Family Photos

Lil Sista Caitlin

Lil Bro Cameron

Andrew & Mel

Over Christmas Break all of my family were together and we thought it would be a good time to take some "official" family pictures. We went to downtown Bountiful by the Tabernacle in sub zero degree weather. I was amazed our photographer Jesse Funk only took 15 minutes to take all of our photos. Thanks Jesse!

Inside Look

I've had some people comment to me about posting more pictures of the house inside. Due to popular demand I decided to give in. We have two more weeks until we close! Look out Kaysville, here we come!

Kitchen and dinning area

On top of the stairs looking down at the living room

Living Room

Family Room

Master Bedroom

Backyard

Our New Future

I've been dying to tell you this, but have patiently waiting until the right time to do so. It's official, McKay and I will be moving and buying our first home! We're very very excited, a little sad, but mostly excited.

I told all of you how McKay got a job at L3 Communications in December and he's been commuting all the way up by the airport everyday. Because he has to work ten hours days and it takes around a hour and a half to get home, I don't see him until 9:00 p.m. every night. We knew that this wasn't going to work for us.

Mid December we were causally looking around for houses in Davis County area. I grew up in Centerville and we really like the area. We were only looking for two weeks when we found this house in Kaysville. It had everything we would ever want and dream, it was within our price range, and it had a great neighborhood. We thought, let's put an offer on it and see what happens. Not really thinking much about it.

Three days later we found out that the sellers had accepted it. We were really surprised. We did the inspection and found out that there were some things that needed to be fixed: furnace needed to be replaced and there was water damage on the roof and chimney. We asked the sellers to fix these things and to pay for the closing costs. A few days later we found out from our Realtor that the sellers were going to fix everything and pay closing costs. We couldn't believe it! We've heard about so many horror stories about people purchasing houses and we couldn't believe how easy our experience has been. We found out this week that the loan has been accepted so we've been busy letting our landlord, my work, ward, and close friends how we'll be moving mid February.

This means that we'll be moving from Orem and were a little sad. I've lived her for almost 6 years now and at first never thought I would say I liked it here. It has grown on me over the years and am sad to leave our ward, friends, family, racquetball buddies, job, and everything that's familiar to me.

This past year we were faced with two decisions: to have McKay leave school or to try to get a job during the bad economy? Both of these decisions had very different paths, and both were good options. We didn't know which decision would be the best one to take. We felt that we could make the decision on our own but soon realized we weren't receiving any direction. This made us feel a lot of doubt, discouragement, and uncertainty. We came to a point where we felt compelled to do what the Lord had planned for us. We put the decision in the Lord’s hands and are willing and humble to accept any answer. I know the Lord wants us to be in Kaysville and I'm excited to start our new life. McKay and I have been so blessed this year and this experience taught us to have more humility in my life. It’s made me more grateful an

d closer to my Heavenly Father where I feel the need to rely on him every day.

I'm excited to paint my walls, decorate the way I want, plant a garden, have a garage, play music as loud as we want, having a place that's 4 times bigger then our 600 sq ft apartment, and I can get a kitty!

Oh Where Has My Creativity Gone?

Ever since I graduated from school almost two years ago. I've felt like I have no creativity in my life! I work 8-10 hour day, come home, make dinner, clean, try to do semi-active, make lunch for tomorrow, get ready for bed; by this time it's 10:30! I don't know how women do it with kids! I have no kids and can barely find enough time to write on my blog! Do any of you feel the same way?

One of my New Year's Resolution is to be more creative. I went to the boutique called Soel in the Riverwoods Mall in Provo. They had this really cute looking decoration on the wall. It's made out of cut, painted, squished, and glued toilet paper cardboard rolls. It inspired me to be more creative. Here is a picture of what inspired me.

Much To Be Grateful For

Hello friends. I've taken a little break from my blog and felt like I have something to write about. I've been silence these past few months and this is good for my psych to get this off my chest. McKay and I have felt a lot of uncertainty about our future this past year. I'm happy to say we're entering a new stage in our lives and we're very excited. We have much to be grateful for and this is why:

McKay got a Electrical Engineering job at L3 Communications and is taking a break from his Masters. He's planning on transferring to the University of Utah after a much needed break.

We celebrated our 4th Anniversary at one of our favorite bed & breakfast

Jon, my brother in-law came home from his mission literally from hell (he went to Juarez Mexico, where all of the drug wars are happening in Mexico).

I felt really spoiled this Christmas, especially in the kitchen appliance area.

My older sister Melanie and brother in-law Andrew visited us from California for a full week!

I felt like I was on Oprah's Favorite Things when my work surprised us with a limo ride to our Christmas lunch party, a $100 gift certificate to the mall, and got paid to shop for a hour and had to spend the money on myself! If you haven't seen Oprah's Favorite Things, then go to this site so you can get a feel http://www.popsessive.com/?p=9495.

I have a new class of 11 sunbeams

Got to spend New Year's Eve with my parents and my 90 year old grandparents. We went out to eat to this place called Sego Lily Cafe in Bountiful, we went home and watched the nastiest show called Animal Hoarders and I wanted to barf. It was so interesting and disgusting I couldn't stop watching it. McKay and I kissed at midnight and called it a night.

I planned a college reunion with all of my fellow students. The plan was to meet at Classic Skating but due to the weather nobody showed up. McKay was stuck in traffic and I got to skate by myself for a hour! It made me remember the good old times of Jr. High and desperately wanting to be asked by a cute boy to snowball with me around the rink.

A couple weeks ago I suffered from a severe acid reflux attack. It was so bad it burned the lining of my esophagus to the point where it was extremely painful to eat or drink anything for two weeks. I had to go to the emergency room and ended up at a gastric intestinal doctor. This made me lose ten pounds and am happy to announce I'm feeling a lot better and caught up on all of the food I wasn't able to eat during those two weeks of holiday food blissfulness.

My new favorite thing is to make terrariums. I made one for everyone in my family for Christmas and I can't get enough of them.