I LOVA MY MAN!

Why do I love my husband so much? Because he spends hours (literally) putting together new treasures for me (although he DID say tonight's treasure hasn't been as bad as some in the past). Not to mention the fact that he will spend his whole Saturday going from DI to DI (I think we hit about six in one day) and consignment shop to consignment shop (about four, the same day) to find treasures (yes, treasures!) with me. Everything to me is a treasure right now.....if it's old and can be spray painted or crafted in some way, I'll happily play with it! I'll post pics soon of what I'm talking about (and yes, I'll post some pics of the house, I promise!) but I LOVA my man! Thanks bubs for putting up with me and my crazy ideas! AND for not questioning me too much on why one old side table won't work as well as another, I know, I'm crazy!

DIFFERENT TRIPS TO THE SAME PLACE

By Diane Armitage printed in the April 21, 1995 "Dear Abby" column.

Deciding to have a baby is like planning a trip to Australia. You've heard it's a wonderful place; you've read many guidebooks and feel certain you're ready to go. Everyone you know has traveled there by plane. They say it can be a turbulent flight with occasional rough landings, but you can look forward to being pampered on the trip.

So you go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for a ticket to Australia. All around you, excited people are boarding planes for Australia. It seems there is no seat for you; you'll have to wait for the next flight. Impatient, but anticipating a wonderful trip, you wait--and wait--and wait.

Flights to Australia continue to come and go. People say silly things like, "Relax. You'll get on a flight soon." Other people actually get on a plane and then cancel their trip, to which you cry, "It's not fair!"

After a long time the ticket agent tells you, "I'm sorry; we're not going to be able to get you on a plane to Australia. Perhaps you should think about going by boat."

"By BOAT!" you say. "Going by boat will take a very long time and it costs a great deal of money. I really had my heart set on going by plane." So you go home and think about not going to Australia at all. You wonder if Australia will be as beautiful if you approach it by sea rather than air. But you have long dreamed of this wonderful place, and finally you decide to travel by boat.

It is a long trip, many months over many rough seas. No one pampers you. You wonder if you will ever see Australia. Meanwhile, your friends have flown back and forth to Australia two or three more times, marveling about each trip.

Then one glorious day, the boat docks in Australia. It is more exquisite than you ever imagined, and the beauty is magnified by your long days at sea. You have made many wonderful friends during your voyage, and you find yourself comparing stories with others who also traveled by sea rather than by air.

People continue to fly to Australia as often as they like, but you are about to travel only once, perhaps twice. Some say things like, "Oh, be glad you didn't fly. My flight was horrible; traveling by sea is so easy."

You will always wonder what it would have been like to fly to Australia. Still, you know God blessed you with a special appreciation of Australia, and the beauty of Australia is not in the way you get there, but in the place itself.

THANK YOU Cristel....like I said in my last post, I have some of the bestest friends. I &hearts you guys!

LIFE

On my Friday night commute I passed a pretty bad accident which for some reason gave me chills as I drove by. I told Alan when I got home there was no way the driver got out alive. I was right....the next day on the news they covered the accident and the driver did die. When I got to work this morning one of the girls I work with (who I also happened to go to high school with) told me the driver of the car was a kid I actually grew up with. I haven't seen or talked to him since high school, but when someone you grew up with dies (and who is your same age), it truly makes you think. I got on facebook tonight to look at his profile and it turns out it's NOT the kid I went to high school with. They just happen to have the same name, are the same age and live not too far from one another. While I'm glad to know the kid I grew up with is okay, my heart goes out to the other family. They had two little girls, one of which was in the car during the accident. According to the newspaper she's fine, but it still gives me chills. I was talking to Alan the other day and told him that we REALLY need to get life insurance, just in case. This accident sort of hit home.....life is so precious and you never know when it might be your (or a loved ones) time to go. You can never take anything for granted and although times can be tough and life can seem so discouraging, there is so much we (and by that I mean me) are blessed with. For all my friends and loved ones out there, I love you. I should say it more often, but I have some of the bestest family and friends in the world. I also have (being a little biased here) the bestest husband in the world. Live life to the fullest and enjoy every minute of it. Time is a VERY precious thing. Love you all!

HOME SWEET HOME

Wow, it seems like forever since I last blogged. Since we just barely got our Internet up and going at home and can't find the thingy to upload the pics, you'll have to be content with a post, sorry! We are officially in! Not completely unpacked, but hey, that will come with time, right? In fact, although it's not due until September 1st, we just received our first mortgage payment statement. Hmmm.....I liked the house part, not the mortgage part! I LOVE being in a home finally. So much more room....we're not so on top of each other, kinda nice. Steven likes having his "bachelor pad" downstairs (but I think he secretly likes being able to still come upstairs and get something to eat or just talk). The best of both worlds! Plus, I GET A CRAFT ROOM! Can you tell I'm excited? I haven't even started working in it yet, but that will come with time. It will also be where the office is going, but it's a pretty big room. I think I'm in heaven! Now I'll actually have a place to PUT all my craft crap. While we were boxing up our old place we've found so much stuff we don't use anymore that I think we'll probably have a garage sale. Now that we're kinda settled, I need to start going through everything and putting the sale together. Anyone want to join us? I think a multi-family one would be great! Just let me know...maybe the end of August? Anyway, hopefully we'll be able to put some pics up soon. I'll have to take one of Alan mowing the lawn...he loves doing it because it's "our" lawn. Wonder how long that will last?

We also just found out (well, not just, I guess) that we're going to have another niece and/or nephew on my side. I love babies! Annisten (my newest niece) is doing great. They just found out she does have some heart problems and in fact is headed down to Primary Children's in SL today to see if surgery is needed. Fingers crossed and prayers being said things will go better than anticipated. She's such a cutie and so sweet. So, while life is hectic, it's also good, we just need to remember that in the hard times and good. Oh! Update in regards to the adoption plans....they are still on, but we probably won't start until January. After buying the house we are kinda wiped out savings wise, so we're going to work on that end and then start the paperwork in January. Yeah! It will be nice to be able to kind of settle in more before starting another exiting chapter in our lives. Plus, we have to have the nursery completely set up (which is going to be kinda weird) so we need to empty out the room first. So again, if you can think of any fundraisers, please let me know. Hope everyone enjoys their weekends!

HaPPinEs IS........

Walking through your home for the first time and realizing it's completely yours, along with the mortgage payments! We were able to get the key's to the house tonight....yep, it's officially ours! We move on Saturday! Alan is even more excited than I am.....he's rented a 26 ft. U-Haul. Men!

Also, congratulations to Keri & Bryon who welcomed an adorable little girl on Wednesday. Happiness is also holding a new little one.....ahhh!

BIG NEWS!

Ha....that got your attention, didn't it? Well, first I'm going to start off with the boring, up to date news. As of right now we still have not closed on the house and are hopefully (fingers crossed) going to do so on July 2nd. All of the underwriting companies are so far behind due to tons of re-fi's and new home purchases. We've come to a pretty quick realization that home buying in an extremely stressful thing, but I'm sure so worth it in the end. Now, on to the BIG NEWS.....nope, I'm not preggers. Had you going there for a minute, didn't I? Actually, I would have loved to announce that I am, but all in due time, my friends. So what is our big news, you ask? We have decided to adopt and I absolutely couldn't be happier. I've actually always wanted to adopt and even told Alan that somewhere along the line I wanted to start the process. Since starting fertility I've thought about it even more. We we're going to go a full year with fertility before even thinking about adoption, but I just feel that now is the time. We have some very special friends who have just started their adoption journey and after reading their experiences so far, I think it's given me the push I needed. I approached Alan about it last Saturday and surprisingly he was really open-minded about it. I thought he would want to wait until March (we started fertility in March of this year) but he thought it would be a good idea. We're not giving up yet on the fertility and having biological children (because I know my kidlets are up in heaven having just too much and aren't ready to come to earth quite yet) but we are going to start the paperwork process. Also, due to the costs of adoption, we most likely will be following our friends examples and holding fundraisers to help out. So, if you can thing of ANYTHING we can do for a fundraiser, please leave me a comment. Thanks to everyone for all the prayers and love vibes.....please keep them coming because I have a feeling we're going to need them!

UTAH HOGEL ZOO

Friday night my little brother and his fiancee came over to ask if we wanted to go to the Hogle Zoo with them on Saturday. We SHOULD have been packing, but the zoo sounded like a lot more fun, so off to Salt Lake we headed. We weren't there for too long before it started raining and later drove home in a flash flood! Crazy Utah weather! The past couple of weeks have been so cold and rainy it almost feel's like the beginning of Spring again. Oh well, we need the water!


Isin't she cute? She's currently pregnant and due at any time.....


We went on the train ride which I SWEAR to you was a lot longer when I was younger. Oh well, it was still fun!


After the sweet train ride we headed over to the gopher holes and the play area. Ya, the people probably thought we were crazy as we didn't have kids with us but were still playing around. We were actually looking to take different photo's for the wedding (at least, that's what we were telling ourselves!) I love Alan's turtle pic.....I was laughing so hard when he was trying to crawl inside the shell I was almost crying. You should have seen some of the kids faces as they watched him....priceless!


We of course had to take the classic "how do you measure up?" pics....


After which he headed in to see the monkey's (sorry about the poor quality of the picture....Alan changed the setting and I forgot to change it back before taking the pic):


(couldn't resist adding the last one!)
Finally, before the heavens decided open to open and completely drench us, we went to see the penguins because hey, who can resist them?


All in all it was a pretty fun day. Although we didn't get any packing or cleaning done, it was totally worth it. Thanks Steve & Kelley for inviting us!

311 / ZIGGY MARLEY / THE EXPENDABLES

Last night we headed out to USANA to see The Expendables, Ziggy Marley and 311 who was headlining the concert. It's been raining here for about the past week and a half and last night was no exception. It ended up raining during the second set (Ziggy Marley) and was a little cold, but towards the end of the set it stopped and the sun even came out for a while. All in all it was a pretty fun night and 311 was AWESOME! This is the second time we've gone to see them and they put on a pretty fantastic show. I also really liked The Expendables - it was my first time seeing them live.

The Expendables

Ziggy Marley

The rain - pretty cold but luckily it didn't last!


311


We actually didn't get ANY good shots of 311. We also didn't get any video footage as our camera died the first part of the set. Oh well! Maybe next time!

STRESS? NAH!

Two weddings in June a day apart? No big deal! Two weddings in June, one the day we're SUPPOSED to close, plus cleaning and packing up the house? Piece of cake. Two weddings in June, closing in June, packing & cleaning to be out of our townhome by June 30th with no settled closing date as our paperwork still hasn't gone to underwriting so therefore we might be homeless? I can handle that. Two weddings, closing, packing, cleaning, no paperwork to underwriting so no approximate closing date plus two baby showers in July one of which I'm hosting? Weeellll..... Two weddings, closing, packing, cleaning, no paperwork to underwriting so no approximate closing date, two baby showers in July PLUS two bridal showers, also in July, one of which I'm co-hosting? Crap! Two weddings, closing, packing, cleaning, no paperwork to underwriting so no approximate closing, two baby showers, two bridals showers and one wedding in August in which I'm trying to help as much as I can? Insanity! But you know what? I'm:

Does life get any better? To tell you the truth I'm secretly happy about the showers....I LOVE hosting things and coming up with the ideas. I'll be even MORE excited if we close before the 30th!

GOIN' TO THE CHAPEL....UM,....TEMPLE...

What do you get when you add this:

and a little of that:

a pinch of this:

a dash of that:

and just a LITTLE smidgen of this?

One very cute, newly engaged couple:

Congratulations to my little brother and soon to be cute sister-in-law, Kelley! That was the surprise I had mentioned in my previous post but wasn't able to talk about until it was "official." My little brother came to me at the beginning of the week asking for a creative way to propose to his girlfriend by Saturday (today). Since it was kind of last minute I suggested a scavenger hunt with clues that included all of their firsts (first date, first kiss, first I love you, etc.) I didn't think too much of it until Wednesday night when he came over with a list of everywhere he'd like her to go on the hunt! Crap! So, with the help of my mom we made up some riddles and then I put everything together Friday. With the help of some friends we were able to get her from place to place with me riding along video taping the whole thing. We ended up at a restaurant her family owns (also where they will be having the reception) and he proposed with family and loved ones watching. Very cute and I think it turned out pretty good - considering it was kid of last minute! We're excited for them and wish them all the best!