decorations

for the party, and i loved being able to have all

our friends & family enjoy logan's special day.

we have such nice friends!

i know that logan loved having all his loved ones

come & enjoy some pinatas & pie with us.

i am lucky to be married to such a sweet person.

he treats me like gold & i couldn't ask for anything more:)

happy birthday log!

love you!