an eventful month

I thought April was going to be quite uneventful, but I was wrong.

NEWS TIME:

First of all, I'm in a show. Yay! It's the Women's Playwright Fest and it opens on Thursday and runs for three weeks. I feel quite honored to have been offered a role- there were so many people at the auditions. Definitely a bit of a confidence booster after so many rejections!

In May, I'm going with three of my best friends from high school to SAN DIEGO! We are super excited. It's our first "just because" trip ever and it will be amazing.

Another thing to make this month (and the next) even busier...

We are moving!

We're moving into this townhome in May. And it's on post! Jack and I decided that it was best for us to live on post for a ton of reasons:

1) He will live a few minutes minutes from his office, if that. Instead of waking up at 4:30 and leaving at 4:55 in the morning, he can leave at 5:45 to make it to PT (physical training). And then he can come home. And shower. And eat breakfast. And take a nap if he wants. And go back. When he's running errands, he can come home for lunch. Or to say hi. And after work, it will take him 5 minutes  to get home instead of nearly 40. And he can ride his bike. 

2) We can walk to church. And to the PX (mall-type thing) and to the commissary (grocery store). And to the park. And dog park. And other places.

3) Gas savings, for obvious reasons.

4)  I will make friends. And live near them. And that's gonna be awesome... 

....Because as positive as I try to be and as busy as I try to be, I am lonely here. Jack and I met one neighbor before he left. I finally saw him again, and he asked how Jack and I were enjoying Colorado- and I told him that Jack was actually deployed! He was very nice and told me to let him know if I needed anything, but that was literally five months after Jack left and it wasn't because he noticed. 

Contrast that with when I pulled my car up to take pictures of our (soon-to-be) house. Our soon-to-be neighbor, Sarah, was outside with her four kids ("Yep, we are the big crazy family!"), and we talked for a little bit, and she made it a point to learn my name, and she knows that Jack's deployed. I'll take her four kids playing outside any day over the isolation that I feel here. So I am really excited. It will be a lot of work to move on my own, but it will be worth it.

PICTURE TIME:
Let's see, I never posted any pictures from Jessie's visit (in February! eek), or Ariel's, and I also went home at the end of March as well. Unfortunately, the only pictures I have from Ariel's visit are with her in her WEDDING DRESS (!!!), so I can't share it here. But her dress is beautiful and she is going to be the most gorgeous bride.

Our ski trip!

Just gorgeous.

We went cross country skiing. It wasn't physically exhausting like I thought it would be, but it was hard to maneuver because of the shape of the skis and I fell down A LOT. I definitely enjoyed the downhill more, but it was really cool to be in the back mountain trails by ourselves. Except for the bear paw prints. Yeah, then it was not so fun to be in the back mountain trails by ourselves.

Here is the view up on the top of the mountain where we went downhill skiing.

Wolf Creek was pretty awesome. It was so inexpensive and and laid-back... and the runs were HARD! Lots of moguls. I would love to go back though. 

This table here survived my aunt's lake house (including 6 kids) and four years with me (and my roommates and their dinner parties) in college. It needed a makeover or to go to the thrift store. You really can't tell in this picture, but paint is chipping, the tabletop is covered in paint and markers, and the stain is fading. One of the chairs was totally broken and I finally had to get rid of it and come up with another solution. I snagged this bench when it was on sale at target. This was my first major refinishing project, and I'm really excited to share what I did!

I had to sand it inside (lots and lots of sand in my house). Actually, in the throes of this project, my friend had an emergency and I watched her two year old for the afternoon/evening. The kitchen was a mess, but I had a spray bottle full of water and castille soap, and he had so much fun spraying it EVERYWHERE that we cleaned up the entire kitchen. He was even spraying the walls. I literally could not get him to stop cleaning, even when we were done.

I took the final pictures at night, so it seems king of dark and  brooding to me, but it's actually so bright and cheerful. It looks amazing. Trust me!

Here is my cousin Gracie the night before her bat mitzvah. We had the whole family over for dinner at our house after Friday services. I can't believe she's 13 already! I used to babysit her when she was a toddler! Gracie is wearing the heels that I wore to a dance in high school. She's had the shoes for years and they finally fit her, so she had to go out and find a dress that matched them for this occasion. Isn't that cute?

Gracie has always been my little twin; you can sort of see here how we look alike (despite the poor quality picture). My mom helped my aunt put together her slideshow, and it's kind of crazy how similar our pictures growing up are, only her hair has always been darker. We have followed the exact same growth chart too. She's in seventh grade now, and she wears the same size jeans I did then. And she's probably going to barely hit 5 feet tall, like me. Yep, my little twin!!

Here is a picture of something exciting at home! I have to wait a little bit to elaborate though. :)

VIDEO TIME:

Here is the short that I did last fall is currently playing at the WorldFest Film Festival in Houston. Keep your fingers crossed that it wins a Remi award!

<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/76237042" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/76237042">The Beautiful Mundane</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user5227252">Cody Courmier</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Our wedding trailer!
 <iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/89869112" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/89869112">Jack + Emily Wedding Trailer</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/romanticreels">Romantic Reels Media</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

UNRELATED EXCITING THINGS:

My sister-in-law, Katie, got engaged! And my bestie, Jessie, got engaged the weekend later! And after all the time in the next year and a half that they have to get married, they both decided to look at June 20th at different Catholic churches in the same city a year from now. Have you ever seen that movie where someone has to attend two weddings on the same day? Considering Jessie and her fiancé, Kerry, were both in our wedding, how crazy would that be for Jack and I if that actually happened to us? We'd go from one rehearsal dinner to the next and one bachelor/ette party to the next and one wedding to the next. ;)  Hopefully that won't happen, since Katie and her fiancé haven't officially set the date yet and they now know of this conundrum for Jack and I. But it had me laughing imaging the scenario!