Adams eventful birthday

I wanted to make Adams 27th birthday really special. Because he thought it was just another birthday. I'm grateful everyday that he was born so I could be with him. I know I'm selfish. I wanted to make sure this was a birthday he wouldn't forget maybe it will be maybe it won't but I don't think I'm what made it unforgettable...

So first off we ran a 1/2 marathon for his birthday.  Adam got 1st in his age group. Got a personal record and won a belt buckle. 2 goals he set to do. 

Garett won the whole darn race!!! And didn't even train all summer. 

Then he wanted a nice cream cake... Bam! Didn't even have to make it. This is a face he has made ever since he was little. It cracks me up. Thayne makes the same face. 

Then I had a gift surprise for him to try to help him get excited about his birthday all day. I set up 7 gifts (I didn't want to do 27) that he would start opening and 11:07 and open one up every hour on the 7th minute until all the gifts were open. I didn't get a picture of it though. Look it up on Pinterest you'll find it... Here is the reason I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted, exhibit a: boating. 

This isn't our first time boating and surely not our last but Adam does have a bad shoulder and although this picture is sweet he knew he shouldn't have done that last jump... But he did and ended up, 

In the ER with a dislocated shoulder. Not the first time dislocating it but first time it took two doctors to put it back in. He sent me this selfie by the way. The babies fell asleep on our way to the emergency room. So I sat in the car with them while I trusted my handsome man to the hospital staff in Ogden. Once the kids woke up we went in and took Adam one of his gifts. We tried to stick to the hour thing. You can imagine why I didn't get pictures. It was hectic! Oh and this crazy guy didn't want to be stuck at the hospital all day so all he had was Advil. He never sends me selfies so I thought for sure he was drugged up. Nope. He just manages pain like a champ. The last gift I gave him was this...

A giant picture of our family done for $30.00 I looked up on Pinterest about Engineering prints and had one printed out and then took it to hobby lobby and had them put a foam backing. It looks amazing. And for that price you can't beat it! I can't stop staring at it. Adam couldn't wait to get it up on the wall. 

Being married to Adam is the best thing I've ever done in my life. This man of mine is incredible. He works so hard in fact he went to work the next day of his birthday. He does everything without complaint. Even when I ask him to hand me something and I'm closer to it. He makes life so fun and enjoyable. He is close to God. He is an amazing father and husband. I don't know how I got so lucky to have him but I'm grateful to be the one he choose to spend his eternity with. I love you babe!! 

Oh and big PA school news, Adam finished his application we should start hearing about interview this fall :) 

Why this California girl loves Utah

Yup thats right. I love Utah. 

Go ahead and judge. 

I grew up in California as a child. I thought maybe someday I would return again.

Adam and I visited and as I went back to my hometown I realized 

something was missing. 

Home

It wasn't there at all. People thought my parents were crazy because we lived in

San Diego (actually in San Diego not on the outskirts) 

some people say they are from there but they aren't... 

anyway isn't that where people want to stay forever? 

Mild weather, the beach, laid back people, the beach, THE BEACH!!!

The funny thing about living in San Diego is that I got bored of the beach. 

My mom was so shocked when I was ok to move to Idaho as a sophomore in high school. 

From Idaho it was only a matter of time before I moved to Utah.

I feel like Utah gets a bad rep from a lot of people. Yes there are definitely some extreme LDS people (Mormons) out here and some judgey people (aren't there everywhere?)

But there are a lot of good people here. Even ones that aren't Mormon. 

I love the mountains, 

I love the snow, 

I love that people want to help each other,

I love the summers, 

I love the springs, 

I love feeling safe, 

I love that people migrate here, 

I love that I can hike and only travel 30 minutes, 

I love my new home.

I didn't get to mention we were able to be apart of a Marshall Island wedding, right here in Utah. 

It was a wonderful experience. These Marshallize (hopefully spelled that right) people have also come to love Utah as well. I love other cultures and learning from them. 

I thought I was doing good at minimizing until I met them, but thats another story for another day.

I don't know if we will call Utah home forever. In fact our lives are going to change in a year. 

Adam is applying to PA school this month. 

He is applying to 2 schools in Utah, 2 in Arizona, at least 5 out east, maybe 1 in Oregon, and maybe even a few more. 

I know our Father in Heaven guided us here to Logan, Utah.

I'm still learning the why we are here. 

We have met incredible people who have helped us learn and grow. 

I am guessing this must be why. 

I also know we will be guided to our next home. 

 I'm happy to have grown up in California, I'm also happy to be here right now. 

Miracles are happening in our lives everyday. 

All I can do is try to remember them all when I get frustrated. 

Heres to the future whatever it may hold. I may look back and smile at the past. But my heart lives for what is ahead. Even though it is completely unknown. 

Hello again minimalism...

...minimalism has been a huge part of my life right now. I didn't dare say it because I was afraid people from New York would parachute into my parking lot and come chew me out on how NOT minimalist I was. Which is totally true. I'm working on it. My minimalism is not their minimalism. Isn't that cool? Just like we all parent differently. 

I could make this blog post really short and say I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff and want to get rid of more stuff.

The end.

But if you want to read a bit more than I guess you can.

Lately I have been focusing on crafting stuff.

I have one tote of craft stuff to some thats a lot. To others thats a little.

To me its a work in progress. I had a tote just for fabrics. Some I didn't even really care for

I just didn't know if I might need it some day. 

What did I get rid of?

Fabric lots and lots of fabric

Scrap book stuff all of it

(other than the book which now is out so we can look at it) 

Yarn 

knitting needles

Random goggly eyes

BEADS

buttons

ribbon

...

I could keep going. 

I just kept my favorites and decided I can't craft everything I see on pinterest. 

What gave me great courage was this blog post found here. 

She gave a great idea to just buy a cheap kit for kid crafts and when they are done get rid of it

all of it. Don't save pieces just in case you might sort of need them 20 years down the road. 

WHEW! It helped me so much it was hard to get rid of things I had even started to make, 

like a jean quilt I finally gave it away. hopefully it will make someone else happy. 

Every time I looked at it I just got frustrated. 

I still have a long way to go but for now I have found much more time to enjoy things like this...

and this...

hiking around beautiful Cache Valley.
Thayne walked 4.5 miles all on his own. We are so proud of him! He finally let us carry him when there was only a mile left. He loves being outside... I wonder where he gets it from?

Less stuff=less cleaning/organizing time.
Less cleaning/organizing=more time outside
more time outside=happy family
:)

Spoiler alert next blog post is going to be about a big outdoor adventure... stay tuned!

Bye bye 2013

2013 was a crazy year.

We managed to be in Logan the whole year and plan on being in our same apartment for at least another 6 months. (That's when our lease is up). I'm hoping to not have to move for a little while. 

Somehow we survive every month with Adam working a good job for a student. Adam has a vet school interview on the 21st of this month. Although he is now thinking he would like to go to PA school. (He would make a lot more money and have less school debt and be done with school faster. ) He is so smart and hard working I know he can do whatever he sets his mind to. 

Thayne is 2 1/2 and is a riot. He is pretty well behaved but definitely can get into some mischief. He loves trains, boats, tractors, cars. If you think it's because we programmed him that way you are dead wrong. He has grown up around dolls and stuffed animals and even had a thing for tangled for awhile but that ship has sailed. His fav movie right now is excuse me 2 (despicable me 2). He is excellent at singing and dancing. He knows almost the whole alphabet and could careless about his bed. (He likes to sleep on the floor next to me right now)

Joslyn is the toughest little gal I know. She loves anything Thayne is into and is a crawling machine. She likes to stand but not taking steps (which I don't mind). She loves smiling and laughing. She is 9 months old but already her little personality is shining through. 

As for me I'm pretty boring. I still love the same stuff. I am in a yw presidency at the moment and enjoy my girls so much. Adam and I made a goal to ski at least once a month in the winter and so far so good. We have been twice. Although we might even get to go twice this month. We want to take thayne at least once too. I'm thinking about getting my personal trainer certificate in April  so I can work a little too. 

I think that's about it for us! Here's to 2014. Come see us in Logan! 

Friendsgiving

One thing that I love to do but have a hard time doing in an apartment is 

having people over.

I absolutely love parties. 

But how do you do this in an apartment with no backyard?

Well, luckily I live across the street from my church and had a crazy idea.

What about a friends-giving?

Here is what I did,

I told my friends lets get together and eat. 

Everybody brought something and we ate… and ate… and had a ton of leftovers!

I kept decorating simple and thanks to all my wonderful friends it was able to happen. 

Here are a few snap shots.

I had everyone write down what they were grateful for and clip it onto a string.

thank you pinterest for simple decorating tips 

all the fancy decor was brought by my friend Christin (she is pro at decorating)

Lots of people came. For privacy reasons I won't blast all their pictures on the blog. 

But I promise people came! We had a great feast and a great time. 

I think this will become a new tradition. 

Thank you friends!

Clothes Exchange

I am constantly getting rid of clothes. I mean all the time. Some just don't fit me right, some just aren't my style. Most my clothes are in great condition. I'd rather them go to someone I know for free. So I had this crazy idea. What if they did go to people I know? 

I live in apartments and doing a yard sale is way too much work for me plus you charge people money. Plus I don't want to sacrifice a Saturday for it. Right now I have a great opportunity to be with the young women in my ward. Since its back to school time I thought maybe they would like to come "shop" through my clothes. I went through clothes, accessories and told the girls to do the same and next thing you know we are doing a clothes exchange. 

It was so easy to do. I set up sections on my rug of tees, sporty clothes, accessories, winter jackets, church clothes, ect. We made sure everyone was there before we let them go through the clothes. We made a rule that you had to try on the clothes and that you could only take 4 things at a time. Once we felt everyone had a chance to see all the items we did a free for all. 

(I used a food tray to display accessories) 

Each girl had a "shopping bag" and after trying on the clothes and liking them she got to put them in her bag. Everyone left with smiles and with some clothes. Even girls who thought they wouldn't want someone else's clothes. I didn't make this an official church activity but I felt like we had a range of sizes and having the accessories was easy for everyone. This is a great way for a group to save money and help you down size your wardrobe. Giving to people you like is way easy.

I've even seen wards do this as a whole ward and you can bring anything and everything. I totally support it. Great way to save money and share. Would you ever do this? 

4th anniversary!!!!

What a weekend! Adam and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. 

4 years together and 2 kids later, we still feel like newly weds. 

We spent our actually anniversary preparing for our weekend in Bountiful so we could have lots of fun.

Adam got off work early so we could celebrate something else very exciting...

My baby sister graduated high school!!

Here we all are together rejoicing in her accomplishment. Its funny how as all the kids become adults we seem to get as close as when we were kids. 

Age doesn't matter again. She plans to attend USU so she will be up in our neck of the woods. 

Speaking of woods... 

That is where we decided to spend our anniversary. 

We actually ran into a neighbor on our way out and she had to make sure that 

we were going camping for fun. 

I guess we are crazy. We usually do a hike to celebrate things. There is just something rewarding to us

about conquering a mountain or in this case getting to see some beautiful lakes.

Here we are at the beginning of the trail, all nice and pretty.

This is the Lake Blanche trail we did this hike last year as a day hike with Thayne. 

This year we thought we would try backpacking. Please check out my beautiful backpack...

I don't know why but i always love buying backpacks.

This trail isn't long mileage wise but holy smokes it is steep!

Here I am trying to use Adam to show how steep the trail is. Yes, its pretty much like this the whole way.

But its so worth it! Look at those mountains!

This is my favorite stopping point to take a picture because you can start to see your destination. If you look closely there is a waterfall behind us and it is actually the one we used to get our water from. 

Here is Lake Blanche we actually camped about 1/4 mile away from this point towards the 3rd lake.

Adam setting up camp. I picked the spot so I got to snap some shots.

Well... I may or may not have had some sweet fire pictures... 

We found out the hard way that fires are NOT allowed up there... EVER. 

So please ignore our fire pictures don't plan on having one up there.

Can I brag about my amazing husband for a minute? So I tend to get upset and can't think straight if

things don't go according to plan... my husband on the other hand doesn't freak out and quickly comes up 

with a solution. 

Somehow silverware did not make it into our backpacks.

Needless to say I was pretty upset complaining about how we had beef stew and no spoons.

Adam calmly found some wood and began carving spoons for us. 

I love him.

After I ate my food with my new cool wooden spoon I was very happy...

Making both of us very happy...

 

Here is Adam getting pics of our campsite... again ignore the fire. DON'T have fires up there. 

$250 fine... not worth it!

Ya I engulfed my food... never has freeze dried food tasted so good!

remember that waterfall? Here it is! Adam wanted me to get the water but I told him I was better 

at taking pictures.

Ah I just can't get over that view! Great way to start a morning!

Although we had loads of fun, we needed to get back to our kiddos! 

Thanks honey for a great anniversary!

And making me fall back in love with the outdoors. Everyday I grow closer and closer to you. I will never tire of your unfailing love for me. I don't know what I would do without you. Lets never find out ok?