Backyard Campout

Last Friday Blake and I were trying to decide what we could do for date night. We wanted to go camping, but with all our stuff in a storage unit we figured camping would be better to do with a little more notice. So I had the idea to blow up an air mattress, put it outside, and roast marshmallows and watch a movie. Friday night came and at about 9:00pm we still hadn't done our little backyard outing. We figured we'd just do it another night. Until my mom came in our room and told us she had a surprise for us and to not come out of our room until she gave us the okay. When we were finally allowed to come out of our room this is what we found in the backyard.








This is our family dog Sierra who we love and Blake has grown very found of her. Isn't she cute!

My moms so cute. She said that we needed a romantic night together since we've been staying with my parents and haven't had a lot of spare time to do anything fun. It was fun. We watched a funny movie, made some smores, and then came in a went to bed. We were contemplating spending the night outside without a tent, but with the mosquitoes liking me so much Blake thought that I wouldn't have any blood come morning time.

Mrs. Captain Etc

While Blake and I are living with my parents, I've been taking advantage of this great opportunity to not have a job. It's been quite nice I must say, and I have managed to stay busy throughout it all. Blake likes to call me Captain Etc. This is what I've been up to over the past several weeks......I've been the maid (this includes doing everyone's laundry, having dinner hot and ready by the time people get home from work, basic tiding up of the house), dog walker, weed puller,family indexer, car washer, herbologist (if that's even a thing), errand runner, house hunter, outdoor painter, and stocking sewer (I volunteered to finish sewing 30 stockings to send to missionaries and troops in Iraq for this Christmas). Life has been busy, but fun!


This is a picture of a portion of my parents front yard. Blake and I love how green it is here even though we've had more rain then sun lately. Blake thinks Enumclaw is like a rainforest.


This is the infamous picnic table and benches that I've been working on for about 2 weeks now. They need about 3 coats of pain all over, and I haven't been too successful in squeezing those coats in between the rain storms.


These are my new basil and parsley plants. I've never planted herbs before and I'm so excited for them to grow. They've been getting plenty of water lately, all they need now is some sun.

"Joy In the Journey"

Things are finally starting to normalize in our lives. We're still living with my parents while we search for our own place to live. So in an attempt to familiarize ourselves with the surrounding Seattle areas we ventured out and looked at some homes for sale. After being gone for about 7 hours, and seeing about 5 homes, I came home tired and frustrated. I'm a girl and unfortunately I'm naturally the type of girl that likes new nice things. The downfall to this is I can rationalize why it's such a good idea to buy something nice and new versus something old and not as pretty. In the search for a place to live this isn't the best philosophy to have when you have "champagne taste on a Kmart budget" as my mom likes to call it. After the day we had and feeling really discouraged I decided to finish reading the June Ensign before I went to bed. Of course it had all the answers I needed to have spelled out to me.

This is beautiful! Jon Schmidt combined "Love Story" by Taylor Swift and "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay. He made this for his 7 year old daughter. Thanks Meg for letting me copy your idea.

WE MADE IT

Whether or not we were going to survive the last few weeks wasn't really questionable, but whether or not we would make it in one piece with our sanity in tact was very questionable.

First stop, St. George for Jared and Stacie's wedding. We were able to make there on Friday night and be there all day Saturday for all the festivities. It was a great weekend spending time with Blake's family and being there for Jared and Stacie's wedding. They're perfect for each other, and it's fun to have another addition to the family. (pictures to come)

Then Sunday morning off to Seattle with me driving one car, and Blake driving the Budget truck and pulling the other car. We managed to make it to Seattle on Sunday night/Monday morning. We pulled in I think around 12:30am. It was such a long drive, and by the time we pulled into my parents driveway we were beyond tired.

Blake flew out back to California bright and early Monday morning for more work training, while my mom helped me unpack the dreadful Budget truck and put all of our life belongings into a storage unit. We have so much stuff!

After the last few weeks of craziness Blake and I have decided that we can make it through anything. Over the course of the last few weeks there have been tears shed, sleep deprivation, long drives, eating on the go, living out of a suitcase, and not being mentally there (this has happened A LOT of the times!) We made it though and now the fun is just beginning; this new chapter in our lives has just begun. Stay tuned for more fun.....