Front Porch View

Today we're sharing our front porch views and I have to say, I'm jealous of all of you with open country space in your view. We're right in the middle of town so we don't have anything too exciting.

When I share that my family is very close people think we live in the same town but I do have to admit that the house on the corner....(you can see the peak of the house but it's not the one fully pictured in the photo)...yupp that's my parents house. Just across the street and one house away on this side but I tell people across the street and 4 houses away...still true on my side of the street but not quite as close sounding. HAHA!

Now from the other side! My favorite things in this photo? The butterfly lattice (when my FIL passed away a butterfly landed over my heart right outside of the funeral so he is always my butterfly), the blooming tulips (you can't see because of the shadows), and the stone that says Vítáme Vás (meaning "We Welcome You" in Czech.)

Someday...someday...someday we will have a gorgeous country view to share but for now this is our little piece of the world! 

To all of my fellow Nebraskans...enjoy this weather and I hope it lasts this time!!

Stefanie

A Day in the Good Life

Ok...I'm a little green and learning about this "Link Up" thing. I had to try it since that Kelsey girl is a fellow Czech-Slovak Queen and happens to be on my Scentsy Family Team so I figured she wouldn't lead me down the wrong path.

Oh my...how do I even describe a day in the life of me? It's different every day and all of them are busy, that's for sure. I'll just describe today for ya to give you an idea.

On My Way to School

Tuesdays are my "sleep in days" so I get to sleep in until 8 or 8:30 depending on if I have to shower or not. This morning I got up at 8am and got in the shower and got myself ready for the day. Since I'm in hair school my hair and makeup has to be done every day so today I blow dried my hair and put on some makeup then curled my hair...fancy fancy!

Then it's on my way to school, of course I chose the cosmetology school that is furthest from my house. Clock in by 10am or in this mornings case...right AT 10am. We start the day with practical class and today where we usually work on our mannequins but today we talked about the importance of customer service and got to bust out our acting skills in acting out a good customer service experience and a bad one. After practical class we go to theory where we usually have good old book work but today we were ahead and got a free day so we had a food day

Drove the Mustang Today

and watched Bridesmaids. WOOT WOOT! After a very hard morning it was time for lunch and I rode along with a friend while she went tanning and then back to school to spend the afternoon on the floor.

My first client of the afternoon was my lovely mannequin and then I had Brad's cousin Nicole in for the afternoon for a highlight and a cut. She's awesome so it was a great day chatting and catching up while I did her hair. Tuesdays while they are the morning I go in late they are also the evenings that I stay late so I don't get to clock out and go home until 7:30pm.

As soon as I got home tonight I cut my mom's hair but in return she brought us dinner as my mother in law was in town so we can take her dog Buffy in to have her eye

One of the Last Photos With Both Eyes

removed at the vet tomorrow. Poor girl has here eye all swelled up. :( Hopefully she will be feeling better tomorrow.

Just relaxing on the couch now updating all of you before it's time for bed. Starting the day again tomorrow at 7am to include school, a funeral, and practice with my Young Czechs of Nebraska Choir (a kids choir I teach of kids from age 3-12 that learn to sing Czech polkas and waltzes in English and Czech.)

Better spend some time with our little family (plus 2 tonight. ) Keep the family of Czech Days Charlie in your prayers as we celebrate his life tomorrow.

Stefanie Husak

Me and the Infamous Czech Days Charlie (Charlie Keller) Love This Man and All He Did for Our Heritage!
I hope he starts the polka party in heaven....we might be seeing a lot of thunderstorms over the next few months! :) 

Our "Extreme Home Makeover"

Well after we got our 3rd puggie last fall we have noticed that they have started marking territory. Yea...not a fun habit to break! The final straw came when we found pee on my baby photo album (which was hand sewn by my mom to match my baby nursery and cross stitched with my name and date of birth on the front.

No More Kitchen Table!

We have started potty training over from the beginning! We no longer have a kitchen table to make room for the 3 kennels we now have in our kitchen. We beginning to reinforce who is the alpha dog in our house (Daisy is1st, Lilly is our 2nd, and Max is 3rd in our pack) with feeding, attention, and treats. We also emptied everything out of our bedroom and carpet cleaned the floors first with vinegar, 2nd with bleach, and 3rd with a pet enzyme cleaner.

All of the Kids in Their "Rooms"

The kids are now learning to spend the day in their kennels and even sleep in their kennels (I think this part is even harder for their mommy than it is for them!) They are only in the house if they are in the room with us and if they go out of our sight in the house then they have to wear what we call their "fancy pants." Any guesses what these are?? Yupp...doggy diapers! :) Not only is it a good laugh for us but we can let them go out of the room and not stress that we will be starting this all over again.

The Bedroom Set We Have Picked Out

While we had everything cleaned out of our bedroom we decided it was a good time to get the new bedroom set we had registered for when we registered for our wedding. We also need to re-paint as our previous room was brown and the new theme will be silver. We have also decided to decorate with accents from our wedding. The bedroom set we have picked is Jennifer Lopez Old Hollywood from Kohls. We are going to paint our room grey and frame a photo of us from the wedding in black and white to hang behind our bed. Our accents in the room will be from our wedding with the black and white damask and red roses (my bouquet) and even our unity sand will fit into the theme of the room. It will be a special room and very much ours! :)

Traditional Backsplash in a Czech Kitchen

Czech Painted Plate

Last night we re-visited my idea to decorate our kitchen in a Czech theme. I know this is kind of an odd theme for a kitchen but when we got our new TV and got rid of our old entertainment center I also lost the storage place for all of my Czech crystal that I've received as gifts or prizes in my years as a Czech-Slovak Queen. I also collected several other items (including the 2 posted above) I want to display and this seemed the best place. The issue was that I don't have room for a china hutch to put all of this in and the best place I could thing of was on top of the cabinets which my mom pointed out would ruin them if I cooked and there was grease in the air. :( My dad came over last night and we are going to put rope light up on top of my cabinets and he is going to create a glass window in front of it to seal the items in so I can put it all up there.

I am beyond excited! I bought this house in August of 2007 and it has always been my house but it finally feels like it's becoming a HOME now! :) Not just a home but OUR home. One room at a time is all we can do with our crazy schedule but it's so much fun to see our ideas coming together and have things on the walls etc.

I will definitely post photos before and after in each room so you can see all of our progress as we go. Do any of you have any ideas to share on how we can make either of these rooms even more special? We would love to hear your ideas or special things you did to make your house your home after you were married.  

Till Next Time!
Stefanie Husak

Live "The Good Life" and Blog About It? Join the Fun!

My good friend Kelsey over at Keeping Up With Kelsey started me on this blog thing again. I've been a blogger on and off for years but thought maybe I would have some fun and meet some new friends on my newest attempt to blog along with keeping everyone posted on what is going on in our household. This little gal started a group to help all of us Nebraska Bloggers to connect with each other and I had to share. :)

If you're from Nebraska and you're a blogger be sure to follow the link below and learn more about our group. If you're not a blogger yet you should still follow the link and check out some of the awesome corn fed blogs she has listed there and when you're ready...join in the fun!

We're Famous!

We made front page news again! :)

For those that haven't heard our story, we met in October of 2008 after my mom actually met Brad and told him he had to meet her daughter (I later found out she even sent him photos of me before we met.) I was very involved in Czech Heritage events around the state and he came to a Lincoln Czech Club meeting where my mom made it VERY obvious that she was trying to play match maker. She made sure there was an extra seat for Brad right next to me and later in the evening asked him to have his polka band play at the clubs Christmas party and then proceeded to ask him if they had a singer...because she knew someone that could sing with the band he just had to exchange phone numbers with her. Yupp, she volunteered me to try to get us to spend time together. We began to get together once a week to practice  for the Christmas party and after we performed I asked him to teach me to play the accordion. 

I had wanted to learn to play the accordion for many years and never had the opportunity. (I wanted to learn to do a little of everything when I was a kid so my parents has to set limits.) I caught on pretty quickly and we had a few lessons from January through March. In March I found out I would be crowned the Lincoln Czech-Slovak Queen and decided I would play accordion at my crowning for my talent. I also decided I would incorporate playing the accordion in my talent for the Nebraska pageant. We began to meet every week and just as my mom gave up on us dating, I began imagining it. 

I was crowned the Nebraska Czech-Slovak Queen that June and a week later Brad asked me to go to Larry the Cable Guy at Memorial Stadium on the 4th of July. I couldn't figure out if it was a date because he had won the tickets from work and I didn't know if it would just be the two of us or if there would be others joining us. When we went and he asked if he could buy me anything, a drink, a shirt, etc. I knew it was a date and I was excited. We continued to go out to Czech events, fireworks displays, and eventually made it exclusive. 

I competed for the title of Miss Czech-Slovak US in August of 2010 and was in complete shock when I was crowned at the end of the weekend. I had watched this pageant every year since I was born (the pageant began 2 months after I was born) and had always dreamed of being on that stage. I don't think I ever imagined being there and being crowned! Everything that had just happened was still soaking in when Brad came on stage. He had a microphone and asked everyone to give me a round of applause for a job well done. (At this point I was annoyed with him for stealing my moment in the spotlight.) He then said he was up there for another reason....proceeded with the mushy gushy stuff and then got on one knee in front of everyone and asked me to marry him. It took me a moment to process what had just happened and I finally said yes. I found out he had asked my dad's permission two evenings before, my mom's permission the morning before, and even my brothers permission the evening before. The video even made it to the local news and they played it the following evening!

My Crowning Moment

The Proposal

We planned our wedding for September 15, 2012. When we first started dating I realized our parents shared an anniversary and I may or may not have looked up the next time it was on a Saturday. :) This gave us a year to travel with my Miss Czech-Slovak US title and a year to plan a wedding. Things got a little more crazy in the year to plan our wedding as I tried to finish my degree (so I could complete things "the right way" in life) and Brad's dad passed away that spring. It all came together and we had My Big Fat Czech Wedding or as some of the attendants called it...the wedding of the century. We invited over 800 people and had a wedding party of 26. :)

The short and sweet version of this was written in the Czech Newspaper for Valentines Day in February. Czech it out: