The Hills

A whole new world…

2012-02-06T14:46:00.002-07:00

Right after I got my surgery, Dan kept singing the Aladdin song to me (in a Jasmine voice). So I thought it would make a good title… anyway, it has been two weeks since I had Lasik so I thought I would give a quick update.

The surgery and everything went well and it was pretty dang quick. They were really good about telling me exactly what to expect so there were no surprises. It didn’t hurt, but the worst part was when there was something holding my eye open while the suction cup thing was put on my eye. I had to stare at a bright light and it was really uncomfortable because I wanted to look away and blink really badly but I couldn’t. It was over in about a minute though. The actual laser part took 17 seconds for one eye and 20 seconds for the other eye so it was really fast and didn’t hurt.

Afterwards, we went home and I slept on the way home and for about 1 hour when we got home. When I woke up, my eyes were really sensitive to light so I just stared at the wall in the dark for awhile and then put on my sunglasses and watched TV later on. For about 2 days afterward, it felt like I had sand in my eyes but it wasn’t bad at all. And I could see right away! It just got better every day.

Here are the top 10 things that I have noticed and that I love about having Lasik:

10. Wearing headbands. I don’t wear tons of headbands but because of my dumb glasses, I really couldn’t wear headbands. It’s nice to wear the stretchy ones when I’m working out too.

9. I don’t have to deal with glasses and a towel on my head. Wrapping my hair in a towel and then putting on glasses doesn’t really work.

8. I can tell which bottle is shampoo and which is conditioner in the shower. Seeing in the shower in general is awesome. I could never tell which was shampoo and which was conditioner until I held it next to my nose. Being able to see my shampoo, face wash and see to shave my legs is great! We have a glass shower door and it’s also nice to be able to see Dan while he’s getting ready or whatever. He usually is flexing for me and being able to see that totally rocks. Scandalous I know…

7. Camping will be easy. It’s not like we camp every weekend, but we do like to camp and be outside in the summer a lot and not dealing with contacts will be GREAT. I don’t have to worry about having clean hands and a dirty contacts and blah blah…contact stuff.

6. Working out is not as annoying. My glasses would constantly slide down my nose or fall off my face if I was doing push ups or something. They would even fog up sometimes if I was really working hard. Side note: Jillian Michaels 30 day shred is AWESOME. I seriously love it and Dan loves it too! It’s freakishly hard though but a great quick workout.

5. My glasses don’t fog up when I open the oven. This was a surprisingly annoying problem and I cook and bake relatively often so suddenly going blind from fogged glasses when I opened the oven was a small problem that I don’t have anymore.

4. I can rub my eyes. (well soon I can…I’m waiting another month or two before rubbing them just to be safe!) This is such a weirdly wonderful feeling. Rubbing my eyes can be really satisfying in a strange way but it’s awesome to not worry about contacts.

3. I can wear make up. I could wear make up before I got LASIK, but once I started wearing glasses for the past year, I haven’t been able to see well enough to actually do my eye makeup without it taking 30 minutes. It was nearly impossible to put on eyeliner and all that so I would just wear mascara. Now I can do my eyes again and I got a bunch of new makeup from Ulta that I LOVE!

2. No more contacts or glasses. For at least 20 more years until I’m old. For those of you wondering, 45 and up=old. Actually 35 is old too but hopefully I won’t need reading glasses for a long time! So mom and dad-that means you are ultra old.

1. Wake up from sleeping and see. This is the most wonderful, unexplainable part of getting Lasik. This is something I can never remember doing before. I never slept in my contacts and if I napped in them, they would get dry and blurry so this is totally new to me. I was reaching for my glasses out of habit for a week or so but then I would remember I didn’t need them and it was amazing. I still want to die when my alarm goes off (even though I go to bed at 9 most of the time), but at least I can SEE!

I love being able to see and like I said, my vision has gotten better every day. They say it can take a few months or up to a year for everything to get completely sharp and for halos at night to go away. My right eye is still a little blurrier than my left because it had to be corrected more and the suction cup made it swell more than my left eye. But even that isn’t noticeable or bothersome at all. Getting Lasik was one of the best things I have ever done and I don’t regret it for a second! I’m so glad I had the opportunity to do this and I’m so grateful for Dan’s total support and sacrifice (his paychecks are less now because we used Flex Spending money to pay for it).

And a side note-we used our Perkstreet debit card to pay for Lasik and then we got reimbursed from our Flex Spending account. We got 2% cash back for paying for the surgery, which was awesome! We saved up our “perks” and got $400 deposited into our account about a month ago and we used that money to pay for some our vacation to Puerto Rico in March! I love Perkstreet!

If anyone has questions about Lasik or Hoopes or whatever, just ask me in the comments and I would love to give you any information that I can about it.

Eagles and the Great Salt Lake

2012-01-24T20:54:00.001-07:00

First of all-I CAN SEE! I’m a new woman and I can actually see without glasses or contacts! I can’t believe how amazing and wonderful it is and everything went really well. I just have some dryness in my right eye and it’s a little more blurry than the left because of that. But I can still see really well and the dryness should go away. Being able to see is such a blessing and I’m so grateful that I could have Lasik! More on that later…

My little niece Emily got baptized a few weeks ago and it was the same day as my nephew Brigham. Emmy lives in South Jordan and Brig lives in Idaho so Dan went North and I went South. It was great and I got to speak at her baptism! I loved it and being part of it was awesome. Sarah is loving on her baby brother Matt (below).

We came across an amazing discovery in our very own neighborhood a few weeks ago. Dan was taking down the Christmas lights and saw an eagle fly right over our house! He watched it and came and got me and we followed it and realized that there is an “eagle tree” less than half a mile from our house where tons of eagles hang out!

The above pic is the best one we had with the most we have seen at one time in the tree (9 I believe). They just chill on the tree and then fly around our neighborhood and out over the Great Salt Lake! Apparently they come here during winter and you can see a lot of them around Farmington Bay. We’re not too far from there and apparently they like this tree! It is just across a corn field on the edge of our neighborhood where Dan and I spent many hours running. It’s pretty crazy to see these huge eagles in the wild and at our house and not Yellowstone!

Mike and Hailey came over on Saturday and we walked across the field to get a better look. Some of them flew away, but it was pretty awesome to watch them and get a few pictures. The weather was gorgeous too! I thought Dan was going to lost his mind because he was so excited. He loves animals…

After the eagle adventure, we decided to drive about 2 miles north-west of our house and hike out around the ponds surrounding the Great Salt Lake. I was a bit skeptical about an adventure, but I should have known that with Mike and Dan together, we would definitely find an adventure.

It was so beautiful and not too cold at all! There were huge cattails and the ponds were frozen and white and the sky was bright blue.

Dan was totally ready to find an adventure.

We discovered the cattails were awesome and exploded if you squeezed them or hit each other with them. We had tons of fun with them and of course the boys beat each other with them and got covered in the seeds.

You can see the seeds that explode from the cattails on the bottom right of the picture below. We had that stuff all over us.

We cautiously walked out on one of the frozen ponds and soon found that it was completely frozen several inches thick. It was amazing and I couldn’t believe how beautiful and remote it was just a few miles from our house (I guess I can-we live in the boonies!).

We made some snow angels.

Mike and Hailey made some backwards snow angels.

We managed to entertain ourselves out there for a long time.

We made a long slide and the more we ran and slid on the ice, the slicker it got! It was awesome how far we slid. Mike said they used to do this on the streets in Russia.

Amazingly, no one slipped although it was close a few times.

We had a blast and it ended up being a great adventure for sure! We even got some sunshine on our white, pasty faces! Hurray!

New Eyes

2012-01-24T11:16:00.001-07:00

Well the time has finally come for me to get my eyes done! I’m getting Lasik on Thursday and I CANNOT WAIT! I did some obsessive research and talked it to death and I finally decided to go with Hoopes and get IntraLase. Hoopes costs more and I feel like you are paying for their advertising and hoop-la (no pun intended hahahaha) but I was able to get a Groupon to save a lot of money from Hoopes which made the price the same as other places I had looked at. I feel like I made a good decision and we will know for sure after Thursday afternoon! I can’t even imagine what it will be like to wake up in the morning and SEE. I’m so totally blind that it will completely change my life. On top of that, I have been wearing these stupid glasses constantly for the past 8 months so that will be even more wonderful!I can’t wait to get this done and enjoy my new eyes! Our trip to Puerto Rico will be awesome for so many reasons and not worrying about contacts or glasses will make it even better!

NewThanksmas Eve…or something?

2012-01-12T15:42:00.001-07:00

We got together with a bunch of high school friends a few days after Christmas to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Eve. I think it was called NewThanksmas Eve? Anyway, it was great to see friends we haven’t seen for a while and it’s so funny how many of us married each other from high school!

We dressed up in our holiday best and Dan and I found these sweet sweaters on sale at JCPenney for 80% off. Danny bought two different ones. Don’t hate. We had a yummy dinner, played Minute to Win it games and watched the Jazz game.

Danny starting us out with the cookie challenge. He was successful. Not surprised.

I did the pencil challenge where you had to balance pencils on the top of your had then flick them in the air and catch them. You keep adding more pencils to your your pile so by the end you have to balance a lot and it gets pretty hard! Luckily with my huge man hands and some concentration, I was able to pass the challenge! My last pile of pencils…I was concentrating and sweating a lot. Dan had to try to blow the Christmas cards over to the edge of the table but just enough that they didn’t fall off. He had to try to balance one side of the card on top of the table and the other half is hanging off the table. It was wicked hard and Alex was the only one was successfully passed this challenge.

Here is the group in our holiday outfits. I really loved Alex’s turtleneck and denim shirt and Dustin’s semi-transparent mustache that Kaley filled in with make up. Good times with WJ friends!

Christmastime

2012-01-08T18:54:00.002-07:00

I have a ton of pictures from Christmas that I still need to post. We had a good holiday but of course, it went by way too fast. The time off from work was great and I worked from home two days as well which was awesome. Hopefully I’ll be able to start working from home a couple days a week soon.

We went to Grandpa Goates’ house for Christmas Eve as usual. It was a madhouse and his house isn’t very big either! The grandkids (Grandpa Goates’ great-grandkids) got their usual pajamas and it’s so fun to see how excited they are to get new jammies.

Katelyn with her present before she got to open it.

Emily and Sarah with their presents.

The group (only one side of the room!) in grandpa’s basement.

The great-grandkids with their new pajamas.

Christmas morning was spent at our house and it was so fun to open presents with just us. Of course, Dan couldn’t wait to open presents until after our 9:00 church, so we got up early to open them. Dan put a ribbon on my Silhouette and put it under the tree even though I got it awhile ago.

Dan got a backpacking pack that he really wanted and a few other exciting things.

I got some nice cookie sheets, a new mixer/scraper thing for my Kitchenaid, some lotion and a gift card to get a massage! I can’t wait to go do that.

Dan showing off his new backpack and the lumberjack flannel shirt I got him. It have accepted the fact that he will never be into fashion and there is no chance he will wear anything that would ever be metro in any way. He loves camping/lumberjack/casual stuff so I just got him what I knew he would love! Luckily, he dresses up for work and he does enjoy getting dressed up for church and work so he looks awesome in his work and church clothes

I also got a sweet U of U sweatshirt that I rocked when Utah came back and won their bowl game in overtime! Sweet!

We spent some time at Dan’s parent’s house talking to his brother on a mission and exchanging presents. It was a smaller group this year because Mark’s family wasn’t there and Ben and Becky are in Mongolia.

Wellyn wanted a picture with his present…no idea why he made this weird face. He is a funny kid.

Mike, Hailey and Katelyn looking at the book we got Mike & Hailey for Christmas. It is a book of awkward family photos and it is pretty awesome.

We spent the rest of the day/evening at my parent’s house. We got some awesome presents and had a delicious dinner.

My grandma (Dad’s mom) moved in with my parents a few months ago after her husband passed away. They had been living in Texas and we didn’t see her much so it’s been nice to see her a lot more.

We had a great Christmas and New Years and it was pretty rough to go back to work last week! But now we have our trip to Puerto Rico to look forward to!

hello beach.

2012-01-04T15:22:00.001-07:00

In less than 2 months we are headed to the Caribbean to visit beautiful Puerto Rico! I absolutely cannot wait and it will be such a fun trip! We have been talking about going back to the Caribbean since our cruise last year so now we are doing it!

There are TONS of gorgeous beaches in Puerto Rico and hopefully we can find some quiet places to relax and enjoy the sun! The high in March is 87 and the low is 69. I think we can handle that. We are staying on the East side of the island for 4 nights in a a sweet hotel RIGHT on the beach. See the pic below…that was taken from our hotel! Then we are staying the last 3 nights on the West side of the island.

There is also this awesome place called Bio Bay with this crazy glowing water because of the flagellates in the water that glow. Apparently it is life changing and amazing…unfortunately there are no tours for EXACTLY the 7 days we are there because a full moon prevents the water from glowing. Just our luck…

We want to visit the rainforest and maybe do a zipline adventure.

I’m sure we will do some kayaking and a lot of snorkeling!

There are also some awesome smaller islands off of Puerto Rico that we want to hit up as well.

Dan wants to surf and the West side of the island is world famous for the surfing (although the waves may be a bit much for us!). He might take lessons or just rent a surfboard and play around. I get nervous around big waves but I might be adventurous and try it! I know I will be soaking up the sun and snorkeling whenever I can! We love taking trips together and it is great to rejuvenate and spend time together. We always have a blast together and it’s great for our relationship! Taking trips together is a priority for us and hopefully we can continue to have adventures in the future!

Now….who wants to come with us?!

Christmas Activities

2011-12-29T10:32:00.001-07:00

We had a lot of fun Christmas activities over the past few weeks. We had our annual progressive family dinner. This year was a little different because Ben and Becky are in Mongolia so we went to Mike and Hailey’s apartment instead. We start at Jon and Julie’s house for appetizers where we had a sit up competition to warm up. Not sure how that started, but it was funny to watch the kids and Dan and his brothers do as many sit ups as they could in one minute.

Just a warning, most of my pictures are edited a lot in picasa because I was playing around with their newer editing options.

We moved to our house for salad. I made the creamy dressing from Café Rio and it was a hit. It was really delicious if I don’t say so myself!

I love cute little Sarah peeking over the chair while I’m taking the picture above. She is such a doll. Below is Ryan devouring his salad. He is always eating something.

Wellyn loving on Matt! He loves to love Matthew.

Everyone enjoying salad and chips at our house. P.S. I love our new floors with the white island!

We went to Mike and Hailey’s house for homemade pizza! It was super yummy.

We skyped with Ben and Becky and the girls so it was fun to have them around too. The little kids are obsessed with saying hi to them on the laptop or Ipad. They get closer and closer to the screen until they are touching it. It’s pretty funny.

Dan and I went with Steph and Andrew to the Jazz scrimmage and then to see the lights at Temple Square.

The lights were amazing as always, and it was surprisingly warm!

On the 23rd, we had Jon and Julie and their boys over to our house to frost sugar cookies. I was really impressed with how well they did, especially Wellyn. He helped me roll the dough, cut the cookies and he frosted a ton of cookies too. Everett really loved putting on the sprinkles and eating the frosting and dough!

The cookies turned out really delicious and it was a lot of fun!

I love these adorable boys.

On Christmas Eve, we had a huge lunch at Jon and Julie’s with the missionaries. Julie did a great job on turkey, potatoes, stuffing, rolls, etc. It was awesome!

The boys love playing with Uncle Danny and he throws them up in the air and onto the couches. They will beg him to play and he usually does it for a long time!

The boys had fun sliding down the stairs and just showing off for us. They are so fun to play with and it’s adorable to watch them together. Everett copies EVERYTHING Wellyn does and is just his little shadow. They are sweethearts and I’m so excited for them to have a new baby join their family in the summer! Yay!

Great Deal

2011-12-16T08:36:00.001-07:00

I just signed up for the DownEast newsletter so maybe everyone gets these all the time except me…but today all their tees and camis are on sale for $5! That is an awesome deal and I love their shirts. They have half shirts which I would think might be great for pregnant moms, long sleeves, t-shirts, spaghetti straps, v necks, 3/4 sleeves and more for just $5 EACH!

They are usually at least $9.99-$14.99 so I bought a few. Shipping for me was also $5 but the sale is in stores too, I just don’t have time to go to the stores. I thought I would pass along the great deal!

You can go here: http://www.downeastbasics.com/teesandcamis.aspx to see what they have.

Silhouette Cameo

2011-12-02T13:29:00.001-07:00

Have you heard of the Silhouette Cameo? It's the newest Silhouette craft cutter which is similar to a Cricut. The best part is that there are no expensive cartridges and you can just purchase images from their store for $1, or make your own images and cut them! It cuts paper, vinyl, fabric and there are so many AWESOME projects and things to do with it! I have wanted one for quite a while and finally got an early Christmas present and bought one during a good sale on Black Friday!

There are so many awesome things you can do with a Silhouette and I can’t wait to try them all. I just found out that it should be waiting for me when I get home and I’m STOKED. I'm beside myself with excitement and I can't wait to make some of the awesomeness that I have seen in the blog world. I will probably be using to make some Christmas presents as well!

Temporary tattoos (Dan is really excited about this one).

Heat transfer to make your own shirts.

Etched glass

Fabric/paper bunting and banners.

There are tons of great ideas for all kinds of different things and the possibilities are endless! I can’t wait to get started…

Flooring Extravaganza

2011-11-27T20:11:00.002-07:00

We are still not completely finished with our flooring project but it’s just about done so I thought I would finally share some pictures because we love it! First of all, here are some before pictures. You can see my white painted island that I finished the day we started the floorings. Good timing. See the weird angle of the carpet/laminate? I hated how weird that looked and we had to squish the chair into the family room more so that it wouldn’t have one leg on the laminate and look weird. The carpet was also grungy and not very soft. We picked up about ten million tons of laminate flooring from Sam’s club and lugged it into the house. This is only about half of it! This is also a before picture of the living room with carpeting.

Dan stayed up late several nights in a row ripping out baseboards, moulding, carpet and the old flooring. He was amazing and got so much done so we were ready to lay floor when people came to help on Saturday. Thank goodness for Dan’s amazing family and their willingness to help because we definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it without them! They work great together and did an amazing job on the floors. Our house was a disaster zone and covered in dust. Debbie was there for moral support (she has a broken leg), and she did a great job giving tips and pointers since she had done flooring at their house before. The saw was set up in the living room and dust was EVERYWHERE. Julie came to help and brought the boys who tested out the newly laid floor. Everett almost biffed it a few times since the floor was really dusty but they are always fun to have around. Julie also brought us pizza for lunch! Dan finished up the rest of the floor during some late nights on Monday and Tuesday. We took a break for Thanksgiving on Wednesday and Thursday and worked on the baseboards and finishing things up Friday and Saturday. I have cleaned everything about ten times but I think most of the dust is finally gone! There is still a lot to do to finish up the baseboards, but we are just about there! We put the house together and found a new rug for the family room. And here is what things look like now. We love it and I think the floors look amazing. I love the dark wood, wide planks, and hand scraped detail. It’s also really durable and will hopefully last a long time! I love the rug we found at Home Goods (and shoved in the back of our Accord!). It makes it more cozy and softer to lay on but you can still see the floors.

You can see the new baseboards and moulding around the door frames here. I love the thick and simple look of the moulding and it matches the kitchen island and I also framed the window in the kitchen.

A few more shots from some different angles.

While at HomeGoods, we found a chair we loved to put in the little nook/desk area. We have been using a folding white chair for 2 years so this looks much nicer and it’s comfortable too!

Below is a pretty good idea of the main room before we moved in almost exactly 2 years ago.

And here is the main room now from a similar angle. I still have more plans (always!) but we really love it. It’s amazing how much there is to do in the house! There are always more projects and ideas, and I remember thinking when we moved in that the entire house would be “done” in about a year! That was a joke…we still have empty rooms but it’s getting there and so far we love it!

Linking up here:

http://www.beneathmyheart.net/
http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/

Hello gorgeous

2011-11-10T21:15:00.001-07:00

I’m pretty sure that I have used that title before but oh well…I haven’t updated forever because our lives have been a little hectic lately and I really haven’t taken any pictures! But here are a few things that are coming up around the house that I’m really excited about!

I have wanted new floors since we first moved in and I noticed the terrible installation job they did and the weird way it transitioned into the carpet. The floor is not in good shape and I kind of hated it. You can kind of see in this picture how it curves around the carpeting.

New floors are pretty pricey (even laminate) since we’re doing 800 square feet they were not in our future for a while because of the price, but I have still been keeping my eyes out for good deals and I know exactly what I wanted. I came across this blog randomly here: http://www.theyellowcapecod.com/2011/10/31-days-of-building-characterwood.html. I got REALLY excited because I loved the floors she had and she said they looked awesome and were great for durability. And the best part is…they are CHEAP! She got them at Sam’s Club and they are hand scraped laminte. I was obsessed and after doing some research, measuring and discussing with Dan, we are going to get them! I debated on what kind of flooring to do and decided that real hardwood is way out of our budget for a while and it’s really not a great investment for our home. It’s not something we would probably see back when we sell in the future. Also, I really want durable floors that my children and other kids can beat up on and I don’t have to worry about them getting ruined. These floors fit the bill! And they are exactly the style I want too! Look how gorgeous they are:

So hopefully we will be purchasing these lovelies in the near future and then installing them ourselves! Yikes…Dan is really handy and many of his family members have installed laminate floors before so I’m pretty confident that it won’t be a problem. And we’ll save a ton of money. I’m so excited and I know it will really open up our room to get rid of the cheapo carpet. And then I can get a nice big rug so it’s still comfy! I will definitely update on our progress.

Also coming up in an update I have been working on with our kitchen island. I love the look of white cabinets but Dan would freak if I painted them and I’m really not up for that right now anyway! So I decided to paint our island white and add some moulding just like the pictures below. It’s almost done and it looks really great! And just like I predicted, Dan likes it too!

Finally, the latest with us. We were able to take a lot of drives this Fall and saw some awesome Fall leaves! It was so much fun to drive together and chat and enjoy the beautiful views. We did a hike and got dinner and just drove around to different places.

A few weeks ago at work, I was told that they company wasn’t doing so well and that day was my last day. Wow. Total shock. I had only been there about 13 months and I was laid off by Flying J before that! What was wrong with me?! I couldn’t believe it and I had no idea it was coming. I was devastated and leaving my amazing friends at work was heartbreaking. I cried a lot. I was so worried and overwhelmed and just had so many emotions. That happened in the morning and I called Dan to let him know. We carpooled and so I went to his work and his amazing boss told him to leave for the day to be with me. He is a great guy. Dan is so wonderful and I honestly couldn’t ask for a better husband and friend. He says the best things or sometimes says nothing and just hugs me a lot. He is perfect for me and I would be so lost without him.

That morning he suggested we head up to Cache Valley to enjoy the scenery and get my wedding ring cleaned. He is so smart and knew that I wouldn’t want to spend any money, but that was a free way to make me really happy! What a guy…the colors in the canyon were incredible and we took a lot of pictures and also stopped in Brigham City to walk around and check out the new temple being built. It was beautiful! Considering the circumstances, it was a wonderful day and even though I bawled most of the time, I still loved being with him and it was a great thing to do that day. We talked a lot and he comforted me and calmed me down like only he can!

I immediately started looking for jobs and sent out some emails later that evening to people I had kept in touch with. The next few days were pretty depressing and stressful, but the Lord was watching over us as usual. I forgot to mention that the first thing I thought of after getting over the shock of getting laid off AGAIN was that I wanted to go to the temple. We hadn’t been in a while and it was immediately what I thought of. We were able to go a little while later and it was great.

To make a long story short, through some amazing blessings and thankfully keeping in touch with a previous boss from my job in college, I was able to land a new job! I couldn’t believe how quickly it all happened and it was definitely a blessing from the Lord. I started my new job last week and so far it has been really great. The only negative is the 45-60 minute commute up to Research Park. It sucks, but once I’m trained more and I’m settled (in a few months hopefully), they said I can work from home 1-2 days a week and during bad weather! That is awesome and I’m really stoked for that. Dan and I are also going to keep carpooling once or twice a week.

So that is the latest with me and I have honestly been an emotional wreck the past month! I’m such a bawl baby and I’ve had quite a few meltdowns. But of course Dan is there to calm me down and make me feel so much better. It’s weird how well he can do that but I couldn’t be more grateful! Now we’re pretty much back in our routine and things are relatively back to normal!

Dan is still working his little booty off doing school 8 hours a week, plus a lot of homework and working full time. He still manages to find time to watch our shows with me and help me with projects and cleaning the house! He also fits in working out and a lot of football and sportscenter after I’m in bed :).

I will try to get the kitchen island wrapped up soon so I can take some pictures! I didn’t plan on this post being so long, but sometimes that just happens.

Life is tough but once again, we are blessed.

Home stuff

2011-10-16T16:14:00.001-06:00

I made some updates to our master bathroom forever ago, but I didn’t realize that I hadn’t posted any updates about it on the blog! When we moved in the bathroom (like the rest of the house) was dirty and the paint was horrible. But it was really big and had TWO SINKS. I was sold.

Dan painted the bathroom the same color as the lighter gray in our bedroom. I added a yellow stripe to coordinate with our bedroom and I love it. I also added a frame around the mirror using moulding.

The frame makes a huge difference and makes the entire room look finished even though it’s not yet. I still need to add a clock and I’m working on putting the same moulding frame around the window in the bathroom and the bedroom. We just glued the moudling right onto the huge mirror like we did in our powder bathroom.

I made these simple shelves and I still need to put some “real” pictures in the frames on the bottom. i framed fabric for the top frame.

One more look at our bedroom. We still love it!

I have also done some Halloween decorating. I really only decorate for Halloween and Christmas and this year I added some more fun things to our house for Halloween. Ignore the game on…I was watching my Utes finally win!

I got the spider cut outs from Michaels. They are from the Martha Stewart line which is awesome! There were a lot in the package and they were cheap too. I put them around our window mirrors and on our french doors. I made the spider web myself. I’m really hoping to get a Silhouette craft cutter this year so I can do a lot more crafts like this and not have to cut things out by hand or buy them!

I saw this ghost idea on another blog and copied it! I used frosted window film. I already had some because I used it to cover our bathroom window so we can open it more often without sacrificing our privacy. I love the ghosty on the mirror.

The bats are another fun idea I saw on a blog and they were easy and cheap. It just took a few nights of cutting out bats while watching our shows on TV. You can see Mr. Ghosty in the mirror as well :)

I made the spooky banner with bats using paper and twine and I added more spiders to the french doors.

This little table is in our kitchen and I want to paint it but I can’t decide what color! I love light and bright white to patch our window mirrors and TV stand, but white is also boring so I don’t know! Dan probably wouldn’t go for a bright crazy color because it doesn’t “match”…so any ideas??

I used cheesecloth from Lowes for the creepy white cloth and the skull on the stand is now silver and there is a silver pumpkin there too :) I have already changed things since I took these pictures!

I just put stickers on the front of canning jars filled with candy corn. I have electric tea lights from the dollar store inside but I forgot to light them for the picture! Whoops!

September to Remember

2011-10-13T19:55:00.001-06:00

These are old pictures, but better late than never right?? Dan and I took a long weekend over Labor Day and went to Yellowstone. We were just there in July with Dan’s entire family but Dan wanted to do something with just us to celebrate his graduation! I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned it, but he got his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration! He started his MBA a few weeks later so there wasn’t much of a celebration, but I’m so dang proud of him! He is incredible and I have watched him go from his first semester to finishing and now going on to his MBA. He is amazing and I’m lucky to have him!

We had a ton of fun together and the weather was awesome. We have so much fun together and he is my very best friend. I love going on vacations with him. It still amazes me how much he makes me laugh even after over 4 years of being together!

Looking back at the pictures, we saw a lot of waterfalls! Yellowstone is Dan’s favorite place (that and the beach). We were able to see tons of wolves while we were there! One day we just sat and watched and waited for a wolf pack to come into a valley and when the finally did, it was so worth the hours of waiting! We enjoyed the view and the weather was wonderful. Another day, we saw wolves in a different valley and we watched them eating a buffalo carcass! Seriously amazing. We got sweet matching wolf shirts to celebrate.

Dan is a huge BYU fan (WHY?!?!) and I’m a huge Utah fan, so when football season comes around, our marriage can have some turmoil. One of the first weeks of the season, both games were on at the same time! Tragedy! So Dan had the great idea to bring our bedroom TV downstairs so we could watch both games at the same time! Loved it.

Dan and I ran a 10K race together in Layton a few weeks ago. I was slow as usual, but we had fun running together and we got some sweet shirts!

I also ran in the Dirty Dash with my gal pals from work. We had a blast and it was an intense race! It was basically a huge obstacle course through the mud. It was way harder and crazier than I could have expected! There were mud pits, huge wind blowers and everything else you could imagine.

We even had to wade through the nasty marshes of on the shore of a lake for about 1/2 mile! I was so grossed out and may have dry heaved a few times. The smell was something I won’t forget. I was sure the swamp monster was trying to pull me under! But we laughed a lot and had tons of fun.

I work with Jennie (far right), Maryann (to the right of me), and Rolene (right in the middle of the first pic). They are so great and I have gotten so close to them over the past year! I love having good friends at work. We run together on our lunch break, go shopping, to lunch, and just vent when we need to! Some of their family members ran with us too.

These pictures have a water mark on them because I didn’t want to pay $18 to buy them! I don’t really look that dirty but I was! I wasn’t trying to stay clean at all, but I didn’t get much mud on my face. I was a little worried about my contacts with all my eye problems so I was careful not to get mud in my eyes. But I was still pretty filthy.

This was the final slip-n-slide at the finish line. I went down on my stomach most of the way but this picture was right at the end. It was such a blast!

September was a great month for us. We are blessed.

Jackson 2011

2011-10-04T22:15:00.001-06:00

We went to Jackson Hole in August with my family and had a great time. Steph took all the pictures and I just barely got them from her so that’s why I’m so late posting about it! We stayed at a little cabin at the KOA and it was awesome. Dan and I had the “loft” and we could touch the ceiling with our feet when we were laying in bed. It was sweet. Very small, but perfect for our family and my parents spent a few nights before we came and spent two nights there.

We went on a hike to a jumping rock on Phelps Lake with Steph and Andrew. It was gorgeous. We love it up there.

We had to wade across a small pond/lake and it was FREEZING. Steph and I were just screaming and squealing across it even though we were planning on jumping into the lake a little later! Luckily it was really warm outside.

Dan and I on the sweet jumping rock with such a beautiful view.

Steph took some amazing shots of us jumping off the rock. Dan busted out the toe touch on this one. The water was so freezing, and I was more scared to jump into the ice water then from the height of the jump!

Precious.

I love this picture of Steph from the hike.

Here is my jump off of the rock. It was a little scary but really fun and I did it a few times after the first jump. We warmed up in the sunshine afterwards on the rock.

On Sunday we went to watch the rafts come through Big Kahuna. We had a nice lunch and enjoyed the water before we drove home.

This is the best picture of my Dad. I seriously love it.

The whole fam with the river behind us. We had a good time together and loved enjoying being outside and it was so beautiful there!

My blood hurts

2011-09-27T21:16:00.001-06:00

Dan is a beast. When I decided I wanted to run the Top of Utah half marathon, he signed up for the full marathon! I don’t know what he was thinking but he wanted to do it. The race was 2 weeks ago and he killed it! He slept in Logan and only got about 3 hours of sleep so I was pretty worried about him. On top of that, it poured rain for about 7 miles of the race!

I drove up to Logan with Julie and the boys and as we came into Cache Valley and saw the black clouds and drove the pouring rain, we were pretty worried about our boys. We waited for them at mile 17 (In our Ute gear of course) and cheered and held signs that Julie had made.

Dan was looking awesome at this point and still feeling pretty good. I thought he might want to stop to change into a dry shirt or get some meds but he just showed me his sweet muscles and kept running!

We drove a few miles ahead to look for Jon and Wellyn got distracted by the worms everywhere because of all the rain. He is a total boy and loved the worm. Everett was terrified of it at first but quickly became obsessed with looking at it and he kept entertained by throwing rocks. Love those boys.

We saw Dan coming up again and still looking strong. This was about mile 22 and he said “everything is starting to hurt right now”. But he kept going and so we went to the finish line to wait for them to cross.

I was so excited to see his cute face come running to the finish line and he looked amazing (a little wet, but still great!). He finished in an amazing 4 hours 18 minutes! He didn’t have tons of time to train and didn’t get a lot of sleep but he did it!

I was seriously so proud of him, I got teary eyed! I’m kind of an emotional person and I cry easily, but this was such a neat moment! He worked so hard and pushed himself so far emotionally and physically and I just wanted to squeeze him!

Julie with her cute signs for the boys and Dan trying to look happy even though he was pretty much dying. He was sore for a while and told me his blood hurt. Funny.

The boys after the race in their matching outfits! Loved it. Take note of Jon’s bloody nipple! Yikes…

These boys are so cute and Everett was just happy as a clam chowing down on his ice cream sandwich. He was a mess but still adorable.

Congratulations to Dan my man! I love this boy and I’m so proud of his huge accomplishment!

Top of Utah

2011-09-06T21:45:00.001-06:00

I’m really late posting (and still haven’t posted pics of our trip to Jackson Hole a few weeks ago since I don’t have the pictures!) but I ran the Top of Utah half marathon last week and I can’t believe I did it! In a million years, I never would have thought I could have run for over 2 hours straight! But I did it and it was a great experience and I’m so glad I did!

The night before the race, we stayed in Logan at Bre’s house (thanks Bre!). It was about 30 seconds to the starting line from her house so that was awesome. This is me before the race getting pumped up! Luckily my eyes cooperated and I was able to wear my contacts the whole time without any problems. Dan sent me off and I was all alone for over an hour until the race started.

I am a slow poke runner and I was not in any hurry to push it too hard. I just wanted to enjoy myself and enjoy the race and that is basically what I did! The weather was amazing and the canyon was gorgeous. The first 7 miles down the canyon was great and I loved seeing Dan waiting for me at the bottom of the canyon around mile 7. I was feeling good except for a little bit of problems with my knees. I stopped for some grapes, ibuprofen and a picture and then I continued on…

The middle of the race was also pretty good and I saw Dan a few more times along the way which pumped me up. I kept trying to be mentally positive and even though my knees were kind of hurting, I tried to remind myself that I wanted to be doing this and that I was strong and I enjoyed it. I think it helped me keep going and feel good!

I had to take a potty break at mile 11 and the last two miles were really hot (I hate the heat!), but I kept trekking and finished in just over 2.5 hours. Definitely not a speed demon, but I was super happy with it and just glad that I basically ran the entire time and I didn’t keel over dead at the end (like I thought I might!).

I’m kinda ticked that we didn’t get any pictures of me after I crossed the finish line! I promise I finished, but I was distracted and we just forgot to get some pics of me with my medal! Dangit…but I did finish and I felt pretty dang good. I was definitely tired and my knees were hurting, but I survived and I enjoyed it!

I will definitely run another half at some point, but for now I will just keep running a few times a week without the pressure of a race. Dan and I are doing a 10k on Saturday and it will be fun and a lot easier than a half marathon. Dan is running the Top of Utah marathon on the 17th so hopefully I’ll have a positive post about his experience soon! I can’t imagine running twice as far as I did for this race…barf! But he is a beast and I’m sure he will be amazing!

Lasik

2011-09-02T09:05:00.002-06:00

This is not too terribly interesting of a post and I have been so busy lately that even though I have a bunch of things to post about…I just haven’t done it yet!

Anyway, I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 7 and contacts since I was 10. I’m waaaay blind (-9.5ish) but I’ve always been fine with contacts. Lately I have been having problems with my left eye that started in March. I haven’t been able to wear my contacts for more than a few hours at a time since then. So basically I’ve been wearing glasses and no make up almost every day with a few random times of wearing contacts and make up. I can’t wear make up on my eyes because I’m so blind that I can’t see my eyes to put make up on them even if my face is smashed against the mirror! I went to my regular eye doctor about it twice and he gave me multiple drops (holy expensive) that didn’t help. I finally went to another doctor closer to my house for a second opinion and some help. I saw him for the 3rd time last night and he finally determined that I really can’t wear soft contacts anymore. Are you kidding me?! I have inflammation and bumps on the inside of my eyelid and he said it could take years to heal and could come back.

I almost started crying when he told me that and although one other option he suggested was hard contacts, I have pretty much decided I’m going to get Lasik. I have always wanted it and dreamed about how it would be to be able to see all the time, but it was something we were going to do in the future. Now we will probably do it in January so I still have to deal with stupid glasses for a few more months.

But I’m really excited to finally be able to see without glasses or contacts and I know it will change my life and be awesome! BUT I’m also being obsessive and researching and reading everything I can about Lasik. I wanted to see if anyone has any opinions, suggestions, or recommendations for me about it. I have never heard any horror stories, but there are a lot out there online and I don’t want to be misinformed. I also don’t want to go to just any random doctor, but I don’t want to overpay for a name or something that is unnecessary. So I’m going to go to several places for consultations (armed with my list of 5000 questions of course). Please let me know if you have any information for me about this! Thanks all and I promise I’ll have more interested posts soon…I have several projects finished or in the works!

Bear Lake

2011-08-17T17:53:00.001-06:00

We went to Bear Lake for a quick weekend with Steph and her boyfriend Andrew. We left Friday afternoon and found a camping spot on the east side of the lake. It was gorgeous and the weather was amazing. The water was super high so there was no beach and the water was just a few feet away from where we camped.

We cooked tinfoil dinners and they took waaaay longer than expected! Luckily we got in the water while we waited to cool off! The water was surprisingly warm and comfortable.

The sunset was beautiful! We really loved sitting around watching the the sunset and just relaxing.

The next morning we got up and enjoyed some swimming before packing up to leave. Dan absolutely loves the water and he was in heaven. It was a ton of fun.

We headed over to the west side of the lake and got some yummy raspberry shakes. For some reason, there was a covered wagon for us to enjoy our shakes in…

After shakes, we rented jet skis and played around on the lake for a few hours. It was so much fun and we had a blast riding around on the lake. The water was amazing and warm (weird for Bear Lake). I don’t have any pictures of that, but it was awesome!

Afterwards, we grabbed some lunch, and then we drove over to Preston for the Preston rodeo! It was a really gorgeous drive through tons of small towns and when we got to Preston, we grabbed a seat and watched the parade before the rodeo. Small towns are pretty awesome and Preston is a classic small town. It was great.

You may have noticed I have glasses on a lot lately or if they are off, I have a lazy left eye….I have been having major problems with my eye and I really haven’t been able to wear my contacts for more than a few hours at a time for the past 4 months! I think I finally got it figured out but my eye looks crazy in some of these pictures!

Dan went with the classic cowboy look…he kills me and I laughed every time I looked at what he was wearing. Funny kid. Steph found these awesome cowboy boots at D.I. for 12 bucks! Lucky!

Before the rodeo, we wandered around the carnival/fair. People watching was really awesome. Sometimes I just stare at people…

This was the only picture from the rodeo that I got! But the rodeo definitely didn’t disappoint and there were tons of famous and really good rodeo-ers there! The bull riding and bronco riding was really exciting and we had a blast on our little mini-vacation!

Life Changing

2011-08-09T16:28:00.001-06:00

The title may be a bit exaggerated, but I was thinking of random things I have wanted to post about and it seems like the overriding theme of them all is that they have changed my life. Okay, only one really has (my great friends) but the others have definitely made my life awesome so I wanted to share!

Best.DI.Find.EVER. I love rocking chairs and have always wanted one. I came across this beauty at D.I. for 25 BONES! Are you kidding me?! Love at first sight. It is in awesome condition and extremely sturdy. And we were even able to shove it in the Accord without too much incident. Don’t worry, the gold grandma designs on it are just painted on so I plan on re-painting it at some point. Hopefully I will use it to rock my babies some day!

This is the only real life changer. I love these gals and always will. Shelley came to visit and her and Bre came over for dinner without their cute kiddos. I missed the kids but loved talking to them like we have since high school. It’s weird how much has changed in our lives but how exactly the same things are when we get together. I can’t believe how long we’ve been friends and they are amazing people and have truly changed my life. I love skyping with them too!

Another shout-out to Breanne for introducing me to Lemi Shine. My dishes have been looking pretty awful for quite a while now. They are grimy and have a film on them. I always end up re-washing them. I tried a few things but Lemi Shine was a game changer. No joke, this was incredible. My dishes looked brand new and I am so happy! I followed the directions (use without dishes first) and I will try to scale back and use the least amount as possible but wow, I am a happy camper now.

Along those same lines, I have been making and using my own laundry soap for a while now! I know it seems pretty hippie/granola/weird but I love it! I heard about it a while ago and dismissed it, but saw it again on a blog and decided to check into it. There are a lot of benefits including saving money and using less harmful chemicals.

The ingredients were all found at Walmart in the laundry aisle and I have made and used an entire batch and I can easily say that it does the job as well or better than Tide or Gain which I have used in the past. It cost about $8 for these and it lasts a while and then you just have to replace the Fels-Naptha which are only $1 per bar (the other ingredients will last forever). Here is how to make it:

1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
1 bar Fels-Napth soap (I’ve heard Ivory works as well)

The only hard part is grating the soap which takes forever unless you have an electric grater but it’s not a huge deal. Mix them together and use 1-2 tablespoons depending on the size and dirtiness of the load. I made one batch and I loved it so I’m going to make a triple batch which should last me several months. I feel hippie-ish doing it, but I love it!

I have mentioned perkstreet before and I really love it still so I wanted to share. I think everyone should go and get a perkstreet account IMMEDIATELY. Really. We first heard about it from Dave Ramsey and we have been using perkstreet exclusively since November. It’s an online bank (backed by the FDIC), and it’s not a credit card. You use the Mastercard for anything and everything and if you run it as credit, you will accumulate rewards and you get 2% back on EVERYTHING. Really, everything. When I say “you get 2% back”, you can get it back on a Mastercard giftcard which you can use anywhere you can use a Mastercard credit card. Groceries, gas, bills, shopping, etc! Sweet! We used it to pay Dan’s tuition which was awesome! We have earned over $600 back since we opened it in November!

It took a little while to switch over all our automatic bills to the new card, but most of our bills (except mortgage and few others) accept credit cards so we earn 2% on those. The only stipulation is that you have to have at least $5,000 in your account to get the 2%. But even if you don’t, you still get 1% back! Currently they only have a checking account, but they keep saying a savings account is coming very soon. I have my perkstreet account linked with my Zions Bank account so once in a while I can easily deposit checks to Zions and transfer money back and forth to perkstreet. We use our perstreet card everywhere and you can set a pin and run it as debit if need (but you don’t earn the 2% on debit). We set up direct deposit into perkstreet as well and it has been really awesome.

I HIGHLY recommend looking into getting a perkstreet bank account. It is a great idea and the people who work for perkstreet seem to be genuinely great people who want to encourage people to live within their means and avoid credit. There is also no annual fee or any fees unless you don’t use the card at all for a month (not a problem if it’s your “regular” card). They have a facebook page where they respond to questions within minutes and I’ve heard their customer service email and phone is also great. If anyone has any questions about it, let me know and I will be happy to answer them!

We are still really into Dave Ramsey and love his theories and overall philosophy about avoiding debt, saving money and living frugally and within your means. We are totally debt-free except our house and we’re working on building a comfortable 6 month emergency fund. Dave suggests waiting to contribute to your 401k until you have your emergency fund, but we are still each contributing a small amount to our 401k’s through our work because our company each has a good match that we’re taking advantage of.

I feel really strongly that people should take control of their finances, make a budget, and live within their means. Money isn’t everything, but having bills you can’t pay creates unnecessary problems and stress in your life. If you can avoid that, then why not? It’s hard to not get everything we want right now and not easy to drive old cars (harder for Dan in that department), but it’s so worth it to not have debt hanging over our heads and know that we have a good plan for our future. I also think that there are a lot of women who are completely uninvolved in financial decisions, budgets, etc and this is a huge mistake. I would die if something happened to Dan, but it’s important to think about the future and so many women wouldn’t be able to take care of themselves or their families if they lost their husband. This needs to change and women need to take control of their lives and become empowered by learning about their finances and making decisions for their futures. I’m not even going to get into the importance of getting an education but too many women rely on their husbands to always take care of them and this doesn’t always happen. You need to be prepared for any possibility and by sitting down with your spouse and discussing your budget, savings, and future financial plans is a great start. I also recommend looking into life insurance and making sure you have a term life insurance policy. Don’t just take your life for granted and think that it will never change. Being educated is the best way to be prepared for the future and the feeling of comfort that you have in knowing that you are financially secure and knowledgeable is priceless.

Sorry for my little rant there, but it’s something I feel strongly about and something I want to share! It’s obviously my opinion only and if you know me, you know that I have a lot of opinions

Yellowstone

2011-07-31T20:20:00.001-06:00

Every year, we go with Dan’s family to Yellowstone and his family has ALWAYS rented a teensy tiny cabin. It’s fun, but very crowded. Last year was pretty rough with all 29 of us and a few newborns! This year, his parents were great enough to rent a big cabin that fit our huge family much better. It was really nice to have a washer and dryer, multiple bathrooms, and 2 kitchens!

We stayed in Idaho Falls on Friday night at Mark & Carrie’s house. Then we all drove the rest of the way to the cabin in Island Park. Lissie, Alex and Brigham squeezed into our car and we had a good time on the drive up to Island Park.

This is a good picture of the great room in the cabin. There was a lot of room for all of us and with 13 kids age 9 and under, we needed a lot of room! The mosquitoes were absolutely horrible this year with all the water so we didn’t spend much time outside at all and we spent a lot of time killing mosquitoes in the house and reapplying bug spray!

The kids had fun eating on the deck even though the mosquitoes were swarming!

Dan and Ben posing with their nurf guns…the boys had some fun shooting each other and getting nurf darts everywhere.

We were quite the caravan while we drove around Yellowstone. 5 vehicles and tons of people…we took over everywhere we went but it was a blast! This was at lunch in Mammoth and the kids were enjoying their sandwiches on the grass. There are still 5 other grandkids not in this picture! Mia, Katelyn, Emmy, Lissie, Sarah, Wellyn, Addy and Brigham. Love these kids.

Lissie, Ryan and Emmy checking out the geysers and hot pots.

Wellyn absolutely adores Addy and this picture proves it! He follows her around everywhere and just loves her. It’s really cute. Mia is showing me her blue tongue from eating an airhead!

Dan and I chillin’ with Everett while we were waiting for Old Faithful to start. He loves his Lightning McQueen jammies so much he wouldn’t let Julie change his shirt! So he wore it all day. This is a funny picture of him too, he’s a sweetheart.

Grandpa and Everett. Marty loves his family and especially his grandkids so much and they love him! He spoils them and is so sweet with them. The little boys especially love him and are always asking for Papa! Everett is also helping Amanda push Ryan in the stroller.

The fam set up for lunch near Old Faithful and grandpa handed out treats and ice cream sandwiches. Enjoying the rocking chairs with ice cream sandwiches. I love Everett’s blue eyes and chocolately face!

I’m such a lucky girl…I seriously love this boy!

Addy showing off her cute sunglasses. Brigham was the only injury of the week and he sliced his shin open on one of the bedrames. Carrie had to take him to Idaho Falls and he ended up with 16 stitches! But he was back the next morning and ready to rock. What a stud.

Dan with the newest member of the family (Matt). Dan was making him laugh really hard and it was so cute!

Dan and I had to leave on Wednesday evening because he had to work on Thursday. But we had a blast with the family and enjoyed the cooler weather and just being outdoors in Yellowstone! We already have plans to go back with just the two of us over Labor Day to celebrate Dan’s graduation. He loves it up there and dreams about having cabin there someday!

Summertime

2011-07-22T10:39:00.001-06:00

I have a lot of catch up to do…we had a fun 4th of July, we went to Yellowstone with the ENTIRE (29 people) family, and I have been finishing some projects I need to show everyone! But here are some pics of our 4th of July weekend.

Dan and I wanted to do something on the 2nd, but didn’t know what to do so we found out West Haven was having “West Haven Days” so we went on over there to check things out. It ended up being awesomely awesome with loads of crazy redneck/white trash people roaming around, and we had a blast! We love living in the “country” (at least it’s country to us), and some of the people really make it interesting! We at some gyros and watched a FREE rodeo! It was a really good rodeo too and we ended up staying for a good fireworks show at the end and meeting up with Jon and Julie.

On Sunday, we had our usual fast Sunday dinner at Dan’s parents house but we stayed late and did fireworks. We ended up getting into a HUGE water fight and we all got pretty soaked. It was really fun and felt great since it was soooo hot, but none of us had dry clothes to wear. Luckily, Debbie came through with her incredible Mumu collection and we all borrowed one for the evening.

I think we ended up liking them a little too much and all of us kept them on the whole night! It was freaking out our husbands a little because they kept thinking each of us was Debbie. Sweet.

Let’s play “Find Julie!” She is blending into the quilt…amazing camouflage in her Mumu.

I have a lot of cutie cute pictures of Mia. She loves to make this angry face and does it a lot, but she’s really a sweetheart and smiles and laughs a lot.

Mia’s popsicle face and Addy with her sparkler.

Grandma and Grandpa with Mia enjoying the fireworks show. Dan and Jon bought TONS of fireworks and had a little too much fun with the new laws about aerial fireworks. But it was great and we loved it.

These last two pictures are the epitome of summertime for me. My adorable niece and nephew (Everett and Mia), barefoot, eating popsicles. Seriously so precious.

Dresser makeover

2011-07-06T15:25:00.001-06:00

I have seen a lot of really sweet dresser makeovers in blog-land and when we got our new TV several (like 10) months ago, I went back and forth about what I wanted to use as a TV stand. We thought about a fake fireplace, and a “real” TV stand but they were pricey and it would be a while before that happened. We have been using our old coffee table since we got the TV and I finally decided I wanted to make over a dresser to use like some of these I saw online:

I have scoured Craiglist and KSL for the past few months trying to find something that wasn’t huge or too pricey or in Provo (or somewhere too far away from us). Finally I found this beauty and got it home. Here she is before I got my hands on her:

And here she is now!

Here is our family room before the dresser with our old coffee table (also from KSL several years ago):

And now here is our family room with the newly made over dresser:

I also stenciled the top with a stencil I got at Hobby Lobby and I LOVE it. I used the same pearlescent craft paint I used to stencil our master bedroom wall here.

Here is a quick run-down of what I did:

1. I sanded the entire dresser with my electric sander. I just wanted to get the shine off so this didn’t take too long, but it was messy.
2. I filled in some cracks, the drawer handle holes and a swirly design on one of the drawers with wood putty. Then I re-sanded those areas.
3. Washed it down with a damp rag to remove the dust.
4. Sprayed the entire dresser and drawers with 3-4 light coats of KILZ primer.
5. Sanded the entire dresser and drawers lightly with a sanding block.
6. Wiped down the dresser with a damp rag.
7. Sprayed everything with several light coats of Rustoleum’s Heirloom White spray paint.

8. Stenciled design on top using craft paint and a stencil brush.
9. Sprayed everything with gloss enamel protective coat.
10. Put on new hardware
11. Removed one of the drawers to store our Blu-Ray and Cable box (I also drilled holes in the back for cords and venting).

I love the dresser and it fits really well in the room. With our darker couches, it brightens the room and there is tons of storage! We love it and it really wasn’t very difficult. Here is the cost breakdown (approximate):

-Dresser on KSL: $45
-3 cans KILZ primer: $12
-2 cans spray paint: $8
-1 can gloss paint: $4
-stencil: $10
-craft paint: free (leftover)
-hardware: $36

TOTAL: $115

It would have been much cheaper if I didn’t buy new hardware, but I love the look of it and that is still a great deal compared to buying one brand new. It’s a sturdy dresser and I’m sure I’ll do something similar for a future nursery/bedroom.

Wasatch Back 2011

2011-06-24T11:39:00.001-06:00

Dan and I ran in the Wasatch Back last weekend and we had a great time! We did it for the first time last year and Dan also ran the Ragnar race in Las Vegas.

I have been running a lot this year and really enjoying it more than I ever have. I run with some women at work during our lunch breaks (before it finally got hot this week) and that has made it even more enjoyable.

It was mostly Dan’s family but my sister ran with us this year as well which was really fun. Dan and I were in separate vans but Steph and I were in the same van so we partied it up together. She is a great runner and did awesome.

The other people in our van was Julie (Dan’s sister), Joe (Dan’s brother), Tyson (Dan’s cousin), and Tyler (Tyson’s friend). We had a good time together and got really friendly really fast (that tends to happen with you’re in an SUV together for 30 hours).

I was a little worried about the weather because it has been so cold and there is still so much snow, but those 2 days were ideal for running. It got pretty frigid at night and we almost froze to death, but other than that, it was awesome! The temperatures were low and there was a nice breeze so it wasn’t too hot at all. Dan ran the “Ragnar Hill” up Guardsman’s Pass and there was several feet of snow that they had plowed just for the race!

What a crazy goofball. Joe is the tallest, skinniest person I know but that makes for a fast runner . He was a speedy gonzalez and even got this sweet sombrero and a free meal to Café Rio during one of his legs! The short shorts were hot too. Julie kept telling him to change them!

My sister is a hot mess and she just kept adding on clothes as the day went on…put sweats on over her skirt, then a jacket, the socks (but kept the flip flops), and finally the safety vest that you have to wear after 7:30pm. And her sunglasses broke so she decided to wear them like this. I was proud to have her and Joe as teammates. Hot mess.

This is me at the end of my last run down Heber Canyon which was beautiful. It was in the morning and the weather was awesome and I really enjoyed it. I knew there was a bit of a hill at the very end because I ran it last year, and I’m proud to say I ran the whole way up the hill (didn’t do it last year)!

Here is Steph finishing her last leg and handing off to Dan’s cousin, Tyson.

Showing off our medals at the finish line. We were exhausted and glad to be done!

The hardest part of the Wasatch Back is the lack of sleep. It’s hard to run, but it’s much harder running in the middle of the night, a few hours after your last run and doing it all without any sleep at all. I don’t do well without sleep and I can sleep anywhere at any time so I took advantage of my wonderful talent and I definitely got the most sleep out of our whole team! Being in van 1, we were able to have about 4 hours to sleep outside from 3-7am and I was out that whole time. Everyone else was too cold or uncomfortable, but I was fine! Then at the finish line while waiting for van 2 to finish, my sister and I zonked out on the grass for 3 more hours! It was heaven and definitely helped a lot.

The race was definitely a success and I am proud of myself and Danny for training and doing a good job. We had fun and will probably do it again next year. I have a few other races this summer that I am looking forward to and as long as I enjoy it, I will keep running!

Family stuff

2011-06-21T16:19:00.001-06:00

First of all, we ran the Wasatch Back this past weekend and we both survived! We had a really good time and Dan and I both did really well. I really loved it and I tried to make a particular effort to enjoy the beautiful views that we saw and to look around while I was running and be grateful that I have a strong body and the opportunity to run and enjoy being outside. Now sometimes I wanted to barf and “enjoy” was the last word on my mind, but I tried! I will post pics of that soon.

You may have noticed it rained a bit in May…we got tons of rain and our lovely fire pit filled right up with water since the ground was too wet to soak it up! Thank goodness we have a sump pump that was running all day and night keeping water out of our basement. We had a little seepage in our food storage room, but it was pretty easy to clean up. You can also see our neighbor’s backyard in the top of the picture which turned into a huge lake!

My little sissy graduated from SUU in December and walked in May and we went to see her graduate! So exciting!

We stayed in St. George for the night and had to take some pics on the balcony of the pretty sunset.

Pretty girl. I don’t think I will ever think of her as anything other than my baby sister, no matter how old we get! It’s weird how protective I am of her and how much older I feel than her even though she’s all grown up and we are such good friends now. It’s hard to remember the good old days when we wanted to kill each other on a daily basis…

The boys having fun with the camera. Danny loves having another guy around and we love that they get along and entertain each other so we can just chat nonstop.

For Memorial Day, we drove to Idaho Falls and stayed at Danny’s brother’s house. We had a lot of fun and I especially loved our dance party one night. I got some sweet pics too.

There was TONS of junk food (I can’t believe how skinny that family is with all the treats they consume) and the kids were in heaven.

Ryan loving his glow stick grandma gave out to all the grandkids. I love my sweet nieces and nephews!

Master Bedroom

2011-06-08T16:23:00.001-06:00

I feel bad that I haven’t posted for a long time, but I also haven’t had a whole lot to post about either! But here are some updated pics of the past few weeks. Our master bedroom has basically been done for quite awhile and even though there are still things I want to add/change, here is what it looks like right now. First of all, here is a terrible picture of what it looked like when we bought it. Yucka.

And here it is now!

This is at the top of the stairs looking down the hallway into the bedroom. Lots of pictures ahead…

It’s hard to tell, but I love the texture on the headboard. It’s thick upholstery fabric and it has raised circles.

The dang drawer on my dresser doesn’t stay closed! Sometimes it closes and sometimes it doesn’t but this time it was uncooperative for my pictures! I would still like to get another dresser and paint it yellow but that is something I may do later. I also used chalkboard spray paint and an old frame to make the cute chalkboard sign on the left.

I had this wooden tray from our wedding and I used painter’s tape and spray paint to make a cute design and I use it to hold my jewelry and perfume.

I love love the stenciled wall! You may notice a tiny part by the left nightstand that looks weird and I still need to fix that…ugh.

I did a lot of projects in this room. Here is everything I did;

-painted the walls (Behr Porpoise and Behr Creek Bend for the accent wall)
-stenciled one wall using a homemade stencil and pearlescent craft paint
-recovered lampshades with muslin and ribbon
-made upholstered headboard with nailhead trim
-repainted nightstands and added new hardware
-added ribbon to bedskirt
-spray painted frames
-made the curtains with hemming tape
-made a framed chalkboard
-spray painted tray
-traced, cut out (with Dan’s help), and painted the letter H above the TV
-painted and reupholstered the chair

I hope you like it! We love it and I still have lots of big plans and I’ll post pictures of our master bath soon!

Best day ever

2011-05-20T13:21:00.001-06:00

Today is our 3 year anniversary. I can’t believe it. I will keep this short and sweet, but basically I’m the luckiest girl ever.I found someone who loves me for me but makes me want to be better. I found someone who will put up with me, support me, and love me forever!

Dan is my very best friend and I can’t imagine my life without him. Sometimes I forget what my life was like before him and I can’t wait for life we have ahead of us. He brings me so much happiness and joy and I hope that others can be blessed to have a small taste of the joy that we have together.

He is kind, caring, hilarious, hard working and everything I could want and more. He will make an amazing father to our children. What would I do without him? I literally think my heart would stop beating if I didn’t have him…I don’t want to find out. I’m the happiest girl in the world and I couldn’t imagine spending eternity with anyone else.

And speaking of hard working, Dan started his new job this week with US Magnesium and so far he is loving it! He is on the sales team and works as a client/account manager and helps with orders and stuff. He is a busy boy and goes to work early (he even has his own office! Lucky!) and stays late, then goes to class and does homework at night. What a man! I definitely miss having him around as much, but this job is such a blessing for us and we are grateful for the opportunities it will give Dan. My job is still going well and I’m enjoying it (most days…). We have a lot of fun plans for the summer and the Wasatch Back race is coming up in a month! Eek!

East Coast Chapter 3

2011-05-10T10:57:00.001-06:00

Sorry it has taken awhile to get these posted, but here is the last of our pictures from our trip to CT and NYC. After spending the day in the city on Saturday, we came back to Shelley’s house (luckily Shell was just about over her sickness). We had fun dying Easter eggs and even though he wanted to take over, Thad had fun too!

I’m holding the cute dog they were taking care of (Jade). That was OBSESSED with her and just followed her around everywhere and sat on the ground staring at her. He was so soft with her and told her everything and showed her his toys. He was so cute and would say every few minutes “Where did Jade go?” and he would go around looking for her. He is such a cutie pie!

On Easter Sunday morning, we got up and Brian read about the Resurrection in the Bible. Then we hunted for our Easter baskets! Shelley was so nice to get baskets for Dan and I with our favorite treats. She hid them really well too. I didn’t grow up with the tradition of hiding baskets so it was really fun to search the house for them and help Thad look for his.

Our baskets with treats (Dan got pepsi, pringles, chapstick, gum and candy and I got Diet Coke, a fridge grocery list, and candy). Shelley also made these AMAZING cake balls that tasted exactly like my favorite Easter Basket Cakes/Christmas Tree Cakes.

Thad found his basket and couldn’t stop staring at “Tangles”. That is what he calls the movie “Tangled”. He loved it and also loved his dinosaur books that he got. He LOVES dinosaurs and can say so many of the hard names perfectly!

Looking at his dinosaur book and showing me a bouncy ball he got in his basket.

Sunday was a gorgeous day and we took a few pictures before we left for church. It was a little too bright for Thad to look at the camera, but he kept saying “Cheese!”

We had a delicious Easter dinner and Shelley’s friend Hannah came over (her husband and little girl were out of town). We had lots of fun and dinner was yummy. We visited and hung out then later that night, Dan and I packed up and took the train into the city to stay at a hotel for our last night.

I mentioned awhile ago that I used Priceline “Name your own price” and got a great deal on a hotel, and it didn’t disappoint! It was a 5 minute walk from the train station and the hotel was AWESOME! It was really old and opened in 1902 and has been designated as a NYC Historic Landmark. It had a neat vibe and it was a great place to stay.

In June 1919 the hotel became the site of the daily meetings of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of journalists, authors, publicists and actors who gathered to exchange bon mots over lunch in the main dining room.The group met almost daily for the better part of ten years. Harry Connick Jr. and other famous musicians also launched their careers here.

Here is our room. It was tiny, but really nice and had a big TV. The bed was waaaay comfortable and we’re glad we got to spend the night there.

The next day, we were able to leave our luggage at the hotel, and we met Shelley and Thad at the train station. I’m really glad they got to spend the day with us, and we had a ton of fun. It was really warm and humid, but Thad was a champ and Dan helped a ton while we maneuvered strollers and got on the subway! Here we are at Grand Central Station.

We went to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked about halfway across it. It was pretty cool to look back and see the huge buildings in Manhattan.

Afterwards, we walked to Chinatown and Dan took Thad to a park and entertained him for over an hour while Shelley and I shopped our hearts out! He is such a sweetie and so good with kids. Shell and I had a blast and got some good loot and Thad loved his life. When we got back, his little cheeks were super rosy and he was way hot. Dan said he didn’t stop playing and running around the entire time!

We had such a great time visiting the Monsens and they are the best hosts ever. Shell is such a great friend and mother and I’m so lucky to have a girl like her in my life!

Holy awesome

2011-05-05T08:56:00.002-06:00

I still have one more round of NYC/CT pics to post, but I have two exciting things to mention, so I wanted to do that first!

First of all, my youngest brother in law got his mission call yesterday, and he’s going to the Bulgaria Sofia mission! Isn’t that AWESOME?! He doesn’t leave until October (longest wait ever) and he will be speaking Bulgarian. I believe the mission also includes Serbia but he probably won’t be going there.

Just in Dan’s immediate family, between his dad, brothers, sister, and in-laws, they have served in the following countries:

Ireland
Singapore
Russia
France
Japan
Phillipines
Canada
Brazil
Australia

Isn’t that amazing? We are so excited for him and I can’t believe that out of 8 kids (6 boys, 2 girls), 7 kids will have served missions in Dan’s family. Pretty sweet.

My second bit of exciting news is that Dan got a new job!!! This is so awesome and exciting for us and everything just worked out so perfectly that we know it was meant to be. He has been working on campus at Weber State and he will finish his Bachelor’s degree this summer, then start his MBA in the fall through Utah State (classes are in Layton). His MBA classes are only 2 days a week in the evening so he was planning on getting a full time job towards the end of summer.

Last week, he applied for 3 jobs on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, one called, then he had an interview on Friday, another interview on Monday, and he was offered the job on Monday! Crazy fast. He will be working at US Magnesium as some sort of Account/Client Management. He is excited for something new, but nervous because change can be scary, and he will be really busy with school and work. But his job will work around the one class he has Tues/Thurs mornings until June, and his schedule is from 7-3:30 so he will be done with work every day in time for his MBA classes which start in the Fall! Another bit of awesomeness is that he will only be about 5-7 minutes away from my work, so we can carpool together! I get freakishly tired ALL THE TIME (even when I regularly go to bed between 9 and 10) and I HATE driving to work because I get so sleepy. So now we can carpool together and I can snooze in the car and we will save lots of moolah on gas. Sweetness.

The job also has really great medical benefits and the employees pay nothing out of pocket which is pretty amazing. My company has great benefits but we still have to pay a decent amount each month, so if we switch to his company, we can save that money. We will now also be able to pay cash for his Master’s degree which is something we didn’t know if we would be able to do. I’m really pumped about this opportunity for Dan and for us and I know it’s a great blessing. Dan works so hard and I’m so proud of him and all he does.

Final NYC/CT pictures coming soon.

East coast part 2

2011-05-03T14:23:00.001-06:00

Dan and I went to the Top of the Rock (Rockefeller Building) and it was awesome! We loved it and we could see downtown NYC on one side and Central Park on the other. I don’t think it’s quite as high as the Empire State Building, but we didn’t have to wait at all and the views were amazing. I highly recommend it.

Central Park behind us.

After Top of the Rock, we got on the train and went back to Shelley and Brian’s. We got back in time for a yummy dinner, ice cream and a movie.

On our second day in the city (Saturday), we were going to go with Shelley, Brian and Thad. But we woke up Saturday and Shelley had been really sick all night and was still sick! It was awful and I was selfishly sad because I wanted to hang out with her! But luckily she got better during the day and no one else got sick either. So Dan and I took the train again into the city and it wasn’t cold, but it was pouring rain!

We took the subway to Chinatown and did some browsing along Canal Street. There wasn’t a lot of people because of the rain but we didn’t mind it. We didn’t buy anything until later so we wouldn’t have to carry it around with us all day. We ate lunch at a tiny restaurant in Chinatown because Dan wanted to eat duck. Weird but he did and later regretted it…my lunch was good though and we ventured back into the rain and walked down to Battery Park, Ground Zero, and saw Wall Street.

We checked out the Statue of Liberty from the benches in Battery Park, but the weather wasn’t so great so we decided against taking the boat to see it. Dan talked to some shady characters selling fake Rolex watches, but they weren’t cheap enough for him so we didn’t buy any.

We walked back to Canal Street and it was packed because the rain cleared up and it was Easter weekend. I loaded up on cute purses (for myself and a few others), scarves, etc. All Dan got was a shot glass, poor kid. He just doesn’t like to spend money so I spent it for him! Woo hoo! We were going to try to get tickets to a Broadway show, but it just didn’t work out this time (I’m sure I’ll go back to visit soon), so we didn’t see a show. There were TONS of people in Times Square and everywhere while we walked back to the train.

We ate a yummy dinner at a restaurant in Grand Central station and caught the train back to Shelley’s house. We got on the train really early, so we had a little fun with the camera.

We also got some cupcakes from Magnolia’s Bakery in Grand Central and they were delish!

Back East Part 1

2011-04-29T16:02:00.001-06:00

We are back from our awesome trip to Connecticut and New York. We had a great time visiting the Monsen’s and enjoying New York City. I’m breaking this post up into a few posts since I have a lot of pictures and if you don’t like reading what we did each day, then skip to the pictures!

We took a red eye flight and got to JFK at 6am and Brian picked us up and we went to their house and visited for awhile then we took a nap for a few hours. We picked up Brian from work and went to lunch at Stew Leonard’s. It was a really neat store that was huge and had tons of different food and groceries (I bought some shrimp and scallops!)

Thad was terrified of this big fake cow that kept mooing and it was pretty funny. We ate fish and chips and burgers then went back to their house to hang out and play with Thad. Brian got home and we went to eat at a place called Jordan’s where we had Greek pizza and a delicious salad!

The next day we took the train into NYC (it was about 1 hour). Of course I slept the entire way there! As we started walking, we came across H&M! I love this place and we had to walk around even though I didn’t buy anything. I shopped here when I lived in Holland and they had H&M all over Europe. They are building one at Fashion Place Mall soon yay!

We walked a TON and even though it was sunny, it was freezing! The wind was blowing and we were all bundled up but we still enjoyed the city. We walked through Times Square and took a few pics.

We walked all the way to the Met and Dan agreed to come even though museums are definitely not his thing. We only spent a few hours there, but I enjoyed it.

Above: On the steps of the Met. Below; A sweet piece of art which totally distorted our vision and seriously made me sick to look at!

After the Met, we walked through Central Park and enjoyed the gorgeous Spring blossoms (even though it didn’t feel like Spring). Below: The Plaza Hotel with tulips outside.

We stopped at the Dakota Building where John Lennon was shot. Last time I was here in high school, we saw Yoko Ohno outside here!

The Park was really pretty and it’s so BIG!

After Central Park, we took a cab to Rockefeller Plaza. It was so worth the cab fare because it would have taken forever to get there and my feet were killing me! They had all this cute Easter stuff and flowers at Rockefeller Plaza.

We bought tickets to go to the Top of the Rock and went to get some pizza before we went up. We just ate at a random small place but it was yummy!

More to come soon….

This and that

2011-04-14T11:57:00.004-06:00

I haven’t blogged for awhile and unfortunately I don’t have tons going on, but this might be a long post. I thought I would give some updates on various things I have mentioned I was working on and also just some updates about us.

Digital Scrapbooking:

Remember here, here and here when I was loving digital scrapbooking? I still love it, but I haven’t done it forever and I’m kind of sad about it.

I just don’t have as much time now with my new job and everything else. But we did get a big computer monitor for our laptop that will help me when I start doing it again!

Couponing:

I was really super gung-ho about couponing for awhile (again, when my last job was winding down and I had more time) and I got a ton of great deals and stocked our shelves. But I have backed off a lot and I still coupon (using mostly online coupons), price match, and look for good deals. I’m happy with how I’m doing although I’m not doing it nearly as much as before. I’m also super bugged by the TLC show, “Extreme Couponing” because I hate when couponers clear the shelves and take everything and don’t leave anything for people like me who just want a few things. I feel like the people on the show are demonstrating hoarding and excessive behavior and it’s completely unrealistic and unfair to so many people.

I think it’s very wasteful and one woman on the show is using coupons fraudulently, which is infuriating to those of us who are honest.

Food Storage/Emergency Prep:

This is something I have really been focusing on since the fire in Herriman and everything in Japan and all over the world! Our food storage is coming along really well and I have approximately 3-6 months of basic food storage right now for Dan and I. There are still things I’m working on and want to do, but I’m weirdly excited about it so it’s something I’m constantly thinking about. I’m also about 90% finished with our 72 hour kits. I made them myself instead of buying them and I got some brand new backpacks from D.I . that work great. I also made a kit for me to bring to work since chances are good I won’t be home if there was an emergency. I had a dream about a fire threatening our home and we had to leave really quickly and it reminded me how important this is. I may post some pictures of our food storage and 72 hour kits once I’m finished and more organized.

Running:

Dan and I are training for the Wasatch Back again this year. The race is in June and we did it last year. It’s a team relay race from Logan to Park City and it’s intense. We had a blast last year and can’t wait to do it this year. My sister is going to run with us too so I’m pumped! I’ve noticed a huge change this year compared to last year with my training and how much more I’m already able to do.

I also signed up for the Top of Utah half marathon in August and Dan signed up for the full in September. Running is weirdly addicting and I love feeling strong and proud of myself for doing something hard. Running is not my forte but I’m enjoying it most of the time. I’ve been running a few days a week with some women at my work during our lunch break and it has been awesome to get out of the office and be outside (even if we are sweaty when we get back!).

A piano!

I love to play the piano and have always wanted one. I started watching KSL obsessively and looking for a used piano. Every time I called about a good deal I saw, the piano was already sold! Finally I got a break and we got a great deal on a cute little piano and I love it! I will post some pics soon. We also got a box spring and mattress from the same person we bought the piano from and now we actually have a guest bed. Dan made a log bed in high school so we set that up in the extra bedroom for guests and I will get around to decorating it at some point.

School:

Dan will graduate with his Bachelor’s in Business Administration this summer from Weber! Woo hoo! Then he will start his MBA program through Utah State in the fall. That should take about 1.5-2 years but he will only have class two nights a week, so he will start looking for a full time job in the next month or two. I’m so proud of all his hard work and even though he despises school, he knows how important it is and he keeps plowing through it.

Carbonite:

Carbonite is online data backup software. I have done some research and this is the option that I want to go with. I highly recommend backing up all your important files/music/pictures on an external hard drive as well as with an online company like Carbonite or Mozy. If your computer crashes, you will easily lose everything, so an external hard drive will save your pictures. But if your house burns down or floods, an external hard drive won’t help. This software backs up your files periodically to a secure offsite facility and you can restore your files any time. It’s only $55 for a year, $100 for 2 years, and $130 for 3 years. I plan on purchasing it in the next few days when I get around to it.

Blog Book:

I have been wanting to print my blog to a book for each year but I haven’t done it yet and I’m going to now! I need some tips for the best software to do this. What have you used? How did you like it? Was it easy/hard to use? Pricing? Thanks!

Vegas:

My sister and I are going to go see this pretty lady in Vegas in June and I can’t wait!
We have always loved Celine and she has come back to Vegas and so we’re all over it. We had a sister trip to Vegas last year and loved it so maybe it will become a yearly thing!

Priceline:

As I mentioned before, we’re going to NYC next week and we wanted to stay in the city for one night but hotels are so expensive! Long story short, after doing some research, I decided to try out Priceline’s “name your price” and I scored us a Marriott 5 minutes away from Times Square for $125 a night! Still pricey, but hotels are usually $250 and up in that area so I’m so excited. If people are interested in specifics, let me know and I’ll do a post about the details. I plan using this a lot in the future and for my Vegas trip!

Debt free:

Awhile ago I posted about how we have started listening to Dave Ramsey and reading his books and we are still loving what he teaches. We have gotten really intense about saving money and being completely debt free. I know a lot of people think we’re crazy, but we got rid of our credit card (we only had 1 and usually paid it off) and don’t plan on using credit or borrowing money except to buy a house in the future.

I believe having good credit is a myth because your credit score isn’t even based on your income! It’s based on absurd things and if you pay cash for things, you don’t need a good credit score! A home loan can be manually underwritten (based on your income among other things) if you put 20% down and do a 15 year loan and that’s what we plan to do. No millionaire will tell you he/she got rich from credit card rewards! Plus we use perkstreet and still get awesome rewards! We don’t want debt in our lives at all. It’s not for everyone, but we feel like we’re doing the right thing for us and we’re excited about it.We plan on paying the last of our car loan off by the end of this year and then we will only pay cash to buy cars and keep saving and trading up so we will eventually end up with a nicer car (even if it takes awhile and we have crappy cars for awhile). Being debt free and having a comfortable retirement is really important to us and a goal that we share. Plus, by living frugally, it allows us to do things we love, like go on fun vacations!

We are also working on establishing a good emergency fund and my work has a 401k match that we contribute to as well. So many people don’t even think about retirement right now, but we want to live the good life when we retire so we’re already thinking about it. Luckily Dan is great with money and helps keep me on track, even though it’s hard sometimes. So many people don’t live within their means (including the GOVERNMENT sheesh) and it just makes life harder and brings more stress into your life to live like that. This is a great youtube video called “don’t buy stuff you cannot afford”:

I love it and I encourage you to look at your finances, make and follow a budget, and live within your means. It will bring a lot of peace and happiness to your life.

Whoa. That was long.

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of....

2011-04-07T11:23:00.004-06:00

Let's hear for New Yorkkkkk! (I love that song...especially the Glee version.) Dan and I are headed to New York in a few weeks and we can't wait. We're going to visit the Monsens (who live close by in CT) and enjoy some time sightseeing in the big city. Dan has never been before and I went once in high school, so we are pretty pumped. I can't wait to see Shelley Belly and Thaddy pants (and Brian too I guess...). We have lots of big plans, but almost nothing is set in stone, so we would appreciate any tips or advice. We are probably going to stay in the city on our last night so let me know if you have any advice, places you loved/hated/wish you could see. I know I want to hit up Canal Street, go to Rockefeller Plaza, and see the Statue of Liberty, and maybe a broadway show, but that's about all we've planned so far. This is an idea of how excited we are....pic from the day we found out we got our house.

Before and After: The Family Room

2011-03-28T09:53:00.007-06:00

When we bought our house, it wasn’t in great shape. It wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle and compared to some places we had seen, it was definitely worth it! We didn't mind putting in some work and we were excited about it. There was a lot of cleaning and painting to be done. This is the family room before we moved in. Christmas colors and stains on the carpet.

Another view of the family room from the kitchen before we moved in.

Here is the family room after we repainted and put in our furniture. We got the carpets cleaned as well. We painted the wall red like before, but we used a prettier color and we liked it for awhile.Here is what it has looked like for almost a year.

We decided we were done with the red and wanted something lighter so we painted the red wall the same lighter color and left the wall with the windows a darker brown (which I still love). We also added the window mirrors and here is what it looks like now!

We really love it and I think it makes the room look much bigger and brighter. The paint looks great and now I’m on the hunt to find some sort of dresser/buffet/hutch to refinish and use as a TV stand so our TV is a little higher.

A few things.

2011-03-14T15:29:00.008-06:00

I have a new nephew! Matthew Calvin Hill is the 13th grandchild and the 7th boy! The oldest grandchild is 9 so it's quite the party when we're all together. He is super precious and so so tiny! He looks just like his brother Ryan and I love cuddling him and holding him.

Dan grew his hair out (again...) and his mom cut this sweet mullet (not on purpose) in process of cutting it off.

We made a small change to our family room and I think it will end up being more of a big change when we're done. But we love it so far! Our TV wall was painted red and we really liked it for awhile, but we decided we wanted to paint it lighter and add more to that wall.

Here is the red wall before...

And here is the lighter wall after we painted it! We got it done in just about 2 hours and it only took 2 coats to completely cover the red! I love Behr paint + primer! I think the room looks a ton brighter now and we really love it.

I also found that cute ottoman/storage bench at Kmart of all places! We have gotten some houseplants and Dan is obsessed with them and I don't mind them either.

We bought the exact mirrors below and we're planning on putting them on either side of the TV like the picture below. We also want to get a new TV stand (that is just our old coffee table). I'm thinking I'll find a cute dresser on KSL or at D.I. and paint it to use as a TV stand.

So we made a few changes and I still have several things to finish it and I'm sure I will constantly be making changes, but we like it so far.

Upcoming plans

2011-03-04T14:13:00.008-07:00

I don't have a lot to say but I wanted to post some things that I have planned for after I finallllly finish the master bedroom and bathroom. Some other plans I have brewing in my head include doing some amazing moulding in our living room and in the office/future nursery. I seriously LOVE moulding/trim and a lot of people are doing amazing things with it.

I'm thinking of doing something similar to the above pics and the one below for the office/future nursery. I want to do something in there that can easily be transformed to a nursery when that time comes around...(peeps: you can keep asking us about that and we'll let you know as soon as we decide..ahem STEPH!)

I love the detail and pop that the moulding gives the room and it's so simple and cheap and easy to install especially now that I have a nail gun! There are so many different things to do and so many great ideas out there for me to copy in blog-world.

I want to do picture frame moulding (above and below) in the living room. We are going to get a piano for that room soon...yayayay! I have wanted a piano forever and we have been keeping an eye out for a great deal on a used piano from ksl. I love to play and can't wait to play at home.

And I'm using some moulding to frame our master bathroom mirror (I also did that in our half bath, but I'm doing it a different way this time. Here is what it will look like when I'm done:

So there are a bunch of awesome moulding ideas. Check out these posts/sites more more awesome inspiration!

http://www.centsationalgirl.com/2011/01/basic-board-and-batten/

http://ourhumbleabowed.wordpress.com/the-grand-tour/

http://www.justagirlblog.com/2010/07/dining-room-said-with-echoes.html

http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/search/label/molding

http://isabellaandmaxrooms.blogspot.com/2011/01/is-this-project-you-would-tackle.html

http://www.thenester.com/2010/05/board-and-batten.html

Family

2011-02-25T19:13:00.004-07:00

We drove out to California last Thursday for my Grandpa’s funeral. I’m so grateful that we could go and spend time with my family that we don’t get to see as much as we want.

The funeral was hard but it’s such a comfort to know about the plan of happiness and to know that my gramps is finally out of pain.

He served in WWII so his casket had a beautiful flag draped over it that they gave to my grandma. It was really hard to see my grams say goodbye to him and just seeing her without him was heartbreaking. I can’t imagine losing Danny.

I got to see my cousin’s new baby Marshall. He is so precious and I am obsessed with this adorable picture because he has a sweet little smile! I could hold him forever.

My cousin’s little girl Sammy with my sister. They look a lot alike don’t they?

We went to dinner with the whole family and the great-grandkids were loving on my grandma the whole time (funny how they know she needs loves right now).

I sure love my grams and I’m so glad I got to see her even though it was tough. It was a good trip and hopefully we can spend time out there again soon.

Gramps

2011-02-09T16:25:00.003-07:00

My sweet gramps passed away yesterday afternoon in California. He had a stroke a few years ago and hadn’t ever completely recovered. He had been in the hospital for the past few weeks but it is still hard to know he is finally gone. He has been close to passing many times and he always rallied back so we hoped the same would happen this time, but it wasn’t meant to be.

We spent a lot of time every year vising my grandparents in California and I have many wonderful memories of them coming to our house. My grandpa had a great sense of humor and he was always making people laugh. People would ask him how he was feeling and he would always say, “With my hands!” He was a strong priesthood holder and I adored him. My grandparents were married for over 60 years and that is a goal I hope I can reach!

I’m so grateful for the amount of time I was able to spend with him before he passed. We were able to visit them last year and I spoke to him on the phone just a few days ago. They were able to come to my wedding and be with us in the temple which is something I will always cherish.

I’m so grateful for the knowledge I have that he is in a better place now. I’ve felt a great peace and I keep picturing him on the other side and I have no doubt that he is happy and back to his old self. He is not in pain and he’s able to move around and be comfortable. I know he is hard at work doing the Lord’s work now. My gramps left a great legacy with a family raised in the gospel. I can’t wait until my grandma can join him on the other side and I have no doubt that I will be able to see him again.

Before and After: Yellow Chair

2011-01-24T16:55:00.001-07:00

So it has been a long time, but I’m still working on finishing up our bedroom. Things have gotten pretty busy lately. Dan has 19 credits and he’s studying to take the GMAT next month and he works 20 hours a week. I just got called as 2nd counselor in the primary presidency (we have 150 kids in our ward eeek!), and we both started training to run the Wasatch Back. And I’m working full time :) Fun fun. But I’m still slowly working on finishing up our bedroom and bathroom.

My dad gave me these two sick chairs for free so I fixed up one for our bedroom and I’m really excited with how it turned out!

Here is the chair before: I used gloves when I took it apart because it was grody.

And here it is after! I sanded it really well, put new padding on it, and covered it with cute fabric. It’s not upholstery fabric, so we’ll see how it holds up. We don’t use it all that much though so hopefully it will be fine.

I ended up using a $5 stapler from Hobby Lobby to staple the fabric and padding on and it worked great.

There was so much gunk on the wood and the sanding took awhile to get it all off.

Sorry about my sick yellowing blinds…the previous owners put in cheap blinds so I’m going to try to paint them until we buy new ones.

So I still have things to do but they’re coming along. I decided on black frames above the bed so thanks a lot for your input everyone!

Hardware Ranch

2011-01-20T10:15:00.001-07:00

Last weekend, Mike and Hailey slept at our house and then we helped them move some furniture up to their apartment in Logan. My cousin was having a wedding reception in Hyrum so we stayed for the day and went to Hardware Ranch to see all the elk!

It was surprisingly pretty warm and it was cool to see all the elk. It’s just a short drive up the canyon and it was so pretty up there!

We rode in a sled thingy with two huge horses pulling us around the elk.

Decisions

2011-01-15T19:53:00.003-07:00

Okay I’m still working on our bedroom..how many months has it been again?! Ugh, anyway, I need help deciding what color to paint the frames we’re going to put above our bed. I did some extremely bad photoshopping to get an idea of the colors we’re thinking.

Keep in mind that the curtains to the right of the bed are white with yellow, black and white panels at the bottom, and there is a tall long mirror with a thick black frame to the left of the bed.

Option #1 is silver..hard to tell in the pics! But our lamps are silver, the nailhead trim on the headboard is silver, the handles on the nightstands are silver, and the curtain rod is silver. The stencil is also silvery.

Option #2: White…obviously there is a lot of white in the room and I think it looks good in white.

Option #3 is black. We have black on the pillow, and the mirror to the left. We also have a flat screen TV hanging on the opposite wall that is black. There is some black in the panel on the curtains as well.

So please help me decide what to do with the frames! Any suggestions are much appreciated! Please vote in the poll at the top of my blog. Thanks everyone!

part 3 (much delayed…)

2011-01-10T10:29:00.001-07:00

So sorry for the delay on getting the last of our pics up…I’m sure you were dying in anticipation right? Ha.

Our last stop was Cozumel, Mexico and we went to Tulum to visit the Mayan ruins. It was really warm but apparently perfect weather compared to how hot is usually is there! It was absolutely gorgeous and I would love to go back with an LDS guide to get a different perspective.

The ruins were overlooking one of the most gorgeous beaches I’ve ever seen. We were more than ready to take a dip!

The waves were pretty big, but the water was so warm and I seriously LOVED it! I’m so used to the cold California ocean so this was amazing. We did some body surfing and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

There were iguanas walking all over the ruins and people were obsessed with them.

After we got back from the ruins, we still had time to change clothes on the boat and head back to Cozumel for the evening. I was really excited to shop and there were a lot of places selling things, but I ended up only getting 3 huge bottles of Mexican vanilla! I grew up using my grandma’s Mexican vanilla and it’s amazing so I was way pumped to get some for really cheap!

We walked all the way downtown (we thought it was closer but it was really about 3 miles!). We had dinner at a cute little restaurant in the main square. It was really yummy and Dan got some more Mexican coke!

Our cute heart shaped towel…precious.

Dan loved the scorpion towel animal.

Out waiters were so awesome! The one on the right was from Haiti and the one of the left was from Indonesia! They were awesome and the guy on the right (“D”) always had this huge smile on his face! I’m so sad this pic didn’t get it

We got off our ship around 9:30am and our flight didn’t leave until 5:30pm. We had pre-booked a shuttle to the airport and so we had to go on that right after we got off the ship! It was quite a long day…

We are so sad our trip is already over…

I have a few more pics that we got developed from our underwater camera that I will post as soon as I scan them onto the computer!

oh one oh one eleven?

2011-01-01T14:16:00.001-07:00

This is a long post and I will put up pics of the rest of our cruise soon! But I forgot that I didn’t put any of Mike’s wedding!

Dan’s older brother Mike got married on December 21. His new wife is also named Hailey so there are now two Haley/Hailey Hill’s in the family! It’s pretty confusing for the kids but she’s awesome so I don’t mind sharing the name with her .

The temple was amazing and watching them get sealed was beautiful. It made me love Dan so much and I’m so grateful that we could share that special moment with them.

This kid is funny.

It was pretty cold at the temple and really hard to get any pics with everyone smiling! But it was still fun and the boys got in a snowball fight afterwards.

The reception was at Hailey’s aunt’s house in Farmington and it was an amazing house. It was massive and beautiful and I had to take some pics of the gorgeous kitchen!

All the siblings (minus Jon) with Mike and Hailey.

Theses pictures aren’t the greatest because someone just took them for us and it really is impossible to get everyone smiling at the same time with their eyes open! But we tried…

The kids are so funny and I love looking at all their different expressions. Hilarious.

Awkward Hill Family Christmas Photo 2010 below.

Less awkward Hill Family Christmas Photo 2010.

Dan and I had our first Christmas morning together at our own home and it was great! We had a small budget for gifts this year because we just went on a cruise and we bought a bunch of tools and other things the day after Thanksgiving. But we still loved our gifts!

Dan got a backpacking towel, a church book, running underwear, and a neck gaitor for running. I got a punch bowel set, lotion and a cute purse.

After we had our Christmas morning together, we spent the afternoon with Dan’s family. We had lunch with his grandparents, and all the great-grandkids got cute hats.

Then we went to Dan’s parent’s house and exchanged gifts (we draw names). It was really crazy and chaotic, but so fun. The whole family was there (except for Jon in Brazil!). There are 27 of us total and Amanda is due with a new baby in March and I can’t wait to meet him!

Dan and I got a sweet measuring tool thingy and a iHome from his parents!

We got a set of Christmas movies, popcorn and of course Diet Coke from Jon and Julie (they drew us).

After that, we headed to my parents for dessert. We hung out and watched Elf on their big comfy couch in the basement (I seriously love it!).My parents bought us an air compressor combo kit and I was ecstatic! It has two nail guns and a staple gun and I can’t wait to use it! I have so many projects and I think I was more excited than Dan was to get this (and he was excited). Steph got Dan a sweet Jazz shirt and got my a home décor thing I have wanted for awhile.

On Sunday after Christmas we invited everyone who wanted to come up to our house for dinner and everyone ended up coming! We honestly thought Walmart would be open on Christmas so we could get a few things, but nothing was open! I couldn’t believe it! But luckily everyone pitched in and brought food so we were fine.

We turned on a Christmas movie for the kids (love Comcast onDemand!). It was awesome to have everyone in our home and it seriously brings me so much joy to have people we care about in our home-whether it’s close friends, a few family members, or 30 people! We had a great holiday and we’re so thankful for all our amazing blessings this year! We can’t wait to see what 2011 has in store for us…

Numero dos

2010-12-30T14:02:00.001-07:00

Here is the second installment of pics from the trip! Enjoy! In Belize, we went cave tubing and this was definitely our favorite part of the trip. We booked the trip with an independent company and we were so glad we did!

Our guide was so awesome and told us all about the Mayan and Belizean culture, and then we got to hike through the rainforest to the underground rivers. He told us all about different kinds of plants and animals.

We came across a termite’s nest and we ate some fresh termites! Weirdly though, they were way small (not cruchy or anything) and they tasted like a squirt of mouthwash! I’m not joking, they were way minty and not gross at all. So try termites if you ever get the chance…

Most of our pics from cave tubing are on an underwater camera getting developed right now, but it was amazing! The water was so warm and we floated on tubes through some huge underwater caves.

Another towel animal…what is it?

We went to the formal night twice and it was fun to get dressed up, but we both definitely prefer the casual look most of the time!

Our last stop was at Cozumel, Mexico. Since we didn’t get to go to Grand Cayman, we got a lot of extra time in Cozumel. We booked an excursion to the Mayan ruins of Tulum.

We had to take a ferry across to Playa Del Carmen (beautiful!), then take a bus to the ruins. It was a bit of a trip, but we’re glad we went! And since we had extra time, we were still able to shop and eat dinner in Cozumel that night.

The beautiful beaches at Playa Del Carmen! We are planning a trip back there for sure!

This is at the entrance to the ruins. The Mayan people were extremely short, so all the entrances were way small!

The views were absolutely amazing! The only place I’ve seen that is comparable to this is Cinque Terre, Italy. It was awesome.

The water was so perfectly turquoise blue and I couldn’t believe it! The ruins were on a cliff/hill overlooking the ocean.

It was really warm and super humid and we were there in mid December! I guess it gets up to 120 in the summer and it’s always way way hot so we were lucky that it was in the 80s! But we were still hot and we were able to take a dip in the ocean and we loved it!

Part 3 to come soon….

Here we go

2010-12-26T10:40:00.001-07:00

I’m just going to post a billion pictures of our trip because I want to. I’m going to split it into a few different posts as well, but here we go…

JetBlue has small TVs on the back of every seat and if you know Dan, he LOVES tv so he was so so happy. I loved watching HGTV as well.

This is when we finally got to our ship in Tampa. It was warm but rainy the day we left. Luckily it cleared up!

We went to karaoke and loved watching people live out their fantasies on the stage. It was seriously hilarious.

Below Dan started his gorge-fest. Gross.

We had to get a soda card and I loved having unlimited Diet Coke! But it tasted a little different and I just couldn’t figure out why!

The first of our cute towel animals from our steward.

Dan absolutely loved going on our balcony and watching the ocean. He was transfixed by it.

Because it was so windy the first two days, our stop in Grand Cayman got cancelled (so sad!). The ship was also rocking a lot and tons of people (including us) got sick. Yucka. So we just layed out for awhile and caught some rays.

Our next stop (our first stop because the first was cancelled) was Roatan, Honduras. It was gorgeous and amazing!

We had breakfast brought to our room almost every morning and we ate on the balcony!

We decided to have a beach day here so we just went to the beach close to the port and it was so pretty! We rented snorkel gear and enjoyed lots of sunshine.

The water was so warm and so blue! I was just floating on my stomach with my face in the water and breathing through the snorkel. It was weirdly relaxing and I loved it.

We had a quick lunch right by the beach and their Diet Coke was Coca Cola light. It was yummy and Dan was obsessed with the Coke because it tasted a little different.

Enjoying my book on the beach.

We had a blast in Roatan! More pics of the rest of the trip to come soon….

We’re baaaacckkk!

2010-12-20T13:58:00.001-07:00

We had a BLAST on our cruise this past week and we can’t believe our vacation is already over! Dan’s brother is getting hitched tomorrow (hoorah for weddings!), so I need to find an outfit ASAP and then I’ll put up all the great pics of our adventures including….

Seasickness
Wind and clouds
Hiking through the jungle in Belize to go cave tubing
Eating termites (good protein and minty tasting!)
Visiting Mayan ruins
Lots of beaches
SUN
Snorkeling
Food
Weight gain (see previous bullet)
Shopping

And more!