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Friday, June 11, 2010

Update!

In case you haven't checked it out, I'm running my own personal blog at this site: http://notyour-average.blogspot.com/ . I recommend watching it. I tend to update that one more than this blog.
But, like I said I would do, here are some pictures of our new home. :)

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

We've Moved!

I haven't updated this in quite some time. We've sold our house on 3rd St and are now living in Durango, Iowa. Just north-west of Dubuque. It's so beautiful, sitting here in the living room on my laptop with large windows and the evening sun shining through the bare forest and panes of glass. I'll post pictures soon!

So these days the Priest family is busy unpacking and settling in at the new place. Grace and Oliver are really enjoying the new elementary school (had to transfer to a different zone), and though the commute is a bit long, it's such a beautiful drive. And the house and acreage is just so worth it. It's the ugliest time of the year, the snow is melting and the mud is everywhere, the trees are still bare and there's sludge in the roads, the Christmas decorations are looking extremely out-dated in front lawns, but it's still so beautiful out here.

Again, pictures will come soon!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Somebody Buy Our House!

Our house is still on the market, and we'd really like to know if anybody wants to buy it soon, so that we can get it sold, put up our Christmas decorations, then take them down. The sooner we know if somebody will buy our house, the sooner we can decorate! (because even if somebody bought our house tomorrow, we wouldn't be moving out until sometime in January).


We've had a few people look at the house, and we've had 5 open houses on 5 Sundays... in a row. I'm so tired of open houses. Somebody just needs to fall in love with the place and get it off our hands... ahhhhh.

So today whilst a realtor showed the house to these 2 ladies, I drove my younger siblings and dogs around. We weren't sure what to do, and then Sally mentioned we should do the "3 States In 8 Minutes". We did, and we did it in 7 minutes. Haha. Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa. Gottem' all in 7 minutes. I love living in a place like this. :)

Monday, October 12, 2009

Moving?

The Priest Family home is now on the market and ready for showing. Yet again, we are planning on moving. But for the first time (in my memory at least) we are NOT moving very far away. We have placed an offer on a house and it has been accepted, now we just have 2 months to sell our home. Anybody sense the stress?

The home we want to buy is our dream home, a cottage in the woods. It's not exactly a cottage, but the layout and siding is all very similar. It's on 4 1/2 acres of land, with most of it being woods, which we hiked through yesterday. The house is out in Durango, for those of you who read this and know the area (out near where the Butler's live, past the Holt's). The house is definitely smaller than our house, but not too small at all. Our house is actually fairly large, and within a couple of years, we won't need this big of a house and this house out in Durango really will be perfect.

Soo.... anybody want to buy a 100+ year old Queen Ann Victorian home on 3rd street?

Monday, September 28, 2009

Primary Songs!

A play off of the Primary Children's Song "Leaves are Falling"

Branches falling all around
On the house tops, on the ground
Branches falling on the cars
Leaving lots of ugly scars!

Wind blows slow and wind blows fast
Wind makes lots of noisy blasts
Through the trees it whips and brakes
Gives me many more things rake!

Stormy Weather is very loud
Even when there are no clouds!
Just need trees and wind with power
Keeps you awake for every hour!

In the wind my house will creak
Making sure I do not sleep
Windows rattle all night long
While wind sings its own theme song:

Whistle, howl, creak and wooo
Hiss and blow and tumble, too
Wind is musical, you see
But still annoying to me!

I hear summer dying out
From cold wind, which makes me pout
In comes fall and winter snow
Why did summer have to go?

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Changes!

So I haven't updated this in a while. I will do so now.

I update my other blog more frequently if you wish to watch that one, too: http://notyour-average.blogspot.com/
Quite a few things have come up in the Priest family... school has started up. We'll go youngest to oldest:
Oliver is now in the 2nd grade. He loves school, which is great. He has quite a bit more homework than he used to have, which he really didn't like at first, but he's getting used to it; he likes learning.
Grace is in the 5th grade and has been running for Co-president for the student body at school. She also does safety patrol, which she loves. She really likes being a big kid now. Grace is also taking flute and piano lessons and is getting better at both. She went on a field trip today to see the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL. She has been extremely excited to go on this trip and had an excellent time today.
Sally is now a freshman in high school. She thinks high school is way overrated and extremely dumb, but it has its perks. Just like Molly and I did. I hate to think that we gave her that impression, but she's always been a bit of an independent thinker and chooses her own way of looking at things. She is one of the fastest members of the swim team and, though it's a bit too soon to say anything, I personally think that if she keeps working at the pace she's working at, she'll make State with her swimming speeds. She does distance swimming. Her most recent amazing accomplishment was the 500 yard freestyle (20 lengths of the pool) at 6 mins and 11 seconds. And this was just during the 3rd week of the school year. There are still a good 8-9 weeks left. Though she's currently dealing with swimmer's ear and isn't allowed to get in the pool for a while, she still works out and does weights. She also may audition for the Iowa All-State Orchestra. She may not make it this year because she hardly has time to practice with swim team, but going to auditions this year will help her to know what the audition is like, so this next year, she can practice her butt off when she's not swimming and maybe make it at least one of her other years in highschool.
I have started college and have turned 18. Most of my updates are on my other blog. Link again is: http://notyour-average.blogspot.com/ I'm loving college, especially being at an extremely small college, where there are a total of 22 people who are Music majors. And that's total, not just my class. Seniors, Juniors, total of 22 people. I love it, though. There's definitely a team kind of idea/mood to the whole group of both students and professors. When we have our recital class (a class where every music major comes and listens to fellow peers perform prepared pieces... hehe just thought that'd be fun to type.. anyway..), we listen and critique our peers, and the mood of everything seems like we're discussing things as musicians, all of us, not as educated adults v. students. It's so cool. And I absolutely LOVE it. Though the gender factor (it's 7-3) is kind of a downer (plus, it's CLARKE COLLEGE.... if you add the idea of Dubuque PLUS crazy college students who love throwing parties... yeah. This area is something like 2nd on the list of most drinking per capita in the world or something (2nd only to a place in Germany I believe, at least it used to be), and Clarke, UD and Loras can be thanked for that. ;-) ) Ya. not my kind of crowd. So this weekend I'm going to a multi-stake YSA Conference in Nauvoo. It should be really fun and a great experience, and I hope to meet some people and make some friends. Oh, I also had my last day of work at the Humane Society today and I start work at Dairy Queen on Thursday. I am in 2 orchestras, too: the Dubuque Youth Symphony and the UWPlatteville Symphony.
Molly is busy busy busy!! On Thursdays, she has class from 8 am-10pm! And she has wednesdays and fridays off, but she works then. She no longer works at the day care. She now works for Americorp, which is something I can't explain. :P Look it up. She works at an elementary school though, helping kids at risk. She absolutely LOVES it. I don't get to see much of her, but when I do she's usually either busy, working on school work, excersizing (which she is getting sooo fit she looks awesome.. I need to start :-o ), but she's almost always happy. :)

This fall the Priest family has gotten RID of cable TV! It's gone! Turn on the TV and you get nothing. And I LOVE it. Love love love it. I don't mind TV, but I perfer to do something I love, and I love doing something useful. Watching TV is not useful. Unless you're finding the weather or checking something on the news.

Mother and Father are excersizing and dieting like crazy and the results are showing! My dad has lost about 70 lbs and my mom almost 30. And they're not nearly done yet. My dad wants to lose a total of about 95-100 lbs to be back at the weight he was in the army. A lot of that was muscle. But boy he looks great. Today they even went through the closets and got all of the clothes that don't fit them any more and took them to the Discovery Shop and other charitable places, and good will. Took around 6 giant garbage bags full of clothes. I'm so proud of them! :)

holy cow I just heard a firework go off nearby and something went bang in the backyard and it got my heart pounding.
Goodness I should stop ranting and go to bed.
Well, that is our family update!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Jillaine

Jillaine is part of a family that my family is friends with. She is from the Dubuque ward, living in Utah right now for school. She is an amazing singer, such a unique voice, and she is currently in an online contest to win an hour of radio time performance and play for the opening of a smashburger restauraunt in Utah. I know some of you are on facebook, but you'll more likely see this before you see it on facebook. Just go to this link: http://www.smashburger.com/bands/vote_utah.php

And find Jillaine's video (it says "Jillaine" on it... sorry for the difficulty ;-) ), and vote! The publicity would be just great for her career, and we just really want her to win. :)

Many thanks!

-Laura