Baby Steps!

I finally have my computer up and running at my house. It hasn’t been workings since they hooked up the internet at the house.  I am not very computer savvy, so of course I had no clue how to make it work. It turned out it was nothing I could have fixed. I am just glad to have it working again.

As promised, I thought I would update everyone on my house. I finally had the tile finished in the bathroom on the floor and tub surround. The new toilet and vanity are in as well.  They will have to be taken out again to finish the drywall behind them and then paint, but I couldn’ go weeks without a toilet and sink.  The next step is to get all the walls in the living room, hallway, and 3 spare bedrooms ready to be textured. Of course, one of the bedrooms was textured with some clumpy nastiness while all the other rooms were left untextured. This, of course, added another project. The past 2 days were spent scraping the paint off the walls in that bedroom and then wetting the walls and scraping away all the texture (which was then the consistency of mud).  It was quite a bit more work than expected, just like every other project that gets started here.  Next; we need to finish mudding the holes in the walls, put in the drywall in the bathroom, mud it and then we are set to texture and paint all the walls. Once that project is completed, we start laying new floors. Yeah! Once the floors are in, I can move all my furniture in from the garage and sit on my couch. I can’t wait for that day! So needless to say, the house is coming along slowly but surely…Baby Steps!

On another note…I start classes again for fall semester on Sept. 9th.  I’m not too excited about it, but I will deal with it.  Jon is applying to go back to school as well, so come spring it will be a little easier. I won’t be so distracted by the bored boyfriend when I am trying to study.

Camping……We went up to Peninsula State Park to camp from Friday to Sunday. It was nice but a bit cool and rainy…so we weren’t able to go to the beach and we had some really dirty babies but, I think for the most part everyone had a pretty good time. My dad could have gone without it. He thinks going to the cottage is camping. 

Here are some pics of my house….

Slacking with updates

I know everyone is waiting for updates and I apologize that is has been so long. Things have been ridiculously busy since I bought the house. The house remains in pieces but every day I get a little bit more done on it. It is turning out to be a much, much bigger project than I anticipated. I know it will all be worth it in the end. I can see the end results in my head…it just seems so far off. 

As far as pics of the house….I lost a valuable piece of my camera (the battery) in the move but I will borrow Jon’s camera and get some pictures posted for everyone (keep in mind it’s not a pretty site).

Alaska!
Jon and I got home on Monday from visiting family and friends and fishing in Alaska. We spent 10 days there this year and they went by so quickly. Last year we were up there for 16 days and even that did not seem long enough. We felt like we were constantly on the run, but we did not have the opportunity to do half the things we had hoped to. We did not get to fish as much as we would have liked. There was a flood in the Kenai River so the King Salmon fishing was awful. We went out 6 times and not a single one of us caught a King. We also had to cancel our Halibut fishing due to bad weather for the last 5 days we were there. But with all that said, we still had a really great time.  I will get some pictures from our vacation up shortly as well.

I promise to update soon!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Ahhh…Easter bunnies and babies

It was such a nice Easter home with my family. Jon and I got up to Appleton around 4pm on Saturday. We went to the 6pm service with my parents, sister Kristy and her husband and little girl. Following the service, Jon and I had a really nice dinner out with my parents and then had a nice, relaxing night at the house.

On Easter Sunday we had a great lunch with my entire family. It is always nice spending time with everyone together. Ryan was only able to make it home for as hour on his lunch brake…but we are glad he made it home. Sawyer had been waiting for  “his Ryan” all day.

 Just before lunch, Sawyer informed us that Jesus was coming to bring Kevin.  After mommy Amy translated, it turns out that “Jesus is coming to take us to heaven.”  He also told me that “I found Jesus”.  So of course…Uncle Ryan had to jump in with “really?…Where?” Sawyer responded with “He was in the trees”.  I just absolutely love Sawyers take on just about everything! It is so sweet and innocent.

Family and Friends

It’s been a busy few weeks, but I got to meet my new niece last week Thursday and I am excited to go see my family again this weekend. Cailey is such a sweet beautiful little girl. I think she looks like Sawyer when he was a baby, but my sister Kristy thinks she looks like her mom. I guess we will see. I know I am a bit bias, but I honestly think that my family (including extended family) has the most beautiful babies.  Sawyer is growing up to be such a handsome young man and Andi is getting more and more beautiful every day.

Jon and I went out to dinner Friday night with my girlfriend Sabrina and her Husband Chad.  It was a really fun night out. We went to a place called the Chophouse. We intended on going to a place called Tornado room (I don’t know if anyone has ever been there). It is supposedly a really nice place with great food, but Sabrina prefers the Chophouse and it according to her was a lot cheaper than the Tornado room.  The Chophouse was a really nice place. We had a drink at the bar first and then sat down for dinner. I took one look at the menu and was blown away. They specialize in steak (hence the name) and the cheapest meal on the menu was $32 and to top it off, everything was alicart (spelling?). So basically you order a piece of meat for $32 and that is all you get. If you want salad or a potato, you have to order it separate. All and all, it was a nice night out and the food was pretty goood, but a bit on the spendy side. If this was the cheaper of the two, I would be interested to see the menu at the Tornado room. We all decided next time we would do a big grill out.

I am excited that the weather is getting nicer. Today it is 47 degrees outside. I don’t know if it will hold…but I can be hopeful. I would like to get out and go hiking and and outdoorsy things. It is still just a bit too cold for that. Jon is dying to get out golfing. I think my brother Ryan and him searched for a driving range that was open for several hours last weekend before that finally gave up. We are going to a wedding back in Arizona in April and so far the only thing Jon is packing is his golf clubs. 

Anyway…I have to get on the road. I am heading up to Appleton to see my family and then tomorrow we will be heading up to visit the grandparents for the day.

Sweet Cailey

Cailey is here!

Yeah! My sister Amy was induced this morning at 6:45am and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Cailey Marie Janssen at 1:45pm on March 3rd 2009. She was 6lbs 8oz and 18 inches long. (she’s just a little peanut). Please forgive me if I got any of the statistics wrong. Both mommy and baby are healthy and doing very well.  I do not have any pictures yet, but I will post some as soon as I do.

Congratulations Amy, Peter and big brother Sawyer! We love you and are so happy for you!

Cold and Happy

Well….I am finally home!  It has been a crazy couple of weeks. I apologize for not updating sooner, but my computer got a major virus and crashed. Jon was finally able to fix it after several days of trying and many hours on the phone with service techs. 

So anyway….the drive from Arizona to Wisconsin seemed ridiculously longer than the drive from Wisconsin to Arizona.  I think a lot of that had to do with having the company of my sister Kristy on the drive down.  Having someone to talk with and be entertained by made a horribly boring drive a bit more bearable. It took us 3 days and 2 nights to get home. Like I thought, I had a harder time driving long distances alone.  Props to those who can!

I started my new assignment at American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison. It is by far the nicest hospital I have ever worked at. It is only 1 year old. All the girls (and 1 guy) I work with have been really great. I am pretty nervous being in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit again. I have been floating there while traveling the past few years…but they have been pretty good about giving me relatively decent assignment. I have noticed that at this hospital…there are a lot of “really” sit kids. Many of these kids have been there for months and will be there much longer.  Every day gets easier and more comfortable.

On the really HAPPY side of things….I am home with my family AND I have my Jon here. I am really glad he decided to take the plunge and move to WI. I mean seriously though…who wouldn’t want to live here. Jon’s job is going really well. He has made several new client since he arrived. I think his boss is going to be pretty happy about the transfer.

We have been spending most of our days off together going to see my family. I am waiting for my sister to have her baby. She should any day now. It is nice to spend time with them whenever I want now. Jon really enjoy spending time with them as well, so it makes it that much nicer. He seems to really like hanging with my brother and brother-in-laws. He can’t wait to go golfing. I don’t think he realizes that he may be waiting a few months to do so. Best of luck Jon! (darn ground hog)

So as you can see….nothing too exciting has happend recently…just happy to be home and really, really cold!

Nothing is EVER easy!

All I have been able to think about in the past several weeks is the move home. I am so excited and stressed!. The thought of driving 2000 miles home by myself scares the crap out of me. I know that I will be following Jon and all, but I like being the co-pilot better than the pilot. For a few days, I thought my brother Ryan would be able to fly in for a few days before we left to do some hiking and what not and then he would drive my car home, but he can’t get the time off work, so I am back to pilot.

To make matters worse, my car broke down this week. Since it is practically “old fashion”, it was going to cost my right kidney to fix. Anyway, it just wasn’t worth throwing away more money than the car way worth, so I now have a pretty new blue/gray Jeep Cherokee and a wonderful new car payment. Yeah!. I LOVED not having a car payment. It was wonderful, and insurance is sooooo low.

My biggest fear is showing up in WI without a new vehicle…and it isn’t a FORD…..Oh No! Peter…it is American…please forgive me! P.S. the Jeep was Jon’s idea, I wanted the $40,000 Toyota 4-Runner.

All in all, I am still sooooo excited about moving home! We leave on February 1st or 2nd (depending on if Jon is willing to miss the super bowl).

Can’t wait to be Freezing!

The Grand

Jon and I had the chance to see the Grand Canyon this past weekend. It was a first for me, but Jon has been there many of times. I found it breathtaking. It was absolutely beautiful even in the snow. We had a really nice weekend. We brought Jon’s bff’s dog Duke (because we were sitting for him). He didn’t care much for the care ride there, but he seemed to like the snow quite a bit.

I have been working the past few days, but I am so excited to get back to good ole Wisconsin that I want to start packing now. We are looking for an apartment in the East Madison area for Jon and I have been talking to a girlfriend of mine and will probably be renting a room from her for the extent of my contract. It seems trivial for both Jon and I to have our own places. Especially considering we will be together the majority of the time we have off.

I think Jon and my girlfriend’s husband will get along very well. Jon is from Alaska and Chad is from Canada. The both play and love hockey, and outdoor things. I think it could be the start of a beautiful relationship…haha.

I hope you are all doing well!

A New Year

Well….it’s the New Year already. As many of you know, Jon and I had the chance to go home and spend the holidays with my family. It was perfect, although I did not have the chance to see any of my friends back home. I always think I will accomplish more and catch up with more people when I am home, but I get so tied into family time and the next thing I know, my vacation is over.
I had a great Christmas. Sawyer and Andi were so much fun to watch. They are getting so big. I also finally got a chance to meet a few of my cousins babies. I don’t get a chance to see my family enought these days.
Jon seemed to have a good time. He was on overload for a while meeting all the relatives. He gets along well with my brother in-laws so they had a pretty great time snowmachining and hanging out. A bunck of us went to the Packer game on Sunday. Pete had an extra ticket and invited Jon. Adam and Sondra went with my dad’s tickets and at the last minute, my cousin Amanda got 2 tickets, so her and I went as well. We tailgated before the game. It was a bit cold but a lot of fun. Pete’s dad grilled venacin brats and someone made this great dip. Amanda and I sat across the stadium from the rest of the crew, but we had some pretty great seats.

Christmas went by quickly and Jon and I are back in Phoenix again. I hope you are all recoving well from your holiday fun.

Happy New Year Everyone!

‘Tis the Season

Well….it’s 9 days until Christmas and I just can’t wait! I have been looking forward to Chirstmas for months. Even better, I can’t wait to get home and see my 2 favorite little people; Sawyer and Andi. I look at pictures every week and just can’t believe how much they have grown. Sawyer is turning into a little man on me and Andi is absolutely beautiful. (Can you tell…I’m a pretty proud autie) I can’t wait to meet Emma Em. Although I will, so don’t get any ideas about coming to meet me early miss Emma.

I started at my new job a few weeks ago. Things are going well. It is still a bit slow, but I think things will pick up soon after Christmas. It has been suprisingly nice being back at work.

Jon is away on a hunting trip with his boss. This are out in the mountains. He called today and told me that they search for deer on the top of the mountain and once they find one they hike down the mountain into the valley to track it. Sounds like a lot of work to me, but he is having a great time.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. I hope to see many of you while I am home for the holidays.

Merry Christmas!