A Year of Firsts

The year is almost over. December snuck up on me and I'm left wondering how so much time passed without me noticing. It seems like just yesterday Spencer was starting medical school and we were hunkering down in Wisconsin for the second snowiest winter there in recorded history. Now, we've yet to see a flake (which is good) and we're living in hot and sunny California. The weather is messing with my sense of the seasons since I'm not used to it. Everything is turning green and rainy--it's the complete opposite of what I'm used to. Instead of getting blisteringly cold in the winter and hot and green in the summer, we get blisteringly hot in the summer and warm and green in the winter. Weird.

This past year has held a lot of firsts for us. First mean change and change is hard. There's a saying that goes something like "nobody like change except wet babies." I think that's pretty accurate, but it's hard to grow without change. The last year or so has resulted in a lot of growth because of all the changes we made. Though it's been hard a times, I think we are in a better place now than we ever were before.Some of the major firsts/changes we experienced over the past year are the first time neither one of us has been in school, the first time we bought a house, the first time I've been in a non-musical calling at church, and the first time Spencer will have to work on Christmas day.We adopted our first dog. It's our first time living within driving distance of the beach, the mountains, and the desert, and it's the first time I've lived in a community with a pool. The list could go on and on, but you get the point. We experienced a lot in 2011 and you probably did, too.

May we always remember the firsts brought on by 2011, and here's hoping for many more firsts in 2012!

Christmas 2011

 This year for Christmas was didn't do too much. Spencer was scheduled to work for most of the month (including Christmas Day and Christmas Eve) so we couldn't travel to visit family, so we decided to have people over instead. Miraculously, his scheduled ended up switching around so that he got both days off and we were able to spend the holiday together. On Christmas Eve we went with a couple of Spencer's work friends to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Seeing movies on Christmas is a tradition that my family had growing up starting when Beauty and the Beast came out. It's about the only time each year that we would go to a movie. On Christmas day I spent most of the day cooking a traditional Thanksgiving-type meal complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, apple pie, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and my Granny's spiced carrot recipe. We had some of Spencer's friends from work over that didn't have family in the area and couldn't go home because of their schedules. We rounded the night out with the Packers and a quick game of Apples to Apples. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and most hadn't ever had homemade before! All in all I think it was a great success.

The New Pup

2 weeks ago we welcomed Percy, a miniature poodle, into our home. We are really loving having him and watching him explore his new home. He is a pure bred dog despite the multicolored coat. So far his favorite pastimes are destroying cardboard, destroying paper products of any kind, and just being generally cute. We got him from a breeder down in San Diego. He was one of two black puppies (both male) out of a litter of 6. The other 4 were an apricot/cream color. 5 were boys and 1 was a girl. Below are some of the pictures I took with the new camera my mom gave me for Christmas. Hopefully now that I have a camera I like, I will start getting better about taking pictures and posting them to the blog. Pardon the quality of some of the shots--it's very hard to photograph an active puppy. :)



Thanksgiving--Portland Style!

For Thanksgiving this year we drove up to Las Vegas, hung out for a few days, and then flew to Portland. While in Vegas we saw two shows: The Lion King and Mystere. If you have the chance to see either, it's worth it. The costumes and sets are amazing in both. The signing is really good and so is the acting. The story line is a little slow with The Lion King, but I decided that it was probably because we grew up with the cartoon version and the musical pretty much follows it exactly. We also did lots of other Vegas-y stuff that you do when you don't gamble or drink or go clubbing (i.e. walking around and seeing free stuff). We went to the Bellagio to see the fountains and indoor gardens, Caesar's Palace to gawk at the outrageously priced blue crocodile handbag ($10,000 for the medium and $4,000 for the clutch!), a buffet, Coke World, M&M World, and hung out at the pool. We also fed the slot machines about $9.00. We won some and lost everything we put in which was kind of the point. Once all that was done, we headed to Portland on one very tiny, cramped airplane courtesy of Spirit Airlines.

While in Portland, we spent most of our time hanging out with family. There was a nasty virus that went around which kept people in bed (my mother) or at bay (her sister) for most of the trip, but we did all manage to get together on Thanksgiving day for some quality turkey time. My dad, my sister Melissa, Spencer, and I went to the Muppet Movie. Melissa, Rachel, Spencer, and I went to burgerville (try the chocolate cherry shakes!). My husband and my grandpa hung out and watched football and grandma baked at least 6 pies over the course of 3 days--possibly more. I am now addicted to pie and have been going through withdrawals since I left on Saturday. Spencer, my sister Melissa, and I drove down to Cannon Beach and the Tilamook factory and had some wickedly good ice cream and cheese. My sister Rachel hung out and did home work a lot, but I guess that's how life as a student goes. My mom's other sister and her family were around, but were experiencing a tragically sick beloved cat so we didn't see to much of them. I decided it would be wise to go running in the pouring rain at least twice and came home soaking wet. In other news, Wisconsin has officially ruined my ability to properly experience temperature's so where most people would feel downright freezing, I only felt slightly cold. On the other hand, ever since I've been back in California, I've been freezing in the mornings because our water isn't set that hot and our heat is out so it feels REALLY cold when I take my morning shower.

And finally, several last pieces of advice I picked up on our way home via Vegas: restaurants that existed in casinos 5 years ago may or may not exist there presently (in our case not) and if you plan on driving home to California from Las Vegas on a Sunday, it's best to do it early in the morning or your 3 hour trip will at least double. Also, the road that parallels the highway does not go all the way to Primm and you will have to navigate a very bumpy looking dirt road if you decide to try to bypass traffic that way. We didn't do it, but we saw a lot of people who did.

All in all, it was a great trip and we're looking forward to our next set of travel adventures!

A Growing "To-Do" List

As we are about to embark on the new experience of home ownership, my mind has begun racing with possibilities for what we will do to make our new place "ours." True, no one has ever lived in this place before, but we still want to make it our own nevertheless. So, here's a short list of things I want/need to do once we finally get the keys:

1. Seal all the grout on the tile floors
2. Blinds for the windows so people won't see us shower/sleep
3. Curtains
4. Paint
1. Kitchen/dining room--green
2. Living room--shades of navy
3. hallways--linen white
4. banister--dark brown/black
5. master bedroom--perhaps a nice red accent wall with the rest white?
6. bathrooms--light blue?
7. other bedrooms--tbd
5. Kitchen back splash
6. Lights under kitchen counters
7. Get stools for bar
8. Landscape
9. Install water softener
10. New rug for living room?
11. Headboard for master bedroom
12. Get a real bed for one of the guest rooms--queen?
13. shelving around the garage
14. shelving in the laundry room
15. pull out drawers for the kitchen
16. closet organization systems for bedrooms
17. Christmas decorating
18. puppy proofing

Suddenly part time employment seems like a lot of extra work...

Things That Make Me Thankful

Image from here



Last year I did a series of posts called "21 Days of Thanksgiving" where I posted things I was thankful about for 21 days straight. This year, it seemed like anyone and everyone had jumped on that type of theme and I didn't feel like tagging along, but since Thanksgiving is a little less than a week away I did think it was time to do some sort of Thanksgiving-themed post. So, here is the brief list of things I'm Thankful for this year:

1. Days colder than 75 but warmer than freezing
2. Snow on the mountain and not in my driveway
3. New California friends and old friends from everywhere else
4. Airplanes that make travel oh so much faster even if security makes things slow
5. Fresh fruit and veggies
6. A loving husband who works hard 
7. Freezers
8. Plenty to eat
9. Wetzel's Pretzels--my perfect post-Disneyland treat every time
10. Going to Disneyland with my husband, our friends, and out of town family
11. Disneyland's chocolate covered marshmallows on a stick
12. Having family within driving distances
13. My calling in Primary
14. Car insurance
15. My iPhone
16. A job that's flexible enough for me to move my schedule around whenever I want
17. A loan guy that's stuck with us through this house buying thing even though we're taking FOREVER
18. Yoga
19. Running
20. Everything chocolate
21. Baking
22. Book clubs where you don't bring the book and spend most of the time chatting
23. Knitting and the closeness of a great knitting store with a great group of people
24. Alpacas, llamas, rabbits, goats, and sheep for giving me various forms of yarn
25. The easy availability of clean water
26. The calming effect of being near the ocean or on a beach
27. My two puppies that passed away recently
28. Hamsters
29. The various sitcoms that I watch and find amusing
30. A warm, comfortable bed to sleep in at night

I could go on and on and on with this list, but for now I'll leave it at that. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The thing about house buying is...

it takes FOREVER,


                   but I am thankful to be able to at least attempt it.