Fall Happenings...

So I've been failing at this blog, because there really hasn't been much exciting going on for Will and me. We've been keeping busy with work and all the daily things. I was working a temporary position at an insurance company for about 7 weeks, doing a LOT of copying and pasting and just started last week back at the Men's Wearhouse. I am glad to be back at the place I really enjoyed working, but I do remember a few things I really didn't miss. I love the people I work with and am thrilled to have some of my favorite people in the same store as me. I need to get back in the groove of things...I feel like I should already know everything, but need to be reminded how to do things, and things have changed in the 3 years I was gone, so there's new things to learn too. I need to learn to be on my feet for 8 hours, again. I need to remember what shoes my feet could handle standing in for that long too. The other day I wore boots and after the first hour was wishing I could just walk around in my sock instead. That night I literally couldn't sleep because my feet were aching so bad.

A couple of months ago, I got sick and ended up in the ER for a kidney infection. That was not fun! Because I was so dehydrated it took them 5 tries to get the IV in to get me fluids and antibiotics and then another 4 pricks just to try and draw a blood sample. And we're not talking, prick, pull the needle out, we're talking, prick, move it around trying to find a good spot in my vein. Then the whole ordeal of 3 different doctors needing to push on my stomach to see how intense the pain was, was not fun. Needless to say, I plan to stay well hydrated at all times, especially when I'm sick. The doctor said she thought because I hadn't been drinking much and was throwing up, that my body didn't have anything running through my kidneys to flush any infections out.

We were sad to see the summer end but did try to cram a few fun outings in to feel like we didn't waste the entire summer away. We took Will's mom's boat out and really wish we could've done that more...but I guess there's always next year. We played a lot of badminton and bean bag toss with my family on Sunday's. We tried to have BBQ's as much as possible. Will and I enjoyed dinner out on the patio most nights and fires in the fire pit on the weekends. Me and all my sisters and sister in laws and my mom all went to see Thriller together, which was such a good show! It was so fun to have all the girls together, we're all planning on going to the KBull 93 concert in December together too, I can't wait!


We've decided to try out our fireplace this winter, to see how much money we can save on our gas bills. So we've gathered wood from different people (mostly people just trying to get rid of it, selling it really cheap) and started building a good wood pile. Because we've already had a couple of cold weeks, we've really noticed a diffference in temperature around the house with a fire going. I've even learned to start fires on my own!

Jezzabelle has been such a joy to have around our house. It was tough right at first trying to figure out the potty training thing again. But Will had an idea to put in her own little dog door, and leave her in the laundry room while we were gone and went to bed, and it worked so well. She is a smart little pup and we only had to deal with a few accidents after she learned to use her dog door. She is so animated and has so much love to give us. Will and I both love coming home from work to her excited tail wagging and small little kisses. She can be so funny at times, the way she'll sit in the middle of the room and just take everything in. She loves to eat the big dog food so much, we've stopped buying her own food and gotten her, her own big dog bowl to eat right along side the big dogs. She loves to hide under the couch and snip at the big dogs heels as they walk by, which in turn becomes a game of trying to get her as her little head pops out, but she's always quicker than them. Bosley and Mia, have really learned to live with her. They play gentler with her, and don't seem to mind her little puppy antics as much anymore.






This past month and a half Will's dad and stepmom were in Australia. They have 2 miniature Schnauzers, Rosie and Daisy, that Will's brother and family and we watched while they were gone. Will and I had them for 4 weeks and decided that 5 dogs in one house is simply too much! The first week was crazy, but once the schnauzers learned our routine they settled in nicely. Jezzie loved having a couple of dogs her size to play with. Halloween was crazy with all 5 dogs barking when the first few trick or treaters came by. We locked them all up, knowing we couldn't put up with that barking and howling all night. His dad and stepmom returned on Friday night, and it seems oddly quiet without Rosie and Daisy around anymore.



A few weeks ago, we went and got new bedroom furniture and finally got the king size bed we've been wanting for a while. We got a black sleighbed and all the matching furniture, and are thrilled with how our new red bedspread looks on it. Now all the dogs can fit in bed with us, and we still have room for ourselves too! Our room isn't quite big enough to fit it all (although we did cram it all in with very minimal walking space), but we wanted to make sure we bought all the matching pieces, so that one day when we have a big master room it will all fit nicely and everything will match.

One last thought...(I use this blog as my little journal, so I've gotta add even the smallest things.) Will and I have decided we don't want to put too much more time and money into our house. We were planning on remodeling our kitchen and master bath at the beginning of next year, and now have decided we'd rather get things paid down so we can maybe afford to buy a nicer house in a better location in the next couple of years, instead of staying here for another 5 to 10 years. We will probably still do little things, like new Pergo floors and a new front yard, just to make the house look better, so that when the time does come to sell it, it will be in good condition to do so. Here's to hoping the economy gets better, so we can sell our house in a couple of years!

Jezabelle

Over the last few months, I've been asking Will if I can have a puppy. My brother Josh's roommate Taylor, has a Maltese-Shih Tzu mix and I love her. She is small and cute and has such a fun personality. While I LOVE my boxers I can't tote them around with me where ever, and sometimes I just want to bring my "kids" with me places. But also just having a small dog is so different than a couple of large boxers. After enough of my asking,(I thought maybe Will was going to surprise me with a puppy for Christmas, that's how long we're talking) Will realized how serious I was about it and gave in. So I started looking and after a couple of days, I found a Maltese-Shih Tzu and Yorkie Mix that was so darling. I brushed past them a few times because I wasn't sure that Will would go for them, but after I showed him he really liked them too. So we called the breeder and found they had the little girl we wanted, so we drove to Pleasant Grove to meet and take home our new little one. She is so tiny and adorable! I weighed her and she weighed 1.8 lbs...so you can imagine how fragile and tiny she is! My boxers look like Great Danes next to her, they both weigh over 50 lbs and don't realize the strength they have when they try to play with her only to knock her over completely. They've been getting so much better with her, and seem to be getting used to her being part of the family. I think Mia is having a harder time adjusting to her, and seems jealous sometimes, but that's pretty typical of Mia most of the time. I've been taking her over to my parent's house to play with my niece and nephew during the day and they are so cute together. She really seems to enjoy playing with them more than anyone else so far and the kids want to give her so much love and attention. She has so much fun running around chasing Elsie and giving her and Colt tons of kisses. Colt's reaction is so funny, because it's always so suprised and he does his super cute "ho ho ho" laughing everytime he touches her and gives her a kiss or gets a kiss from Jezzie. Elsie is such a sweet little mommy and wants to hold her and pet her. She likes to get down on her stomach and talk to her saying, "Hi Jezzie" over and over.



So far Jezzie has been like a baby and wants to sleep a lot of the day. She's been like any puppy and wants to play rough and tumble and bite us everywhere...but has such sharp tiny teeth and claws, sometimes it's hard to keep up with her. She's been very interested in the big dogs food and will find her way over to their bowl to try to eat what's in the bowl (which scares me that she's going to choke on it) or lick around the entire bowl if it's empty. She's been so fun to have around so far, and we can't wait to see more of her personality blossom as time goes on!

Summer Happenings

I've been a bit of a slacker this last month and a half. We've been keeping busy with the usual summer activities and now that it's been so long I'll keep my posting brief, so as to not bore everyone. On July 10Th Will and I celebrated our 1-year anniversary. We went out to dinner at PF Chang's and then came home and relaxed in our backyard. I set up a blow-up wading pool 3 days before and covered it with plastic in hopes that the water would be somewhat warm, to make do for a hot tub. We were pleasantly surprised to find the water was actually hot...like bath water. It was really nice just hanging out in there. After I had set up the patio swing into a comfy bed with tons of pillows and twinkle lights. We sat there talking and eating our desserts and enjoying the perfect weather outside.


The following week we headed to Denver to continue our anniversary celebration. Will proposed to me in Denver, when I made him come with me to see Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood in concert there. So this year when I saw that Keith was making a stop in Denver a couple days after our anniversary, we decided it'd be a fun trip to take. We planned on spending 4 nights there...but because I don't have a job right now, we decided to not go overboard and spend too much money. So we cut the trip down to 2 days and realized it really was just right. We went to Elitch Gardens (Six Flags) one day and had fun riding rides and hanging out at the water park. We might be getting a little too old to do the all day thing anymore, as by the time 5 or 6:00 comes around we are tired and ready to get out of the park and away from the tantrum throwing kids! We went to see Keith Urban and out to dinner. Sugarland was playing with Keith Urban and sounded so good. I am always so impressed with how good most country singers sound live. I would say most of them sound better live than on their CDs. They have such a passion for the songs they're singing, as most of them write their own songs too, and it shows. We had such a good time in Denver and with the drive to and from, we were able to just spend the time talking and laughing.



We were glad to get home, because our dog Mia had gotten a sunburn and had made it worse by scratching it, so we were able to be home to baby her while she had to deal with having the cone on her head. She was such a sad pup for a few days and it broke our hearts. But after a few days she realized the cone wasn't going to stop her from being a normal dog and would just plow through whatever got in her way. She smacked me in the face so hard with the cone one morning jumping on the bed, I blacked out for a second. She's all better now and although she gets made fun of by Will for no longer being pretty because of the scars, she is back to her usual self. :)

We've been hanging out with friends and family all summer. We went to Lagoon one Sunday with my brother and his girlfriend, to celebrate her birthday. That was tons of fun...and I had fun getting to know Miki more! We've been to a couple Real Salt Lake soccer games, a Bees game and had a few BBQ's at our house. We've been playing badminton and bean bag toss at my parent's house after Sunday dinners and that's been a blast. I love that all of us siblings and our significant others get along...it makes for fun competitions! I love the summer and am pretty sad to see it coming to an end.

At Lagoon after getting soaked on the Cliffhanger, that Jared told us we would barely get splashed on.

At our first Real game...with 2 of my brothers and Miki.


Here's the whole group, in 2 pictures at the last game we went to, this past Saturday. Don't mind the weirdo in the purple shirt, he is not part of our group.

Ugly Face Contest

On Father's Day, my brother, Josh, took my camera and started an ugly face contest with me and Kylie. After going through my camera I found a couple of pictures that I decided needed to be put in the contest...Mary just made a face as Elsie was taking a picture and Devin was making a mean/pouty face and so I thought they deserved a spot in the contest! Josh's face is the winner in my book, it cracks me up every time I look at it! Honestly Devin's isn't bad at all...just thought it was funny. :)

Devin:

Darla:

Mary:

Josh:

Kylie:

Father's Day Weekend

I just uploaded some pictures from my camera and just wanted to blog about a couple of them...Most of the pictures are honestly of my niece, Elsie and nephew, Colton. We were over at my mom's house a couple weekends ago for my cousin's baby shower and then the next day for Father's Day. I could eat both of these little stinkers up, they are such a joy to be around and so cute! I know I could be biased just because they are the first niece and nephew in our family, but I think they are the funniest, cutest kids out there. Being around them makes me excited at the thought of Will and me having kids in the future. I want them to be just like Elsie and Colt, or at least have colorful personalities like they both have. I think Bryce and Mary (their parents) have done such an awesome job of raising them thus far and don't baby them too much. Elsie is like a small adult and really does understand the things you say and really listens to you. I love that I can actually talk to her and know that she will remember and she responds to questions and comments we say to her. I know that Colt will be like Elsie in that regard, but right now he is too busy being a boy and would rather be rough and tumble than sit and listen to you read a book or try to talk to him. He can really get me laughing though sometimes, he can be so easily amused and laughs his head off, which in turns makes everyone around him laugh too! I am so glad that I get to live so close to them and that I get to be around to watch them grow up and be a part of their lives the way that I am.

Elsie and Colt both love all dogs. My sister, Betsy, brings her dog, Kodiak to dinner most Sunday's and the kids just want to squeeze him and love on him, and he gets a little nervous around them.



Josh, my brother, also brings his dog, Cosmo (or Mo Mo, as Josh calls him) most of the time and he really does his best to try to stay away from Elsie and Colt trying to clobber him, or he tries to steal the food from their hands as often as possible. He's a pretty funny dog and loves Josh more than anything, so when I caught them sitting side by side on the couch together I had to get the shot!

New Fridge and Stove

Our stove in our house was pretty gross and old. When I bought the house with the girls 3 years ago that was one of the first items we said we were going to replace. Clearly that didn't happen...Will and I have been checking them out here and there and after shopping around a couple of weeks ago found that Home Depot had the best deal going on that week. We were just going to go for the cheapest stove, but after looking and talking we decided we wanted a nicer one that could stay nice for a few years and hope we won't have to update it when we sell the house in a few years. While we were shopping we found such a great deal on a stainless steel side by side fridge that matched our stove we were planning on getting, so we went for it and got both of them! It's so nice to not have a fridge that is leaking water constantly and a stove that doesn't stink up the house everytime you use it! And I've been doing some baking and cooking and they work so well, I haven't burned anything yet, which was virtually impossible with the old stove! And to top it off, the fridge and stove actually match now! We have plans to update the whole kitchen in the next year (at least that's the plan right now) and so it's nice to have our major appliances taken care of already. We don't have a dishwasher now, so that is next on our list of appliances to buy. Will and I came up with a plan of how we'd like to do the kitchen and I can't wait till it actually happens. As you can see from the pictures below, we have hardly any counter space right now and half of it's taken up by the dish rack. I get frustrated sometimes when I'm trying to cook and prepare a meal, when I have to clean up after each step to continue! So when we do get everything set up we'll more than double our counter space, so it will make the kitchen more workable.

Here's the before and after:





And my way of telling the stove and fridge that I love them:




After posting last time about working on painting the house, it's come to a stand still. First we just couldn't decide a color to use and then we decided to just go with White again, but then we've been busy and this rain has not been our friend either! But now that the weather looks like it's going to stay nice I think Will and I are going to finally finish our house painting project. I spent almost 8 hours last week staining our fence and painting the old playhouse in the corner of the yard, and now I just want the whole backyard to look complete and not have 4 different colors on the wall anymore. One day we'll continue on and repaint the whole house and put up shutters, but Will likes to go back and forth on what projects take top priority at the time, so we'll see when it all really gets done! :) Do the projects ever end? It does feel good knowing our money isn't being thrown away on crap now, though. We're putting every extra cent into making our house a better place to live and that makes me so happy. I watch a lot of HGTV and always have ideas in the back of my mind what we can do to make the house prettier...too bad Will doesn't see those ideas as brilliant as I do!

A little of this, a little of that...

I haven't blogged for a while. We've been preparing the outside of the house to be painted, which is a slow and tedious process. We've been cleaning all the windows, and re caulking the edges. We are scraping off the paint, and Will is using a grinder to really get all the paint off the house to start fresh. We've also tried 3 different colors of paint and can't seem to find one that we both agree on and like. Originally we wanted to do a sage green, but the 2 greens we chose were a no-go...then I moved my idea to doing a taupe, but that color isn't working out as well as I thought it would. Because paints have a different base in them, sometimes they just don't turn out the right color when the computer goes to mix them up. So my taupe turned out a purple color, and although it was a pretty color, I do not want to be the people with the purple house! Right now Will is on a weird kick of trying to do 3 colors and doing them in layers and then running the grinder over it to have some of the layers pop through, etc. to have our house look like some sort of art project, I guess. I am so not into the idea, but he is so gung-ho on the idea there's not talking him out of it right now. He's gotten some green, white and yellow (because those apparently are the colors he wants) samples and has painted them on and will grind it to see how it works. I already have a ghetto house in Kearns, let's hope we don't make our house blend in more by making it as ugly as most of the houses on the block! Ha Ha! I may be surprised and find that his idea works, but the colors he has right now I'm thinking are a little too bright.




May is a busy month for my family with birthdays! May 4th is Kylie and my grandpa's bday, the 8th is Jared and Josh's, Betsy's husband, Brant's is on the 12th, Devin and I celebrate ours on the 14th, Will's is on the 16th, and my mom and sister in law Autumn have their's on the 17th, and then last but not least, my niece Elsie and brother in law, Dave have their birthdays on the 24th...Oh yeah, and of course I can't forget my mother in law on the 27th! My mom is so good at making sure she remembers everyone's birthdays and had a whole bunch of dinner parties to celebrate. I convinced her after the 3rd party to just combine Brants, Wills and Devin and my bdays into one dinner, since we're all starting to get sick of one another! :) But then I ended up seeing most of them again anyway when Brant had his birthday celebration last Friday night and then Will and I had a BBQ at our house to celebrate ours. Then everyone was there again on Sunday to make sure Mom got the birthday she deserves!

Will and I decided since we just got done with our backyard that we should splurge a little on our birthdays and went out and got patio furniture! I went out and bought a bunch of pots for flowers a few weeks ago, and had some tiki torches from when I bought the house from my housewarming party. Our backyard feels complete and Will and I spend a lot of our extra time out there now. Will surprised me with us going and picking out a fire pit for my birthday to complete the patio. We got to try it out at our BBQ on Saturday and I love it! I'm now trying to convince Will to let me bring a t.v outside so we can watch movies together out there...He'll break down one day, he always does. :) Now if we could just finish our painting project, then the backyard will be complete and gorgeous! We've decided that since our backyard looks so good, we are going to lay sod in the front yard next spring. That grass has had trouble the whole time I've lived here and I've kind of given up on working so hard for almost no results. I need to get out there and do something to make it presentable, though. I haven't given it any attention in the last couple months, except mowing and fertilizing the lawn a couple times and it could use a little TLC right about now.

Finally!

I am happy to announce my backyard is finally finished! When I bought this house 3 years ago there were things I wanted to accomplish on the backyard that never quite got finished...they were just too big of projects for me to take on by myself. Now that I've got a good ole hubby around to help with these things, I'm starting to see projects get started and finished with his help!

Will and I started a couple of months ago by building a new gate on the side of the house for the dog run...then spent a couple of days and took a couple of truckloads of junk to the dump (mostly branches from the previous owner stashing them there) from cleaning up the side of the house. We then worked on clearing up the backyard of the branches I've piled up from cutting down a couple of Chinese Elm trees, as well as from my apple tree that split last year. We were able to rip out a couple more small Chinese Elms and a couple of HUGE flowering bushes as well as digging and ripping up a couple of stumps and grinding another couple under the ground enough to lay sod over them. Will has been such a hard worker and I am so glad we were partners in making the backyard look beautiful. Will spent a few hard working days putting in a sprinkler system all on his own and I couldn't be happier that I won't have to move a sprinkler around and will be able to water the lawn in the wee hours of the morning, when it's most effective! Here a a bunch of pictures showing the transformation over the last 2 months...
Beware, there are going to be a TON of pictures to go through, it was a long process!



















Now all that's left to do is accessorize my patio and make that brighter to match our bright green grass! We have tons more projects lined up for us to do to make the house look better...paint the outside of the house and put up new siding and rain gutters along the tops of the house/roof. I need to finish the front yard...I tore up all my rose bushes and now need to find new bushes and flowers to plant there, as well as nurse my lawn in the front back to health, it's not looking so good right now! One day, huh?