We bought a house!

So, we moved into our first house on July 7th. We had some great helpers my Aunt Becky and Uncle Larry, Justin's mom Cecilia, his sisters, Jinni and Jyana, and Jyana's husband Ben came and helped. We were so grateful for their love, support, and of course muscles. We couldn't have done it with out them. It didn't take us that long at all.

After we were done we had a nice lunch and visited. I was super tired since I worked the night before and had yet to sleep. But we got it all in and it works! So..here's a fun little video tour of our house. I probably should have done it before we moved in but it still works. I was trying forever to get the video to load and it was having problems so hopefully it works. Enjoy.

Cleaning up

So I really wasn't kidding when I said that I had to clean EVERYTHING before I could do anything to our house. At first it was really frustrating for me because I had spent that past month deep cleaning my apartment, then the lady who lived here said " oh yeah we are moving out soon so I can have time to clean." nice. Then at closing our Realtor said that they hired a professional cleaning company to clean. Sweet! I am thinking it should be amazing. Well we get the keys and come in and all I can see is dirt. Dirty walls, floors, windows. There is a big traffic spot in the living room which our rug covers perfectly. I got so discouraged and seriously thought....I don't want this house anymore. It seemed like everywhere we looked there was something else dirty.

Well I had to take some big deep breaths and tell myself it will be ok. One room at a time to clean and  eventually you will get it how you like. It just made unpacking anything delayed by a few days till I could feel as if it was clean enough. Now when we walked through it the first time it was clean. But now that I look back I think it was just clutter free...which creates the illusion that it's clean when it's not. I just remember deep cleaning my chore on Saturday mornings and we had to make sure the walls were done, windows, dust. Everything. So after a while of being really mad about it  I just started to laugh and take pictures. I still end up finding things and exclaiming. " Really?? Really??" Like...how could you leave this". Then I tell myself it was a short sale so be grateful that the house is in such great shape. Anyways....enough babbling...you guys want to see pictures I know!

These are all the "treasures" I found cleaning out the kitchen cupboards. The box is a bunch of business cards, a little vase, birthday candles, a glue stick, a bookmark, a card from a game. a peppermint, a cough drop, some lids to things. There is a lid to a children's tylenol that goes along with a mess of it in one of the cupboards. Fun stuff!

 These were the big "treasures" found underneath the fridge. I decided not to take a picture of all the dirt, dust, and stuck on gross. I made my sister clean that one. =) We got a paper, a piece of wood, a string of beads, pennies, crayon, chapstick...anyone want that? 

Yes folks....that is GUM! That was found in the "boy" room window sill. That was one where I got a little bit freaked out. Really? Gum ? You leave gum?! It did come off pretty good due to the alcohol pads I had in my nursing bag.

This gem is under the sink. I ...have no words. I don't know where to even begin on cleaning it. I think there syrup down there along with like tin can dirt. Under the sink stink. I have yet to clean it 30% because I don't know how...70% because I don't want to. hehe. 

Ugh this is in the vent of the "boy's room" It had a TON of stuff down there. Crayons, legos, food, dirt, a pen, wrappers. It wouldn't end! I got all the big stuff out into a grocery sack and then vacummed it up. The air came in a lot stronger after that...I wonder why. After this one I am a little bit afraid to clean out the others. 

Those are all the big ones. I have been doing some as I go and everything is starting to look better. At times while I am cleaning I feel like it's the Greek Monster Hydra. Everytime I clean I see ten more things that need it...more and more heads to conquer. But I do like it and it's slowly starting to feel like home. 

A trip down memory lane

After the Temple we had a TON of time to kill so we decided to go by our old house. We moved from Ephraim; to first Layton and then to Logan. It's been almost ten years since we moved. So we drove by to check out the house. 

We were a little sad that they painted it Trailer Park blue, before it was a tan all over with dark brown trim on the windows. This part cracks me up. We had a nice fence for the driveway, we saw that they took it off and made a makeshift fence. The nice fence was to the right where we had a big field to help them get to their horse. Ironically the horses were just chilling in the back yard. I don't get it.

Another view of the silly fence.

This was our across the street neighbors. Our only neighbors for a mile around. The original neighbors no longer live there anymore.

So this part was the park attached to the church that we'd go to. For the longest time it just had a two swings and a set of rings. Half the time the swings got wrapped around the bar on top so it was hard to swing. Now there is a jungle gym, better swings and a merry go round in the back. On the other side where our church "used" to be is now a pile of rubble. It's just nothing I don't know what the plans are. 

They also redid the Library! This is one place that we spent a lot of time. Both me and my sister worked there and we were good friends with the head librarian. They redid the outside and inside to make it more handicap accessible. It was so nice inside, it looked so new and exciting. It still had the squeaky part on the floor but it looked really nice. 

It was interesting to see what has changed and what hasn't. My sisters and I talked about what we remembered and everything seemed so much bigger before. It was also sad to see all the unkempt houses. There were houses that we thought for sure no one would live there but then found people there. It was hard to move, I was not happy about it then but now I can see that it was good to leave the small town. Small towns are great but you either get stuck there or leave.

The Mormon Miracle Pageant

So I have been slacking on blogging and that's ok it just means there is more to catch up on! Justin and I have been trying to make this summer more fun and do some of the activities we've been wanting to do. Well both me and my sister Suzanna really wanted to go to the Mormon Miracle Pageant down in Manti. So...we did. We went down and stayed a while with my brother in Lehi and then made the trek to Manti. 

We left pretty early in the day because we wanted to go to the temple and do some service work there. It's a special temple for our family since we lived in the town right before ( Ephraim) for about 10 years. I grew up always seeing the temple out by my house, I went by it everyday going to High School. It was always just there. 

It was really neat to be able to go through more of the temple then just the baptistry which is really cool but the other parts are cool as well. 

Bright during the day. It was a beautiful day when we were there. Hot...but really pretty.

I love when the temples are all light up at night. 

This is us waiting for forever for the pageant to start. I was kind of excited to see the Pageant because every summer after I was 12 I was in the Pageant and sometimes when the moment is right I quote it and Justin never knows what I am talking about. 

The Pageant goes through the Joseph Smith story very quickly with a few scenes from the Book of Mormon, then wraps up with the Saints traveling from Missouri to Salt Lake. It goes through all the history really fast. They have been doing it for I want to say 50 years, we got a newspaper about it but I don't remember hehe. So the lines are sometimes really cheesy and the performances are pretty good. It was a fun little trip down memory lane, remembering the cues for certain parts and spending the summer nights with friends on the temple hill. 

We had fun but would probably be ok not seeing again for another 10 years. That's how long it's been. 

Check one for our summer bucket list!

Bee's game!

On last Monday for family night we went to a Bee's game. It was a lot of fun! I have only ever been to one other major baseball game and I had no idea what was going on. So Justin willingly answered all my questions and helped to explain what was happening. I told him I don't know about baseball. I grew up in a golf/football/basketball family. 

We had pretty awesome seats right by first base. This is a shot of the catcher and pitcher warming up.

Getting ready to play!

It was a pretty exciting game after a few innings when I finally caught on. At one point the Bee's had two people on base then a guy hit a home run. Crazy! I was amazed at how fast they throw the ball. I would be afraid to attempt to hit it. 

We left after the 7th inning because the Bee's were up 7 runs and Justin had a headache. We had lots of fun and even thought about getting tickets again. I thought it was kind of funny how close we were and the players on the Bee's would just walk right by. I was thinking...man in New York people would be going crazy if the players were that close to them, ah the joys of minor league baseball. Hopefully next time we can go when they shoot fireworks after the game. Ah good ole summer fun.

Next on the summer bucket list: The Morman Miracle Pageant in Manti.=)

Bear Lake Half

After our Friday hikes we made our way to Logan to get ready for the Bear Lake Half Marathon with my sisters. Justin was our chauffeur/picture taker/cheerleader. We got there super early so we were pretty loopy by the time the race actually started. 

Here we are so ready to go! Well Natalie is at least. =)

Here I am bringing it in.

To the finish!

Here comes Suzanna.

Almost there.

Last but not least Natalie! I love this picture of her, check out those muscles! She looks like an athlete.

So happy to be done. It was really fun to run this with my sisters. None of us really trained that hard. Natalie got up to 9 miles and that was the highest. At times we ran together, at times one of us would be ahead. I am actually the most proud of this race because I didn't train very well but I felt awesome! I got a major burst of energy about mile 10-11 because the song "What makes you Beautiful" from One Direction came up on my ipod. hehe.

It was a really pretty race going around the south west corner of the Lake. The weather was great, a little bit cold in the morning but after we started running it warmed up. It was warm but not to hot and had the cool breeze from the lake going by. It was a nice course the only bummer part was that traffic wasn't stopped as we ran along the road so we'd have to slide to the edge whenever a car came. It usually wasn't bad unless you were trying to pass someone. 

As always it was fun to do something with my sisters and we had fun talking in the car at 4 in the morning, dancing to stay warm before we started the race, and making fun of the people who run with a whole bunch of gadgets. 

Hikin'

Last week my work rearranged my schedule to give me a Thursday night off with the rest of the weekend off Justin decided to take Friday off so we could play. I have been wanting to do some hikes and other summer fun so that's what we did. We started out the day with a short little hike up to Ensign Peak near the Capital in Salt Lake city.

It was a fun little hike. It's really steep but it's short so it kind of makes up for it. 

The view from the top the southeast view

The southwest view. This one was fun because you could see the planes taking off and landing from the top.

Me checking out the peak.

Me trying to get Justin and the peak all in one.

It's a pretty cool landmark and story of how Brigham Young and other church leaders hiked up there to survey the land and to choose that spot to make it an Ensign to the city. As we were going around Salt Lake I was reminded of all the cool history of that town. How the city was founded by Brigham Young and other church leaders. I am glad that Temple Square is there to share that history with all the visitors.

When we got done with Ensign Peak we were all pumped to try another one. So we attempted to find and hike a trail called " The Living Room" near the University of Utah campus. We got kind of lost and didn't know where to turn and got an another trail. It was fun but really steep and I had to pee the whole time. But it was a fun view of the other side of the city.

That's the hospital and other buildings for the University.

This was a fun little jaunt. It's called hidden falls up the Big cottonwood canyon. It is seriously like 50 steps off the road. But it was fun and no body else was around.  We had to do a little climbing to get there so that was different.

To end the day we had a cool sunset show as we were driving to Logan. I thought this looked really cool.