Highlights of Christmas Week

Wednesday Night:
We were at my grandparents house having dinner and opening presents. Around 8:30pm we headed off to catch the 9:00 Christmas Eve church service at the church in which my mom grew-up in, this has been a tradition since I can remember. We then headed back to my parents and Jason and I left to go to our house for the night just to sleep.
Family portrait at my grandparents:

Jason and I at my grandparents:


Thursday:
Up early around 7:45am to get ready and head to my parents for the entire day. We started opening all these presents about 9:00am

and did not finish till about 10:30am. We started a tradition a few years ago where only one person opens a present at a time, each year we switch it up and start youngest to oldest or oldest to youngest, it has been a great tradition and fun to watch what everyone is opening. Got some really neat gifts, such as: an ipod, a few sweaters, giftcards, money towards my new computer(just ordered it yesterday), a framed picture of the article the newspaper had in the paper about Jason's and my wedding and a bunch of other fun things! Jason got a new suede dark brown jacket, some sweaters and giftcards as well. After opening presents we sat down to a great breakfast prepared by mom the night before, all she had to do was stick it in the oven that morning. Then we all got changed into our regular clothes and played some games for the rest of the afternoon till about 6:00pm when we headed to the Skyforce Basketball game, where they ended up losing by one stinkin' point. A very great, memorable day!
A few snapshots of opening gifts:
Jason and I with the article my mom had framed for us (it will look great in our new house):

Us with our giftcards from my brother:

The gifts we gave my dad:

The present of MANY assorted gifts for mom:


Friday:
We awoke early, but I was able to get a work-out in at the gym from all the food eaten the last few days because today we were about to embark on yet another BIG Christmas get together with Jason's family this time. We got a late start and did not leave till about 11:00am, but we made it there before a few other family members, thought we were going to be late! :) We had a nice sit-down family lunch with about 30 of us, now you ask how do you do a sit-down lunch with that many people!? We managed to do it and all in good order. The mom's dished up their children who well, did not eat a whole lot, more like snacked on desserts! Jason and I just sat down and ate, we have no children(YET) as you all well know, so we got to dig in and eat right away. After lunch the women cleaned up while the men took naps and watched some television. The kids ran around the house and were all into something different, playing Wii, playing with their new toys etc. One little nephew got some special attention from his uncle Jason though,

after playing and hanging out all afternoon we headed back home and arrived here about 8:30pm that night. It was a great day spent with Jason's family and a day of great company enjoyed by all.
Our Christmas very joyous and memorable, we hope yours was as well. Jesus is the reason for the season!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
We hope everyone enjoys this special time of year with family and friends. Please remember that the #1 reason for this very wonderful holiday is the birth of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus. We pray that you keep this at the forefront of your minds during all the holiday fun and cheer that is brought your way.
Jason and I will be spending tonight with my mom's side of the family at my grandparents house. We take in a big meal, good conversation, present opening and a church service around 10pm tonight. Tomorrow morning we will wake up and head over to my parents where we spend the entire day. We will open presents, play a lot of fun games and later that night head out to a basketball game. This has been a tradition my family has had for MANY MANY years and it is a day I look forward to many months ahead of time.
Friday we will make the drive to Iowa where we spend the entire day with Jason's side of the family. We open presents, take in some good conversation and relax.
Merry Christmas and God Bless you all!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We hope you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving! Our weekend was filled with being with and enjoying the company of family and friends. My weekend started Wednesday and I will just tell you it was a much needed break. I can't believe it is already over to be honest, it flew by! Wednesday night we spent the evening going out to supper with my parents and brother who was just in town for a few nights. Then later that night we went to a party at my mom's work. Thursday was turkey day and we spent the day relaxing till about 4:00 when we went to my aunt's. There were about 24 of us there and it was extremely fun and very nice to see some of my cousins that I have not seen in awhile. After supper we spent about 2 hours playing wii(SUPER FUN!!) I want one now. :) Friday I went shopping a little in the morning with my mom while Jason worked all day. I have to say those people who get up at
4am and go to the stores or even those guys who were camped out at Best Buy since Tuesday are really crazy, I say just spend the extra money! I made some chili for our chili feed that we went to in Iowa on Friday night. I even met a friend for some good conversation with a warm drink in hand at Barnes and Noble. Saturday was spent in Iowa with Jason's family having Thanksgiving there. Then today we had some good friends come over and the guys watched football while the girls went shopping. They brought their two adorable little boys with them and we had fun playing with them for awhile as well. So that about sums up the weekend, now you can see why it went by SO fast, we were busy almost every minute of it. Now as I sit here writing this I am thinking how in 12 hours I will be at school again and I am feeling sorry for myself, why do breaks have to go by so fast!? How did you spend your Thanksgiving weekend?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! We hope you have a wonderful day with family and friends.

House Update!!

The house is well underway and is now at a standstill while Jason and his partner frame a few houses for another contractor here in town. Sometime the end of November beginning of December the rafters will be put on the house, but for now this is where the house is and I can say I am VERY pleased with it so far. I have gotten everything I have wanted and more!! :-)

Outside of our new home:

Great room/kitchen area: (the larger space in the middle is for my 8ft.X5ft. FULL GLASS window, I am SO excited about it! Also the far right framed out room in the picture is my nice PANTRY, another request by me and Jason tells me we are putting a deep freeze in there.)

Looking into the Master bedroom: (notice the two windows and then a longer, skinny one above where the bed will go, another one of my requests!)

Back of our new home: (notice the space for my big full glass window again!)


So what do you think? Pretty far from the last time I posted pictures, huh!?

Halloween Partying!!

Last night Jason and I got all dressed up in our Halloween costumes for this year and headed out around 6:30pm to start our night of Halloween partying! Both of us were SO excited for the night and could not wait to see the reactions on the faces of all our friends over Jason's costume. It truly was hilariouos! Many people said, "I can't believe you got him to wear that!" Honestly, I had NOTHING to do with it all, it was his choice of costume and I was fine with it, told him I would laugh all night long. It truly got many laughs from various people.
Jason, a.k.a "The Tooth Fairy":

Sara, a.k.a "The Kitty Cat":

First we headed over to our friends Gib and Laura's house for some partying over there till about 10:30pm.
Laura and Gib, a.k.a "Dorothy" and "The Scarecrow":

Jason and a few of his friends:

Jason and I:


Then we headed over to our friends Bryan and Jewell's brand new house. Bryan and Jason work together.
Jewell, a.k.a "Peacock" and I:

Jason, Taylor, Bryan and Zach: (these guys all work together in the summer time)

Taylor and his girlfriend on his "Magic Carpet":

Zach and his girlfriend, Rose:

Me and Taylor:

Tony (another good friend of Jason's) and I:


We had a REALLY fun night and did not get home till about 1:30am. Can't wait till next year! How did you spend your Halloween weekend?

A NEW "DO"

UPDATED:
Not many people took a guess at what I did with my hair, but it is now time to reveal the "new" Sara! For most of you that know me I do not change my style very often, but yesterday I got this WILD idea to do something different with my hair, well actually I had been thinking about it all week and I actually followed through this time. You see this thought of what I did has crossed my mind other times, but I was just not brave enough then. So here it is, revealed...




So there you have it, about 5 inches cut off and a little darker low light for color in my hair. That is a HUGE change for me!! What do you think? Do you like it?

Ok...it's contest time again. This time I promise it is better than last time, or at least I think it is. Here are a few pictures of something that I have done and yes, it is very easy to tell it has something to do with my hair, but what did I do??? You will have till tomorrow afternoon to make your guesses.



The pictures of what I really did will be revealed tomorrow night before I leave for my two Halloween parties. Have fun guessing and good luck!! :-)

In The Works...

Our house has finally begun. I called Jason this afternoon and was having some ordinary conversation with him. I knew he was working at our new house, but not sure what he was doing, so I asked, "Have you started framing yet?" To which he said, "YES!" I was totally surprised, I did not know this piece of information, so I was so excited. After my work-out tonight I quick ran over to see the progress so far and here is what has been completed through today.
The basement of the house fully framed up.

Jason in action on the job! Do you see him? Back in what will be the great room of our downstairs.

The far back room that is framed out in this picture, Jason tells me will be for a "poker table." I guess we will have to see what kind of budget is left! ;)

31 Things...

1. Where is your cell phone? On the floor in my bedroom
2. Where is your significant other? in the bathroom
3. Your hair color? brown with blonde highlights
4. Your mother? Deb
5. Your father? Mike
6. Your favorite thing? Hot summer weather!!
7. Your dream last night? Don't remember...
8. Your dream/goal? To be a loving wife, sister and mother someday
9. The room you're in? Office
10. Your hobby? I wish I had time.
11. Your fear? Fear is from the devil :)
12. Where do you want to be in six years? In a nice house with a few kids and hopefully able to stay at home
13. Where were you last night? at home
14. What you’re not? Mad
15. One of your wish list items? Diamond Earrings and Necklace
16. Where you grew up? South Dakota
17. The last thing you did? Changed into my pajamas and before that I ate supper with my parents
18. What are you wearing? pink sweatpants and a white tank
19. Your TV? is never on when I am home
20. Your pet? none, no time
21. Your computer? Laptop
22. Your mood? Positive
23. Missing someone? My brother
24. Your car? Honda CR-V
25. Something you’re not wearing? My jewelry, just took it off for the day.
26. Favorite store? Limited
27. Your summer? AWESOME!!!
28. Love someone? Many people
29. Your favorite color? Pink and Black
30. When is the last time you laughed? Today
31. Last time you cried? um...it's been awhile, well actually probably about a month ago

Now it's your turn to post this on your blog for me to read!

Laundry???

UPDATED:
WOW!! The guesses just amazed me. A bat? A mouse? holy buckets! I think if one of those things was in my laundry room I would absolutely FREAK out!! Anyway, the thing sticking out of my pile of laundry was black and big, it was a SPIDER!! Now you may be thinking big deal, but I absolutely HATE spiders. I scream when I see one and I make Jason come and get it because I refuse to kill it myself. Well, Jason happened to not be home on Friday afternoon so you may ask how I took care of this problem? I did not lift up the towel, I simply got my tennis shoe and slammed it down on the towel then the spider fell out onto the floor and just laid there, then started moving, that's when I freaked out and slapped it again and finally got a kleenex, make that 3 kleenexes and wadded it up before throwing it in the toilet. So there you have it, laundry??? NO!!!
ORIGINAL POST:
As I walked into my laundry room this afternoon after returning home from being at work all day I was greeted by something strange. I looked down at my pile of towels just waiting to be thrown in the washing machine and to my surprise I SAW something strange sticking out beneath one of the towels, any guesses as to what it might have been??? I will reveal the answer after I have a few guesses. I know you are all wishing I had a picture, but after I give you the answer you will understand why there is NO picture for this post. So guess away....

Groundbreaking

The groundbreaking of our new house was yesterday. Today they poured the footings and Monday they pour the foundation. Not sure when the actual building of the house will start, as Jason and his partner just accepted to frame up 2 homes for another construction company. We do want to have it done by May 1, 2009, so as long as Jason keeps that in mind we should be good to go.
I am getting very excited for the whole process of building to start. Jason and I spent about an hour last weekend driving around looking at houses to decide if we wanted to do drivet with stone, all brick on the front or just stone on the lower half and dress it up a little more with borders and such. After not solving much, but deciding that we really needed to look at the prices of each of these ideas we have come to the conclusion of doing stone on the bottom half and dressing up the rest of the front of the house by putting borders around the windows. We also took some time out last weekend to go look at appliances at the local tv, audio and appliance store. I have an idea of what I want for all this stuff. Well, actually I would really like the oversized refrigerator and cool microwave/oven combination that they have, but these just don't seem to fit into our budget, so I guess I will have to settle for something on the cheaper side, oh well I can dream, right!?
Just wanted to update you all and let you know that we have started the process and I will keep posting as I get more updates and even PICTURES!!

Award Winning Weekend!

On Saturday we had the honor of attending a banquet where my brother got an award for being the 2007-2008 "Most Outstanding Senior" at the college he attends. This is a huge award that went through a 2 ballot process among the Business School professors and my brother WON it. He makes me very proud to be his big sister.
Jason, Tommy and Me at the banquet: (notice I have a corsage on, I felt SO special!)

Getting his award:

Take a look at the cool centerpieces they had: (the Business School is currently being re-built, now do you understand?)

My parents with my brother:

Such a memorable experience and something to truly be very proud of! Congratulations again Tommy!

Weekend Wrap!

We had quite a busy weekend! I remembered to take some pictures of our festivities for all of you to see. We began our weekend on Friday night by attending our nephew's Varsity homecoming football game. Our niece was on the homecoming royalty court and so we got to see her walk out on the field with her parents.
Here is our niece, Jesa with her parents:

Jesa and Sara:

The football game was really good. Our nephew, Ben, who is a sophomore had the privelege of playing both tightend and linebacker at Friday's game. A few guys became ineligible to play at the homecoming game the night before because of reasons you can all probably figure out on your own. We were very excited to be able to see him play so much time on the field.
A few pictures of Ben "in action," he is #11:


They even WON the game, SO FUN!!

After the game we got to see Ben before he headed off to the homecoming dance, where he tells us, "ALL the girls were waiting for him!" He is such a character, I am sure they were waiting for him!
Jason, Ben and I:

Ben with all our other nieces and nephews that were in attendance at Friday nights game:


Saturday night Jason and I attended our good friends Gib and Laura's wedding. We had SO much fun celebrating THEIR special day with them. Laura looked gorgeous in her wedding dress! The reception was SO fun, we got to catch up with a lot of our friends from Jason's hometown that we do not get to see very often.
Jason and I at the wedding reception/dance:

Laura and Sara:

Gib and Jason:

On Sunday my parents and I got to meet my brother for lunch half-way between where he goes to school and where we live, it is always so nice to see him. When we returned Jason golfed with my dad and I spent some time with my mom. We had supper with them tonight and now we are both relaxing and not looking forward to work tomorrow, or at least one of us isn't!

All in all it was a GREAT weekend spent with family and friends both. We LOVE weekends like that! What did you do this weekend?

Tough Times and Fun Times!

Well, I have been requested by a reader to update everyone on where we have been the past month. As I write you will all understand why I have not posted since school started, the story will explain itself.
August 18, 2008
It all began at 7:55am on Monday, August 18, 2008 when I met my students outside on the playground and brought them into my classroom. The room was buzzing with much NOISE, CHAOS and first day blues! As I settled in, I knew in the back of my head what kind of a year it was going to be, but did not expect it to be as it has turned out over the past month. Let's just say a few nights of crying, a meeting with the SAT team at my school, many talks with the principal, many behavior plans, many phone calls to two particular parents and 2 naughty, behavior students later I am now seeing what this school year is ALL about!! Yes, I have 2 students who LOVE to test my limits and one who loves to manipulate EVERY situation and is VERY good at it. This year is definetly one that I hope passes by VERY soon! By the end of the first week of school I was hoping it was already May 15, 2009 and that these 2 particular students were moving on to second grade. The rest of my class is AWESOME, I have found that when these two students are not in the room, my room is a peaceful, quiet, enjoyable and fun place to be for everyone else. When the naughty two are present it makes life very difficult, stressful, not enjoyable and not fun for me as well as my other students. I do feel so bad for the good students in my class. The fun I had with the first grade classes I had the two years prior to this will NEVER happen with this class, unless these two students leave, which will NEVER happen! So this is what my life has been like the past month, VERY stressful!
As for the "Fun Times" of this post, I look forward to EVERY weekend, EVERY day of the week! I wish it was Saturday and Sunday every day this year, that would be just fine with me. For it is on these days that I have my most fun being with my family and my husband where I am stress free and able to TRY and forget about what happens at work.
I suppose you are all wondering what Jason has been up to this past month as well. Well, he and his partner finished up the house they were working on in Baltic and have now moved on to building a house for our dear, wonderful friends in Luverne. Before long Jason will be starting on another spec and then we will soon move on to finally building OUR next home together! I am SO excited to be a part of the WHOLE building process this time. I have already told Jason everything must go through me before a decision is made, not too much to ask, is it!?? :) He has kindly agreed, so it doesn't matter what you think! (hehehe) Anyway, I hope this gets all of you up to date on what we have been up to.
This coming weekend brings a weekend of Master's class for me and Jason working in Luverne. The following weekend we will be attending our friends wedding here in town, which we are very excited about. This is the first wedding we will have been to since we got married, and I am not sure where my emotions will take me that weekend yet. I really wish we could celebrate our day again, as it was such a WONDERFUL, ROMANTIC day for both of us!
Hope all is well with all of you and we look forward to hearing from you via a blog post soon!! :)

Daily Grind

Well...it's back to the daily grind for me tomorrow. Although, my room is ready and most everything is in place, I am NOT one bit ready to be done with my summer. This summer has been well let's see, SUPER, WONDERFUL, FANTASTIC, FABULOUS, RELAXING, LAID-BACK and FUN-FILLED, I am sure I forgot a word, but that pretty much sums it up! Not having a job to occupy my time this summer was just fine for once. I got to sleep in till whatever time I wanted, which usually was not past 8:30. I spent most of my summer hanging out with my family while Jason worked away the day. I spent a few days at the local pool, which was FABULOUS and this left me with a nice tan to go back to school with. I vacationed with my husband in the Bahamas and that was such a RELAXING time. Every morning this summer I walked with my mom. Some nights Jason and I would go for walks together and we would sweat, but I don't mind that one bit, I would rather sweat than freeze any day.
Tomorrow I will start a new way of life, shall I say. A newer way than what I have spent the last 3 months. I will now be called Mrs. W instead of Miss Cota, but I know that MANY of my students will still call me Miss Cota for this is all they know me as. Tomorrow I will meet the students I get to spend the next 9 months with, this IS something I am looking forward to. It is always exciting to see the little ones that will be with me all year long. It's always exciting to see what they look like tomorrow and then how much they mature over the year. Tomorrow...I will leave my RELAXING behind and start to be BUSY again!!