We’ve decided to go camping for three days/two nights over Memorial Day weekend. Does anyone want to join us??
This is our itinerary:
Visit the Bonneville Salt Flats
2 nights camping in Great Basin National Park
Lehman Caves
Visit Little Sahara sand dunes
Visit Eureka ghost town
Doesn’t that sound fun? Let us know if you wanna come!
I’d been trying to think of something fun for Nate to do regularly over the summer to help fill the VAST amounts of time. Everything costs a fortune and we may be moving anyway, so I was a little discouraged. But then my friend, Kelli, emailed me a link to sign up for FREE bowling!! PERFECT!! If you’re interested in signing up your kids, go to KidsBowlFree.
We went this morning with our kids and had a really good time. The place was empty, the kids had a blast, and it’s always a sanity-saver to hang out with a friend.
I hadn’t taken any pictures for a while so I thought it’d be a fun thing to photograph…and it was. But it’s really hard to take pictures of little kids bowling. Obviously.
What every girl does in a bowling alley…it’s completely normal…
Madeleine looked so cute in her little bowling shoes!
After Madeleine got bored she wandered into the arcade and I followed towing Kelli’s baby. It was fun to have a new subject to subject to my flash. Family can see more here.
Here’s a sneak peak at the arcade shots I took. I’ve always thought arcades were creepy and this proves it. To see more, click over to our photography blog.
When and where did you meet your husband?
January 2002 at choir practice my first Sunday in a student ward. Then again a couple of weeks later at the ward’s FHE he came up and introduced himself to me again. He hadn’t remembered we had already met and chatted for a few minutes before.
When and where did you get married?
December 17, 2002 in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple.
Where did you go on your honeymoon?
The first night was at the Marriott in downtown Salt Lake. Then the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas for a couple of nights and then to an uncle’s vacation home in St. George for a couple of nights.
Where was your first home?
Rob’s parent’s basement for 10 months.
How many moves have you made during your married life? Where?
Four. West Salt Lake, avenues in Salt Lake, student housing at the U, Layton Utah townhome.
I’ve been having headaches almost daily for maybe a couple of months now. I’ve blamed pregnancy hormones, which could still be partly true. But at the same time I also had a terribly stiff neck and shoulders, especially in the mornings after waking up. Rob had to give me daily massages (not complaining about that!) but it was just getting so frustrating.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that as much as I love sinking my head into a big, soft pillow at night, maybe I need to try one of those contour pillows to see if it helps. Last week Rob had to run to Walmart and out of the blue picked me up just a cheap memory foam contour pillow to try and see if it helps. I woke up the next morning with NO stiffness in my neck and shoulders and I haven’t had any since which translates into NO headaches!!! WOW!!
A few details:
If you’ve had the same tension headache issues I had, try a memory foam contour pillow and see if it helps. It was TOTALLY worth the 15 bucks!
I (Julie) don’t like home improvement. At all. I blame it on the fact that while growing up my parents had a large home improvement project every few months. At least it felt like every few months. I enjoy watching home improvement shows because they always make it look so easy, fast, and fun. But, boy, it sure isn’t. It’s dusty and disgusting and messy. It’s expensive. It’s muscle-tiring work. It takes 3 times longer than your best estimate. It makes me grumpy. Rob does all the hard labor and I complain when he asks me to go to Lowe’s for supplies.
We are currently replacing old tile, linoleum, and a strip of carpet with new tile. We (by we I mean Rob) started taking out the old stuff on Thursday night. This continued Friday afternoon and night, and allllllll day Saturday. Just to get 300 square feet of old flooring out!! That doesn’t include installing the new stuff!
I kept asking Rob to tell me what I should do to help. He gave me 4 different jobs and I wasn’t able to do any of them. I’m small and pregnant…so it didn’t go so well. Finally he said I could chisel out some of the old tile adhesive that was as hard as concrete. I sat there on the floor chiseling away (barely) and steaming mad about how I’m not a slave in ancient Egypt so why am I doing this??!! I told this to Rob and he apologized saying he didn’t know my “chisel capacity” when he assigned me the job. I told him he expects too much of me when it comes to home improvement. He told me not to worry…he doesn’t have any expectations of me when it comes to home improvement.
So now the floors are concrete, appliances are all over the place, and tomorrow is Monday. Great. We considered working on it today but then Nate asked us what day it was and that he thought we weren’t supposed to work on Sunday…
But Rob’s worked very hard and we can tell how great this is going to look when it’s finished. Here’s to finishing!!
Rob and I used to play tennis…by “play” I mean we used to try to play tennis. We never got very good, but we always enjoyed practicing.
I found these pictures from a year ago that we never posted. They were taken as part of Liz’s senior portrait session. She was on the tennis team at Taylorsville High School. Over the summer after senior year she started dating her now fiance! We took their engagement portraits a couple of weeks ago (they’ll be posted soon) and in a couple more weeks we’ll be shooting her bridals.
Anyway, these are just kind of fun.
…and other things that annoy…by Julie
Reading back on past posts, I’ve noticed that most of my “annoyance” posts occur when I’m pregnant. Coincidence, I’m sure.
I just want to say that I’m really grateful for my Julie. I’ve been studying like crazy the last few weeks for my licensing exam and have been pretty non-existent at night after the kids go to sleep. I finally took the exam yesterday (Friday) and feel really good about my performance. A load of stress off my shoulders (Even if it will be a few weeks before I find out if I passed). Ha! Anyway, Julie surprised me with some alone time today to do some photography in an awesome location. It was exactly what I needed. More to come on the photos I took! Julie, you are wonderful! THANK YOU!
Rob and I have been musing a move for some time now. We always planned on moving after 4 years and time has gone by so fast! With the thought in the back of our minds for the last few months, we’ve just been waiting for it to feel right. Well, now it feels right.
Our time has come to leave our great community, our simply fantastic ward and friends, and our nice little neighborhood. We’ve truly loved every minute here, but with Rob’s commute to Murray and the housing market the way it is currently, we feel it’s best to move to another area and into a bigger home.
We are planning on putting our home officially on the market in a couple of weeks (after painting and installing new flooring) but wanted to give friends and friends-of-friends and friends-of-friends-of-friends an opportunity to grab this place before it’s up for the masses. So spread the word to anyone looking for a great layout with updated decor in a small, friendly, quiet, clean townhome community.
Stats:
$149,900
Layton, UT
3 bedroom
2 1/2 bath
1400 sq. ft
1-car garage
Small flowerbed/garden
Mature landscaping in front and back yards
Updated: Tile floor and shower surround in master bathroom, all lighting fixtures
Soon to be updated: All flooring and paint
Swimming pool
Clubhouse (Great for family and friend get-togethers)
Here’s an unofficial picture of the area but we want to wait to do more pictures until after we’ve done our updates.
So spread the word!!
Conversely, we are looking to buy a home in the South Jordan/Riverton area so if you hear of anything come up, let us know! We’re also soliciting advice, suggestions, referrals, and anything else to help us through this craziness!
These two shots of the kids are some of my favorites from the last year. There’s just something about the lighting and the treatment that shows a mysterious calm about them. They’re not smiling or showing any emotion, really. It’s just them. Simple and pure.
It’s important to blog about this member of our family. Well, past member. This is bear. Madeleine slept with it and sucked on its arm for over a year. It just got too nasty to hold on to anymore. We had to let it go free but not without getting a portrait first.
Since bear left, Madeleine has adopted a new friend named Cow. It’s really a sheep, but it looks like a cow to her. And aren’t you impressed by her creativity in naming her little friends?? Luckily, she doesn’t suck on Cow so it’s a keeper.