Exciting News!!

No, we're not having a baby. But keep reading, I promise it's good!

Before I let the cat out of the bag, let me just say that our exciting news is not shared out of arrogance or conceitedness, but rather so that you can share in our joy and excitement of accomplishing a goal that we've been working very hard to meet.

As of today, with the exception of our mortgage, Andrew and I are DEBT FREE! Since April of 2009, we've been working to pay off Andrew's car payment and both of our student loans, which at that time combined to a little over $43,000.

We decided to do this after reading Dave Ramsey's book, The Total Money Makeover. The "Debt Snowball" is Baby Step 2 (of 7), but it's certainly the most difficult of the 7 Baby Steps. So yes, while we do have several more steps to go, we wanted to do what many other Dave Ramsey fans have done upon completing Baby Step 2. This is us shouting:

WE'RE

DEBT

FREE!!

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The White House...In the Woods?

This past weekend was my final weekend away from home. Although I have really enjoyed seeing my sister and her family each weekend, I'm really looking forward to being home. I've only got 3 more days of class left. I can see the light!

This past weekend was yet another enjoyable one. On Friday night we watched Conviction and ate our fill of Sarah's deer chili. On Saturday we all went to the outlet mall in Leesburg. Andrew and I found a few good deals at the Gap outlet, but we really didn't find too much.

On the way home we drove through a really nice neighborhood with ridiculously huge houses. We all found the one below to be particularly interesting. It's a scaled-down replica of the White House. I mean, really? Who does this?

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To My Valentine

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Deer Sightings and Our Fave Commercials

I had a case of the Mondays today so I was itching to get outside for a run after class. I went around the loop 4 times for a total of 5.3 miles. While I was running I saw at least 6 deer just prancing around like they were right at home. I tried to get a picture of 2 of them with my cell phone but the quality is pretty terrible.


I think these were the same deer that walked right past our classroom windows last week. What more could you expect from these crazy city deer?

I think I watched more of the Super Bowl last night than in previous years only because I had absolutely nothing else to do. My favorite part about the Super Bowl is, of course, the commercials. I didn't catch all of them, but this one definitely made me LOL when I was sitting in my room all by myself.

Andrew said this one was his favorite:

I'll let you decide which one you like...obviously our definitions of a "good commercial" differ greatly.

Only 8 more days of class! Woohoo!

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Sarah's Birthday

This weekend we celebrated Sarah's 34th birthday. I once again enjoyed being away from prison my hotel room and staying at my sister's house. My parents and Andrew came up to visit as well. On Friday evening we ate some cake and watched The Social Network.


On Saturday we went to the mall for a little while and later we continued our tradition of going to the Japanese steakhouse for dinner (we go every year for Sarah's birthday).

Landon did so well at the restaurant but he was a little unsure what to think of the fire. I think he was pretty mesmerized:

Sarah & Brian

Mom & Dad

Andrew & me

Sarah got to hit the gong since it was her birthday.

So now I'm back in my room trying to pass the time until dinner and the Super Bowl. Apparently they are having some sort of "party" for us here this evening.

I'm hoping that this week will go by as quickly as last week did. I've only got one more weekend away and about two weeks (9 days) of classes left. So long for now!

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"It's Groundhog Day!"

It's quite appropriate that I'm giving an update on Groundhog Day because I'm starting to feel like my life here is much like Phil's life in the movie Groundhog Day. Yep. It's the same thing. Over. And over. And over again.

(if you get our blog through e-mail, go to the blog website or click here to watch the video)

Today it was a little warmer and sunny outside but still a little windy. I decided to go running outside after class anyways because I realized that I haven't taken a breath of fresh air since returning on Sunday afternoon. It was very refreshing. In fact, I'm being extremely efficient right now and letting some cold fresh air into my room with the heat running. I also like to be efficient by letting the shower run as hot as possible for about 10 minutes to humidify my room because it's like the Sahara in here and I have to peel my contacts off of my eyes every night and I wake up each morning with red scratchy eyes.

Anyways, here's a pretty picture I took while I was out running today. It was SO nice just to get out of the building for a little while. Sorry I blocked the corner of the picture with my glove...


This evening after dinner I was walking to another section of the building to play some ping pong. I was walking in a section that I had never been in before and I stumbled across this creepy staircase that looks like it goes on forever and ever:


This picture is pretty much the epitome of this facility. There's so much concrete everywhere and it just doesn't make sense.

The food this week has been sub par compared to the first week. But the word on the street is that there will be another 900 people here next week (the VA is currently the only resident) so the food should get better.

I'm looking forward to seeing my family again this weekend. This time we'll be celebrating my sister's birthday so I'm sure it will be a good time. After that I will only have 2 more weeks left! Yay!

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