There is no chronological order anywhere here. Whoops.

Today was a fantastic day. I pretty much exploded happiness. Yesterday, however, was a bit dicey. We'll get the bad stuff out of the way first and make room for the goodness the rest of the post...don't stop reading early! :) Yesterday morning my eyes were a lil fuzzy because my contacts weren't in yet, but I noticed a good sized brown blob on the floor, shrieked, called Rob over to perform pest control and as it turns out it was a cockroach. Ugh. I talked with Cara at Rolly Pollies and learned a secret trick: pour bleach down the drains they like to crawl up and close them. I came home from work, bug proofed the apartment, went for a run, lay down to watch the Bachelorette and eeeek! Another expletive bug! I covered him with a cereal bowl, stood on a chair for an unreasonable amount of time (Rob was at work for another hour or so) and then finally decided I was bigger than the bug and moved to higher ground (the bed) with my Bachelorette episode. New life lesson: cockroaches make me hyperventilate. I almost went next door to get the neighborman to kill it. Ewwwww. I wear my flip flops a lot now.

Okay, time for happiness. This morning I went over to the high school I will be teaching at and met with the assistant principal I interviewed with a few weeks back. He introduced me to the principal and showed me around the school. It looks like I will be teaching 10th and 11th grade, but the master schedule isn't finalized, so it is still subject to change. I will definitely have my own classroom and it is huge! And still smells new! So amazing :) Tomorrow, Rob and I are making a trip to Ikea and I am hoping to find some fabulous decorations for the classroom. I wanted to take pictures, but felt like a huge dork, and so those will have to be forthcoming. Also, today I went to Super Target, which I adore.

More delightful things that are out of chronological order: Last Friday night, we met up with some of the flight instructors from Quantum for a few beers. It was a lot of fun, and Rob even ended up flying (the airplane) with them on Saturday afternoon. Saturday evening, we went to Kyna's (the owner of Rolly Pollies) birthday party. I was expecting it to be mediocre, but we actually managed to spend a good bit of time talking with the parents of one of the girls that comes to daycamp and they were a lot of fun. She runs half marathons and he was just hysterical. He works as a cop in Tempe and mostly works nights, so we chatted a lot about that too. The only drawback to the party really, was that it was outdoors and still 100+ degrees at night. Ridiculous state of heat and cockroaches.

This weekend we are heading over to San Diego to spend some time with Brian (my cousin/our only west coast family!) and celebrate the Fourth of July. Rob has never been to San Diego and it has been a good amount of time since I was out there visiting Cindy and John (middle school maybe???), so we are both really excited for the trip. Also, this week Rob starts instructing two new students! Hooray! (ooh-rah Rob says.) One is from Germany and here on a visa! Hopefully I will remember to take pictures in San Diego and they will pop up here sometime on Sunday when we are both back in Phoenix and Rob is at work.

We hope life is happy, cool and cockroach free for you all. We are managing one of those characteristics right now. (But with a new big daddy bottle of bleach and my new flip flop wearing/carpet scanning habits I bet we're close to two. Cool weather....um San Diego?) :) Lots of love, Sarah and Rob

PS: You are welcome for the lack of bug pictures here.

Back to Arizona

Rob and I are both back in Arizona...just in time for the crazy summer heat to be setting in. It has been about 110 degrees every day this week so far and doesn't look to be letting up until...probably October. Sweet. Rob headed back the Sunday after Jeff and Angela's wedding...I had the luxury of staying for a full week after him. (No one ever said the life of a teacher was easy :) We had a great time at the wedding and were able to catch up with a good bit of the Andrasik side of the family. It was a beautiful day and wedding and we were glad to make the trip home for it. However, weddings seemed to be the theme of the week. My lil sister, Shelly, just got engaged and I spent time planning with her as well. We picked out bridesmaid dresses, shopped for her wedding dress and had dinner at the country club where her reception will be held. I anticipate another kick ass (can I say that here?) wedding next summer :)

We picnic-ed both weekends that I was home and I'm posting a lot of pictures from the first picnic that Rob and his parents came to(the second was with all the Lancaster folks). Not that I like anyone more/less, just that I am bad at remembering to take pictures and so everything here is courtesy of Grandpa Chuck (who is fantastic at taking pictures with his sweet camera) and he took a lot that day. I have decided that my favorite thing is when my family and Rob's family and Rob and I can all be together at once. This way there is no need to miss anybody. I'm hoping for these occasions to be more frequent as time goes on :) Still, it was great to see every one (from Lancaster and Indy and also Chicago, my lovely Vacha :) and catch up in person and not crazy blog post cyberspace.

Oh yes, not to be forgotten about my trip was the Cleveland dreariness that I used to despise and now adore. I went running in the rain (kind of accidentally) one morning and also went for a long walk on a new path in the Metroparks with Mom on a rather grey morning. I should have packed my polka dot boots...they would have been more useful over the course of last week than they have been out here in the past 8 months! However, it is almost crazy monsoon season out here (have I mentioned this yet? I can't remember). It means thunderstorms and humidity on top of the heat. Again, sweet. We are heading out to San Diego next weekend to spend the Fourth of July with Brian and enjoy a bit of cooler weather and beach. I am very excited about it.

Holy smokes. I didn't realize I had this much to say until I started typing. Since I have come back, I interviewed with another far away district, realized I really was just keeping a safety net and drove downtown (on my own!) to submit all my paperwork to transfer my teaching license to Arizona. I headed out to HR to turn in more license paperwork to complete my file and am now just waiting on the Arizona license to sign a contract and finally finish this crazy job search process. I will be glad for it to be over and the school year to begin. Rob's first private student is soloing tomorrow, which is exciting and stressful all wrapped up in one lil box it seems. He is still a lil lower on hours than we would like, but we are both hopeful things will pick up soon. Also, last bit of drama: Rolly Pollies is closing! As it turns out, I would have realistically had to quit when I began teaching full-time and so the timing will work out fairly well, but it's still a lil sad. I think it has probably been the first job I've really enjoyed and will be sad to leave.

Okay picture time. Then bed time! Sweet dreams :) Love, Sarah and Rob

oops! more than just picnic pics :)

Heading Home Tomorrow Morning!

This will be the shortest post ever because our flight leaves crazy early and we leave the house crazy earlier and I'm already sleepy. Good news though! I was unofficially offered a job! Teaching high school! At a brand new school! (It just opened last year!) Nothing will be official until a contract is signed and I need my Arizona license for it to be drawn up, so that is project#1 when I am back from Ohio. Still, yay! jobs! We are looking forward to seeing everyone and to Jeff and Angela's wedding this weekend. We are sure it will be a wonderful day for them and a great chance for us to catch up with all of Rob's side of the family. See you soon! Goodnight. Love, Sarah and Rob

Mogollon Rim Adventures

Unfortunately, this post begins with a bit of bad news. Last weekend I made the final decision to go ahead and accept the 7/8 teaching position that I was offered. However, I found out mid-week that the position was gone...apparently there were a few people in the district who had signed contracts, but somehow did not have a job due to cut backs or poor planning or I don't even know. Without going into all the details, the position was offered and accepted by one of these people. Not at all news that I was expecting or wanting. I still have not heard anything from the high school position I interviewed for right after the 7/8 offer came, but know that I am in their top 3 final candidates. Fingers crossed, things will work out there. To get my mind off all of this job mess, Rob and I headed up to the Mogollon Rim (about a 2-3 hour drive from our apartment) on Friday. It was definitely nice to get out of town for a bit. (Side note: one thing I really like about Arizona is how many different, fun places you can go in such a short drive.)

The rim is about 8,000 feet up...which made for some fantastic weather. I wore jeans and a hooded sweatshirt! (My blood has definitely thinned out...it was windy and about 65 during the day and after the sun went down, 55. I was cold!) We got a late start (due to National Doughnut Day at Dunkin Donuts and some late planning/last minute packing) and spent a good amount of time driving back toward the lake on these crazy bumpy forest roads. Rob said that he heard they were created by bulldozers clearing a path to fight forest fires. Regardless, they were not paved or smooth at all and my lil Corolla is not the most ideal off-roading vehicle. However, it's a trooper and made the trek. As we drove through the forest, it was easy to recognize the areas that had burned in past fires. We drove in right along the rim...which was a lil scary around the curves when you could see straight down. I tried not to look too much!

this picture is taken out the car window! you can see the edge of the rim up ahead

We had a picnic by the lake and did a lil bit of hiking. Here are a few pictures...

picnic lunch by the lake :)

In the evening we made a campfire and cooked hot dogs and smores (obviously). It was delicious! The only not so great part was when I realized the sun had set before I thought about going to the bathroom before we started the trip back home. There were zero flushing toliets or bathrooms at all and the woods is scary at night. Enough said. Oh and also that it was cloudy (which didn't help the dark forest dilemna). This is the area where Rob, Agnew and Evan went camping last fall and Rob said he remembered seeing a ton of stars. We will have to make another trip back on a clearer night.

If you enlarge this picture, you can see my crazy face. I am fairly certain that the wind was blowing the fire around a lot, which worried me. Clearly, all this outdoor-sy-ness (I'm making it a word) is new to me :)

It's hard to see me, but I am roasting a hot dog!

Crazy story from the drive home...at one point on a regular highway road (not the bootleg forest kind), Rob randomly flicked on the brights and right next door to us on the side of the road was an elk! I think both of our hearts skipped a beat! This never would have happened on 71 in Ohio! Crazy, crazy state of Arizona.

It was back to reality...Rolly Pollies and Quantum and temperatures in the upper 90's again on Saturday, but we both enjoyed our lil one-day escape and are definitely looking forward to being home in less than a week! We are requesting cool temperatures, no humidity please. See what you can work out for us, Ohio friends and family? :) Realistically, regardless of the weather it will be great to be home for a lil bit :) Can't wait to see you! Love, Sarah and Rob