Four Is Better Than Ten

Four broken bones in one foot isn't the way I had hoped to start out a week where I had planned on making some serious progress on getting our house ready to sell. Life threw me for a loop, for sure! 

After a less than graceful descent down some stairs, the ensuing trips to: the Insta-Care, the Emergency Room and a podiatrist, I finally had my foot fixed up and sent home. A week has passed and I get more x-rays tomorrow and will hopefully know more about how long healing will take.  

It's been a long week of staying off my foot and trying to rest. I always think that sitting around with nothing to do but watch movies and read books would be great but its not! I keep looking around at all the wallpaper that I want to be stripping and the walls I want to be painting and it's driving me a bit bonkers!! Asking for and accepting help is incredibly hard for me but I am very grateful for the wonderful family and friends that have brought by meals for us and checked in on me! 

My view over the last week! 

An interesting hiccup of the situation is that a month ago I signed my girls up for swim lessons that started today. Guess who is now going to the "Mommy and Me" swim lesson with Lilly in my stead for the next few weeks? What do you want to bet he's the only dad lucky enough to be there?

Don't they make a cute group? Scott has been a life saver in so many ways over the past week! Our house has never been so clean! (puts me to shame) The girls love all the extra one-on-one time with Daddy and they really thrive around him. The longer we are married the more I love and appreciate this awesome guy, he truly is my better half!

He even has the girls pick out flowers to bring home to cheer me up!

This is my first broken bone so I am curious, what bones have you broken and how long was the recovery?

Easter Fun

This year our Easter Celebrations had a new addition. Adult Easter Egg Hunts. Who knew they were a thing?

The Sunday before Easter my girls wore their Easter Dresses to church, they've been dying to wear them for weeks! 

They were so excited!!

About half way through the week before Easter a friend in another state posted a photo of she and her husband at an adult Easter egg hunt. My mind was blown!! I immediately started googling to see if there were any in my area. Happily, I found one. 

Sorry for the dark selfie, but we were super excited and antsy to start our Easter Egg hunt!! 

We had to pay a small fee to get in and each person could only grab one Easter Egg (there was a lot of candy loose on the ground), but if you were lucky enough to get one of the eggs, the rewards were good.  

Scott had egg number 2 and redeemed it for the cooler which had the corresponding number and I was egg 19 and got the air mattress. (The cute photo bombers did not come with the prizes)

Scott's sister was gracious enough to watch our girls so we could have a fun night out. We ended up taking the, uuhhh... scenic route to our destination, since I was the one driving, which made us a bit behind schedule.  Don't say anything, I am not always the best navigator... Our date night still went incredibly well and was a nice chance for us to talk and just be together. And the Easter Egg Hunt was pretty exhilarating on it's own!

Easter Sunday my parents and two of my clan of brothers and their families came over for dinner and an Easter egg hunt (the hunt was for the kids, not adults!! I ate enough candy while filling the eggs to make our whole block sick of chocolate.) My brother Andy brought a bubble machine, which really intrigued Lilly. She was more excited about that than the Easter egg hunt!

Being able to spend time with my family on Easter Sunday was the perfect ending to Easter week. 

Valentines in Bryce Canyon

A month ago I entered yet another giveaway, this one by Maverick Adventure Getaways, not expecting to win. Imagine my surprise when I won an overnight stay at a hotel, dinner and tickets to a concert! The giveaway didn't specify where the overnight stay was, just that it was over Valentine's weekend, so I was a little surprised to discover it was four hours away! I had never been to Bryce Canyon, but I had seen the beautiful pictures, so it was a happy surprise.

After dropping off our girls, who practically threw them themselves out of the car to spend the night at Grandpa and Grandma's, we headed down to Ruby's Inn at Bryce Canyon. We were so excited to be there and start exploring and doing that we didn't even take a picture of the Inn, which was beautiful. It's a HUGE place with a log cabin feel, it's own grocery store, post office, restaurant and beautiful swimming pool, among other things. We found this picture, which shows early visitors to Bryce Canyon, while waiting to get seated in the restaurant, and it made me grateful I had air conditioning and a comfy ride on our way down there.

It isn't often that I see a sign translated into multiple languages, without Spanish being one of them. Judging by the conversations ebbing and flowing around us in the restaurant and other areas of the hotel, people from all over the world were staying there that weekend.

After our awesome, and free, meal at the hotel restaurant, we headed over to the concert across the street. The tickets were for a Ty Herndon concert. It was in a much smaller building than I had expected, a place where they do dinner theater, which made it more personal and super fun!

Ty Herndon gave a great performance, and I would go to another of his concerts in a heartbeat!

The next morning, after an invigorating swim in the pool, we headed to Bryce Canyon. 

Bryce Canyon was inspiring. Such a huge expanse of red rocks in odd, beautiful shapes stretching across the horizon!

 We had a wonderful, super romantic weekend! Who knew that without kids around I could sleep through the night?

It was great to spend time with the love of my life and just get time to focus on us.  I have an awesome hubby who was ready to drop everything with 2 days notice to spend the weekend with me! We love exploring new places together and this was a great chance for us to relax together. Thanks Maverick Adventure Getaways for the weekend away!!

Air Force Update

I've been absent from the blog for far too long! Really there is no excuse. Everything with the Air Force has been more than up in the air and I just didn't want to even think about it, let alone write about it!

Here's a quick update (as part of my resolution to post once a week) of where we are and what we are up to.

We had applied for a waiver early in the summer for Scott's eyes, as he is partially colorblind and the post they had slated for him required full color vision. Early October we finally heard back that they wouldn't approve the waiver (understandably, I suppose) and they were going to put Scott's application back into circulation to see if other areas of the Air Force were going to have openings for the coming year that would be a good fit for him. The info about the waiver denial came in the first part of October and the end of December we finally heard back, sort of! The recruiter contacted Scott to say that the Air Force had some jobs they wanted to offer him but wanted to make sure he was still interested, after more than a year of hurry up and wait :) before they did all the paperwork of a formal offer. Umm, hello, yes! Yes, we are!!

So, we are still waiting, but with more of an idea of what's coming our way and perhaps a little more patiently. We had started to look into what else to do after graduation since we hadn't heard anything for so long but now we feel are back on track a bit.

Despite all the hurry up and wait we are still pretty excited about the Air Force and a little nervous to see what the job offers are. Who knows where we will end up?

Five Years and Still Going Strong!

This past week was our fifth wedding anniversary! Yay! It almost seems surreal that so much time has passed. I didn't really believe people when they said it would fly by, but it has. It reminds me of the mission; there were many days that would drag on endlessly, but then before I knew it we  reached the end of a month, or the end of a transfer (6 weeks). 

For this anniversary I was a bit stumped on what to get Scott to show him how much I love and appreciate him. Then I happened across a post on pinterest about doing anniversary gifts by the hour and I knew that was perfect. There were a handful of small things that Scott had mentioned needing/wanting that would fit this idea. 

The basic idea is that they get to open something every hour for 12 hours. I timed Scott's gifts to be opened at 5 minutes after the hour since it was our 5th anniversary. Corny, I know!

For about 2 weeks I picked up little things as I came across them and managed to get most of his gifts during normal shopping trips with my kiddos. 

The gifts were mostly small things and I tried to come up with clever/funny sayings to go with them. 

A few examples: 

• The first gift was a small package of grill wipes from Home Depot and a package of his favorite sour candies. 
• The fourth gift was a can of Tire Slime to fix a flat tire (see tag below). 
• The big gift was Chromecast paired with some swedish fish. (see tag below)

We had a lot of fun opening Scott's presents and he even laughed at my corny jokes and word plays. If you would like more specifics of the small gifts I used for this idea, email me!

Scott was in charge of everything about this anniversary and he surprised me by taking me to spend the night at Little America in SLC where we spent the first night of our honeymoon five years ago. It was a wonderful surprise and I was overwhelmed with the memories that flooded me as we walked into the hotel lobby. After checking in we headed down to the lobby for some late night desserts and saw a couple checking in who had obviously just come from their wedding reception and it made me smile. 

I have the most amazing husband in the whole world. He is so perfect for me. No one understands me in quite the same way, encourages and loves me or picks me up when I fall quite like he does. I love you Scott and I'm still over the moon excited that you want to spend forever with me!

We had a wonderful, leisurely weekend while the girls played at their grandparents house. They got to spend time with Scott's parents and his aunt who happened to be in town and I got to sleep in, use the bathroom ALL BY MYSELF(who knew that was possible anymore?), and eat my food without little fingers in my plate! 

Happy anniversary Scott!

I included a few flashback pictures of our wedding day! As you can tell, I had a hard time deciding which ones to include....

Weekend Update

Forgive me for giving you a weekend update on Tuesday, but I've been a little under the weather.

We'll start the weekend on Friday for this posts sake so you can see the awesome lengths I will put my family through for good, free food. Thanks Chick-Fil-A for dinner!

I decided we needed to get out of the house and so I cut out lots of black cow spots, rounded up the safety pins and attached "ears" to tiaras and fox ears (from Halloween last year). Scott was quite surprised when he walked in to find his family had turned into cow costumes.  The wait wasn't too terrible and we ended up with awesome free Chick-Fil-A dinner that we took to the park for a picnic (is it a picnic when the food isn't made by you?). The sweltering desert heat (don't let the mountains in the background convince you it it isn't hot here) and the semi long line were the only drawbacks to our first Chick-fil-A free food experience and I think we'd do it again!

This weekend I also checked something off my bucket list! It may sound silly but I've always wanted to go to an estate sale. While out running errands I happened to pass a sign for an estate sale in my neighborhood. I flipped the van around so fast I'm sure the girls heads were spinning and off we went. This particular estate sale wasn't the things dreams are made of, but I have a feeling most estate sales are a little more professional and I have high hopes for the next one I get to go to (hopefully without the little one in the stroller and the toddler wanting to run from room to room trying on all the clothes and asking me to buy everything. 

Did I buy anything you ask? Why yes I did. Of course I had to buy something at my first estate sale!! Two LARGE umbrellas and a handful of scarves for the girls dress-up box. Maybe not the biggest haul or most amazing find but I'm pretty happy about it.

The weekend was rounded off by baths on Saturday night. When Abby informed me that Lilly was going to poop in the bathtub they were sharing. I, naively, brushed off her concerns since that has never been a problem with my kids. Lets just say that next time I will listen more attentively when Abby shares her sisterly insights with me (and I will not allow myself to run out of bleach ever again)! And don't worry, there are no pictures to share and thus scar your mind!

What things made your weekend memorable?

Air Force Status (aka rant)

Some of you may have wondered about our Air Force status since I haven't posted anything recently. We are currently just waiting for the Air Force to make some decisions which is why I haven't had anything exciting to post in that area.

Here is a quick review of our timeline so far:

Applied to the Air Force late last fall

Accepted to OTS and the DEP early in the spring(March)

Attended MEPS the first part of April (read about Scott's MEPS experience here)

Had background check completed about a month ago

Had another physical at Hill AFB last week

Why ANOTHER physical you ask? Let me explain, and by explain I mean rant! 

I would bet money that on the paperwork my hubby filled out as part of his A.F. application last fall he had to check a box on several forms that he is colorblind. That's the reason he hasn't pursued a pilot spot or a couple of other careers in the Air Force that he would have loved, they absolutely require color vision. Apparently they either overlooked that fact or my memory is totally out of whack about the paperwork. At MEPS he, of course, failed the colorblindness test. Apparently standard color vision is preferred for the job field that they had him slated to do. So, they had him drive up to the AFB and redo the entire physical and then some additional things they didn't do at MEPS. He partially failed the colorblindness test this time and now he has to apply for a waiver. They won't respond to a simple waiver request for 3 to 4 months. 

I like to be able to plan at least a little in advance and this is driving me nuts to have to wait to find out something so simple that could and should have been taken care of months ago! If this delays his date for OTS and he is able to go to another semester or two of school and get a double major we would like to know sooner rather than later so he can have enough time to register for the classes that he would need.

End of rant. Phew! I really am very excited about going into the Air Force and think it will be a good life for our family. I know that this kind of thing isn't unusual in the military but it is taking a little bit to adjust to.

Are you color blind? Take one of these color blindness tests to find out.

Weekend Off!

Life has been pretty crazy lately and so Scott and I were both excited for a weekend off from life! Scott had a mandatory retreat for work over the weekend. Friday morning we drove the scenic route(aka long route) up to the Tifie Ranch because I was tired of driving on the freeway all the time and Scott humored me. The Tifie Ranch is part of a nonprofit group associated with Goal Zero (the company Scott works at). The ranch was amazing! It is all completely powered by solar, wind and hydroelectric. They have paintball, archery, shooting range, super close to the reservoir for boating, etc... You can stay in a room in the lodge(which we were lucky enough to score because of the little girl who's on her way to our family), in a small cabin, in a tepee or your own tent. Even the bathrooms out by the tepees were nicer than most that I've seen in people's homes. Definately not your normal camping experience.

For it being a required company retreat, it was super relaxed and fun. Taking a tour of the ranch and learning about it's self sufficiancy was the only part that seemed remotely required. Everyone played minute to win it games with some great Goal Zero prizes in the morning the rest of the day was full of haning out, going to the archery range, eating(of course!), roasting marshmallows for smores(gourmet s'mores with dove chocolate no less).

 

Throwing and catching LOTS of pencils! Scott did great!

Scott racing to drop different colored m&m's into different cups!

Scott trying  to jostle ping pong balls out of an empty tissue box!

                                                         The marshmallow roasting master!

 Trying to move a cookie from my forehead to my mouth without using my hands....unsucessfully!

                                       

More random pictures from our past!
Scott and his dad did 99% of the move when we moved into our new apartment!

Scott posing while we were in Las Vegas on our honeymoon, what a hottie!

This picture is from FHE in the singles ward where we met, right when I was starting to really like Scott! Scott is in the stripes and I'm in the blue shirt and khakis.

Also right after we met, I was unemployed and Scott found me a job as the manager of the Easter Bunny photo shoot in the mall(like the Christmas photos with Santa). When my bunny quit I had to be the bunny unexpectly. Needles to say the outfit was made for a taller, bigger person! I had hoped that Scott would come and see me because he knew I was going to be the bunny but I never saw him and was super disappointed. Then, at the end of the day my coworker gace me a bunny bouquet Scott had dropped off and I had been too distracted to notice. It was a large carrot and carnations wrapped up together. What a sweetie! Part of what attracted me to Scott was that he was unusual and thoughtful in his dating and that's a classic example!

As I have been uploading all the pictures from my camera onto the computer I decided to share a random mix of pictures from our past! Don't expect a lot of order!
This picture is from our honeymoon. One of our day trips from the house we stayed in was to Las Vegas!

This is right after we were married and moved into our first apartment!

Christmas eve my brother Jon and his wife Amy did a christmas eve dinner where you sit on the floor and eat traditional food from the "east" and read the Christmas story.

Right after my dance competition this past spring. Don't I have a handsome husband!

One long night!

Last night was a first in my life. I picked up Scott from work about 12:30 and we drove home. We worked on a few things that needed to be done before we turned in for the night and then Scott says, would you come over here and see if you smell something. So, I walked into the kitchen and it took me a minute to smell it but I could smell gasoline. The window was open and so we oepned the door and were hit with a big wave of gasoline smell. Scott got the flashlights and started to investigate. Our apartment is on the end on the building on the middle floor and the smell seemed to be coming from the fence area that separates our parking lot from the neighbors. The closer we got to the fence we heard a dripping sound. It sounded like liquid rapidly dripping onto metal. That was a little frightening combined with the smell. I DON"T WANT MY APARTMENT TO BURN DOWN!! Scott climbed onto the dumpster but couldn't see anything. So, he called the police department and they said they would send a fire truck over. Scott waited on the sidewalk for them and you could hear them coming even without the sirens. Some of the neighbors woke up but much to my disappointment our annoying downstairs neighbors slept through the experience. The firemen checked things out and were a little worried by the dripping noise and after throughly checking our side of the fence and using their cool little gadgets to check the fumes they headed around the block to check the other persons yard. Not sure what happened after that but I did the fire truck on the other side of the block. I do feel bad for the people who live across the street, where the fire truck was parked and let running with no explanation to them. I guess we'll have to wait and see if anything else comes of it.

This has been a momentous week in the life of two "first-time" married renters. On thursday, Scott's birthday I took him to work and ran a few errands. When I came home, I walked by our kitchen windows on the way to the mailbox and I could see the light shining through a crack in the curtains. I walked down the stairs to the apartment as quietly as I could and the door was slightly ajar. If I had been smart I would have called 911. But, I eased the door open and peered in to see a strange man with his head under the kitchen sink. I assumed it was the landlord because I had seen a familiar car outside and we needed our sink fixed. He didn't introduce himself but just said he was trying to fix the sink. I didn't want to leave him there alone in our apartment so I changed my schedule to stick around. I was irked!! Scott was even more angry than I was, what if I had been in the shower or something!
Scott called the landloard and he was thoroughly uncooperative and said he'd "try to call first next time". So Scott looked up the law online and it's illegal to enter our apartment without 24 hours written notice! Scott emailed him and we haven't heard back but next time I'm calling the cops!!!
The adventures of being newly married never end!