Monday, July 23, 2012

Dog Days of Summer

I realize that I haven't written a blog since last month. And I really don't have any excuses. With Annie over, we had all of our free time back! Maybe I just haven't written because nothing too exciting has happened since Annie... well that's not completely true either. :)

With Annie over, Austin and I were both excited to have our evenings and weekends back. But that first week or two right after the show, I have to admit: I was bored! I couldn't remember what I use to do with all my free time before Annie! I wasn't even sure what I wanted to do with my free time now! But that has past and I'm back to enjoying my free time again. I do still get a bored a little easier but I'm trying to enjoy doing nothing while I can... as people keep reminding me - whenever we decide to have kids, our free time is completely out the window! :)

Over the week of July 4th, Austin and I traveled up to South Dakota for a family reunion! My cousin and her family had recently moved there where her husband is the director of a bible camp. The camp is right on the lake, along with a retreat center - which is where we stayed. We were so excited to head up there to have a mini-vacation and to spend some time with the family. However, we ran into a little bit of a problem about 20 miles outside of Council Bluffs. 


Yup. We got a flat tire... It was the first time either Austin or I had ever gotten a flat tire so we weren't entirely sure of our skills to change a tire. We did have a spare in our trunk but we called a tow truck to come and help us out. Well it was close to 100 degrees outside and after waiting in the heat, Austin decided to just try and figure out how to change the tire. At this point, a state trooper had pulled over to make sure we were okay and see if we needed any assistance. He helped Austin get it all started but then told us he had to leave because a man up the road was threatening to jump in front of traffic... yeah.

My hero!

Austin got the spare on successfully and we had called up to a place in a small town just up the road and they had the tire size we needed! So we slowly made our way there, got our new tire and $150 later, we were on our way! Luckily we didn't run into any other problems on the way there!

Once we made it to South Dakota, we enjoyed a few days relaxing on the lake and hanging out with family. We had a lot of fun. We went paddle-boating, tubing and playing on the water toys, that you can see in the picture below. 

 

We had a great time and it was hard to leave! I think everyone agreed that it would have to be something we should do every summer! :)

Since then, we really haven't done to much. Austin is still enjoying his job at the airport, mostly I think because it gets him out of the house! He's also been working with students doing voice lessons and next month, he'll be taking some students to All-State camp back at Wartburg. I think Austin is ready for school to begin again and start working with all of his students for another great year at Riverside! 



For me, the summer is also going well at work. Orientation days are definitely the busiest but the free lunch makes up for the early morning those days. :) I can tell that fall is starting to get closer because college fair invites have started coming in and soon I'll be scheduling high school visits again. I've also been working on creating our new books for the school year. These are the books that we give out at college fairs, high school visits and campus visits. I've really enjoyed doing this and it's helping me keep busy. Another exciting thing is that our entire office will be heading to Denver in October for the National Conference for Admissions Counselors. I'm so excited to get back to the great city of Denver and to hopefully learn some new things!

I think that's about it for us. We're just trying to get by in this heat wave that's hit the US. I hope you all are staying cool as well! Enjoy the rest of the summer before it's gone! :)