Ornaments

Each year since we have been married, thanks to our friend Sabrina, we have bought an ornament for our Christmas tree.  No one ever sees our tree besides the two of us, so I thought I'd share our ornaments with you =)  We are missing 2009 because we didn't have a chance to get to the mall to get one because we were taking care of our greatly missed dog, Nora.

2007: from Sabrina. She started the tradition for us!

2008: Chad picked it out, can you tell??

2010: it's a little different.  This one is glossy whereas the other two are matte  Minot has a different company than Bismarck, but, still the same idea =)

And, because I just adore this one I'm going to share it also.  I received a gift from one of my kinder kids and this was part of it! There's a little saying on the back and you can also see the seed!

Monster Cookies.....oye

 I was up until 11 making these cookies for the best brotherS in the world =) Enjoy!

Our year in review...

January: 

• Brittney started student teaching in 1st grade.....
• Chad was busy busy with work as a salesman....
• We traveled back to MT and got stranded in a snow storm....oh the adventures that we embark on, geesh.
• Brittney's still at the YMCA
• January was pretty low key as most of our months are.  We enjoy doing things but are so busy it seems that we never have time for the excitement in life.

 

February:

• Not too much to report for February either....
• Chad was still longing for softball....
• Brittney for warmer weather....
• Brittney was gearing up for the big Praxis tests....
• Chad still has the same salesman job, perfect job for him....
• Brittney's still working at the YMCA..dreaded weekends....

 

March:

• Brittney took the Praxis test, had to wait a month to find out if she passed....
• Brittney finished up student teaching in 1st grade and moved over to Kindergarten...learned she doesn't get along with EVERYONE and had a new placement within a day!
• Chad had an eventuful week of salesman meetings followed by bowling...
• We headed back to Glendive for the porkchop dinner.....
• Had to say goodbye to Gma Fay, she headed down to warmer weather and to be near her kiddos!
•  Chad and Brittney, still in the same jobs.....

 

April:

•  Chad has been waiting and waiting and waiting to play softball...
• We started walking in the new parking lot...park...nightly when Brittney wasn't working
• Brittney started looking for summer work since the Y wasn't going to give her FT hours....
• Chad was given an amazing opportunity...and only a weekend to think about it!...
• Brittney passed her Praxis tests! woop!  and finished student teaching....
• Brittney also had surgery to remove her birthmark for medical reasons.....
• Chad was offered a new job! well, new position.  Assistant Manager of a NW Tire store....

• Minot here we come!

• With the news of the move Brittney, lovingly, stayed up until the wee hours of the night to fill out her first offical application for a teaching position.  The deadline was only a day or two away from our final decision so she had to get it done and faxed in.....she was exhausted the next day....poor kindergartners.....

 

May:

• Brittney graduated from the University of Mary.....
• We moved Chad up to Minot to start work.....
• Brittney stayed a few days to help get the new place ready....the whole place needed a nice fresh coat of paint!
• Brittney stayed in Bismarck for a few more weeks to get the apartment packed up and finish up some odds and ends with school.....
• Middle of May we moved completely to Minot!
• Chad loves his new job! 
• Brittney is currently unemployed....

 June:

• Brittney, still unemployed...spends a week in Bismarck taking a graduate class.....
• Tough times are hard, but we are working though things slowly.....
• Chad plays softball in the McQuade tournament! 
• Chad isn't able to play weekly on the softball team, but he takes what he can get....

 

July:

• Chad lives off of corndogs and pizza....
• Brittney spends 3 weeks in Bismarck taking 2 graduate classes.....
• Road trip to Billings for our friends' wedding!
• Chad played in the Miller Light Softball Tournament in Dickinson.....
• Chad is still loving his job....
• Brittney has been applying for every education job under the sun!  Had a few phone interviews as she was in Bismarck and the jobs were in Minot....

•  Brittney also finished up her graduate classes and has her Title 1 Reading and Math Credentials now....

August:

• Brittney is still unemployed....
• Our neighbor gave us the remaining concert tickets she had! Brittney and Heidi went to Sugarland at the ND State Fair......
• Chad played in the State softball tournament in Bismarck.....he really became the tournament guy....
• Brittney has a few interviews....
• AND FINALLY Brittney is hired last minute for Minot Public Schools teaching Kindergarten......WOOP WOOP! 
• We set up Brittney's classroom in a weekend!

 

September:

• Lesson planning has consumed Brittney's life....and our living room....
• Chad loves his job and he's been getting busier and busier....
• Chad is anxious about flying......
• Chad golfed in the Medora tournament with Brittney's dad again this year....

 

October:

• Lesson planning is still consuming Brittney's life...and our living room..but she wouldn't have it any other way.....
•  We ventured to a golf course in Burlington and Brittney drove the cart while Chad golfed 9..... 
• We also ventured to the Minot pumpkin patch......nothing too exciting....
• Chad ventures to Vegas for WORK..... It was his first time flying and going to Vegas....He had a blast from what he tells me......

November:

• Really? November already? My how the time flies...
• We spent Thanksgiving day in Minot and headed to Glendive on Friday to hang out with the families.
• Not much else to report for November....
• Work is still consuming Brittney's life and the living room and....
• Chad's been doing a monthly shop night for his crew.....

 

December:

It's been a year to remember and life has been falling into place with lots of bumps and bruises to prove it.  
December is the same as the past few months, we've been busier than ever before!

We stayed in Minot for Christmas as Chad was scheduled to work.  We had a coworker of his come over on Christmas day and hang out and eat with us, very low key and fun.  

Brittney's on break from work right now, and Chad's at work =)  However, a good portion of her break will be spent in the classroom reorganizing and gearing up for the next few months.

We hope that you have had a marvelous year and we look forward to catching up with you and yours in 2011!
I may have missed some events but this is just a quick recap into the life of the Hoff's the past year.....

Merry Christmas!

Last night we opted to eat the traditional Sloppy Joe for dinner then we went and looked at Christmas lights.  I had been hearing from my kiddos at school that they were able to look at lights that went along with music, so, I googled it and we went and watched the Olson's Christmas light show.  It was pretty neat! They did a great job on it and were even greeting each car with warm wishes and candy cames =) LOVE IT!

Here is the front of our condo....

The back of our condo.....

We ended our evening with popcorn and a movie....Grownups to be exact, and Chad is downstairs now watching it for a third time~

 Here is a short video clip from last night at the Olson's house =)

This morning, Chad cooked breakfast =) all the Zantac in the world couldn't save me from this but it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO worth it.

Chad invited over a coworker whose family couldn't be here for the holidays so he is spending the afternoon with us!  We have ham cooking and all the fixings to make a yummy meal!  I hope you had a Merry Christmas and a GREAT DAY!

Remembering Nora

It's been almost a year now.....

Tis the season for Christmas lights!

A few weekends ago Chad and I drove through the Oak Park lights exhibit.  It was pretty neat....We mainly went because NW Tire had an exhibit...

Anyhow, here are some of our favorites...and employers =)

NW Tire

 

Minot Public Schools

There were tons of lights with motion, but this one was the only one I videoed!

baking...cleaning....fixing....

Well my weekend was spent doing nothing involving school (SHOCKER!) but baking up a storm.  I made Sarah's famous sugar cookies on Saturday and frosted them on Sunday and I also made some banana bread. 

Chad spent part of his weekend doing inventory and the other part doing dishes{again, he waited a few days so it's his own fault for having so many dishes to do} and cleaning the bathroom {it was that or the kitchen, he chose the bathroom}.  He also fixed the bed, finally.....

Sadie spent the weekend getting into trouble.........

Spoke to soon!

Snow Shmo, yah right.  I spoke way to soon!  It started snowing here around 12:30 or so and has only gotten heavier since.  Way to go and jinx it Brittney! gosh.

Anyhow!  Here is my accomplishment for the week:

I finally got my map up on the bulletin board for our card swap...I have 11 states to color in so far, and 9 more cards sitting on my desk to be opened on Monday, so a grand total of 20 states come Monday night =)

Chad's accomplishment this week:

Playing games because he caught something I brought home =) {It's his own fault, he uses my chapstick and drinks my drinks}  He however did pick the house up and do the dishes the day he was home.  He also made cookies this week too......

We ventured to Walmart tonight for milk and bread and tomorrow will venture to a few furniture stores to see what kind of a deal we can get on a couch {dumb dog}. Not much else planned for the weekend except to get my stuff ready for the week (it's going to be a fun filled week! We are always doing SOMETHING in my room, Wednesday is GRINCH day =) and Friday is a FULL day of Polar Express activities, watch out!

Have a great weekend! 

Snow, shmo!

Hope you are getting around in the snow!  I know we are!  

Chad put up the Christmas lights last night in the WIND!  what a crazy!  I'll post pictures soon, he even decided to put up the blow up snowman! 

Chad's been busy at work and so have I!  I have a little surprise for him Thursday night however, so that should be fun!  A night of neither of us thinking about work, SOUNDS GOOD TO ME!  I even finished my assignments for my online class early so that I didn't have to work on them that night! Woop! Woop!

Have a great week!

Conferences & Vegas

We've been super busy over here! Chad was in Vegas all last week and I was preparing for PT conferences (which I'll finish up tomorrow night!). We've been busy busy so as soon as conferences are over, I'll edit Chad's Vegas pictures and share some with you!

FINALLY!

Chad was finally able to watch the Steeler game today! In case you didn't watch.....they won today =)

I got most of the laundry done, Chad's work pants patched up, almost all of my report cards finished, and a cool Happy Halloween banner made =)

Chad cooked dinner (I made lunch) and did the dishes (it was his turn) and spent the day relaxing in sweat pants....

all in all, a good Sunday =)

How was your Sunday??

Donations being accepted =)

I am now taking donations for the following items for my classroom =)  You may have them laying around your house.......Why throw them away when someone could recyle them?

soup cans (the ones that you have to use the can opener to open, not pull the tab....this way there is no sharp lip for when kids reach into them!)

12ct Egg Cartons  (24 ct is TOO big)

Gatorade/Powerade bottles (not the large ones, the medium or small would work best)

Pop caps (20oz caps preffered) 

Just in case you have these laying around your house =)  I could really use them for my learning centers =)  THANKS!

Chad's photo skills

A week or two ago Chad took this picture...with his phone....  I think that it is a very nice picture...minus he took it while looking out the window so there is a glare/reflection type thing.  But I really like it =)

4 day weekend....

Chad's heading to Vegas soon for work and I'm gearing up for Report card time & PT conferences. 

Chad came in last weekend and helped me move around the big orange shelves I have in my classroom and also my electronic equipment.  What a nice guy huh?  It took a little longer than we thought because some of the cords were stuck under a bookcase (woops), but Chad muscled it up and we got it moved around, thankfully. 

I've been fighting a head cold for about 3 weeks now, and poor chad finally got it around week 2..his own fault for drinking water out of my water bottle =)  He went to the dr and got a prescription because he's experience his (apparently) first sinus infection, a SEVERE one at that.  I went to the dr the next day to get some antibiotics too since we have a long weekend (yay for 4 days off!).  I knew what I wanted and I knew this would be the weekend to take the dreaded ZPak, as I don't have anything planned but inputting grades into my gradebook. 

No pictures to share with you today, however I will take some of Chad's Halloween decorating and get them up this weekend.  Blogging is a nice break from grades haha.  Chad's at work and busy-to-boot!  Not much else happening around our place!

How's your week going so far? I hope good!!

Happenings....

Okay, so I slacked last week and didn't get any pictures up!

These are all the pictures that I have:

We've been golfing (okay so Chad golfs and I drive the cart & take pictures of the wildlife), cleaning, working, and we experienced the Minot Pumpkin Patch the other weekend.

look at how big that dragonfly is! I couldn't beleive it!

lovely caterpillar

friendly frog...chad made him jump into the stream

Lukas soccer!

Goal for this week...

To get some pictures up. I've done nothing but give quick updates...which we don't really have much going on, but still!

Hopefully this week I can get some pictures up!

I'm off to the school, Chad's still sleeping so I figure I'll go in and get some work done!

Football, Golf, and Letters

Yikes! I have been trying to find a groomer here and let me tell you! I tried almost every place that I could get ahold of today here in Minot, Williston, Sidney, and Glendive! Do you think I could get a grooming appointment?! NO! So, Hopefully on Wednesday when a gal gives me a call back (She just moved up here and will be taking appointments on Wednesday, we are #1 on her call list!) we can get her an appointment before we head to Glendive. Crazy.

Chad is at the driving range this evening. He's trying to get ready for this coming weekend (he's golfing in the Medora tournament with my dad). He's been bummed because his steelers haven't played on TV yet (although they did show the last quarter this weekend on TV). They have however won both games.

My weeks have been cruising by, which is good and bad. Next week I am finally able to focus on ONE letter per week (instead of 2-3 in a day) so I am really excited about that! You can check out what we've been up to in Kindergarten by clicking on the tab up there, and then clicking on our link. We are keeping busy and my curriculum is SLOWLY trickling in.

Happy Monday!

Monday night Check in

Well, it's been a Monday for sure. Chad had an eventfull day at work right off the bat this a.m. and I had an extremely busy day and only 3 parents show up for open house tonight.

Now, we are laying in bed, watching football and I'm blogging. I'm slowly beginning to LOVE my school computer: MacBook Pro. I didn't think I would ever love a Mac, but let me tell you! Maybe it's just some of the programs, but it's becoming very user friendly (except when it locks up lol).

I just made some Mocha-Toffee Chocolate bars for school tomorrow, I have lounge duty this week which means I have to bring treats and do the dishes every day this week. They are going to be really rich, how do I know? because my stomach already hurts from how amazing they smell! I didn't make a huge pan since I figured they would be really rich.

Chad requested puppy chow for later in the week so we bought double ingredients so I could make him some too, he's pretty pumped. He had a good sports day yesterday, Steelers won. He hung his flag outside in our flag holder thingy and a gentleman across the street gave him grief =) our neighborhood really isn't Steeler friendly we are noticing. He was really excited to get to hang it up, bummed though that they didn't have the game on TV in our neck of the woods.

Sadie will hopefully be getting a haircut soon. We have to find a place up here that has some good reviews, so far not many places have good reviews and our groomer from Mandan wouldn't recommend anyone here; she even said that people from Minot bring their dogs all the way down because of this! yikes.

Well, just wanted to give a quick update =) I'm off to shower and cut my bars.

Good Night!

Quickie for the week.....

Oh Saturday. I can't seem to sleep past 7 so I've been up for a few hours now. I thought I'd get a quick blog in before I go to the school. Chad's at work so I figured I might as well go to the school and work while he's at work. I might post more later today or tomorrow, we'll see what adventures we partake in this weekend.

Chad's had a pretty busy week again. He's been the sub-manager, hehe, the last few days while his boss recooperates. He told me he had a REALLY busy day today, so I hope it goes smoothly for him. He's bummed because today is nice and sunny and the last few days its been rainy!

Myself, I was sick this week. Had to get a sub on Wednesday. Not sure if it was what I ate for dinner the night before or if it was from my little guy who felt it was necesary to puke on me =) I wasn't too bad, only once =) but that was enough! So, today I'll go in and clean up my room and get it a little more organized as I have ANOTHER open house on Monday.

Just a quick blog today, gotta get to the school!

Holy moly batman!

Thank goodness for a long weekend coming up!

Our lives have consisted of early mornings and late nights the last few weeks! Chad has been SOOOOO helpful, more helpful than I would have thought! He's been nothing but supportive and optimistic the last few weeks, It's been GREAT!

Kindergarten is going awesome for me. I still don't have curriculum yet, but I am slowly making it work without the "real deal" stuff. I have my Reading and now Science online manuals, so I can at least see what I'm supposed to be working on lol. I have a small class of 15, and still waiting for one little one to show up to make 16. I have 11 girls and currently 4 boys (5 when the new one shows up). I'll get pictures posted soon on my before and after classroom pics. THANKS TO ALL WHO CAME UP AND HELPED!

Chad's been working and helping out around the house (since I have a job now, he has to help with chores...he's not thrilled about the chores, but does them anyway). Work keeps him busy during the day. This weekend he's playing softball so he's really excited about that! They play Friday and will play the bracket until they lose two (So I'm told).

We have had a spider web on our deck furniture for the last week and we've never seen the spider until last night. OMG it was bigger than a quarter!! It was almost as big as a smores marshmellow, no joke!!!!! Chad came in wide eyed and said "Brit the spider has finally showed it's face! you have to come look at it" So I wasn't even to the back door and holy heck there it was! He sprayed it with our bug spray/killer stuff we bought to get rid of the bugs around the house for about 5 minutes to kill the darn thing. It finally fell off the web and crawled below the deck...so hopefully he killed it! I was surprised he even offered to spray the darn thing!

Sadie really needs a haircut, so that's my mission the next few days is to find someone here to cut her hair....we'll see how that goes. I'm hoping to be able to see Chad play this weekend, but We'll see how they do on Friday and how I'm feeling as well. I've done nothing but RUN RUN RUN the last few weeks and it's starting to catch up to me. I had a little one sick the other day and I do not want to catch that. So I need to just stop and enjoy some non school related time, like a book that's not kindergarten level. So we'll see what happens. =)

I suppose I better go cook myself dinner!

Such a productive weekend.....

And so begins another week.

The weekend proved to be productive, yet relaxing. We had nothing planned for once and were able to just sit and enjoy the BLUSTERY days. No joke, it was windy as all get out here! Rainy as well.

Saturday: I woke up and got dressed and threw on a hat and went on a scavenger hunt for some allergy medication for Chad. Three different pharmacies later I found some! Then I went grocery shopping, which apparently I picked the Saturday that the older minority of Minot goes shopping because it was a bit ridiculous in the store. I got home and Chad was still sleeping off the benedryl he took the night before, shocker, put the groceries away and went up and woke him up to take the new allergy stuff I got for him. Once he was awake and dressed for the day we went shopping for Chad's attire for Ward's wedding. He thinks I'm terrible to shop with? psh, it took him longer to pick out a pair of boots (which he went with a pair EXACTLY like his old pair) than it takes me to find a pair of pants that actually fit. So, I told him next time I get to go shopping and he tags along he'd better not complain, because he's way worse to shop with than I am!

Sunday: Chad watched NFL, nascar, MLB,and the little league world series (or something with little kids and baseball on ESPN). I sat and made close to 50 matchbook notebooks (they are pretty cool). That is our day in a nutshell, we did absolutely nothing.

Hmm, the vacuum cleaner has yet to make an appearance upstairs as well. So I may just have to break down and bring it up and do it myself, because I'm done cleaning the ENTIRE house, except for vacuuming he upstairs. What a dink =)

Sadie spent the day playing with her "real life" duck and bugging me =) she was productive too apparently.

I'm off to bed for now though, hopefully this week will bring good news!

Flies, Allergies, and household chores oh my!

Sadie has become quite the avid fly hunter.  She has started chasing them around the house when they are inside.  She is much bigger than they are of course, but she's mighty scared of them when they take off in flight!  Moth's are quite entertaining to her these days as well.  She found a fly in the bedroom window earlier today while I was folding laundry:

Chads allergies are kicking his butt these days.  We aren't sure what's in the air but boy is he down for the count!  He currently uses Claritin, but after some helpful people on Facebook replied to my status (hehe) I will be heading to CVS in the a.m. before grocery shopping and picking him up some Clairitin-D...hopefully that will work for him and if not, we'll try Zyrtec-D lol.  Poor buddy.  His nose is stuffed up, his eyes are itchy and red and he can only take benedryl at night, and still he has a tough time waking up after 9 hours of sleep on the darn stuff!  So, hopefully this new stuff will work. Fingers crossed!

As for my week, I spent it applying for jobs, doing phone interviews, and cleaning the house.  I have every room done, just need to wash the spare bedroom sheets and I will have.... nothing to do next week....great.... 
         Chad instructed me not to do any laundry today as we have a leak in the washing machine that he claims he will be taking a look at tomorrow.....I'm still waiting for the vacuum cleaner to get brought upstairs from Monday....so.......
      I've been doing a few custom order (thanks ladies!) the last few days as well =) so that's nice.  Next week I'm going to start on some stuff for the Zonta craft fair in Glendive.  Hopefully I can make a lot and SELL A LOT TOO!  Wouldn't that just be the bees knees!


I'd better go check on the allergy man, I told him to take a benedryl and shower....and benedryls kick in REALLY fast with him, so hopefully he's not falling asleep in there. Yikes, that'd be funny =)

State Softball and other doings

We spent the weekend in Bismarck for State Softball.  Chad did pretty well =)  His team didn't place but they gave it all they had!  It was a scorcher both days and I didn't get burnt....Got a pretty good tan going on though =)

Chad batting on Saturday

An old school NW tire hat Donnie had

We both had a good weekend.  It's always nice to hang out with friends =)

Other than that Chads been really busy at work this last week.  They are putting in a frontage road that run behind NW Tire (Chad calls it a backage road bc of this) so traffic is crazy busy over there according to him.  He has to take the "long way" home now due to the closure of a road he used to take, he's not a happy camper about this.  He had been looking forward to state softball since getting home from the Miller Light tournament, and now is looking forward to Ward's wedding at the end of August and the National Softball tournament over labor day weekend.


The Sampson's came up to Minot to share in our first state fair experience.  We checked it out the very last day.  We hit up the food booths first, followed by some carnival games and ended the evening with Sugarland (girls night, just Heidi and myself went).  It was great!  I ate Pita-Pit for the first time too! It was soooo good!

I finished up my classes on the 30th of July and now have a Title 1 Reading and Math credential to add to my teaching license.  It was nice to be back home after a total of 4 weeks in Bismarck.  Since getting home my days have been filled with organizing the house,   applying for jobs, and going to interviews.  

Learned something very important over the weekend...well when we got home today.  Apparently you can't clip mail to your mailbox for the mailman (in our case) to pick up, he just leaves it there.  So sorry your anniversary card is even later Jared and Sandy.  If I would have known the postal worker wasn't going to pick it up we would have detoured on our way out of town and dropped it in the mail.  So, it's on its way tomorrow!

Oooh Anniversaries!

August is full of them...okay so just a few in the immediate family.

Happy Anniversary to Jared and Sandy on Saturday the 7th (tomorrow.....enjoy the lake!)!

and

Happy Anniversary Nick and Sarah on Monday the 23rd!

And to Aunt Barb and Uncle Ted, Happy Anniversary on Tuesday the 24th (I might have this one wrong though.....but at least I have it written down as something!)!!

You may not get a phone call or a text as life around here is hectic lately with traveling! And, your cards may be late because I need to buy stamps!

Lazy Day Sunday!

I find myself catching up with recorded programs and sitting in the recliner icing my butt today.  Chad is laying on the floor taking a nap.  I fell down the stairs today, might have bruised my tail bone, that's why I'm icing my butt =)

I have spent the last two weeks in Bismarck and Billings (our friends got married!) and this is the first weekend I've been home, and it sure feels nice.  Chad was excited to eat some "real" food" =)  He has been eating corn dogs and frozen pizza (per his choice mind you!) the last two weeks.  The house was just about how I left it, so that was a plus, he even did his dishes!  woo hoo!

Chad's been spending his evenings lounging around and playing playstation.  He has spent his time home in Minot and a weekend in Billings.  Thankfully the Sampson's have a web cam so Chad and I can Skype at night instead of talking on the phone.   Chad's not a phone talker, so Skype has been awesome.  His back is starting to feel better.  His biggest accomplishment this week was sleeping in our bed all week.  He has been stretching a lot more and that has been a huge help!

Sadie has been with me in Bismarck so she doesn't have to be cooped up for almost 12 hours alone (as Chad works from like 7:30-6:30 M-TH and 5-6:30 on F..gross....).  I have spent my days leaving the house at 7 to be to school by 7:30, and home a little before 3.

I will leave again today (later this evening) for my last week of school!  It was nice to spend the weekend with Chad =)  I'm making a nice crock pot dinner for us and then I will hit the road again =(

Next weekend the Sampson's will be heading our way to spend the weekend with us and we are going to hit up the fair!  This is all I've got for today.  Enjoy your week!