Mouse in the house!

So we saw our first mouse in the house about a month and a half ago. I of course was freaking out when jared told me he saw one run along the living room floor. So, we went out and got some traps. We put one in the basement because he thinks it came up through the drain. Another one in the living room because thats where we saw it, and we put another one in the kitchen. We soon caught 2 in the basement and 2 in the living room. I was freaking out because I'm thinking they are going to reproduce and have a mice infestation in our house! We kept the traps out and within the last month have probably caught 2 more in the kitchen. Then about 2 weeks went by where there weren't any and I thought we got them all!.... I was wrong!
Yesterday I started vaccuming the guest bedroom and I swore I saw one under the dresser, so quickly I moved into the kitchen to vacuum that, then the living room, then I moved to our bedroom. As soon as I snuck the vacuum in I saw one run from under Jared's dresser under our bed! I SCREAMED and dropped the vacuum. I couldn't decide if I should shut the door or just run out and let it wonder out the the traps.. so thats what I did! I left and went to the store to get more traps. I was sick and tired of these things and beyond scared of the little rodents!

So I got back and you should have seen me, walking through the house in tennis shoes and stomping in every room before I walked in. That night we went to Jared's dads house for dinner and I was telling them about it. They gave us some sticky traps to set out..so needless to say, we have about 10 out right now! That night I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep because what if that thing was still in our room!!!!!

I woke up several times checking the trap in our room... nothing. The next morning I got up when I heard Jareds alarm and went on a hunt around the house to check all the traps. I did find the living room trap upside down!! I went to get Jared and sure enough there was a dead one. I'm REALLY REALLY hoping that he was the only one in here and I got him. I did some DEEP cleaning today. Made sure there were no crumbs on the counters, floors, under couches.. etc. I bought an air tight container for the dog food and moved that outside. I'm really hoping that the dog food was what they were attracted to. Please pray we have no more mice because the next time I see one I might go crazy!! I will call an exterminater next time, and then that will suck because you have to try and find them when they die! uhh.. stupid things, no one likes them!

House Updates!

Well we have been in our house for 9 months already! It has flown by, thats for sure! As for house updates we have made it look so much better with not too much money into it!
We have:
--painted every room except the "guest room/future baby room" which we will prob either wait to paint or just do tan since we aren't planning on kids for a long time.. I just hate painting so I don't wanna paint it and then in a year paint again, so we'll see
--torn up the old nasty carpets in guest room and office, replace office with tan shag carpet and left hardwood in guest room
--torn out all the kitchen countertops and replaced with new!
--torn out the kitchen backsplash and had a new one tiled
--tomorrow we are pouring a small 13x12 concrete patio in the back yard!

*The future house improvement plans include building a deck up from the patio
*Cleaning out the garage and putting in a garage door opener so I can park there this winter
*Painting the front porch cement grey (right now it's red and chipping)
*Having the basement floor and walls painted grey (hopfully with a sprayer!)
*Dry walling a small portion of the basement so it can be a little hang out area down there (mostly because jared wants to hang his deer stuff somewhere, haha)
*Still not sure what to do about our kitchen cabinets but they are so ugly! I want to paint them white but Jared says no, so we'll see about staining them or maybe replacing them but I know that is very costly! We don't want to put too much money into this house beacuse we aren't sure we will be able to get it back out when we sell it down the road.

Our plans are to stay here for about 4 more years, once we have kids, we'll see how that goes!

Dissapointed

I am very sad to say that I did not get the job in Altamont as a first grade teacher. God must have something better in store for me! Although I'm dissapointed I didn't get the job, I am excited about my future in subbing and getting to know other schools around the area. My hope is that I can sub this coming year and then re-apply as a teacher at the area schools and get something maybe next year. So, for now, I'll keep on servin at the Hilton and subbing in the fall. Unless God as another plan I just don't know about yet :)

4th of July weekend

We had a crazy busy weekend! On Friday I wanted to surprise Jared with a trip to St. Louis just the two of us. He found out the week before so he could get off early on Friday. So we were off! We headed to St. Louis and checkin into our hotel, which was so nice and modern btw... Then we decided to check out the St. Louis Mills Mall since we had both never been there. It was really.. BIG! I never realized how large that mall is until I went in it and kept walking and walking and walking! I stopped at the first girl store I saw which was Old Navy while Jared stopped into Cabelas. If I had known there were so many stores I wouldn't have spent so much time and money at Old Navy. Oh well, I got some cute stuff. We were there for a few hours and then decided to go out to eat. At this time it was like 9 and we were really hungry so we decided to go to the first place we saw. We ate and headed back to our hotel for the nigiht. Saturday we got up early and went to the Zoo. It was sooooooo hot that day! I was actually rather glad that we made it through the zoo in 3-4 hours because it was just to hot to sit around and look at any more animals. We did have fun though, good couple time :)

When we got back I went to work and then we went to a friends for a cookout. The next day we went to church, then headed out to my dads for a cookout and swim party. We were there all afternoon until about 6 and then we headed to our next cook out. This was Steve's house, a friend of both of ours. We watched fire works there and had a good time.

Monday, another busy day! We were so exhausted from the already busy weekend that we went to bed at 11 the night before and woke up at 11 on Monday! I couldn't believe it! I hate sleeping in that late, I would much rather be cleaning or doing laundry to get that kind of stuff done on my day off, oh well. So we got up, hurried up and got ready, and had to be at his grandmas at noon for lunch. We got there and ate cheesburgers and stayed for a few hours to hang out. Then we headed back home for an hour or so before heading to our next festivity! We were debating on having people over to our house to watch the fireworks since we live so close to the park, but his dad invited us over to Dieterich for lemon shake ups and pork burgers. The lemon shake up did it for me! So we went over at about 430 and played cards for awhile and then headed over to the park in Dieterich. I have always thought Effingham did a good job of puttin on a great fireworks show so I didn't think Dieterichs would compare but they weren't bad actually! They were slow to start, few and far between, but they picked up and seemed like they had 4 finales, which are my favorite anyway.

God's Plan, Not Mine

Are you a planner? I am! People used to make fun of me because I had our wedding planned out last summer! Hey, you can't blame me for wanting to get it done before my last year at EIU...
Well lately, I have been stressing out thinking about this upcoming school year. I am not enrolled in classes (becuase I graduated). So, I am in need of a job. I just wish I knew what God's plan was for me in all of this. I know I did the right thing by going to school to be a teacher. I love everything about teaching and looked forward to everyday I got to see my kiddos. Sometimes I think I know what God has in store for my future, and then it doesn't hold out. I had thought that I had a pretty good chance at getting a teaching job at Effingham. I was in close contact with the person who hires, and then the week they posted the job, she had a baby. SO, needless to say, she couldn't get me "in" when I needed to be. That was really frustrating. So, I brought my resume and things over to their board office anyways, thinking that with my last name being Nuelle they might remember me and give me a look anyways. I never heard anything back from them :( This is REALLY frustrating! I can't get an interview in my own hometown??? I was questioning God asking why I didn't even get an interview. I was mad that I didn't get a call, or a job, there were 3! Everyone says teaching jobs are so hard to find, when one was placed right in front of me, I didn't get a chance to interview for it, UHH!

Well I kind of let that roll off my shoulders and then I had in my head that I wasn't going to waste anymore money applying for jobs because schools only hire either 1. substitues teachers, or 2. PEOPLE THEY KNOW. So I quit sending out my stuff because I don't know anyone from any other schools.
About a week later, I heard a local school was hiring and brought in my stuff. The principal happened to be there that day and I talked to him for 20 minutes. He said he wanted to interview me and he would call me this week to set it up. I have been waiting by the phone since Monday morning at 8am. It's Thursday and it's almost 2pm. I haven't heard back. I'm trying to trust that God knows what is in store for my future, but it's SO hard when I just want this interview so badly. I can't help but hope that is what God wants for me to. So, we'll see.
I'm trusting Him and want His plan for my life anyways, not my plan. Whatever that may be, I pray I am content with it. :)


Dear God,
I'm a planner and I would like to know if I am going to be teaching a class next fall. Please let me know :)

Golf Balls

I have been looking for something part-time to do this summer since I don't have a teaching job. I didn't really want to find anything full-time because I plan on either teaching in the fall if I can, or subbing. So, I started workin the golf ball business. This is one crazy successful business! It started years ago in Arizona. My grandma and grandpa started diving in ponds and lakes at golf courses for used golf balls. They were finding that there are thousands and thousands of used golf balls in the water just waiting to be recycled. So, they started a small business and it has quickly grown! They are now recovering balls in several states by several different crews in each state. My mom and her fiancee have started recovering around the Effingham area. Only we don't dive, we "roll". This is a very weird thing for some people to comprehend. It just seems to easy and too good to be true! While we are on the course rolling for balls, every single golfer has to stop for ten minutes and ask what we are doing. That is very frustrating because it slows us down a lot! But you cant blame for them for being curious!

Okay so here is how it works. There are two golf carts that have wenches on them. The wenches are on the back of the carts. One of the carts holds the roller. When we get to the course we unload the roller and hook up our cables to the roller. Then we drive one of the carts across the other side of the water while the other cart stays put. Then we start our engines and one cart pulls the roller across while the other cart watches for knots in the cable, then the other cart starts rolling. If it is a good course, a few passes and the roller will be full. We stop and pick the balls out of the metal teeth and bag them up. Once we get 2 milk crates, that equals 500 balls, and thats a bag! My best day I worked we got 12 bags, my worst day was 2. So, as you can see, there is a lot of money to be made in the golf ball business. The bags are shipped over to the plant in Arizona where they are cleaned and re-packaged, or made into range balls.

Here is a picture of the roller- pretty full and ready to be unloaded!

Father's Day

Father's Day was a busy day for us. We went to church and then headed over to Jared's Granny and Papa's house. There we had a very tasty meal. We all had ribeyes, twice baked potatoes, corn on the cob, texas toast, and strawberry shortcake. It was yummy but I left there will a belly ache and we were both exhausted. So then Jared and I went home to nap :) I love being able to go home together and nap together, haha! When we got up we went to my dad's house. We sat outside and visited with my family for a few hours and then ate. Dad cooked BBQ pork loin and then we had baked macaroni, green bean casserole, and salad. All in all we had a good day.

I can't describe to you how much I love and appreciate my dad. He has been there for all of us kids during the worst of the worst. Growing up I think I was the daddy's girl. I can't tell you how many times my dad has told us kids he loves us. I won't ever forget the little moments my dad would say, have I told you lately how proud I am of you and that I love you? He never let us forget it. He is a very encouraging, hard working, providing, loving, Godly, comforting, humble, and  tough man. One of my greatest memories of my dad is that we would come home from school and he would already be off work and so excited to see us. When we walked in the door he would have a snack ready on the table for my sisters and I. My favorite snack he usually made was bananas with peanut butter, or grahm crackers with chocolate icing... yum! What I most love about my dad is that he is a Godly man. I can't imagine what our childhood would have been like without the values we were brought up with. Whenever we fought as kids, he made us sit together and hug. That was one way to tick us off, but then we always ended up laughin in the end. I do have to say that sometimes he would go a little overboard with things... We had a nightly bible study after dinner. Most of the time we didn't wanna sit there and hear it, but now looking back I know it was good for us. We would end up laughing and had some of our most memorable conversations during that time. Like the time dad said when we get to heaven God will seperate all of the sheep from the goats. He will put all the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Dad tried explaining to us that the sheep were going to heaven and the goats were going to Hell. The priceless moment was when Kate said, Oh Man! I'm left handed, I have to go to hell?!!!! We also had this book called What Would Jesus Do? I think that was dad's favorite book. We must have read it a million times. There was a song that went with it called I have decided to follow Jesus... I think everytime he heard us arguing he would whistle this song to us to remind us to think "What Would Jesus Do?" These are only a few memories I have of my dad. I love him so much and I know that my kids will one day do the same.

Today, Monday, we are heading to Jared's dad's for Father's Day. I am so excited that he gets to celebrate Father's day with his dad after not having one for so many years. This is a dream come true for Jared and I am so thankful for the answered prayers. This will actually be our second time celebrating with Kenny but last year at this time we had pretty much JUST met him so this year is more special.

I can't wait for Jared to be a dad someday! I know he is going to make such an awesome dad!