Happy Summer!

It is summer, and we are loving it.  Chris is teaching summer school the first three days of the week (That means long weekend every weekend--hurray!).  He is also taking classes for his master's program.  I am keeping busy, and doing things that I have been putting off through the school year.  I have been scrapbooking, and babysitting my niece and nephews.  We love summer!

Andrea running the Utah Valley 1/2 marathon.  She did awesome!  She has actually inspired Chris to start training to run.  Cool.

I babysat my niece and nephews one day for my brother and sister-in-law.  We played in the sprinkler, which was WAY fun!  At one point, I decided not to put the little one, Charlie, in his swimsuit.  And he ended up being the one who soaked himself the most with water.  Anna and Max played the "let's see how close we can get to the sprinkler without getting wet" game.  Charlie played the "let's see how wet I can get" game.  Fun times.

Bargain shoppers

Ever since we moved into our new place, we have used a card table as our dining room table.  So we really wanted a good dining room table.  We have been hunting ever since we moved, and had decided that we wanted a round one.  We went to RC Willey a few weeks ago, and found the PERFECT dining room set for $850--not the perfect price.
On Memorial Day, we stopped by the South Jordan RC Willey outlet store, on a whim.  We found the EXACT dining room table.  FOR $148!!  So we bought it.
While Chris was picking it up with his Explorer, I went to the DownEast Outfitter store.  I found chairs for $52 each because they had been discounted.  But they were having a 30% off sale.  So they were $36 each.  We bought six.  And they match perfectly!
So we got a dining room set that was originally $850 for under $300.  Sweet!  That makes us love it even more!

We love riding our bicycles!

For Memorial Day, we purchased new bicycles!  Now that we have a garage, we will hopefully be able to keep them from getting stolen.  My cousin called me on Friday night, and said that she wanted to run on the Provo River Trail, so we kept her company while she ran.  We covered eleven miles!  It was super fun!

 At Bridal Veil Falls

 I thought I was so smart because I had a helmet, so I didn't need to purchase one.  We took it with us to use on the trail.  The clasp was broken, so we used my cousin's duct tape to hold it in place during the ride.  It looked pretty cool!  Needless to say, I now own another helmet.

Going back East

For Spring Break, I went with the other history teachers in my school district back East to visit Civil War sites.  This year is the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which is somewhat of a big deal.  It was VERY cool to go see those sites with 24 other American History teachers who were just as interested in them as I am.  A WHOLE WEEK of geekiness!  What could be more fun?  I had my SLR camera with me, and had fun taking some awesome photos.  I took a ton of pictures!  Here are just SOME of the highlights . . .

I know that the bus in back is kind of lame, but the canons in a line are kind of cool.

A statue to honor Abraham Lincoln and his visit to Richmond, VA after the Union won.  The entire city was burned to the ground from the Southerners deciding that they wanted to get rid of their cotton.  It was quite devastating to the president, because he knew that he had to put the country back together.

The land fought in at Petersburg.

In Ford's Theater, by the box President Lincoln was shot in.

At Antietam

A canon at Gettysburg

My favorite picture ever, at the Gettysburg cemetery. 

The Civil War soldiers at Fort McHenry

On my free night in Alexandria, I met up with Colby and Maria.  Hooray for family!

Colby and I are remembering where we parked.  Yes, we are goofballs!

Tour of our new house and a fun weekend!

A lot has been happening lately, and blogging has not been one of those things.  But, I am happy to announce a tour of our new place!

 Here is the guest bedroom.  We got the bookshelves at Office Depot, when we went there on a whim.  Cool.

 Our guest room also doubles as an office.

 Here is our living room.  We love it!  There is a double door that can also be closed to make it a 3rd bedroom.

 More living room and the new 42" TV that we bought and the entertainment center that we bought to put it on.

 Chris making grilled cheese sandwiches in our wonderful kitchen.

Behind him is the door to the best part--the garage.

 The bathroom

 Our bedroom--we have room for Chris to walk by the bed, even with the bookshelf there, and not kick the bed, which is GREAT!

 Yes, we have a total of THREE closets in our bedroom alone.  This place has a lot more closet space.

 The stairs leading to nowhere--and our dining room

 Our yard, which we are in charge of.  We have a garden!

 We have two fruit trees--an apple tree and an apricot tree

For General Conference weekend, Mom and Dad and Casey came to visit and stay with us.  Mom and Dad stayed in the guest room, and Casey was able to shut the door in the living room and take out the sleeper sofa for his own private room.  It was great fun to have them here.  Gosh, we love family!

 Taylor and Katie came over on Sunday, and brought their kids.  Casey read them some of our books.

And Charlie was amazed at how Grandma had a camera that flashed.  Amazing.

Anyway, that is our place!  We get a TON more space than we had before, which we love.  It is close to my work, so Chris just drops me off on the way to his work in the mornings.  We love our house.

Does anyone need somewhere to stay in Orem?  Give us a call if you are interested!

Mixed feelings . . .

I am having a mix of emotions flooding me right now.  You see, I am moving out of the place that I have lived for five years.  Chris has lived with me for two of those five years.  Here are some things that have happened while I have lived here (in no particular order):

• Went on vacation to China and came home to find that everything was clean and the way that I left it!  Amazing!  I have done that on several other vacations too!
• Learned the ins and outs of Lowe's and Home Depot.
• Had many friends, dates, and eventually a husband come over here and play with me.
• Fallen in love.
• Been proposed to.
• Received the phone call to say that my grandma die.
• Watched several movies and TV shows, including, most notably, the Ken Burns's Civil War and most of the first season of Lost here.
• Had 15 people over in my tiny family room watching a movie here.
• Had the Rusch family over for Thanksgiving, and somehow pulled it off to host it here.  That was truly amazing!
• Experienced the adventures of shopping for furniture, a piano, a new water heater, paint, carpeting, flooring, and much more to make this place complete.
• Gotten many callings here, including Relief Society presidency (a few of those), Primary Presidency, and bishopric.
• Made many many meals in our kitchen.
• Had a lot of family members come to visit, including:
• Chris's dad, who came to set him apart as a high priest.
• Chris's mom, who came to stay for a little while.
• My mom, who came to help with the birth of my nephew.
• Our niece, who came for a couple of sleepovers.
• Our brothers, when they have needed a place to stay because their BYU apartments have kicked them out.
• Other brothers, who just came for fun.
•  Read many books.
• Laughed a lot.
• Cried a lot.
• Slept in.
• Woke up early.
• Stayed up late.
• Got a Wii to play video games and watch Netflix on.
• Done a lot of studying.
• Went to the Provo Library to use their internet because I was too cheap to get my own to pay for during three weeks of being in China.

There are many more experiences, in fact, too many to mention.  I always said that I would cry when I leave this place.  And I am right now.  But I know that it is just time to close one book and open another one!

The joys of moving

One of the not-so-great parts about moving out of this TINY apartment is that we don't have very much room to move in!  At all!  Behold . . .

But, progress is being made!