2011

This year has been full of ups and downs.

We celebrated our first anniversary.

We gained a new member of the family.

We lost a member of the family.

We moved into a new home.

2011 had its ups and downs.  It was a good year, but I'm glad to see it go.

I hope 2012 is better.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone!  Sorry for the lack of blogging.  It's been a little busy around here lately.

We successfully moved, and nothing got broken!  I'm very happy about that.  We closed a few days early, and because of that we were able to move in a whole week before we had planned.  The original plan was to close on Monday and move in on Saturday after taking the week to clean and paint.

Instead we closed on Friday, painted/cleaned on Friday, and moved in on Saturday.  It was a really busy weekend, but we were so happy to be in our new home.  We didn't get everything painted before moving in so since then we've been busy painting to get rid of those horrid colors from before.  We've successfully managed to remove all of the salmon colored walls, and kept 1 red wall in the kitchen.

Anyway, back to Christmas.  Connor was scheduled to work today so we opened presents on Christmas Eve.  We had Christmas Eve dinner with most of Connor's family, then came home and opened gifts.  I finally took some pictures of our house.  Here they are for your viewing pleasure.

Packing

Most of my day today was spent packing.  I don't feel like I've gotten much done, but I've packed about 15 boxes, plus more of those rubbermaid containers that we have.  I'm hoping to be able to move quickly and easily (or at least as quickly and easily as possible).  I've never really had to pack and move breakable things before.  I'm afraid things are going to get broken.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we spent Thanksgiving with my family in California.  We had a really good time.  This is the first year since 2006 that I've spent Thanksgiving with my family.  In 2007 I was in the MTC (although technically we had a pre-Thanksgiving a week before I went into the MTC), 2008 I was in Argentina, and 2009 and 2010 I spent Thanksgiving with Connor's family.  So I was definitely due to spend Thanksgiving with my family this year.

We drove out to California on Tuesday.  That was a long drive.  Connor drove the entire way.  I used to love driving, but now I love sleeping on trips.

On Wednesday the stars aligned and I was able to see my friend Melody who I haven't seen in probably 10+ years.  It was a short visit, but it was great to finally meet her husband and cute son.  Hopefully it won't take us 10 years to see each other again.  Later Wednesday night Crystal, Kari and I saw Breaking Dawn.  I had already seen it but it was just so good that I had to go again!  Just kidding.  It kinda sucked.  But Crystal and Kari hadn't seen it so we went and laughed at the incredibly cheesy parts.

Me and Melody

Thursday was the big feast.  We had a TON of food and my stomach wouldn't let me eat all that I wanted.  It was all delicious.  The most memorable part was when I noticed ants in our pies.  I was helping set the table and I walked by the pies and noticed something strange.  I looked closer and saw an ant.  I thought if it was just one, or a few, I wouldn't need to say anything.  But, alas, there were many, and they were all over the pies.  I yelled something along the lines of "Oh no!  There's ants in the pies!"  And everyone came to the rescue.  I don't think the ants had been there very long and we were able to salvage the pies.  They were just on the surface of the pies, and you can't have Thanksgiving without pies, right?  So we ate them anyway.  And they were delicious.

Friday we celebrated Alex's 5th birthday.  It's not until next week, but we celebrated early.  We gave him a Thundercats Sword.  I had no idea what that was, but he was very excited when he opened it.  He said "yes!"  And then Cameron cried because he wanted to play with it too.  He's so cute.  We saw The Muppets, which was a fun movie.  Then we had lunch at Fuddruckers.  Later we had pizza for dinner and watched the first 2 Lord of the Rings' movies.  We were too tired to stay up for the third.

Saturday we drove home, and I started to feel sick.  Joe had gotten sick while we were there and his kids were sick, and I guess my mom was sick before we got there so somehow or another it was passed along to me.  The drive home sucked.  The last 2 hours I just wanted to get into bed and go to sleep.  Connor drove the whole way, again.  Thank goodness he likes to drive.

We got home and Connor told me that he would bring everything up so I came upstairs to our apartment, opened the door, stepped inside, and it was freezing cold.  That's right.  No heat.  Again.  I'm so tired of all of these issues with the heat.  Connor tried to restart the boiler, but when he did the pump that works for our section of the building was making a really awful noise.  So it probably needs to be replaced.  And of course, it's the weekend, so nothing can happen until Monday.

All day today, Sunday, I've just been in the bedroom.  It generally stays warmer in here and I've got my electric blanket and a space heater.  I'm ready to move.

Anyway, it was a really great Thanksgiving.  Strange without Ryan.  His birthday is coming up on December 3rd.  Every year for my dad's birthday we go out to Burger King, as that was his favorite restaurant.  I think for Ryan we're going to go to Outback for his birthday.  Plus we have to make brownies.  Two of his favorite things.

November 14, 2007

This is what I was doing 4 years ago today.  I can't believe it's been 4 years!

 We started out with breakfast at IHOP.  Then we drove down to Provo and took some pictures.

This day was kind of surreal.  I had never really wanted to go on a mission (before deciding to go) so this wasn't a day that I had ever really dreamed of or anticipated.

Apparently they've changed how they do MTC drop-off's now, but at the time your family would go in with you, watch a video, and the MTC President would speak to you and then tell you to say your goodbyes.  I remember him saying that saying goodbye was like ripping off a band-aid.  The quicker you do it, the better.  And then he said we had 5 minutes.  Once he said that I started to cry.  A lot.  And then I started to laugh at myself for crying so much, so it sounded even worse.  I hugged everyone and left.

I must have still looked really distraught because one of the people who was there making sure the missionaries went the right way pointed out to me where the kleenex was located.  Then I had to go wait in lines to get my MTC card, take a picture, find out who my companion would be, verify my immunization records and get some supplies.  The whole time I was trying to keep myself from bursting into tears. Some Elders in front of me asked me some questions and I answered as quickly as possible.  I knew if I said too much I'd start crying again.  The whole time I was thinking, "Oh crap! What am I doing?"

Luckily it all worked out.  I absolutely loved my mission and cried way more when I left Argentina, than we I left my family at the MTC.  (No offense.)

Our House

As of yesterday we are officially under contract.  Yay!  Wednesday we are having our inspection.  Since the house is vacant the power/gas/electricity have been turned off, and the house has been winterized.  We have to pay to have everything turned back on for the inspection, and then off and re-winterized again.  Boo.  Then, we will have to get it all turned back on again.  And pay each time.  Ugh.  Our official closing date is December 12th, but if we can get everything done more quickly we are hoping we can close before Thanksgiving. 

We went today to see the house again.  We need to get a few things fixed (the carpet needs to be pulled -- it's kinda bumpy in some places because they did a bad job putting it down), and we need to paint.  The colors downstairs are red and peach, which don't go together and don't go with our stuff.  So we'll have to paint the entire downstairs.  The upstairs isn't too bad, but it needs some patching up too. 

Here are some photos of the house for your viewing pleasure:

Front View of the house

Front Door/Porch

Family Room
See what I mean about the colors?

Kitchen.
There's no hardware on the cabinets/drawers.
The previous owners must have taken them with them when they left.

Entrance

Master Beedroon

I'm very excited for this tub.

Master Bath/Vanity
One day we could put 2 sinks in, which would be nice.

One of the bedrooms.

There's a Jack and Jill Bathroom between the other 2 bedrooms upstairs.
And there's DeAnna (our realtor).

Happy Halloween

Sunday night we finally got around to carving our pumpkins.  They turned out alright.  We really need to get a pumpkin carving knife next year.  

More Halloween Fun!

Saturday night we had another Halloween party at the mortuary.  This one was thrown by us and our friend Ami.  It was a lot of fun.  There weren't a lot of people, but we had a lot of fun!

Connor and I dressed up as characters from The Exorcist.  I've never seen the movie, but we thought it'd be fun.  I was the crazy girl, and Connor was the priest.

Some of our decorations.

Dry ice in the fountain.

For the record, more people came after we took this picture.   :)

I think it looks cooler with the red eyes. 

Zombie Halloween Party

I look too happy to be a zombie. 

We bought a house!

Well, we're working on it at least.  Thursday we went and saw a house that we really liked.  It's a really great house and we could both see ourselves there.  The only downside is that the yard is teeny but it does have some common areas and 2 parks that are pretty close by.

Anyway, we put an offer in on Thursday and today our offer was accepted!!!  We are very excited.  It's been fun living above a mortuary, but it's time for us to start a new chapter in our lives.  And I'm very excited to have a dishwasher.

The house is vacant (it's a foreclosure/HUD) so we should be able to close and move in pretty soon.  Hopefully before Thanksgiving.  We set a goal to be in a home by Christmas so it looks like it actually might happen!

We'll have to go back soon to take pictures of it to post.

We did really like that other house that we had an offer on, but we still hadn't heard anything back from the bank.  This house that we are getting is only about 2 years old and we feel like it will be a great starter home for us.

Thursday

Both Connor and I were off on Thursday so we decided we'd drive down to Provo and go visit the cemetery, and while we were there we had to go to Coneys!  So we drove to Provo, had a tasty lunch, and then went over to the Cemetery.

Temporary grave marker

It was nice to go visit.

13 Reasons Why I loved 13 Reasons Why

Clever title, right?  :)

I just finished reading a book called 13 Reasons Why.  It's not exactly an "upper" but it is a really great and thought provoking book.  I read about it in Entertainment Weekly and was really intrigued by the article so I decided to get the e-pub version from the library on my Nook.

The book is about a high school aged kid, Clay, who one day receives a package when he gets home from school. The package turns out to be cassette tapes that his former classmate, Hannah, recorded.  Hannah had recently committed suicide and recorded the tapes before she killed herself, stating the 13 reasons, which turned out to be people, why she decided to kill herself.

I know, it sounds depressing.  But it was actually really good.  The protagonist, Clay, is a really great character and his reaction to the tapes is really moving.

Here are the 13 Reasons why I loved 13 Reasons Why (and these are in no particular order)

1.  It makes you consider more deeply the way that you treat others, and the effect that it has on their lives.

2.  I love YA books.

3.  At first I really disliked Hannah.  She sounded snotty on the tapes, but by the end I was mourning her death, and her last minute cries for help.

4.  Clay, the protagonist, is a truly genuine character.  He is a shining light of hope in the book.

5.  I've never read anything like it.

6.  Apparently they're making it into a movie and who doesn't like watching movies based on books?

7.  I can't stop thinking about the book after I finished reading it yesterday.

8.  It's relatable.  We've all been through (or will go through) H.S. and have experienced the difficulties associated with rumors and what not.

9.  It reminds us of how we cannot control the consequences of our actions.

10.  It addresses very real issues that we don't often want to deal with.

11.  It reminds us that while we can't change what's happened, we can learn from our mistakes.

12.  It helps us realize how important it is to try to reach out to people.

13.  It was just really, really good.  So go read it!

And if you do, let me know.  I'd love to know what you think too.

Bran Muffins

These last couple of days have been tough.  Yesterday I went to physical therapy, and so yesterday my knee was really sensitive.  Not fun.

Also, I've had some ugly side effects to the medication.  I'm not taking hydrocodone anymore, but the side effects are lingering.  Connor was very sweet and made bran muffins last night to help...uh....move things along.  :)  I think it has helped, but I'm still not feeling so great today.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

LPCS

Lateral Patellar Compression Syndrome is apparently what my knee issue is called....in case you were wondering.

I'm feeling good.  Yesterday was great.  I had no issues with nausea.  Today, I haven't had as much luck.  My favorite remedy is a cool washcloth around my neck.  I don't know why, but it feels so nice.

New home?

Here's the house that we've been looking at.  It's kind of got a different layout.  It's multi-level.  When you walk in there's the living room.  Then there are stairs to go either up or down.  Upstairs are the kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms.  Downstairs are the family room, another bedroom, bathroom, and laundry room.

We went back to see it today.  We saw it first at night so it was good to see it during the day.  I'm glad we did also because there were some features of the house that I had confused with other houses.  But I still really like it.  It needs paint and the carpet needs cleaned, but it's in good shape.  Eventually one day we could update the kitchen (it definitely needs a new stove), but everything is great overall.

I feel really good about it, but who knows what will happen.  It is a short sale so even though the seller has accepted our offer it doesn't really mean much.  The bank has to accept it and that could take months.

We are still keeping our options open and potentially looking at other homes, but we really like this one.  One of the things that I LOVE about it is that there is a huge park right across the street.

Here are some photos that we took of the house today.

This is from the Living Room.

Like I said, it definitely needs a new stove.

I think the swing set comes with the house.
They've already moved everything else out so I don't know why they'd come back for this.

One of the bedrooms.  Needs painting.

Definitely needs painting.

Master Bedroom.  Not huge but not too bad.  I love that it has its own bathroom.

Like I said, we're still looking around.  But we're really hoping that this offer goes through.  Darn short sales.

Knee News

This morning I got my knee brace off.  Yay!  Little did I know, that involved getting staples removed too. Last time they put sutures in my leg, so I thought they would have done the same this time.  Not so!  I was surprised when I saw the staples, and the PA who removed my bandages told me that she's surprised that the last time they didn't do staples because there's a smaller chance of infection with staples.

I was nervous about her pulling them out, but it didn't hurt.  It just pinched a little.  One of my incisions did start to bleed again, but it stopped quickly.  Then she put some adhesive and tape over my incisions.  Then came the pressure sock.  Oh, the pressure sock.  How I hate it.  But it's better than the brace.  2 weeks.  I can do 2 weeks, right?  Last time I made it 1 week and 5 days.  Maybe this time I'll make it the full 2 weeks.  We'll see.

I'm going to my physical therapy appointment on Friday.  By this point I've paid so much into my insurance that the physical therapy is "free" as is pretty much anything else I need to do this year.  I'm trying to think of other things I can/need to do.

Pre Brace Removal.  (Sorry it's blurry.)

Removing the gauze.  It was actually pretty bloody.  Yuck.

I think I was checking out the staples.

Waiting for the staples to be removed.  

Compression sock!