Thunder and Lighting...the sky is black....

What are these large drops of wet stuff that fall daily from the sky? Oh wait...that's RAIN! It is soooo weird that it rains while it is HOT OUTSIDE! I think all of my co-workers think I'm nuts because I run to and from my car when it rains....and when there is a huge roar of thunder or crack of lightning my eyes get HUGE!

Work is going well. I have been working really hard to get my classroom up to standards. We are getting ready to go through an accreditation process and the girl that had my classroom before me didn't DO ANYTHING! So I am trying my hardest to pick of the pieces. Once I get everything ironed out I will have more free time...but until then I am working like crazy.

Adam is liking his job...he's looking forward to school starting so that he can start teaching! Tomorrow he is leaving again to head to Chattanooga until late Thursday night. More training and classes!

Escrow still hasn't closed on our house...the underwriter wants new check stubs from our new jobs, and since we didn't start working until almost two weeks ago, our first check stubs won't be in until the end of the month. Meaning, that we can't close until August.

Last weekend we went to West Virginia to spend some time with Adam's parents, brother (Nathan), sister in law (Jess), Sister (Noelle) and our nephew (Jake) and nieces (Haylee, Lynnzie and Khloe.) It was our first time meeting Khloe! She is just three weeks old and SOOOO TINY and suchhhhh a good baby!

My family in San Diego has had some VERY exciting things going on and I can't wait to share about them in the near future!

Miss you all!

It's been an eventful couple of days. Work started for me and I love it...however, I do miss my old co-workers and all the kiddos in San Diego. I have been in my classroom "observing" for the last couple days. I'm in there trying to get the hang of their daily routine and schedule so that it is an easy transition. I work about half the day in the classroom and then the other part of the day I'm in my office (YES, I said OFFICE), where I write deports on my kids developmental progress and have planning time for my class. They gave me my very own desk (it's huge) and a brand new HP ProBook Lap top. It's pretty sweet!

Adam is still in Chattanooga doing some training until Friday. He sounds like he is having a great time and has met a lot of new people. He got to meet the teacher that he will be working along side of this year and it sounds like they have a lot in common. I'm looking forward to having him back in Knoxville!

I've had a blast with Jennifer and the girls being here. Since we've lived so far away I haven't had much time to spend with our nieces Haylee and Lynnzie. It's been a BLAST...

Hello New Jobs!

Well today is the day that Adam and I begin our new jobs! He is currently in Chattanooga training for the week and I'm off to meet with the HR department this morning. Not sure what is in store for me, but I'm super excited! They said the meeting with HR would take 45 min to and hour and then I will be meeting with my boss (Heather) for about 30 min. I know for the rest of the week I will be doing observations on my classroom and will be getting familiar with the system that I will be using to do all of the reporting. I'm planning on today just being a "paperwork" kind of day, but we will see. :)

Our digital camera bit the dust the other day so we won't have pictures on our blog for awhile. I wrote Canon to see what they can do for us...hopefully I can just get the part that we need and fix it myself! They said that they were going to charge 99 bucks just for labor! YEAH RIGHT! All that's broken is the little compartment that clips on to hold the battery and memory card in.

For those of you that have been wondering...our house has not closed yet. We will see what this week brings. It will be a little difficult to close this week but we are rolling with the punches. IF we do close this week it will have to be after I get off work and Adam will have to drive all the way from Chattanooga to sign papers just to get in the car and drive alllll the way back! (It's about a 2 hour drive.)

Catch ya later!

Brusters has the best ice cream...

Jennifer and the girls made it safe and sound to Knoxville! Shortly after they got here we decided that we needed to make a pre-dinner run to get Bruster's Ice Cream. We didn't care that it might ruin our appetites for dinner...tomorrow our weight loss challenge starts so we had to get our last ice cream run in! The contest was $25 bucks per person....and lasts from July 5th through October 1. The person that has the most percentage of weight lost....wins the pot! After ice cream we came home for some BBQ and then it was off to watch some fireworks!

(Andrew eating his Oreo ice cream)

(Haylee and Lynnzie chowing down on their ice cream cones)

(Andrew and I...he was looking at the birdies)

(Andrew looking for flowers for Haylee, Lynnzie and I)

(The beautiful flower that he picked for me)

Happy 4th of July

It's a beautiful 4th of July here in Knoxville, TN!

Last night the guys ordered the UFC fight on paid preview and we had wings and dips to snack on. Soooo yummy! In honor of Independence Day I made a red, white and blue fruit pizza. One of my specialities! :)

Today we are just laying low and relaxing. This afternoon Jennifer, Haylee and Lynnzie are driving down from Beckley, West Virginia. We are looking forward to spending some quality time with them. (Jennifer is Adam's Mom and Haylee and Lynnzie are our nieces.)

Adam leaves tomorrow to drive to Chattanooga for some training for his new job. I officially go into my new job on Tuesday to meet with HR. I will do observations the rest of the week and there is a possibility that I might be able to start in my classroom on Friday. We are hoping that this week will be the week that our house closes so that we can begin the necessary renovations before we move in! If we do close on our house this week, that means Adam has to make the trek back to Knoxville just to sign papers and then turn around and drive back to Chattanooga. We know it will all work out. :) It always does!

Tonight we are watching fireworks somewhere near Rikki and Jimmy's house.... :)

We just got home from having ice cream at Brusters and it's still light outside. Thought I would take a picture and share with you what 9:35pm looks like in Knoxville, Tennessee!

(The picture is kinda blurry...I couldn't get the setting right!)

Saturn Vue

Last night we picked up my car! We got a super awesome deal on it through Mary Kay. As many of you know Mary Kay has a car program and after the 2 year lease is up there is an option to buy it from the company at the wholesale price. We totally lucked out and were able to buy one of Jennifer's (Adam's Mom) colleagues cars! It's a black 2008 Saturn Vue!

Slow Process...

Well not much new is going on this morning...we are still waiting on our house to close. Adam was able to speak to the appraiser today and he was going out to the property to do the final things that he needs to do. This whole deal has been held up by a couple different things...but one of the main snags was this appraiser that was sent out by the VA. We are hoping to get things wrapped up soon, but until then we will hurry up and WAIT. :)

The weather has been FABULOUS here! Yesterday it was about 84 and there wasn't much humidity at all! We drove around with the windows down and no air conditioning on....AND the best part was I didn't need a sweatshirt! As many of you know I am ALWAYS COLD...so the fact that I didn't need a sweatshirt was AWESOME!

Bde bde bde....That's all Folks!

Welcome to Tennessee!

Hi everyone!

People have been asking for an update so I thought I would start a BLOG!!!!

Adam and I arrived in Knoxville last Thursday evening. Our trip was GREAT with only a few minor hiccups along the way until we got about 80 miles out of Knoxville. We were going up a hill and our trucks transmission blew! This causes a fire under the truck and we had to pull over and call 911. The fire was extinguished by the time that they got there, but boy did it make for some excitement! We were then towed into Knoxville by a huge semi! That was like the cherry on top...We loved riding in the cab of a semi...and Trucker Bill was SO NICE! Rikki and Jimmy met us when we pulled into Knoxville and gave us a ride back to their house after the Penkse truck was dropped off at our house.

(Rikki took this picture of the semi pulling us onto the street that we live on)

(Adam giving Rikki and "Thumbs Up")

(Me giving Rikki a "Thumbs Up" when I am finally out of the truck)

We had anticipated that escrow was going to close on our house the following day after we arrived to Knoxville but unfortunately that didn’t happen. The owners were nice enough to let us move all of our belongings from our moving truck into the downstairs portion of house. This was HUGE because if they didn’t let us do that, our stuff would still be sitting in our moving truck. And that would have been quite the expense! Since we didn’t close Friday we were hoping for a Monday close date, but this didn’t happen either. All of you that have bought a house before know that the underwriters look at every single little tiny detail and question every last thing. We have had documents that show everything that they need, however it’s just taking a LONG TIME!

In the meantime we are staying with Adam’s sister (Rikki), her husband (Jimmy) and their 2 year old son (Andrew). It’s been a great time and we are so thankful that we have somewhere to stay while everything with the house proceeds. Once the house closes we are going to have to paint and get the upstairs re-carpeted. The lady that lived there previously was a renter and left the place pretty trashed. We will eventually put wood floors in the downstairs but for now we are just looking at getting the upstairs tackled so that we can MOVE IN!

Adam is scheduled to start work on Tuesday. He has to be in Chattanooga, TN for some training that week. I was scheduled to start work on the same day but my work needed me to have a Tennessee drivers license before they could complete my background check, so this might have delayed my start date. (Adam and I both surrendered our California drivers licenses on Friday and received our new Tennessee license the same day!)

That’s about all for now!

I will write again when there is more to update!

Love, Jenna

PS- Adam's other sister Noelle had her baby as we were on the road heading to TN last week! We are looking forward to making a trip to West Virginia soon to officially meet our new niece Khloe!

Big sisters Haylee and Lynnzie with their new baby sister Khloe!