Wind Storm 2011

I wanted to share my feelings with the wind storm we had on Thursday last week. We all say the mass amounts of destruction on the news with all the toppled over trees, torn up roofs, and downed power poles. The part that I wanted to share was about Yesterday (Sunday). 

A little back story: After the big storm Chris and I were out of power for about 2 days. We woke up one of the days and our thermostat read 54 degrees. We decided that if our power was out for another day we would spend the night at someones house because that was just to cold. We part of our back fence break, but Chris ran out and picked up all the pieces and put them in our garage and when it mellowed out, he put the fence back up. Other than that we had no damage.

Sunday we woke up bright and early to get ready for church and made it on time (yes!) to our 9:00 am church. Our stake is set up backwards, and we have sacrament last. I went to relief society and Chris went to priesthood, and then we met back up for Sunday school. We went into the Chapel for gospel doctrine and about half way through one of the ward clerks came in and announced that the just got word from the Stake President that there was so to be another storm and he wanted to cancel services and have everyone go out and do service (good ol' ox in the myer syndrome). The concern was that with the next wind storm there would be a lot more debris because of all the trees that were already down.  It was kind of scary, but before we left everyone met in the Chapel and we had a ward "family" prayer and all went home to break our fast and change our clothes.

Chris and I went home and ate and changed our clothes and took the dog out to go potty and then ran to his Grandpa Jacobs house to help with their trees (they still didn't have power). Once we got their trees taken care of and ran to the dump with Chris's step-dad, we ran home and started to help out with our ward. It was amazing to me how much our ward got done in so little time. We had the entire ward cleaned up in a matter of hours. A task that seemed a bit daunting when you looked at all the huge trees our neighbors had lost. I took some pictures of the work being down (I wish I would have taken pictures of the before, but I didn't think about it in time). Around 2:00 Chris and I went home and changed out of our sap covered clothes and went to his Grandma and Grandpa Doxey's for dinner. 

When the day was done Chris and I were talking and we felt like we had met more people and gotten to know more people with this "natural disaster" then we would have if it was just a regular church day. Although there was damage done and people didn't have power, I truly have a greater love for my littler ward and know that they would do anything in their power to help us out in a time of need.

We Have Been Married a Year...

...3 months ago! I am really bad at this! But here are the pictures from our sweet anniversary.

 Here are Chris's presents set up for him in the kitchen for when he woke up.

What could it be???

A GOLF CLUB?! (I didn't really get it for him, he picked it out and put it in his amazon shopping cart...)

The other present, the smaller one, was a RoadID. So that when we are out ridding our bikes, if we get hit by a car, people can identify our bodies(jk), a bit depressing and not the highlight of his gifts.

Now it's my turn; for those of you who know me, understand I always have "my blanket." It's usually disgusting and ratty and everyone hates it but me... so Chris decided to make me one. He and his Grandma and Grandpa Jacobs got together and worked on it for me! And all this time I thought on Saturdays Chris was just really really slow... nope he was just busy quilting! 

I picked this puppy out!

It's a bit big but I love it! (now after using it for almost 4 months the only negative side to using it is I think my left arm is getting much stronger than my right!)

Digby has grown up!

I know many of you don't care about our dog, but I just wanted to show her off because I love her. I just wanted everyone to see just how fast she grew up in the short amount of time we have had her (we got her at 6 weeks and she is now 7 months).

 This is her as a 6 week old!

This is a picture from when we had to go out and buy a bigger collar. (also, not the yellow pillow on the chair in the back. Since this picture we have had to move it, because she finally got big enough to reach up and eat the corners of it.)

This is her on our anniversary in August. I remember looking at her then and thinking, "She can't get any bigger!"...

Here I wanted to show how she LOVES HERSELF. She loves her reflections and in anything that she can see her self she will lick... for instance, the glass on the fireplace, my full length mirror and our patio door.

This is her matching my pillows. Its nice having a dog that matches my house so perfectly so I can pretend she is clean.

She also loves looking out the front window. Shes our neighborhood watch dog!

Dinner Party

Chris's Step mom and half siblings on his dad's side were in town from Houston last week to go to Lake Powell with the Doxey family and were going to be up near us for a couple of days so we were planning on having them over for dinner last night. Here are my thoughts and feelings about hosting my first dinner party!!

So I will start with Sunday night when we found out that Chris's family were coming on Tuesday. My first feelings were of panic as I looked around our house that was torn apart because the dog is at a "wild and crazy" stage and is also teething and is chewing EVERYTHING and making a mess, and then I looked at the kitchen where it was a complete disaster because Chris and I (mostly Chris) are putting in a tile back splash. I immediately stopped working on a little project I was doing for my niece's 1 year birthday party and went into crazy cleaning mode! I cleaned a little Sunday night, Monday night, and Tuesday afternoon. When I was done I thought to myself.. other than feeling happy that I have a nice clean house, why did I put so much stress on having a clean house? What really would happen if they came over and I DIDN'T polish the sinks and get the stove sparkling? Will they really be upset that the back door has dog tongue prints on it?

During all of this Chris and I were making all the plans and we realized that there would be a total of 7 people at dinner (Chris, his Step mom, half sister, half brother, Grandma and Grandpa Doxey, and me). We looked at our table and realized that we would have to bring in an extra chair and then the thought struck me! Chris and I wouldn't have enough plates or cups! So chris went to the store and got plastic cups and plates. Once the dinner got started we BARELY had enough silverware but for dessert we ended up have to use plastic spoons (luckily I happened to have them in the pantry!)

So then came the meal. I got really REALLY lucky on this. Monday night Chris went to his mom's house to pick up his grill and brought it home and he made pork chops for dinner. Chris's step mom brought a salad and Grandma Doxey brought a side and I told Chris I would make a side. Once Tuesday came and I had finally finished scrubbing the wood floors and realized I REALLY needed to take a shower I realized I didn't have time to make a side. Once I got out of the shower, I only had a few minutes until everyone was supposed to be at our house. So off to the store I went to get a fruit salad from the deli. I got home put it in a nice bowl (so it looked homemade) and throw the evidence away.

All in all, this experience made me really understand the stress and work that goes in to dinner parties that people invite me to! (it also made me really wish I would have spent the extra money on more dishes that I thought "we would never use")

The Cat Lady Said What???

Chris and I moved in (like 96% of the way) into our BRAND NEW house and as a family we decided that this move wasn't crazy enough so we decided to make our weekend a little more crazy! We had a medium move on Friday and then the BIG move on Saturday (thanks to the family members who help move all our crazy heavy stuff!!) and Sunday Chris and I decided that we would drive to riverton and ..... Pick this little girl out. INTRODUCING: DIGBY DOXEY. She is a 4 week old Dark Chocolate Lab. You are you not mistaken, the cat lady DID cave and we decided to adopt a little puppy (as in not a feline). We love her already. She is still too little to be away from mom, but we will get to bring her home in about two weeks!!! So much for have brand new clean carpets!

Here are her glamour shots that I fell in love with:

Brand New House

This blog, I will admit is mostly for me, so I can remember what our house looks like before we get all the clutter in it and it get all messy.

Here it is from the outside. cars in the garage and everything!
This is the front room right off the front entrance.
This is the mudroom right off the garage entrance

Here is the kitchen!

The Stairs

Master bedroom

Masther Bath (this picture took me forever to get it without me in it)

Master Shower

Mastercloset (this is my favorite; this picture doesn't do it justice)The Laundry room. This view is opposite of the washer and dryer. Upstairs full bath. Bedroom 1 This is the closet. The two bedroom closets are identical.

Here is bedroom 2. My future craft room.

** I forgot to mention, I didn't take any picture of the family room because we are painting and the blue tape effect was not what I was going for...

Hey what are you doing this week? ME? Well...

I thought that I would update my blog, but I don't really have much of anything (pictures that is)... so my words will have to suffice.

Last Friday Chris and I did the last walk through of our lovely home, and of course everything was done and it is now a real people house for real people! I planned to take many pictures to show everybody, however when I turned the camera on to take the first picture the batteries were dead. Funny how electronics need to be charged occasionally.

This means that if everything goes as scheduled, Chris and I do the "Follow-Up Final Walk Through" Thursday morning and straight there we go to Bountiful and sign on our mortgage and Friday (not sure the time) we get the keys to our first home! Super exciting!

As you can imagine this is a little stressful, especially the fact that this big day in our lives has fallen RIGHT DURING THE WEEK OF FINALS. Lovely. We have our home Friday, so instead of going straight from work to enjoy and bask in the idea of having a huge closet, I have to go straight to school and take a final. How am I supposed to preform to my fullest?!

Anyone bored and wanna help move us? just kidding... kinda

PICTURES TO COME!

The most recent pics off my camera

Since Chris is still at school tonight I thought that I would finish up the post that I started previously....

Week 6:

[this is the family room]

[the covered porch out back]

[Upstairs bathtub]

[master ceiling]

Week 7 (most recent):

[family room]

[the top of the stairs]

[master ceiling]

[master tub]

NOW!!! Christopher turned 27!!! Here are some Pictures from that!

[this is Chris's birthday present]

[here is us at dinner!]

Little house on the prairie...

This is a post that have been meaning to post for A VERY LONG LONG TIME! So the beginning of this year Chris and I broke ground on our first home together (we didn't break the ground ourselves... in case you were confused). But I have been taking pictures of our little home week by week so we could document the growth of our home. so I thought that I would post them....

Week 1

[this is our fine fine hole]

There is a lot of dirt on our property because when they dug the hole for the house next to use, they put their dirt on our property...

[our hole again]

Week 2

[we have a foundation]

Week 3

the only thing that happend during week three is our foundation dried... and to the enjoyment of watching cement dry... I didn't take any pictures.

Week 4

[we got one wall, a floor and our basement framed!]

Week 5

[bam we have a house, that fast]

[our garage from the entry door][the garage entry from the garage steps][this is our family room]

[do a 180 and here is the kitchen, the pantry is framed]

[what it looks like from the front door]

[living room, right off the front door]

[half bathroom and closet]

[and the upstairs... but the stairs have not been installed yet]

[and this is in our garage, microwave and hot plate (not included with our house**sad face**)]

this is all I feel like posting right now... I got this far and got bored and realized that this was a very long boring post... but I wanted to have this to look back on. Maybe I will finish later.