Bad Blogger!

Wow...I've really been slacking with the blog posts lately! If anyone actually still reads this regularly...sorry about that. We've had a lot going on, frankly. Let's see if I can quickly catch up.

More than a week ago (October 17), Shawn played an awesome rugby match. He was named "Man of the Match" (basically the MVP of the game) and he even scored a try! In rugby lingo, that's basically a touchdown. And for the position that Shawn plays, that's fairly uncommon. I would liken it to a Linebacker scoring a touchdown. It's certainly not impossible, but it's not something you see every game. In fact, until that game, I'd never seen Shawn score a touchdown in a "regular" game of rugby! (I saw him score once in a 7s tournament.) I was on camera duty that afternoon, but his scoring play was on the other end of the pitch, so I didn't get a picture.

Things are moving along with the house. We've finally gotten all the doors re-hung (after taking them down to be painted), the outlet covers back on, and the stairwell railings reattached (again, after painting). Shawn picked the color for his "Man Room" and bought paint last weekend...now we just need to start painting. (He picked #2, by the way.)

This past Saturday, we invited a bunch of people over for a "Housewarming/Birthday(s) Party." We had a lot of fun! It's really nice to actually have room to have a bunch of people over, and I'm already looking forward to doing it again. We had way too much food, so I've been eating the leftovers all week. I bought Tostitos and salsa and pretzels. I made a tray of carrots, celery sticks, and strawberries, and we had also apple slices. I made a Caramel Toffee Fruit Dip, which was super yummy! I also made Cinnamon Chips, which were awesome alone or in the fruit dip. For more sweets, I baked a pan of brownies (nothing special...just from a box), and I also baked a loaf of banana bread. Don't worry...I didn't forget the meat. :) I made super easy crockpot meatballs, and I also made these really good bacon-wrapped-turkey-bites. Sadly, I took almost no pictures at our party. Our friend Thuy made us a housewarming cake...isn't it cute? :)

And finally, in other big news...I've gone full-time with my online teaching job! Technically, I made the move to full-time two weeks ago. However, neither my boss nor I knew that until last Wednesday, since HR didn't bother telling either of us that the paperwork had been processed. I also still don't have my company computer or my VOIP phone, so I'm not yet able to take on a few of the new responsibilities that come with being full-time (and that will more easily allow me to actually work 40 hours a week). I'll admit that I'm not super thrilled that I don't get some of the "normal" perks of being a full-time teacher (I only get 5 vacation days the first year, plus 7 or so paid holidays), but it should be an interesting experience.

So...yeah! I think that's pretty much it for us these days. Oh yeah, and my birthday was yesterday. It kind of snuck up on us, so we didn't really make a big deal out of it. Shawn and I went out to dinner at one of our current favorite restaurants for pizza and a few games of pool. It was a good night. :)