TaDa! The New Car--FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!

Phew, we finally, finally, FINALLY have gotten our brand new car---YIPPEE!!!! Can you tell I'm just a LITTLE excited about this? Let's just say, in our family I'm more on the "spender" side and Justin is definitely WAY over on the "saver" side. Luckily, we balance each other out quite nicely. So, I'm not really used to just saving, and saving, and saving and saving for things. We started saving for this new car over two years ago...and Justin has been researching new cars ever since. I have been very, very, very patient =). We decided recently we should get some quotes and see what happened, while my Olds was still alive and trade-in-able. Little did we know that we would get really great quotes!! It was SO easy. Justin expected this horrible, long, drawn out process and everything went so smoothly! What a true blessing!

So, below you will see some pictures of my beautiful new Honda Accord EX (with a SUN ROOF!!!!!).




And, here's my advice to any new car buyers out there.
A: Use Consumer Reports and read their stuff on how to get the best deal on a car...it's awesome advice.
B: Pay the $14.00 for the consumer report print out that tells you exactly what the dealer paid for the car you want to buy, and what your starting asking price should be (to give the dealer a fair and reasonable profit, but still get you a good deal). And C: USE THE INTERNET for quotes! We got the best quotes online, and got other stuff too because we were then considered "Internet buyers". AWESOME!
D: And finally, if you ever, ever need any kind of saving, financial or car buying advice, ask my hubby cuz he's the bomb at this stuff =)!!!!


In other news, I finished up my last summer session of grad school. It was truly great. I enjoyed the classes more this year overall and because I already knew everyone it was more fun from the start. Though I'm happy to be home, and of course miss home when I'm away, a small part of me will miss traveling to "nerd camp" next summer to hang out with my grad school buds and learn cool new things. At least I have graduation to look forward to (it's May 21st...not that I'm excited or anything!).
Since I've been back, I've concentrated on getting the new car and was so distracted by that I didn't get much else done, except start reading the Twilight Series. I promised my sister, and some students, that I would read it over the summer, and so far I'm totally hooked and LOVE them. I'm almost done with book 2 and I just started two days ago. Good thing I'm a fast reader! Other than that, I will spend my last two weeks of blissful summer enjoying my new car, getting in those last moments with good friends, and of course, working on curriculum for the upcoming year. Hopefully I can keep everything balanced and have a good amount of fun while still getting lots of work done!

The Video You've All Been Waiting For....

Here is the video my awesome group did for our final project in "Transformations in Matter and Energy". Admittedly, if we had more time, it would be better and smoother, but this is what we came up with in just ONE day! The first and last parts are the best...the middle is a little dry....but overall we are quite pleased! Enjoy =)

Post from Grad School #1

Hello from the land of St. Louis!! I'm officially half way through with this summer's grad school courses and it's SO hard to believe I've been here for a week and a half already! Time really flies (even when you're NOT having fun!).

It was so fun getting here and seeing all of my grad school buddies again! We all just clicked back into the groove of having classes and hanging out together and have been really enjoying spending time with each other and catching up on what's happened over the year. Even though it's hard to be away from home and my awesome hubby--at least I have cool people to be around while I'm away!

As far as classes go, it's been a mixed bag so far. Last week was AWESOME!! Our class was neuroscience and I LOVED everything about it! The professor was amazing (smart AND an incredible teacher) and the labs were really interesting and fun. This week has been, well, not so awesome. It's called "Transformations in Matter and Energy" and sounds about as exciting as it is. It's pretty dull. Mostly because I think the information is dull and I don't teach much of this info...and the professor is less skilled at teaching than last week's professor. 2.5 hours of lecture with a boring professor is not my idea of a fabulous time. Oh well...at least the labs have been okay. The best part is we have a group project to make a video on an alternative energy source. My group has biodiesel which is REALLY super cool and our video is going to rock. I am the producer/editor and it's such fun to play around with imovie! I will post the video once we finish it, so you can learn all about biodiesel fuels =)!

Aside from classes, I've been having fun going out around St. Louis and also got the chance to drive up to Bloomington, IL last weekend to meet up with my old ISU roomie, Sara, my old Red Lobster waitress buddy Erin, my friends Mike and Carla that I lived with for the last few weeks of college in 2003 and my old Deaf ed professor. It was so much fun to see old friends and I marvel at how much fun we have together even when we haven't seen each other in years!! I will post some pictures of our fun times below.

The upcoming weekend should be fun as well as we have plans to TRY and get tickets to a Cardinals game and we will be going on a float trip down one of the MO rivers on Saturday. Oh, and there will be some studying for our final exam in there at some point too!

Be watching for the posting of our biodiesel movie...cuz it's gonna ROCK =)!


Sara, Me, and Carla under the BIG Giraffe


Mike and Carla rocking it at Putt-Putt


Sara and I at Red Lobster--our FAVORITE Bloomington restaurant!


Erin (old waitress buddy) and I at "The Lobster"...we had some good times there!

Happy Birthday Mom!!!!

Just wanted to post a very Happy Birthday wish to the best mom ever--my mom Jennifer! 4th of July has never been just about Independence Day for me, it's an extra special day because we get to celebrate my mom too--the firecracker baby!! Hope you have a great day mom and I wish I could be there in person to help you celebrate--LOVE YOU!

Goin' Bananas & Goin' to Grad School

I have had the great pleasure of spending more time with my adorable 3-year-old niece McKayla in the last two weeks. Last week we had a flier on our door (one of MANY annoying ones) and I was surprised to find it actually useful. It was for a place down the road called "Goin' Bananas Playnasium". I had never heard of it or noticed it so I looked it up online. Turns out it is this GREAT indoor play place with tons of little tike play things and tons of huge blow up fun bouncy/slide things. I thought that McKayla would enjoy this, so Andrea and I started prepping her for it and I took her there yesterday. We had a BLAST! At first she was scared of the big blow up things, because they were so high, but eventually I talked her into trying them out and she loved them! Unfortunately, after about 30 minutes three field trip groups showed up and there were tons of wild kids running around like crazy. This scared McKayla, and frankly me too, since none of the kids were paying attention and would have run right over her. So, she decided (and I agreed) to go back to the little tot area to play with the little tike stuff. That was much calmer and she still had a lot of fun. I have a feeling Aunt Michelle will be taking her there again in a few weeks! Here are some pictures of the fun:




In other news, I leave in just four days for my second summer of grad school--YIKES! I am excited, but at the same time I'm just not quite ready to leave home again for three weeks. At least this is the last summer! Next summer I'll have my degree--woohoo! This summer we have three classes: neuroscience, matter & energy transformations, and molecular basis of heredity. I'm really looking forward to neuroscience (I LOVE brain stuff) and the heredity class. Not so sure about matter and energy transformations...but 2 out of 3 isn't bad =). Hopefully they are as interesting as I am expecting them to be. The best part is the first class is taught by a guy that is HUGE in cochlear implant research...wow will it be fun to talk to him =). I hope to have some good conversations with him about sign language vs cochlear implants, etc, etc. I'm such a nerd! Anyhow, the other exciting thing about traveling to St. Louis for three weeks is seeing old friends! My roommate from ISU, Sara, lives near Chicago so we are meeting up for a weekend in Bloomington, our old stomping grounds. I will also get to see my old waitress buddy, Erin, while I'm there. It should be a fun time, and will be a nice break from the grad school madness. I'm sure, just like last year, the three weeks will fly by and before I know it I'll be posting about how I'm back home already =). Then, the countdown to school starting will have to being...but we won't think about that now!

That's about all from here right now. No exciting plans for us for the 4th, since I fly out at 8am on the 5th and since Sierra is completely terrified of fireworks! It is my mom's birthday though, so a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the best mom ever!!!!