Employed!

So, I'm proud to announce that I am will officially be employed beginning next Monday. I'm very happy to accept a job at The Reynolds and Reynolds Company. Basically, they provide marketing solutions for car dealerships. I'll be a graphic designer, which, as you know, is a passion of mine. I love design and hope that I get to do lots of it in my position. I'll be designing and customizing direct mail. Yeah, the stuff you throw away without reading, but I'm still excited. More on my new job after I start!

What's new for Lan? He is back from Tulsa, but not quite back in the office. He's at training this week (but I get the feeling that he knows most of the things they're teaching). The good thing about training is that once training is done, he gets to come home! And lately, he's been finishing REALLY early. Yesterday he came home at 11:30! It's nice to have him around the house after being away from him for a whole week.

Coming up for us... we just mailed off a check to pay off half my student loans (yay for being halfway out of debt!), are about to get our own car insurance and cell phone plans (who knew being a grown up was so expensive?), and this weekend, we're going to Schlitterbahn (a ginormous water park) in Galveston! Being newlyweds is fun.

Furniture and Monkeys!

As mentioned in a previous post, Lan and I were looking at purchasing nightstands (we had one makeshift nightstand for a while, but were looking to upgrade). We ended up buying from Gallery Furniture, yes, the place with MONKEYS (see previous post for picture), so, yes, I got to take a picture with a really cute monkey!!! (Lan opted out-his loss) See below...

I was laughing because I just couldn't believe I was holding a monkey! Her name is Cinnamon and she is 6 months old, according to the trainer. She was super super cute and soft. And she is wearing Curious George diapers. Awesome.

I guess I should be more interested in the nightstands than the monkey (since this was our first big purchase as a married couple and all), so, for your viewing pleasure, here are some pictures of our new nightstands in the bedroom.

The nightstand by my side of the bed.

Close up of the nightstand.

Bed and nightstands.

We are both really happy with the nightstands. I love the way they look and they make our bedroom look way more "grown up!" Now if we can only get this old TV out of the floor...

Birthday week commences...

So, this weekend, Lan and I went furniture shopping. First, let me say that I never realized how expensive furniture, especially good quality solid wood furniture, can be. Growing up, we didn't really buy much furniture because everything was provided for us (preacher's family and all). We have pretty ambitious furniture goals... new bedside tables before the end of the summer, new chair (to replace the infamous purple couch) this fall, and a new recliner for Lan next spring when Lan gets his bonus.

The first store we went to was Gallery Furniture, by far the biggest furniture store I've ever been in. Lan said it was comparable to Miskelly's in Jackson. My favorite feature at Gallery was their live animals... They had MONKEYS! And exotic birds, but mostly MONKEYS! For your viewing pleasure, I took the following picture...

Sorry it's sideways... I don't know how to rotate it.

If you buy furniture at Gallery you get to hold one and take a picture :) My new goal in life.

In other news, Lan left yesterday for a last minute work trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma. While in Oklahoma, he'll be helping out with some tool testing. This is a pretty cool opportunity for him professionally, it's just a little untimely this week (my birthday is tomorrow). Lan, being the wonderful husband that he is, gave me my birthday present early, though we can't actually use it until he gets back so he can hook it up. See picture below...

Anyway, I'm anxiously awaiting Lan's return. We have a lot of Wii to play :)

Life in Houston (so far)

Our honeymoon post is on hold until I can get Lan to help show me how to find pictures on the iMac (yes, it's really confusing!), so I figured I'd post about our life so far. I have officially been a permanent Houston resident one week and one day! So far, I have...

1. Hosted a dinner party

We both love entertaining anyway, and when you get SO MANY serving pieces as wedding gifts, you find that you can't wait to have someone over so you can put it to good use. I made Baked Ziti (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/baked-ziti-recipe2/index.html), which is super budget friendly. We made a couple changes to the sauce recipe-- we cooked it down longer, used ground sausage, and added a can of tomato sauce. We will definitely be making this recipe again. Everyone loved it!

2. Nearly got lost (far away from home)

So Tuesday, I met Lan and some of his work friends for lunch at Chuy's (his favorite restaurant of all time- he seriously eats there once a week). After, I needed to go to the post office to pick up some postcard stamps. Lan directed me to the nearest post office, which I found easily. After standing in line, I was told that they didn't have postcard stamps, so they sent me to the next nearest post office. I immediately got turned around so decided to use Garmin to find it. I kept missing turns and getting confused, but I eventually found it. I was proud, and I learned a very valuable lesson. Always drive in the middle lane.

3. Interviewed for a job

The interview story (in case you haven't heard): When I got the first callback, in March, they told me they were sending me a personality test. Well, I did the personality test (with interesting questions...) and they also sent, basically, an aptitude test. I went in for the interview and had to take another aptitude test (where I almost had a meltdown because I'm not that great at math- the test lasted an hour and a half) before the interview. I get through the interview and am told they are hiring for May, but there's no way I could've been in Houston at that time. They called me back right before the wedding and wanted to continue the process. I had to fill out another application (with great questions like, "what is your favorite participatory sport?"). The interview went great. I thought, "this has to be the end of the process." But no, I was wrong. I had to do a 3-part design project and now I'm waiting for the results. So, essentially, this has been really long and drawn out. Who knew finding a job would be so extensive?

So am I a Texan yet? I choose to believe I'm just a Mississippian living in Texas...

An update on Lan (the card-carrying Texan)... He went back to work on Monday. It's been a very busy week for him. There were some complications on a tool they had been designing. Luckily, it's not exactly the tool Lan works directly with (he's in charge of the same tool in a different size). Lan's boss and some of his coworkers left to go test the tool earlier this week, so the latter part of the week has been less busy for him.

More from us later! On the agenda for this weekend: furniture "window shopping" (we need bedside tables).

Honeymoon :)

So, here goes my long-awaited honeymoon details post...

Saturday, we spent the night at the Fairview Inn in Jackson. It was SO NICE. I wish we would have had more time to spend there. The inn itself was so beautiful, and so were the grounds. There was a really cute gazebo and garden and lots of places to eat outside. We were really hungry by the time we got there, so we had a dinner of wedding reception leftovers (yum!). We were sad that we couldn't take them with us to Cancun, but we were pretty sure we couldn't sneak big slices of wedding cake through airport security (sadly). Some pictures of our suite...

We left early on Sunday morning for the airport. After a long day of traveling, we made it to the resort. We can't speak highly enough of the service we received there. Everyone was so helpful. They wouldn't let us touch our bags, which they carried to our beautiful room. Here are some pics...

The most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. We were told it was tempurpedic.

Our sitting area.

The view from our balcony (we were on the second floor of a 2-story building).

My personal favorite part of the room, our jacuzzi. The windows overlooked the beach. The picture doesn't do it justice. I miss it already and am working on convincing Lan that an awesome jacuzzi should be a priority when we buy a home.

A summary of our week... We absolutely LOVED the resort. I've always thought of Lan as someone with high expectations (really, as much as you pay to go to all-inclusive places like this, you really should have high expectations) and he had no complaints. We loved everything about the resort. The food was great and everyone was so nice. There were 7 restaurants to choose from-- Mexican, French, Japanese (Hibachi), Seafood, Steakhouse, Indonesian, and Italian. We ate at the Mexican, French, Japanese and Steakhouse restaurants and they were all fabulous. Lan says that the Hibachi was better than American Hibachi. Here are some pictures of us at dinner...

Us at the French restaurant, this was the nicest restaurant at the resort, and the food here was my favorite, I think. Lan had quiche, orange duck, and chocolate mousse with nutella and I had vichyssoise, pork filet, and apple tart.

Us at the steakhouse. Lan had the filet and I had the New York strip. Yum!

(We didn't take a picture of the Mexican night and the picture from Hibachi is on Lan's camera. I'll post if it ever surfaces)

As far as activities, we spent some time at the pool and at the beach, but it rained a lot (tropical storms...). We also did snorkeling (where I proved that I am a terrible swimmer) and a shopping trip to Playa Del Carmen. More pictures below...

Us on the beach! This is the beach that was behind our room. The day we were here, we were the only ones on this part of the beach.

The strip in Playa Del Carmen. It was rainy, so we had our resort umbrella handy.

Lan by the Senor Frogs gift shop in Playa Del Carmen.

A shot of the awesome pool. We really wish we had been able to spend more time here.

Well, if you are interested in more pictures, check Facebook. The snorkeling pictures are also on Lan's camera, so they'll be added to the Facebook album when he gets around to uploading them to the iMac.

In summary, the honeymoon was great and we can't wait to go back to Cancun! Maybe next time, we'll go in the winter and skip out on the rain. Here's one final picture, us leaving the resort to fly back home...

Wedding Recap

I'm sure many brides would agree with me when I say that when you're in the midst of your engagement, it drags along, taking as long as possible to make it to your wedding day. Post-wedding, you feel like barely any time passed at all. It's a weird feeling. The happiest day of your life is over and you're left with a to-do list of writing residual thank you notes and posting facebook albums. It took a little while for the reality of being married to sink in for me, but it's a good feeling. You get to spend the rest of your life with your best friend. What could be better?

So, as we enter a lifetime of wedded bliss, we hope you'll follow along with our life through our "married people" blog. Posts on honeymooning and my first official days in Houston to come!