A Day in the Life of the Van Nus Family

2009-11-08T16:21:00.000-08:00

My sister-in-law, Sarah gave me this sweet award. I must say I am honored! I am also honored because I'm pretty sure she's the only one the keeps up with my horrible blogging habits! So in keeping with the rules of the award, I present 10 honest things about me:

1. I used to see two of everything all the time. I had surgery back in March to have my left eye fixed from turning inward just a little bit. They cut the muscles off of my eye and sewed them back on......ewwwwwwww :-)

2. Speaking of sewing...I wish I was better at it than I really am. I wish I was a rockstar sewer like my Momma. I tried making my Halloween costume this year... it was an epic fail :-(

3. If Brian's at the fire station you can bet money that the television is going to be on the E! channel all day long. I'm a sucker for celebrity trash TV. Right now I'm watching "The Girls Next Door" and plan on watching the Khloe Kardashian wedding at 8:00pm. :-)

4. When Brian's at the station I leave the television on all night long and sleep with a nightlight.

5. I LOVE Christmas and if Brian would let me I would put up a Christmas tree in every room of the house.

6. I don't leave the house without mascara on. This mascara is the best thing on earth, seriously.

7. I have recently become a sucker for candles. Love them. They make the whole house smell wonderful and look pretty as they flicker. What more could you ask for?

8. I watch the shows "Dancing with the Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance" and wish I could take dancing lessons and be on the show even though I am petrified to dance in front of ANYONE!

9. I'm a really big neat freak about my school work. My notes must be color-coded and I NEED a separate binder for each class.

10. I LOVE that I married into a HUGE family. I came from just having my little brother, Matthew and now have my little brother Matthew, 6 brother-in-laws: Shann, Erik, Kyle, Zachary, Aaron and Isaac, 4 sister-in-laws: Amy, Sarah, Michelle and Kelsee, 4 nephews: Jake, Joel, Jackson and Ace and 1 niece: Abby! And I wouldn't have it any other way!!!

Cruise Pictures

2009-09-12T14:25:00.001-07:00

T-minus 4 Days...

2009-08-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

Only 4 more days until we are out of here!!! We're leaving Friday morning for Naples, Florida and Saturday afternoon Brian and I are getting on a cruise ship with Brian's mom and dad, Keith and Eileen, his 2 younger brothers, Aaron and Isaac and his older brother and his wife, Erik and Michelle. It. Cannot. Come. Soon. Enough. So one more long week of school and work then bon voyage! We'll see you next Wednesday!

Make your Stick Figure Family at FreeFlashToys.com

Here are me and Brian all ready for the cruise! :-)

-Sara

Roofers Sure Do Get Up Early...

2009-08-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

I don't know what time roofers actually get up in the morning, but they were at my house at 6:30 this morning. Way too early for me! The roofers dropped the dumpster off at 6:30 and as soon as the clocked turned to 7:00AM it sounded like there was a herd of elephants having a parade on my roof! They were loud, but they were also stinkin' quick! They started ripping our roof apart and were starting to lay the new shingles by 8:00! The whole roof was completely finished by 4:00! Anywho, we have a new roof now! It look fabulous!

In the process of ripping our roof off!

FINISHED!!!

Movie Night!

2009-08-07T16:30:00.000-07:00

Yay for movie night at Hebron! Every year the church sponsors a movie night out on the front lawn of the church. This year we showed "The Tale of Despereaux" and had pizza, snow-cones and more!

The GIANT blow up screen the movie was shown on.

Snow-Cones, Pizza and more!!!

Jackson enjoying some pre-movie festivities.

And just for anyone who read the last blog (which I'm pretty sure Sarah, you're the only one out there) I attempted to make the monkey bread again and SUCCESS!!!! No smoky aroma in the house this time, just the sweet smell of Cinnamon and Sugar covered biscuits!

Mmmmmmmm good!

Not Quite Paula Deen...

2009-08-01T17:38:00.001-07:00

Let me stat out by saying that my husband can cook circle around me! Seriously, he cooks way better than I do and he actually enjoys doing it! Crazy, I know. He's about as close to being Paula Deen as we're going to get in this household because let me just tell you, I am nowhere near close to cutting it!

I have ventured out a little bit, I have a few staples that I can always (more like usually) cook up, no problem. Tonight, well, wasn't quite the case. I decide I would make "Monkey Bread" for the first time as a little breakfast surprise when Brian gets home from the station in the morning. How hard can that be? You shake biscuits in cinnamon and sugar and put them in the oven. Simple, right? A third grader could do this, right? Oh, no, not if I'm the one cooking. I'm about 10 minutes into cooking the biscuits in the oven and something smells awfully like smoke..... yep, they're burning! Whole oven full of smoke = whole kitchen full of smoke!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?!?!?

So now I sit in the kitchen with the windows open, the fan blowing, praying the smoke alarm doesn't go off (again) and thinking that that Monkey Bread really isn't going to be as tasty as I had hoped. This cooking thing has got to come along to me soon enough, right? Right?

Oh well, here's to cereal tomorrow morning, no cooking involved!

Gainesville State College Education Program = I HAVE NO LIFE!!!

2009-07-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

So my intentions were to be really good at this whole blogging thing and as you can see, I have been less than unsuccessful!

Four weeks ago I started the Early Childhood Education program at Gainesville State College. Before the program I felt like I lived at the church where I work but not these past four weeks! No, these past four weeks I have lived in the Dunlap-Mathis Education building and in the Gainesville State's library. These past four weeks have been the most stressful weeks of my entire life! But, it's almost over, for two weeks anyway and I wrote the BEST lesson plan for a kindergarten class. :-) One final down and one to go! Cross your fingers for me!

After my final tomorrow I'm headed right back to my previous home away from home, the church, for day #2 of Vacation Bible Camp. I was actually surprised at how much I missed VBC today! Would have much rather been at VBC than taking a final exam! Any-who.... the bed is calling my name, and that final will come too soon in the morning! I'll try to post some pictures from tomorrow's VBC!

My inspiration for wanting to be a teacher. A third grade boy, I believe in him! You have to check this video out, a little long, but very uplifting!

So....I May be the WORST Blogger Ever

2009-07-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

When I started this blogging thing I fully intended on keeping up with the postings and being the best blogger ever. As you can see, I have fallen a little short. OK, OK, a lot short! So if there's anyone out there, here's what's been going on since the beginning of the year...

JANUARY

Another nephew was born! My wonderful sister-in-law had Mr. Bennett Ace on January 22nd. He is the cutest, most happy and chubby baby! Here are some pictures of our "chunky monkey" Ace!

Ace, Mom and Dad

Jackson is such a sweet big brother!

And this is Mr. Ace at 5 months old. Looks at those thighs!

MARCH

Brian and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary with a trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We went on our trip about a week after our actual anniversary due to my eye surgery two days after our anniversary. I don't have any pictures from our trip, they're saved on a different computer, but believe me, I always have a camera with me!

APRIL-MAY

I can sum these months up in one word: SCHOOL! I applied for Gainesville State College's education program at the end of May and at the end of the longest two and a half weeks of my life, I was accepted into the program! Yay! Which bring me to the next month...

JUNE

SCHOOL, SCHOOL, and guess what? MORE SCHOOL!!! It took over my life for June! The two weekends spent away from doing school work was at a dear friend's wedding on the 20th and a motorcycle trip to "Deal's Gap" and the "Dragon's Tail" in North Carolina. After that school took back over. Starting the Education program in July, I had only 4 weeks to finish a class that you would usually take 3-4 months to do. Needless to say, my husband didn't have a wife for an entire month! But now the class is over and I'm onto the next chapter of my quest to earn my teaching degree. Here are some pictures from our motorcycle trip:

Here are me and Brian at the beginning of the Dragon's Tail

That's Brian's brother and our sister-in-law in front of us

JULY

Happy 4th! We had a wonderful time at my in-laws house full of food, fun and good times! We didn't go out to watch any fireworks, but did watch them on television (that counts, right?) We're not too far into July, teaching program starts tomorrow morning. Kinda nervous! (How silly is that?) We'll see how it goes, I promise I'll try my very best to keep up with this blogging thing!

Firefighter's Wife

2008-06-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

You Know You’re A Firefighter’s Wife…

…When you see your husband in navy blue (standard color of all things firefighter) clothing more than any other color.

…If your husband isn’t wearing his usual work uniforms, he still has a T-shirt on that has the fire department logo on it.

...While washing the said navy blue wardrobe, you receive a pungent odor while sorting the dirty clothes. Nothing like the smell of sweat and smoke all mixed together!!!

…When you know the difference between a police siren and a fire siren.

…When you know that all of your smoke detectors work.

…When you find it hard to sleep when your Hubby is at work.

…When you get severely angry when people don't pull over for firetrucks and ambulances.

…When you've held more holidays at the fire station than should be allowed.

…When you've lost all sense of what a "weekend" really is due to your husband's crazy schedule.

…When all of your calendars have every third day circled.

…When you are always prepared to cook any form of desert or pick up any flavor of ice cream to take to the station at a moments notice.

…When everybody that knows a firefighter, will assume that you know them too.

...When you know that it is much better to call an ambulance to take you to the hospital.

...When you get to listen to stories about fires and medical calls when you're husband get home from work.

...You feel like the luckiest girl alive when he comes home off shift and sends your heart a-flutter.

I Love My Firefighter!

Home Sweet Home...

2008-06-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

The next chapter in mine and Brian's lives...buying our first house!

After looking at what seemed to be hundreds of houses (which is a complete exageration) we finally decided on one and moved in a week ago today. Sorry, haven't unpacked the camera, actually I'm not totally sure which box it is packed away in, so there aren't any pictures yet. I promise I will get some of them posted eventually.

We have painted our living room and our bedroom. Our living room is a dark tan and our bedroom has 2 brown walls and 2 blue walls; I know, it sounds a little weird, but it really does look good.

We ordered new bedroom furniture! This is very exciting because we now have MATCHING furniture!!! Yay! Again, pictures shall come later.

And I must thank my WONDERFUL mother-in-law and sister-in-law, Eileen and Sarah for coming over to the new house and cleaning it from top to bottom before we moved all of our stuff in. And my brother-in-law, Kyle was a blessing by helping Brian move all of the heavy stuff. I could tell that I was just frustrating Brian and getting in his way, but Kyle came to the rescue! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Anyways, I guess that's enough rambling, I'll attempt to find the camera and post some pictures later!

Just Getting Started

2008-05-05T15:06:00.000-07:00

Because I have nothing else better to do I just thought that I would attempt to start writing a blog. Hopefully it won't be too boring, for the handful of people that may read it!

Brian and I have been married for just over 2 months now, seems like it's only been a couple of weeks! Here are just a couple of pictures from our wedding. I couldn't have imagined a more perfect wedding! Three of Brian's five brothers were groomsmen and the best man. Oh, by the way, my husband is one of seven children, yes, I said seven. A huge family and I absolutely LOVE it! Anyways, pictures.... This was our AMAZING wedding party!!!This is Jackson and Abby, our nephew and niece. Our ring bearer and flower girl. I still have people telling me how cut they were walking down the aisle! Abby took just a little bit of coaxing, but Jackson was ready to go!

We celebrated two months of marriage with going to see "Iron Man" at the movies which really is a rare activity for us because going to a movie can easily be $30 after tickets and snacks are bought. Being a newly married couple, we don't have much in the financial department of our lives, but it was nice to get out and have a little date night.

We had our honeymoon with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. It was my first cruise and Brian's second cruise. We had so much fun and really didn't want to come back to real life! Here are some more pictures, sorry, I'm a picture-aholic!

This is Brian snorkling, he would have stayed in that water all day!

This was during the "Muster Drill" a.k.a. - "What to do if the ship starts to sink" drill!

I guess that will be all for now, let's just see if I can keep up with this whole blog thing!