The ZOO!

The day after I got back from my trip to SEAHO, John and I chaperoned a field trip to the zoo. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! I have not been to a zoo since the 7th grade. I didnt even realize how excited I would be until we started seeing all the animals! The whole loop was about 3 miles and the sections were divided into the countries the animals were from. SO MANY ANIMALS! :D
MY FAVORITE!!!
So pretty!

A wild singing dog :D

KANGAROO!!

Koala- he was asleep. Apparently they sleep up 20 hours a day!

Mr. Turtle was my father :D

He was so cute!

Rhino!

I LOVED the giraffes! I didnt think there were any there, but then there were!!!

Elephant :D he kept kicking up dirt trying eat

Zebra! made me think of the gum. lol

The gorillas :D he ran across the grass and started beating his chest! it was AWESOME!

Silly guy!

2 humped camel!

Komodo dragon!

The otters were so cute!

Lions RAWR!

haha

BEAUTIFUL Peacock!!

caught him while he was swinging! my husband is such a good photographer!

This guy was so funny. We were all taking pictures of him so we went and crawled under the trash to hide. hahaha

Flamingos! Just for my sister :D

My "waterfall"!

John and some more elephants!

caught him swinging too! they were fun to watch!

My hubby at work!

I must say, one huge perk is being able to chaperon and go to these places for free :D I am just there in case something happens, so John and I were able to do our own thing. We sure did get our exercise too! We made it around the whole loop in the 4 hours we were there and saw almost all the animals :D SO much fun! I cant wait to go back!!

Jordyn Grace

YAY! Congrats to my childhood best friend Jennie for bringing a beautiful little girl into the world! Jordyn was early, but I know Jennie was glad because she started to get uncomfortable. Jordyn was 7lbs 10oz and 21 inches long and was born on February 11th!

Unfortunately, I wasnt able to make it home for her grand entrance into the world. But as soon as I can I will be making it home to meet her! I was able to talk to Jennie the day she had her for a long time, which was nice. Both the baby and mommy are doing well :D and I already love her so much! here are some pictures!

We will be skyping soon and I will update you then!

Precious :D
Mommy Jennie and baby!
So sweet!!

SEAHO!

SEAHO is the Southeastern Association of Housing Officers in case you were wondering :D Last year when I was job searching I attended this conference but was job searching at the time so I wasnt able to fully participate like I would have wanted. So this year, I figured as a new professional I would attend and get to enjoy the whole thing. :D


I LOVE SEAHO! I like that it's a regional conference and you can get to know many people in the field that are close. I got lucky and my grad school best friend (GBF) went too! This year the conference was in Mobile, Al. (LOL). I had to fly through Atlanta and Lindsey and I met up there. Even though we only work 45 minutes apart we dont get to see each other a lot- so we had to go to another state to do it. LOL. It was really good catching up with her :D
Upon arriving to Mobile, Lindsey and I got a taxi and our taxi driver was AWESOME! a bit crazy though. He did tell us he kept a gun in the car. LOL. He was very southern and smelled like tobacco. haha. On the way to the hotel, we saw a car on fire. I tried to get a picture.



Lindsey in all her glory :D

The conference lasted 3 1/2 days and during that time I learned A LOT! I went to a bunch of sessions learning things I could bring back to UM or to help professionally develop myself. I think the thing that was the most helpful was talking and learning about work/life balance. I have had difficulties with that lately, so it was nice to learn tips to not bring my work home with me and to not make everything so personal. Tips that will for sure help to make me an overall nicer person and more enjoyable in all areas of my life. LOL.

It was also strange being at SEAHO with all my North Carolina people there! It was SO great to see them and catch up, but weird that I wasnt apart of the school anymore! I got really lucky and both of my bosses when I was an RA, Jennie O and Lis, were able to make it so we got to have some great catch up time! over my time working with them, they both became very dear friends of mine and I love them both to death :D


Lis, Jennie O, Me!


Other than all of that I was able to relax some and I met some awesome people and learned a lot! First conference as a professional = success!!

Sportsfest!!

Sportsfest was AWESOME! Like I said before each residential college gathers up as many teams as they can (not as easy in the upperclass halls as the freshman towers) and there cannot be more than 35 people on a team. They all get the same shirts but are able to design their own backs. We held a pep rally for them Wednesday before it started and handed out all the goods to them- the shirts, water bottles I had made with our logo, and orange socks. It was a lot of fun.

Friday started the madness. While it wasnt as ridiculous as everyone made it out to be, it was still crazy. At 4:45 we had the torch run. Each residential college has a spot to start at- we were the first group and they let me carry the torch! it was very excited :D and then we passed it to the next college when we got to them and joined them to the end of the run. The end of the run leads into opening ceremonies. Then the games began!

Me with the torch in the rain!

Opening ceremonies- my RAs introducing our teams

I spent most of my weekend watching all my different teams play different sports. It literally went until about 11pm on Friday and Saturday and started around 8am each day. CRAZY. all these sports were going on at the same time, so some of my RAs and I walked around watching and supporting our teams.

Sunday ended with tug of war between the top 8 girls and boys teams. Teams were not co-ed if i didnt say that before. and that lead into closing ceremonies.

Drumroll please.....


One of my boys teams got first place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I ended up spending a lot of time watching them because they were at the top of the ranks most of the time. We were SO happy! it is so much work and so I was very proud of them.


My winning boys!


The way the winning works is there is a male first place, female first place, and overall building first place. Stanford ( freshman towers) one the overall!!!! it was CRAZY! Hecht (the other freshman towers) has won something like 9 in row since this year. So EVERYONE was happy. Unfortunately, the freshman towers will probably always win overall because participation of building is such a large chunk of scoring and each floor in the towers has a team (22), where as my building and the upperclass buildings usually only have 4-7 teams total. but thats okay. It's fun. The students really get into it and sometimes that is good and sometimes bad (Some were vicious!) LOL.

BUT I am PROUD of my Mahoney team! Thanks for the first win boys!!!!
YAY MAHONEY!

day off?

So WOW! February is apparently the busiest month for work at UM! I have been SUPER busy and exhausted. I came to work last Monday (the 31st) and I wont have a day off until February 20th!

I am sure you are thinking to yourself- WHY!? lol....well starting this past Friday we had RA Selection weekend. Friday and Saturday we have what we call group process for RAs and then Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday we have had RA Interviews. I have been leaving at about 9 each night on the work days. While it has been exhausting and I am ready for it to be over, it's been really interesting. I have seen some really great RAs that I am ready to hire for next year! It has also provided me with the opportunity to get to know a lot more of the students that live on this campus, which I have enjoyed :D

This weekend, starting Friday, is what we call Sportsfest. Teams of 35 from each building participate in different sporting activities the entire weekend for the chance to win prizes and of course the Sportsfest trophy (which is apparently a huge deal here). It's pretty cool. I am excited to see my first one. My role in all of this is to be out there watching and supporting and making sure people are being fair. Mahoney doesnt have as many teams as I would have hoped
:( but I have faith in us anyway! I was going to play on the team, but we only ended up having one female team and it was full- so maybe next year.

Then on the 15th, I fly to Mobile, AL for a work conference. I am excited because a lot of my old colleagues will be there!! I CANT WAIT! :D plus I love to fly so I am excited about that too. I am flying from here to Atlanta and meeting up with grad school best friend, Lindsey Johns! and then we are flying to AL together. It should be a fun few days of professional growth :D Then I come back late the 18th and the 19th John and I are chaperoning a school trip (to the ZOO!).

So while I am SUPER busy at work and sometimes I am frustrated, I am REALLy excited about most of it :D I will be glad when Krystal and Josh get here though because I have the week off. It will be much needed by then!

On the plus side, I also got to go to the beach for a little while on Sunday before the Super Bowl. It was incredibly relaxing and beautiful! The water was a bit chilly, but after getting in it felt great. Gotta love the weather being in the 80's in February! I must say I am not missing the cold right now! haha

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

So today my parents would have been married for 31 years. :D That is both exciting and sad. Sad because my mom is having such a hard day and I dont blame her. I cant imagine what she must be going through. Like I have said in the past, losing my dad was awful -but losing a husband would be worse. So please keep her in your prayers today.

It's exciting because I have always loved my parents anniversary. :D I dont know why, but I just have. I am usually good at remember dates anyway, but I have never forgotten their anniversary. Maybe it's the hopeless romantic in me, but their day just makes me happy.

I dont know how many of you know the story of my parents meetings and getting married, but they decided to tie the knot after only knowing each other for 2 weeks! The story goes:

My mom lived in Florida and she had a friend that lived in North Carolina. Her friend worked for my dad. Well her friend asked her to come stay with her after Christmas for a few weeks and my mom agreed. Well my mom's friend flew down to Florida, to meet my mom and fly back up with her. My mom's friend had my dad pick them up from the airport. Well Florida in the winter is not cold, so my mom didnt have a coat and didnt think to bring one. Well, my sweet father took her to the store and bought her one :D and then they spent the next two weeks falling love. Some people ask me how they knew and well I tell them what my mom told me. She started praying for her husband when she was about 16 and when she met my dad she knew he was the man God had in store for her. My father felt the same. Before my mom went back to Florida she called her family and told them the news and 2 weeks later on February 4th, 1980 my parents got married. Of course everyone thought she was pregnant because it was such a fast wedding, but I did not come for another 5 years. :D

That is probably one of my favorite stories. It's one of true love and faith. Me being the hopeless romantic I am, I just cant help it :D

So HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD :D Mom- I know daddy is looking down on you and smiling and I know he loves you beyond words :D

Bad Dreams

Ugh. I have been consistently having bad dreams every night! They cover a range of things and I have no idea why I have them. It is very frustrating. I am not super stressed out or very anxious about anything or worried about anything, so I dont know why they keep happening. I would assume to just not dream at all at this point. I dont know if this happens to any of you, but sometimes I wake up still in a bad mood or mad at whoever did something in my dream and it so hard to shake those feelings. It sounds crazy, I know but it can really mess with my day! Then it's not fair to John at all because he gets the brunt of it all :(

John and I get to go to lunch with each other most days at this point, which I LOVE! But now I have gotten in a bad habit about telling him those dreams and just other stuff that has happened in the day already. It does not do a lot to put him in a good mood or lift mine :(.

Today for example, we went to lunch and on the way to lunch I shared with him that my grandma's husband Roy is in the hospital :( He has an infection in one of his toe's and they put him on medicine for it. Well his nose started bleeding the other day and he lost 2 pints of blood! So obviously he went to the hospital. There was some sort of reaction with the medicine and his blood thinning medicine. Now they are going to have to take off part of his toe because the infection is so bad. He is currently in ICU and they are not sure how well he is doing yet :( That just made me really sad and scared. I dont want to lose anyone else. Not yet. Then yet lunch I told him about one of my bad dreams and it was just all that I told him was negative. I didnt mean for it to be. I am just in a funk today :(. and of course it put him in one too.

I think the reason for mine after thinking about it is because of Roy's condition. It just makes me think about what if he died too. I just makes me miss my dad so much again. I feel awful because I feel like John is always taking care of me. He is a wonderful husband and puts up with so much. It's just feel like its not fair to him sometimes. I guess that's what marriage is about though, taking care of each other when we really need it. I am really lucky.

puppies :D

So John and I have been talking pretty seriously about getting a puppy soon :D I am SO excited! it's funny because I used to HATE dogs! When I was little my neighbor had a really big dog and he was mean. One winter when it snowed we went to say hi to this neighbor and the dog got loose and ran right through my feet and knocked me over. So ever since then I just didnt care for them.

Of course John LOVES dogs! and has changed my heart. One of the great advantages of being together so long, you can open each others eyes to things they may not have given a chance before :D

We decided that once we move into the bigger apartment that we will probably get a dog. :D John and I have wanted one since we got married, but just couldnt have one and didnt have enough space. With the MUCH MUCH bigger apartment and a lot of room to take him out and play we decided that it's almost time! :D YAY! just have to make the move and decide what kind of dog we want.

The other day when we got back from dinner we went and checked the mail and we had a package. I didnt know we ordered anything. LOL. John grabbed it and just continued with whatever we were talking about thinking I wouldnt know he was hiding the package. So I finally asked him what he was hiding and when we got home he opened it and it was book about dogs! John has always been the kind of person that wants to be prepared and since neither of us has ever had a pet it is a really good idea that we read up on it before we jump into it! So we have been reading about dogs and how to select one, where to buy from, how to get ready for them, etc. It's been a lot of fun. It's my homework when I get home from work now ;D

We have definitely decided that we want a puppy. We want to raise it from the start :D It will also be good practice for a baby, since puppies are so much like infants. I cant wait! I may retract that statement later, but I am really excited. We have not really decided on what kind of dog we want yet, but I think we have it narrowed down to a Tamaskan, Lab, or Golden Retriever. Not a 100% positive yet. But we are starting to look at crates and other doggy things so we can get ready for our puppy when we can finally buy one. SO excited!!!

Here is a Tamaskan. Of course we want one because they look like wolves :D Staying true to our love for the Wolfpack always. haha
Puppy Tamaskan - I love him :D
Adult Tamaskan
A golden retriever puppy. SO CUTE!
yellow lab, i'd also be happy with a black lab :D
I believe we both want a Tamaskan the most :D but we shall see. SUPER EXCITED! Hopefully, you'll get an update soon!