Christmas Spirit

I love that this time of year can brighten any situation!

 Here is our tree.. I am not a photographer by any means! It looks like we are loaded with presents, but I will let you in on the truth. There are wedding gifts under there, along with gifts for my parents from all of the children (my siblings), AND I wrap gifts in big boxes so it seems more exciting. :) Now that I am thinking about it, maybe I am setting every gift receiver up for disappointment! haha Oh well, I guess I still have the child mentality that a bigger present is better.

 These are our lovely UGLY Christmas sweaters. We had a ward party with the theme... we were one of four couples that actually dressed up. Living in a college town we couldn't find ugly sweaters at thrift stores. They were wiped clean! David thought up the-half Christmas tree so that when we stand together it makes one-idea. He even sewed on his own ribbons and jingle bells! That was mostly because we procrastinated in making these until an hour before the party!

Merry Christmas!

David finishes his last final of his first semester of law school tomorrow. After I finish work on Friday, we are on vacation!! Woohoo!

Friendship

Growing up I went through phases of friends. My siblings came first, then my neighbor friends, friends from church, and then friends at school. Many friends became close friends and plenty more were just nice acquaintances or situational friendships (just in a certain class, etc.). For the past three years, David has been my best friend. It is easy to stay best friends because we live together by choice and spend time with each other every day. Over the years as things have changed I haven't been the best at keeping up with old friends. I still look back fondly on our relationships and all of the memories we have together. I really enjoyed getting together with a friend over Thanksgiving that I really hadn't seen to in a couple of years probably. It's always nice when you can just pick up where you are and still be good friends. I am REALLY bad at talking on the phone and love seeing what is going on in friend's lives through blogs and Facebook, even though it isn't as good as living in the same town and getting together. I hope to continue to become a better friend. I am still learning.
 After our move to Moscow and having to make new friends here, I have thought about the friendships in my life a lot. We had many great friends throughout our lives, in Provo, and others that have moved to various places all over the country. We have also been lucky enough to make some new, great friends here in Moscow.

Yesterday I received a package from one of our Provo friends. She worked with David and is a true gem. What a fun surprise and nice note! This week we also received some Christmas cards from friends. It felt good to be thought of and to see what they were up to.
I am SO thankful for all of my friends throughout the years. You have each made an impact in my life. I appreciate the love you've shown me. Thank you!

Veteran's Day

I am so blessed to live in the country that I do and enjoy the freedoms that I have. Here is a neat story about my great-grandmother's brother, Gerald Sorensen who served in WWII. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/belgium/100605/world-war-ii-history-resistance?page=full
What a sacrifice he made in leaving his new bride to serve for our freedoms.

Fun Weekend

Now that David & I live so much closer to our parents we like to take advantages of weekends in Moses Lake. When we don't have to teach sunbeams or any other commitments we will take off after I get off work on Fridays and stay until after dinner on Sundays. Last weekend was one such weekend.

Last Sunday was my mother-in-law's birthday. David had told her we weren't going to make it for her birthday, but we decided we'd come and surprise her. David told his Dad so that they wouldn't have plans that we would be crashing.

On Friday we showed up at the Law's house to surprise Tracey & no one was home! David has a key, so we went in and lounged on the couch & watched some football while we waited. He also strategically moved the car out of sight down the street. His parents went to a dinner at the church. They soon came home. As they walked in the garage door, Tracey was surprised to see the hall light on and hear the t.v.... and then she saw us on the couch! She just laughed and was surprised! I was proud of Bob for not ruining the surprise. :)

We then went and spent some time with my parents. David wanted Mexican food so we hit up Inca!

The next morning we stopped by my parent's house again for a bit, but they were busy packing to head to Cabo... Tough life, I know. We did get to see Kamille and Derek a bit too.

This would be more interesting with pictures I realize... But I didn't take any & my laptop crashes if you open Google Images.. Weird, I know.

Bob suggested that we help Tracey move some things around in her new work office over in Quincy and then continue on to Wenatchee to go to Wok About Grill. Of course no one opposed that idea. It turns out that there really wasn't much to do in the office. David was the only real help. On the drives we had nice conversation.

In Wenatchee we first visited Fred Meyer. Then we ate at Wok About Grill, which is better than the other Mongolian grill places I have been to. It was reeeeeeeally good. We checked out Hooked on Toys. Tracey and I had a fun time trying on silly winter hats... Rabbit fur, sock monkeys, various animals, sparkly, etc. We laughed a lot. Those would have been some great pictures! Meanwhile, David and Bob looked at fishing stuff and guns. David and I added the game Farkle to our growing collection. Then Tracey suggested ice cream.

We went to Baskin Robbins. David was the first to order. It was this punk kid working there, not acting like he really wanted to be there. David ordered two scoops of ice cream. The worker got the smallest cup in the world and put the two smallest "scoops" of ice cream you can imagine. I was thinking of only getting one scoop of ice cream because of the big dinner, but when I saw David's I decided to go for two. I ordered two scoops of my flavor. The kid pulled out a much bigger cup and gave me two good-sized scoops of ice cream! hahahahahahaha! Tracey and Bob ordered their ice cream, David paid. We had a good laugh over the difference in size between our ice cream that we ordered exactly the same. It was pretty funny.

That night we tried out Farkle.

Sunday we went to church with David's parents and had dinner with a bunch of the Law clan out at Grandma and Grandpa Law's house.

It is so nice to look forward to these visits! We are already excited for our long weekend at Thanksgiving!

We are still alive

I thought I'd let you all know that we are still alive in Moscow.

Our table makeover! I didn't remember to take a before. Dang.

We finished a puzzle from David's mom.

I made a fall/Halloween banner! Yes, I know the candy corn colors aren't in the correct order. I copied this idea http://tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com/2010/09/fall-project-reversible-candy-corn.html and didn't realize until afterward. BUT, it is still cute.We teach sunbeams(think 3 year old Sunday School craziness) and aren't very good at self-photography.

David is a model.

Umm... we have done/do other things, but these are the only pictures we have taken...We also would love visitors, so come see us!

Our Vandal Home

 Our new place is located on a street named Vandal Drive. Fitting because David is a University of Idaho Vandal. Unfitting because we don't live on or very near campus & we aren't vandals, like as in criminals. haha! Anyway, here is our beautiful new home:

 our bedroom

I realize that wall is very white and boring... I haven't found the right thing yet!

the "Master Bathroom"

 the office

the hallway

Our very own washer & dryer!!! We are definitely moving up in the world;)

the guest bath

our spacious kitchen!

 the dining area/backdoor

My newest creation- I found the inspiration here http://choosetothrive.blogspot.com/2011/08/wheat-wreath.h.  Although, I didn't use wheat. I used some sort of weed that is all along the roads here...

the living room

All Things Purple

Once upon a time we bought a table for ten dollars at D.I. It was an ugly, but usable table.
After two years I decided it was time that it wasn't ugly anymore. I came up with an elaborate plan to make it beautiful again.

First, I sanded the table. Next, we primed the table. (I forgot to take a before picture. Shame on me.) Then we decided to try out the Kona Brown paint we had purchased to make the table dark brown. David realized we didn't have a stirring stick and pretended to be one of those paint shaking machines.... He ended up shaking the paint can out of his hands. It landed on our carpet, shooting the lid off (although it had never been opened), and splattering a quart of DARK PURPLE paint all over the carpet with some speckling on the linoleum. Yes, the "Kona Brown" was actually very purple and now all over our floor. Panic mode kicked in and we didn't take a picture of the disaster, but now we wished we had.

It looked kinda like this wonderful artist's rendition:

The Horror!

Being new to Moscow, our bishop had set up to come meet us with a member of his presidency this night. They showed up in their suits right after the paint splattered. We all got to work keeping the paint wet and getting as much as we could up out of the carpet. I looked up Rug Doctor's and found that they rent them at the nearest grocery store. Luckily, they were on special! ha When I returned, bishop was gone and David was still at work. We filled up the Rug Doctor and David went over this carpet about 10.3 billion times bringing up more and more purple paint.

I also haven't taken an after picture, but we are happy to report that you cannot tell that there was ever purple paint on the carpet! I maybe can a little bit, but you can't! On another happy note, our table is coming along quite nicely. I will show you when it's all finished. :)

Speaking of purple, we turned our fingers purple picking blackberries in a tiny town called Julietta. Julietta has a walking/bike path all the way through it with blackberry bushes along both sides. One Friday after school and work we ventured down there and picked a big bowl of blackberries. We could have gotten more, but those darn bushes are evil and one ripped my finger open. I made David leave so I could wash my finger at a super clean gas station. Haha! We had enough to make some jam. Yum!

Things We (I am speaking for David, I guess) Will Miss About Utah:

• Food- Tucanos, Bombay House, J-dawgs, Magleby's, Kneaders, Cafe Rio, Texas Roadhouse, Gandolfos, Zubs, Happy Sumo... It's probably a good thing we've moved away now that I've started this list.. we like too many out-to-eat places!
• BYU sporting events
• Spanish Oaks Elementary
• Our Utah friends and family
• Our first apartment.
  
• Pysch! We won't miss that. We are loving our new, bigger & better apartment!
• Costco
• Having two cars
• Target
• the mountains
• being within walking distance of all the necessities
  
• Mariah's hair salon (I know David will miss this!! ha)
• Cable
• Warmth...seriously, it is not warm here people! I am nervous for winter.

There is probably more, but this is kind of depressing. Anyway, the past five years have been fabulous, Utah. Growing up I always heard about "Utah Mormons" and how horrible it would be to live in Utah. I learned it isn't true. I loved Utah. It's a beautiful place to live and I enjoyed my time there.

Our Big Move

 Our friends, the McEwens, gave us boxes from the firework stand they ran this summer. They were great! Thank you!

This is all our our stuff before the move. Tuesday we had some wonderful people help us load up our 17' Uhaul. Garett, Presley, Justin, Blake, Sean, and Alif were lifesavers! Thanks guys! 

 Early Wednesday morning the Snows came and checked us out of our Utah apartment and then we were on our way. David drove the big Uhaul and I followed in our Honda. I had my camera sitting on the passenger seat next to me & decided to document my exciting trip each hour.

6:30 AM

7:30 AM

8:30 AM

9:30 AM

10:30 AM

11:30 AM

12:30 PM

1:30 PM

2:30 PM

3:30 PM

4:30 PM

5:30 PM

5:30 PM AGAIN! We changed time zones... We are back in good ole Pacific Time.

6:30 PM We were in lots of construction! It seems like we rarely went over 45 mph. The Uhaul didn't have cruise control, which was a bit annoying to follow. BUT, I only used a tank and a quarter of gas. Normally on a trip this length I would have gone through at least two tanks!

7:30 PM in MOSCOW, ID our new home.

Our new residence. It is an over/under duplex and we are on the top.

David checking things out.

David and I unloaded almost everything the hour and a half after we arrived. Then my parents & Kamille came. We went to dinner and then crashed. Dad helped carry the rest in the morning. David's parents came the next morning and everybody helped us unpack and organize a bit. It was so nice to see family and have all of the support. Thank you!
Our new place is MUCH larger than our first apartment. After we finish cleaning up I will post some pictures.