Living with nature

I have enjoyed living here in these apartments.......until now. We have a furry little friend who has decided to spend his nights crawling around in our walls. Such a fun experience when you are awakened by the sound of little clawed feet digging into the ceiling above your head. We have brought this problem to the front office several times and still have had no results.

I am very close to taking my hammer and busting a whole in the wall and snatching that thing out of there and placing it on the desk of the slow moving office worker. We think it is a raccoon. We saw one last year on our roof and heard it in the wall in the living room. It was gone after we told the front office about it, so we figured it would be quickly taken care of this time too. We have heard it a few times ....talking....then a few nights ago it was dragging something around in the ceiling in our bedroom. (Dragging what?!?!?!?!) It seems to like it in there, for every night this past week it has been up there....keeping me awake. Jake can sleep through most of it. Last night I had had enough and Jake got out of bed and started tapping the ceiling, which just made it scramble into the vent and wait it out.

Jake is going to go back to the front office today and talk to a manager. We have brought this problem up several times in the last two weeks to the same girl. She just takes down the apartment number and we still have our friend burning the midnight oil and I am sick of it. If it isn't gone by the weekend I am getting my hammer!

My ears!!!!!

This past Sunday was our first Easter as a married couple. Jake has actually been to the last 3 Shafer Easter get-to-gethers. Easter was the first time Jake was thrown to the wolves so to speak with my family, so Easter is always special to me. Jake and I made each other Easter baskets, I had planned on getting up early Easter morning to hide jelly beans in the house for Jake to find. That is was they did when he was a kid, but the warmth of the bed overpowered me and I stayed there for another hour.

We went to church with the whole family taking up 1 and a half rows while Jake sat up front to translate the meeting for the Spanish speakers in our ward. He was also right behind the two musical numbers we were "blessed" to hear that morning. He had to keep a straight face while one woman was belting out "HIS HANDS!!!!!!!!!!!" into the microphone for nearly a ten minutes. Jake sent me a text that read "DAMN! My ears!" It was hard to keep a straight face. I don't understand why musical numbers in the church have to be a night at the Rhyman and can't just be a hymn. I guess that is a curse of living in Music City.

update

So I haven't updated this blog since before Jake and I got married. Life is going well for both of us. Jake is currently working at Best Buy until we leave in January. He enjoys it well enough, but he is learning retail isn't as fun as it could be. Being told by managers that you have to sell a customer something they don't want or need is really hard for him.

I am working at Advanced Alarm Technologies where my sister, Jennifer, is the office manager. I am also working as an Artist in Residence at the Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville. I have a studio space to work in and a gallery space to show in. I am really enjoying it, and it will be something to put on my graduate school applications.

We are both just enjoying the time we have until we leave in January. Now we just have to find somebody to stay in our apartment while we are gone :) Any takers?

two weeks notice

Well, in two weeks from today we will be getting married! I am so excited to be sealed to Jake for time and all eternity. I got back from a month in Italy about two weeks ago. It kind of sucked to be away for a month, right before we get married. It just made me want to get married even more. I guess it means the poor sucker is stuck with me if I missed him as much as I did while I was gone. I guess all the walking in Italy did me good, because my wedding dress fits now! I was going to have to alter it a bit, but not now! Sweet!

On a non-wedding note, the 4th of July is huge in my family...HUGE! We always go to my brother's (Sam)n house. We grill, we swim, we play games, we have a blast! This year my sister Jennifer, my brother Philip, and myself went to play volleyball at the church before the big gathering. We played non-stop for 3 hours.....we are very sore...my muscles hate me...a lot.

I hope everyone had a great holiday and we will see you all very soon! Two weeks! Kind a weird! Love you all!

photos

here is the link to my sister's web page. She has put up the photos from the shower! Thanks Becky!

http://www.davis-homepage.com/

May Showers bring....oh nevermind

So my shower was May 10th! Tracie and Jennifer did a amazing job with it! It was lots of fun! They made so much good food! They even bought Fulin Sushi for me! That rocked! My sister Becky flew in for the weekend so she could come to the shower! That was great too! She had to leave Sunday morning to get back in time for Mother's Day with her family! She will also be posting some of the photos she took at the shower on her website, which I will post a link to later.

Jennifer made a video called The Daily Report, which is basically a huge joke on Jake. I almost peed on myself while watching it! For those of you lucky enough to be coming for the wedding will be able to watch it when you come into town. For those of you not coming, you will miss it!

We got a lot of good stuff! We got cooking ware, dishes, Foreman grill, those can-things that you put sugar and stuff in, dish towel, shower curtain, lamps, measuring cups, rolling pin, Annabeth painted me a picture, and Kate-Lin Mae got Jake his transformer towel! There was also a cake decorating contest Top Chef style! It was a great day and I am so thankful that Tracie and Jennifer were able to do that for me. Thank you to everybody you came. Thank you MaryJane for letting us use your house and for all that you are doing with helping me plan the wedding.

Philip took photos of Jake and I at Centennial Park that morning before the shower. I added them to the photo gallery link. Go check em out!

I know it has been a while since I posted anything. I've been a little busy with school, work, actually planning this wedding, getting everything done for graduating. So sorry for the delay on any news.

It looks like I am going to get to go to Italy for a full month now. There are still a few kinks that need to be ironed out, but the trip will be May 20th to June 20th. Last week I went with MaryJane to scout out a possible place for the reception. She had found a place in Franklin. There is this place called "The Factory". It is so cleveryly named because it is located in an old factory. It has a huge ball room where I had my proms, but it has a bunch of little shops, stores, and resturants. There is an art gallery upstairs that hosts wedding receptions. MaryJane hit the nail on the head. It is perfect! A husband and wife own the gallery and the husband told us that we should talk to his wife for she was the all knowing with dates and other things. So we've been calling and seeing what days are open and we have settled on July 19th. I am very happy! It is going to be wonderful! Way to go MaryJane!