On the First Day of Christmas

Since this is Tim and I's first Christmas as a married couple, I decided that I wanted to do the 12 Days of Christmas for him. I spent a few afternoons coming up with inexpensive, but hopefully fun ideas for the project and then spent an afternoon at my mom's finalizing details and making the plans. Today was the first day of Christmas for Tim so this is what he found on the dashboard of the car...


So, in the midst of finishing up our Christmas shopping, we stopped by Starbucks for a hot chocolate for me and a caramel cream steamer for him.


Then, on our way home, we stopped by "our tree" for a quick kiss and a Merry Christmas.





There is a quick story about why this is "our tree"... On one of our dates, Tim took me to a great little Italian restaurant in Logan called La Nonne. It's downtown and close to the Logan Tabernacle. After we ate dinner, we walked over to the tabernacle and sat under a tree and talked. This was actually the first time that Tim talked to me about getting married and it was a really fun romantic date. I should mention that we were sitting on the ground near our tree, and because I'm a goof, I had pepper in my teeth leftover from dinner. Tim walked over to "our tree," pulled off a pine needle, and proceeded to do some pepper removal with the pine needle from my teeth. Yep...welcome to my life... That's how a pine tree at the Logan Tabernacle became "our tree."

Stay tuned for 11 more days of Christmas...

What's Wrong With This Nativity Scene?

Can you see what's missing?

I just got home from Christmas shopping and was talking to Tim in the office and I heard a "clink". I looked back and much to my dismay, I saw this...


Yep...our lovely dog decapitated one of my mom's wise men... Ooops... When confronted with the evidence, this was Kona's response.


Grandma, he's terribly sorry and will work on his behavior. Apparently Tim was right about setting the nativity scene on the coffee table. Hopefully, the super glue will work...or maybe we'll just have a decapitated wise man in our nativity.

Drum Roll Please...Introducing KONA

Yes, this entry is very slow in coming...but it's here. Back in June, on June 22 to be exact, we had a new addition come to live with us. Tim decided that we just had to get a dog so Kona came to live with us. He was 8 weeks old and about 15 lbs.



Here he is...all snuggled up on MaMa's lap. I'm pretty sure that was his favorite place to curl up and fall asleep. The first 2 weeks were VERY VERY rough. Kona slept in a small kennel in our bedroom. I don't think he slept through the night for about 3 weeks or so. I remember him waking me up at 4am and being so grateful that he slept until 4am. I should probably mention that Tim has never had a dog before, so this was all a new experience. He couldn't believe this little puppy was such a stinker.



Because I have such a great summer job, Kona got to go to work with me at the nursery every day. Most of the time he wandered around with me, but one day, he decided to eat the rat poison, so we had to leave work early, drive to the vet and poor Kona had a very traumatizing experience of vomiting, drinking quarts of liquid charcoal and vomiting again. Thankfully, he's fine and was back hunting for dead mice within a couple of days.





Kona started puppy class in August and has been gradually moving through the levels. He's actually in level 2 class now and is doing awesome. We're hoping to train him to become a therapy dog, but we'll see how that goes. It sort of just depends on his personality. Here is his list of "tricks".

- Sit
- Down (lie down)
- Stay (mostly)
- High five
- Shake
- Loose leash walking
- Potty on command
- Touch
- Touch the bell on the door to go outside
- Drop it
- Speak (I'm pretty sure he has a super cute bark.)

There may be other "tricks" but I can't seem to think of them right now. Potty training him was tough...which is why we have a bell on the door now. He would stand by the door, but not let anyone know he was buy the door...so we have a new rug by the door. He didn't poop inside though...only once when he was sick.



We did have a paper towel incident... I made bacon in the microwave and threw away the greasy paper towels. Kona decided to eat them all. Then, he became a paper towel dispenser for a couple of days. Yep...dogs do not digest paper towels. They come out just like the paper towels in a Wal-mart restroom. Seriously...



Kona loves his DaDa. He always wants to wake Tim in the morning and does this by sticking his wet nose on Tim's neck. He has also learned to fall right over on top of us in bed. He doesn't sleep with us at night. I'm pretty sure a king size bed is for sure definitely not big enough for Tim, me, and Kona. However, in the morning he gets to jump on the bed where we keep our fingers crossed that he might maybe go back to sleep. Usually he just bothers us until we get up to feed him.



So, this is Kona. He's 7 months old (yesterday), 90 lbs, and super fun. We love him and while some days we get highly irritated when he's ringing the bell to go outside and we're in the middle of something like cooking dinner or taking a shower or accomplishing something like writing a blog entry, we still love him. How can you not love a face like this!

Christmas Decorations

Since Kyra and Rylan got to spend Thanksgiving day with us, we decided to pull out the tree and get some decorating for Christmas done. So, we got the tree up and the reindeer herd all set out. This is my first effort at decorating for Christmas, so I'm not sure how it looks, but it's done and I'm happy because it's Christmastime!


Here's our Christmas tree. The ornaments are silver reindeer, wire stars with crystals, white cute birds, big huge disco balls, and lots of glittery silvery jeweled ornaments. I love it, but I'm still wondering how I can talk Tim into letting me get a palm tree with hawaiian shirts and pink flamingos for my bedroom.


Kona seems to think that our Christmas tree skirt was placed on the ground specifically for him to lay on. We keep finding him napping under the tree. Of course, right after I took these pictures he started chewing on the tree skirt and I had to "encourage" him to move away and stop chewing on my super cool tree skirt.

And here is the herd...






Oh and here's a parting picture of Kona sleeping nicely under the tree. Can you believe he really weighs over 90lbs!

A Snowy Thanksgiving

A week ago Tuesday, I was hurrying home from JoAnns with 3 cute bird ornaments for my tree in a blizzard. Yes, a literal blizzard. I even got to put my new Xterra in 4 wheel drive. I still haven't come up with a name for the new car. I'm leaning toward Ralph or Felix...Tim says the car is named Ralph...I think mostly because he's tired of listening to me randomly call out names while he's working. Anyways, back to the blizzard. It snowed and blew and snowed and blew and snowed and blew some more for maybe 6 hours? My dad got snowed in at work. Our cute dog didn't want to go outside to pee (although he did...no accidents). My brother and sister-in-law didn't get to leave for Thanksgiving in Boise. Yep, it was truly a blizzard.

Anyways, after it got done snowing and blowing, Tim and I went outside to play in the snow. We shoveled a path for our dog to walk down to where he makes his deposits. We shoveled the snow away from our garage so the plows could push it away. We let our cute dog run and play in the snow. He loves it! Then we took the cruiser out for a drive. We pulled a big dodge truck out of the ditch with the winch. We drove up Smithfield canyon and saw several deer and a skunk...there's a funny story. We were driving down the canyon and I said, "Hey, there's a small animal trying to climb under the fence. Back up!" Tim backed up and we were trying to figure out what this small animal was. We thought it was a skunk or maybe a rabbit or something. It was covered in snow. I rolled down the window to get a better look. That's when it decided to lift it's tail and I said, "It's a skunk! Go! Go! Go!" It was a BEAUTIFUL drive and a really super fun way to end the day.




The next couple of days were super cold...like the high was maybe 10. There was no sunshine and the roads were snowpacked and icy with lots of car wrecks. My brother and sister-in-law got in a wreck on the way to Boise for Thanksgiving. They're fine, but it was a little scary...or alot scary if you're driving and you see a semi jack-knifing in your rearview mirror and all of the cars in front of you are sliding sideways down the road.

Thanksgiving with the family was awesome. My dad made the best turkey EVER! The pies turned out pretty good. I think the coconut cream pies were the hits, although Tim, who doesn't like pumpkin pie, really enjoyed the pumpkin chiffon pie. We decorated our Christmas tree and the reindeer herd is out and about in my house. I'll put up pictures of my decorating efforts.

We skipped the black Friday madness and spent the day working on the cruiser. It was super cold, but I'm turning into quite the grease monkey...or wrenching girl. Saturday we spent more time working on the cruiser and then Saturday night was spent watching movies and petting our super cute dog.

It started snowing again Saturday night and snowed all the way into Monday morning. We probably got between 6-10 inches of snow on Sunday. Tim was loving it. We took the dog out to play in the snow again. He loves his festive red coat. We went for another drive up Blacksmith Fork canyon and saw more deer, but no skunks.



Tim is in heaven with all of this snow and he keeps hoping for more. I'm happy to have a happy husband, but I'm also wondering what the rest of winter will bring. We have at least a foot of snow on the ground right now and it's not even December yet.

I'm Thankful

It's the day before Thanksgiving and this will be the first time I've spent Thanksgiving with my cute husband (ever) and with my family (in 3 years or so). I was given the assignment to make the pies. Yep...me...baking pies... I've become quite domesticated over the past 6 months. I make dinner and do laundry and clean and cook and taxi small humans and raise a dog. However, today, I'm just making 3 pies...2 coconut cream pies and 1 pumpkin chiffon. At this moment, I'm actually toasting coconut for the coconut cream pies. The pumpkin chiffon (or shitton) pie filling is cooling and then I'll add the stiffly beaten egg whites to give it some lift. Or something like that... In the meantime, I'll be thankful.

I'm thankful for a wonderful husband who lets me stay home and be domestic...something I never thought I would enjoy (more on that later). I'm thankful that he brings wonderful bacon home each night and that we have a warm home and healthy cars and many many other blessings that decrease life's stresses tremendously. I'm thankful for the two wonderful kids who get to spend time in our homes livening up life a little bit more than usual.

I'm thankful for my cute dog Kona and for all of the times (like right now) that he rings the bell on the front door to go outside instead of peeing on our white (dumbest idea EVER) carpet. I'm thankful for the morning kisses and snuggle time that he shares with us. I'm thankful for the king size bed we have that fits a great dane, Tim and I without too much squishing...although that will change as this dog goes from 90lbs to 160lbs.

I'm thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and for all of the blessings that it brings into my life each and every day. I'm thankful for a husband that shares my beliefs and helps me to become the person that I truly want to be.

I'm thankful for a wonderful family. My family is definitely not perfect by any means, but they're still mine and I think they're the best family in the world.

I hope you all have a fabulously wonderful Thanksgiving day and weekend! I'm off to finish baking pies...and taking the dog out to pee...and being domestic.

Oh...What Did I Do in the Summertime?

Yep, it's November... I've been incredibly lazy about blogging. Perhaps lazy is the wrong word. Life has been INSANE! But INSANE in a good way. So, in a brief effort to catch up on my blogging, here's my list of summer events.

June 5
~ Ran the Providence 5K with my soon-to-be hubby in matching shirts and a veil and tie.
~ Was sealed to Tim for time and all eternity in the Logan Utah Temple
~ Had the best wedding luau ever in my parents front yard
June 6-10
~ Honeymoon in Park City, Utah
June 18-19
~ Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay - Ran from Logan, Utah back to Park City, Utah with 11 teammates. Had a blast. Hoping to do it again next year.
June 21
~ Tim brought home Kona the great dane. He's amazingly wonderful!
June 28
~ Lagoon with Tim and Rylan
July 3
~ Cache Valley Cruise-In with Tim and the kids
July 5
~ Lewiston 5K with Tim
July 10
~ Volunteered at the Cache Valley Super Sprint and watched Tim finish his second tri
July 22
~ Turned 32 and celebrated with movie night at my parents
July 26
~ Kona started puppy class. We've decided that he should be a visit sick and old people dog, so he's still in training and is doing wonderfully!
August 20-23
~ Zions National Park - Tim hiked the Narrows. I hiked alot of other trails.
August 28
~ Top of Utah 1/2 Marathon
September 10-11
~ Time Out for Women at USU with mom and Aunt LaDawn
September 18
~ TOU Marathon - Tim finished the last 5 miles for me.
September 25
~ Corn Maze with Tim, kids, Travis, John and Kate
October 2 ~ Trip to Rock Springs, Wyoming with Tim and his Dad. 13 hour day to buy a purple jeep (not for us).
October 9
~ Bought a black xterra.
October 16
~ Spent the day working on the black xterra.
October 20
~ Decided to sell the black xterra after discovering it's a complete and total lemon.
October 30
~ Had my first Trick-or-Treaters EVER!

It has definitely been a crazy busy few months, especially when you add in working full time at the nursery for a few weeks, family obligations, and whatever else life seems to throw at you. Tim's job has also been crazy busy so that has added into the fun. However, life is good and wonderful and fun. Oh and yes, I do recognize that September and October are not technically summer, but hey...at least the blog is caught up.