Ladies Weekend + Blake

So my mom, sisters, and sister-in-law, Stacy, all came out this past weekend. They all had a great time. I decided to tag along as my ski trip with the boys got pushed back for another weekend. The girls shopped themselves to death, we ate some good food, and had an all around great time with the family. In other news Sheena and I also celebrated our third anniversary December 1st. Hard to believe we have been married for three years, time really flies when you are having fun with your best friend. I also enjoyed a birthday and turned 28 on November 30th. Sheena's family came over for a birthday party, dinner, and some death-by-chocolate cake. It was great to see everyone. Life has been pretty busy lately and I can't believe it is almost Christmas. The lights are up, the tree is decorated, and we are looking forward to this holiday season. Wishing you all the best with lots of love and good times with friends and family.

Gratitude List

With Thanksgiving tomorrow, I have been thinking a lot about the things I'm grateful for. Here are a few I've been thinking about lately (in no particular order):

1. My calling in Church. I have been serving as the second counselor in the Young Women's Presidency now for about 4 months. I love working with all the young women, and I feel like I'm finally getting to know all of them so well. They have such sweet spirits and every time I come home from an activity or church my heart has somehow been touched. It's so nice to feel like you make a difference in others lives, and I think my Beehives make a difference in my life as well.

2. My husband, Blake. He is the most caring, hard working, honest person I know. It's not always easy to be around me and still love me as much as he does. I'm fairly stubborn, and so is Blake, but no matter who's right or wrong, he's usually the first to apologize. I want to say "sorry" but I'm not nearly as humble as he is when it comes to being wrong.

3. Our dog, Lucy. I know for most people she's only a dog, but to me she's part of the family. Blake and I have wanted to have kids for quite some time now, and haven't been blessed with the opportunity yet. She fills that void that I sometimes feel. Although she doesn't always listen, and she sheds a lot of hair on my clothes, she is such a sweet dog.

4. My family. No matter what, they've always been there for me. It's so great being married too because you get to have 2 families. My parents have always told me from day one that I married into such a great family. It didn't take my parents telling me that to believe it, but every time I'm with Blake's family it reminds me of how lucky I am to have them in my life.

5. My job. Although there are several mornings I wish I could stay home, I do really love my job. It's close to home, and it's great to work with such great doctors and employees that make work a fun place.

6. Being a member of the Church. I don't know where I would be today without it in my life. It brings me so much joy and peace. I love learning about new things, and being reminded of things I've already been taught. My 2 favorites phrases to this day are "Come what may and love it" and "Joy in the journey."

I hope as Thanksgiving Day comes that we all can take some time to reflect on the things that we're grateful for.

Let It Snow!

Yes, it doesn't happen very often, especially this early, but we have SNOW in Bothell! This weekend it was super cold for Seattle. It feels really cold here when it gets down in the 20's and 30's because it is much more humid. I looked out the window this morning and to my great surprise it was snowing pretty good outside. I looked online and it appears that Crystal Mountain and Mount Baker ski resorts also opened this weekend after getting several feet of snow in the past few days. Looks like it should be a good skiing year. I included a couple of pictures of Lucy in the snow as this is something pretty new to her. She looked a bit confused and kept trying to catch the snowflakes and eat them. She started running around like a crazy dog nipping at the air. The pictures you see are when she was actually calm and sitting nicely.

The Cone of Shame

Well as you can see from the picture, Lucy had a trip to the vet this week to be spade. She was a little sluggish when she got home and was pretty out of it. We didn't think we would have to use the "cone of shame", but she kept licking her surgery site, so we had to slap it on. She was way freaked out and barely moved anywhere. Works pretty well if you want to calm her down. Just throwing that out there for Heidi and her kids if she wants them to behave. Put them in a "cone of shame" and see if that helps :). The other picture is of Lucy doing what she does best; lounge around the house. By the way, in this picture she is on our bed . She is pretty much the Queen Bee in our house.

Viva La EUROPE!!

We've done it.....we've just booked out plane tickets to Europe! We're going to 5 countries in 16 days. I know crazy right, but what if we never find the time to go again. On the itinerary is France, Italy, Poland, Germany, and Switzerland. We would love ideas of great places to go if anyone has been to any of these countries.

Doggy Boredom

So Sheena came home last week and Lucy welcomed here with a nice surprise. Apparently, she tried to jail break out of her kennel, realized that she could not dig her way through the hard plastic, and rebelled by ripping her bed to foam bits. Doesn't look like she ate too much of the foam and if she did, it will be "soft" on the way out. What was even more funny, was the fact that when Sheena found Lucy's bed in this state of disarray, Lucy was giving her the sad-puppy look of innocence as if to say "I know I am the only dog in this 5' X 4' crate and I know what this looks like, but I promise I had nothing to do with it." She's priceless; full of surprises, but priceless.

"29" and Grown Up

For my birthday this past August I told Blake that I would really love a "grown up" purse. I've never bought a REALLY nice purse. I've just never been to into spending a good amount of money on something that hangs on your shoulder. Jeans-yes-at least you can wear those all day and love them. A purse you can only really love when you're out going places. Last weekend I we went to the Coach outlet store and I cashed in on my gift. I love it! It's a light purple color on the inside. I finally know why people love nice purses. I think there may be a bad habit brewing :)

Lucy & Television

So the other night we noticed that when we watch TV, Lucy watches it pretty closely as well. Not sure what is going on in there, but she is way intense when she watches the TV. I decided to turn the TV to Animal Planet and needless to say, Sheena and I had a good laugh. Take a peek at the video (you should turn up the volume so you can hear the TV commentary). Enjoy.

New Addition

I've been wanting some kind of server/hutch for the dining room for some time now. We finally got one and I love it! I didn't really have a set idea of what I wanted it to look like, but I wanted it to be black. After one marathon day of furniture shopping we found one that we loved. This past weekend we finished up the area by adding a mirror above it. It looks great and I love how much more space I now have in my cupboards.

Pumpkin verses Ladybug

I used to always laugh at people that would dress there pets up in clothes, especially Halloween costumes. I have now eaten my own words because I bought 2 Halloween costumes for Lucy just yesterday. I was browsing through TJ Maxx and there were the cutest little dog costumes. Now the question is...which one to wear? Blake and I laughed so hard last night as we dressed her up (she hated it as you can see in the pictures). We're leaning towards the pumpkin but we thought it would be fun to see how everyone else votes. I promise this will be the only time we put her in a Halloween costume :)

Race for the Cure

This past weekend was the Susan G. Komen 3-day breast cancer walk for the cure in Seattle. My mom and cousin were able to raise $2300.00 each to participate in the walk. The walk started Friday morning and ended Sunday evening. Along the route they walk there are several rest stations as well as cheering stations. I took Friday off from work and went to one of the cheering stations to watch for my mom and cousin. It was such a beautiful sight to see all the people supporting the walkers. So many people have been touched by breast cancer and it made me proud that my mom worked so hard to raise money, and to walk 60 miles in memory of my grandma.

Technology...

Well it has been about a year and a half and I have finally figured out how to convert the files from our video cam into a format that works for Windows Movie Maker. Looks like I might be using the video cam more often moving forward. The latest video is a clip from our Oregon Beach trip this summer. Pretty simple so far, hopefully the videos continue to get better and better. Stay tuned...

College Football is in the Air...

Sheena is in bed sound asleep. So I thought I would take advantage typing up a "real Blog post" with the good stuff. The BYU Cougs conquered the UW Huskies for the second time with their young and talented team. Pretty lame-o they didn't broadcast the game on any normal networks. I had to listen to it old-skool style on the radio while I was mowing the lawn out back. However, the game was still good and the Cougs made it happen. It was nice to hear that Jake Heaps got some time on the turf as well for his college debut. Be fun to see this youngeon's career move forward wearing Cougar Blue.

The next piece of action: Boise State vs. the Hoakies of VT. WOW! Talk about an inspiring piece of sports action. From the first quarter run of 17 - 0, I really thought Boise was going to run away with it. Not so. VT came back to lead late in the 4th at 24 - 30. With only about a buck fifty on the clock, Kellen Moore threw a series of passes to go down in the history books to seal the deal at 33 - 30. Sweetness...need I say more.

She's Growing Like a Weed

Lucy is a little over 4 months now, and she's becoming more fun every day. Blake and I feel silly more often then not on how we feel about our dog. I think since we don't have kids yet, it's easy to treat her like our first born. We took her to the dog park for the first time about 2 weeks ago and she was so scared. We immediately assumed that our dog had social problems with other dogs and that we would have to take her to doggie obedience class to overcome this problem. Boy were we wrong. We took her to the park again the following day and she did great. We think she just needed to see how she was supposed to do the whole "dog park thing" and then it was like old hat from the second time on. She's growing up so fast and she's getting so smart. We love her so much, and hopefully we'll have kids soon so we can gush over them instead of our dog all the time :)

The top picture is how we found her when we went to bed one night while camping at the beach.

Summer Concert

Last weekend Blake and I ventured out to Gorge for the Keith Urban and John Mayer concert. We were so excited for this concert, and it definitely lived up to our expectations. Both Keith Urban and John Mayer sounded great live, but after seeing both the artists, we agreed that we enjoyed seeing Keith Urban the most.

Oregon Beach Trip

Blake's family have made a tradition of camping on the Oregon Coast for a week every other summer. This was my first time going, and it was such a blast!! I don't think in all the times my family went camping we ever camped for 5 days straight, so I was a little nervous of how I would hold up during this trip. It was a piece of cake. Sleeping on the ground, eating "camping food," going on long walks/hikes, and enduring the weather was all manageable because we had hot showers at our disposal. Thinking back on the trip there were so many great things we did....going to the Tillamook Cheese Factory twice, hiking to a somewhat secluded beach where there was actually sun, having family firesides every night on our assigned topics, playing games, jogging on the beach in the mornings, trying skin boarding for the first time-which I was REALLY bad at, celebrating my 29th birthday with a dutch oven birthday cake, taking family pictures on the fallen trees, and my most favorite thing was walking on the beach to see the tide pools. I've been to the beach so many times but I had never in all my life seen so many starfish and sea anemones in one area. It was the coolest thing! The only thing I would do differently next time is take more pictures. Heidi, I stole a bunch of yours from your blog-thanks!

A Lesson In Patience

We've had Lucy now for almost a week. It has been a trying time, but also such a fun time. We're so in love with her! One of the things I struggle with most in life is patience and having Lucy has most definitely tested that. I know she's a puppy, but for me when I tell her "NO" and give her a little swat to confirm that, I would think she would catch on right away. No one wants to get there nose or bottom swatted, right?!! For Lucy it doesn't work quite like that. Last night was the first night in a few that I didn't cry as I was going to sleep. As I would lay down I would think about the day with Lucy and all the things I could have done differently and how tired I felt having her now in my life. Thinking those things would make me sad and then I would start to cry. In the morning when I come down and see her looking at with me with excitement for the day it makes it all worth it. Now if only we could get her to go to the bathroom on command life we be perfect.

Never a Dull Moment

Life has been nothing short of crazy the last month. It all started with a doctors appointment for me, which lead to surgery a week later, and now has resulted in us having a puppy! I'll start from the beginning. More often then not I was having stomach and abdominal cramping. I've had it for years and thought nothing of it. Blake calls me a special person; and I don't think in the nice way. I finally decided to get it checked out and learned I have endometriosis. The doctor said he could do surgery the next week and it was outpatient so I could go home the same day. The word surgery wasn't what I exactly wanted to hear, but I figured if I could be pain free, and maybe have an easier time getting pregnant (yes-we've been trying for quite some time with no luck yet) it was so worth it. We did the surgery the next week, 4th of July week so I would have the holiday as an extra day to recover. (Did I mention that I found out in my preop appointment that my doctor who was going to be doing the surgery was LDS. It actually made me feel so much more at ease going into the procedure). The procedure went well. It gave me a new prespective on what women must feel like after having a baby. My stomach was so full of the gas they put in you so I looked like I was about 5 months pregnant, my muscles were so sore from the laser going through them to get to where they needed to be, and I couldn't wear pants that didn't have an elastic waistband because they wouldn't fit. Everytime I moved from the sit to stand position it hurt, and especially when I went to lay down. After the 3 days of recovery, which mostly consisted of going to several 4th of July barbeques and functions when I should have been in bed resting, I figured I would be ready to head back to work. It was an outpatient surgery so of course I would up to it. SO NOT THE CASE!! I went to work on Tuesday and was in a constant state of haze, discomfort, pain, and a fever. It was the hardest day I have ever had at work. I decided that the next day I was definitley going to be staying home and recovering in bed. So Wednesday I stayed home and slept most of the day because on Thursday Blake and I were headed to Ensign Ranch for 3 days to be chaperones for 11 youth at Youth Conference. As we pulled out of the driveway that morning tears were starting to stream down my face as I was reminded how sore I still was after my procedure. Nonetheless we went to the Youth Conference and had such an amazing time. We had such a great group of kids, met a lot of really nice people, and had some great testimony enriching activities. Now this brings us to this past weekend. Blake and I have talked so much about getting a golden retriever puppy. We've talked about the pros and cons and I think we would have had one months ago, but I was a little hesitant. On Friday I was looking online at puppies in our area and came across a listing for some 10 minutes from our house. So I suggested to Blake that we may want to check them out. We went there to look, and everyone knows you don't really just look. So at about 9:30pm we became parents to our 12 week old golden retriever we named "Lucy." We love her so much!! We've only had her with us for 2 days but we've learned so much about her already. She's a 5:00am kind of girl, which will be great during the week but rough on the weekends. She loves being outside in the grass. My lawn will never look the same again but she is so happy to just be laying or running outside in the yard. She does love to eat leaves or flowers off my plants so we've been working on that with her and I think she's starting to get the hang of that. Potty training has been a little challenging. She knows where the door is to go outside, but because she's outside so much we don't know how often she's actually going potty so it's hard to make her go if she maybe already has recently. She's loves attention. She will be fine playing all by herself and then start to whimper if she thinks your not paying enough attention to her. We've tried to get some pictures of her but haven't been too successfull at that yet. We will take some more and post them later.

Before and After

After about 2 months of hard work, our yard is finally coming together. We really like the results. Drumroll please...

BACKYARD BEFORE



BACKYARD AFTER



SIDE BACKYARD BEFORE



SIDE BACKYARD AFTER



FRONT FLOWER BED BEFORE



FRONT FLOWER BED AFTER



OUR SMALL GARDEN



FRONT FLOWER BEDS



FRONT OF OUR HOUSE



Our Backyard Just Got a Touch of "MANLINESS"



So this was pretty much the hardest project that I have ever completed in my life. Sheena and I will probably be spending the next 12 months or so in physical therapy. Wish us well.

This made my heart SMILE!

My mom told me this story last week and it made my day. My grandparents have a things for hummingbirds; well all birds. I remember being a kid and learning of all the different types of birds that would land outside my grandparents windows. Robins and Blue jays are what I remember most. As my grandparents have gotten older they have had so much fun just looking out there big window at the hummingbirds that would come up to eat from the hummingbird feeder. My grandpa even looked up the best syrup concoction to give the hummingbirds. "Not that stuff you buy at the store...one part sugar to 2 parts water," is what he always tell us. Since my grandmas passing hummingbirds have become a thing that always reminds us of her. A few weeks ago my mom was in her living room watching TV with my dad when she looked out the window and swore she saw a hummingbird. So they rushed to the window and saw nothing, but my mom insisted that there was one out there. So the next day they went out and bought a hummingbird feeder, put the special syrup in it and waited. Later that day they came, not one but two hummingbirds! In the 20 plus years that my parents have lived in there house not once have I ever seen a single hummingbird. As my mom told me this story I could see how excited she was that she too had hummingbirds at her house that her and my dad could watch and enjoy just like my grandpa and grandma did. And that she believed that it was a sign from my grandma reminding them of her and how much she loved them.

Memorial Weekend

Last weekend we had the opportunity to go to Whidbey Island with Blake's parents and sister Mikell for some bike riding. I have to admit I was a little skeptical of the weather, since when we left our home it was raining fairly hard. There's something about bike riding and the rain that just don't do much for me. Once we boarded the ferry and were headed toward the island we were headed toward blue skies. The weather turned out great, and the trip was a blast. We rode our bikes, had a yummy lunch, and explored around the quaint little town of Langley. I can't wait to make the trip over again.

Small and Simple Things

Maybe it's all the yard work, or maybe the time of year, but I find myself feeling such joy from planting flowers and watching them grow into something so colorful and beautiful. Here are a few things I worked on this past weekend.

Almost Finished!

We've been working so hard every weekend since the beginning of April. We've taken on the challenge of landscaping our backyard. It started with the heavy stone to build the retaining wall; all 1,000 plus of them. Then it continued with 8 cubic yards of gravel delivered along with 5 cubic yards of sand. That was not fun to move from the front yard to the backyard with wheel barrels. Next was the 16 cubic yards of topsoil that we hauled from the front yard into the backyard last weekend. Finally, yesterday we moved 3 full pallets of sod into the backyard for our lawn. It looks so great! I can't wait for it to grow together and get out there to plant some trees and flowers. It's still not finished but at least our idea of what we hoped it would look like up to this point is exactly what we were wanting.










It was so cold and rainy all day when we were laying the sod. It made for some really heavy sod rolls.


Doesn't Blake look so excited to be doing so much manual labor :)



This is one of our front yard flower beds. It already had 3 rhododendrens in it when we moved in, so I just added some flowers to brighten it up.