At Last!

At last...I am posting again. Yes, it has been a long time coming. No, I don't really have a good excuse regarding my long hiatus. Mostly I've just been lazy, but we can call it an "adjustment period".

At last...my husband is an employed man making a pay check! I am no longer the sole bread-winner in our family. Yes, it's true. He got paid for the first time a few weeks ago. We thought briefly about framing it instead of cashing it, but of course we need it too much:). Instead I decided to take a few pics of Jonathan posing with his first official paycheck. I guess it is the normal progression: go to school forever, get a job, get paid. It just seemed SO FAR away at many points during this journey. I can't believe he's actually "arrived". AND, he likes his job. That's the best part. He loves the variety of patients he sees & all the great people he works with. Yeah for job satisfaction + paychecks:)!
At last...I have a teaching job! Yahoo!!! I will be teaching 6th grade at an elementary school in a really cute part of town, adjacent to one of our favorite parks. I am very excited, even though the thought of teaching 6th graders is slightly terrifying at the present moment:). It'll be a good challenge, though. There's definitely potential for madness, but also potential to make a big impact on lives with the older kids. I am practicing my mean face and mentally preparing myself for the challenge:).

Here are a few things we've been up to lately...
*Spending time w/ family at Priest Lake (a week w/ the Vaughn nine & a long weekend camping with the Hooks, a weekend up there with Carly & Neal and the boys + numerous other misc. time at my favorite place on earth)
*Running, biking and swimming about every day with my sister as we train for our mini-triathlon (http://www.triwenatchee.net/) I will definitely post after our race. It's next weekend and we are so excited! I've never been to Wenatchee & neither of us have done anything like it, so we'll see how it goes...(this picture documents a first: all four Vaughn children going on a run together!)
*Reading lots of books, including many at the sixth grade level in preparation for this coming school year.
*Catching up with friends in the area w/ lots of dinner dates & time hanging out.
*Enjoying a visit from my good friend, Andrea. I have to document this one because it was so entirely random. On a rainy day after coming back from the lake, we decided to do what any normal twenty-five year olds would do. We decided to make skirts. Wow. Eight hours after our start time, we came out with these original masterpieces. (sidenote: Andrea paid $8/yard and I paid $1/yard - not sure I'll go for the shimmery look next time around)
All in all it has been a great few months. It hasn't been an entirely easy transition. We are so blessed to be living with Jonathan's parents, although we are dying to be in a house soon. We are saving like crazy to meet our down-payment goal and hopefully we'll be able to make an offer on a home by early this fall. We are just so ready to settle into life here, and we're currently extending our "out of boxes" stage to almost a year. Whew! We know the Lord's timing is perfect, so we're very much resting in his arms. Love to you from the Hooks!