So quick recap. Around the time out our last post, I found out that I finally landed a pretty perfect teaching job. This was kind of huge for us. After we moved to Asheville, I starting working part time for a fabulous non-profit called FEAST teaching after-school cooking/nutrition classes at local middle schools twice a week. While incredibly rewarding, two hours a week does not a career make. I needed a full time job. The field of Family and Consumer Sciences is pretty specialized and if you want to teach in public schools there tends to be a very limited number of positions per school. I checked pretty much every day for a year to see if there were any open positions in Asheville or the surrounding counties. There had been nothing and it was pretty disheartening. We had started contemplating moving to Athens, GA, where my best friend lives and where there was a teaching position. I had taken the Praxis to get my teaching certification in other subjects to make myself more marketable. The focus was get a teaching job, any teaching job. While in Ireland with my mom and grandmother, my dad emailed to ask if I was still checking on openings while on holiday because, if not, I should check. There was something on there — a high school position in FACS at a school 15 min from our house! While not perfect since all my experience has been with middle school or younger and high school kind of scared the shit out of me, it was something and beggars certainly weren’t going to be choosers over an age preference. If they would hire me, I’d teach it. Hire me they did, and so began my second, first year of teaching. First year teacher. ‘nough said. Plus I kept teaching my two classes a week for FEAST.

In September we took a little holiday to the south of France for Z’s childhood friend Nick’s wedding to Cecile. Cecile is from Nice hence the beautiful location of said wedding. This had been on the books long before there was even a glimmer of hope at a teaching job, so I was really fortunate that my school worked with me so that I could still be able to go and be a part of their beautiful wedding.

When we got back we decided that since the final piece of the puzzle, me getting a teaching job, had fallen into place that it was time to start looking for a house. Our lease was up at the end of December and while we had the option to renew it, we were kind of ready to find our forever home. Engaging the help of a realtor, we looked and looked and looked at lots of ugly ducklings before finding the one. Not without it’s flaws, but definitely livable, we bit the bullet and bought a house! We’ll talk more about that process another day, plus we have lots more projects coming up as we make this house on the hill our own.Second semester rolls around, I get a new batch of kiddos and I get to start repeating curriculum (making my life exactly 1 million times easier). We realize that we are getting married in about 6 months and aside from finding a venue, dress, and photographer we haven’t planned anything. So we get down to it. I can’t wait to share some of the more exciting details of the wedding with you guys as well as some awesome DIYs. Our wedding couldn’t have been a more perfect representation of our love and the community we share that love with. Afterwards we set off to explore the rainforests of Costa Rica for a week with NO internet! We got to hike everyday. We went surfing, kayaking, rappelled down a few waterfalls, met lots of monkey friends as well as a baby sloth(!); it was perfect.

And so here we are, back in the real world with a real world amount of stuff to fill up our days. Our plan is to get back into the blogging game slowly and as more of a team than a one woman show. We are eager to share some of the insights we’ve learned over the past year as well a the QUICK recipes that have been working for us on these busy days. Talk soon!