New Years

With the ending of a wonderful year, and starting a new exciting one I've decided to make resolutions for once.  I'm pretty terrible at keeping them because I make such over the top goals for myself.  But this year I only have two.

First- Run a full marathon.
      This has been on my bucket list FOREVER.  Kerry, my sister in law, has done two now.  I think it became more realistic (maybe?) that I could do it from her motivation of telling me that it's doable.  It's always been this goal that I thought I would never reach.  When I was younger, my Dad would go on the longest runs.  We are talking miles and miles and wouldn't even bat an eye about it.  In high school I ran cross country and track and thought I could do it, but at the end of the day it's 26.2 miles.  I'm still wrapping my mind around it, but I registered and I've decided I'm doing it.

Second- Be more thankful.
        I think this is the HARDEST thing for me.  There is always something newer, better, shinier, prettier, then what you currently have.  This year I want to be more thankful for the wonderful things I have in my life.  The most supportive family ever, in laws included.  A wonderful job, best co-workers EVER.  A beautiful house, with a husband that will do all the projects that I dream up so it makes it the perfect house for me.  Speaking of husbands...the most amazing guy I could ever imagine is married to me.  Yep, I'm crazy thankful just for that.  Also, my two crazy dogs.  Two cars that work and run well and get me to all the destinations I need (one is paid off, one is months away from being paid off)  Being (almost) debt free.  We are months away....minus our mortgage....but no car payment, no credit card debt.  It's fantastic.  There are so many things I feel that I should more thankful for, rather then what came out in the latest issue of Crate & Barrel or the newest outfit that I'm obsessing over.  In over words, stop to smell the roses more and be thankful for the roses.

Hope everyone else has made some wonderful New Years resolutions.  They are hard to keep, but normally make you better in the end.

And just for fun, it was Alta's 4th birthday yesterday.  She got to go to the pet store and pick out toys for herself and doggie cupcakes.

Cali

I am notoriously terrible at keeping secrets.  Literally, if you don't someone to know something please don't tell me.  But I absolutely love giving people surprises I just ruin it myself.  I had planned a trip back in July for Evan.  Didn't really have a reason why to do a surprise, it was just because.  (Side note, I am literally OBSESSED with giving Evan surprises, I like seeing if I actually can surprise him.  Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't.  Refer to the beginning of this post).  So, to keep myself from telling Evan I would tell certain people.  About all of my friends knew, a good portion of Evan's friends, also my parents and his parents.  I figured if I told someone, I wouldn't ruin it.  Last Monday, Evan was having a terrible day.  I had been trying to figure out a way to tell him, whether it be the night before or over dinner and seeing him that day at lunch just broke my heart so I had hid them in my glove box and his face after seeing the Dodger tickets made my whole year.  That's the entire reason why I love giving gifts to people, especially when it's something that totally catches them off guard.  We headed to LA on Friday morning, and came back Sunday afternoon.  It really was a nice trip to just relax and eat crappy food, (not bad food, but bad for you food), see where Evan grew up, and of course go to Evan's favorite team in the whole wide world the Dodgers.  I love going on trips with Ev, it's always fun and we always come home more appreciative of where we live.  Ps, I could never live in California.  The pollution, traffic, prices, nope no thanks.  I like my cheap, clean air, awesome weather Utah.  Needless to say the Dodgers got killed, 19-3.  Set the record for the most runs ever scored at Dodger Stadium.  Hey, at least we were apart of history?  Also, I got KILLER tickets.  We were field level, so we could see the players and could almost catch the balls from the players when they would run into the dug out.  Really fun trip, with a really awesome amazing guy.  Much needed before the chaos of winter hits.

Had such great food the entire trip

View from the top of Dodger Stadium

Our seats!  They were so so good

Officially Moved

After 7 months, 5 extensions, and moving 4 times we officially are moved into our house.  We have managed to paint about 80% of our house in the last 3 weeks so we are off to a good start.  I have absolutely LOVED living in Heber.  Yes you read that correct.  Who would've thought right?  The dogs love having a huge yard, and our house is literally the same layout as the house I grew up in.  It's been really fun doing all these "busy" work projects and slowly but surely turning it into home.  Also, it's been wonderful having the inside track on everything.  Thank you Josue and Caitlyn!  Nothing but amazing recommendations from you two and nothing has disappointed that you told us to try.

Our driveway is super steep, so sorry this is the best picture I could get of the front without falling off the front.  The views from our deck are awesome, and every run I've been on I try to stop myself from taking pictures because it's something pretty everytime!

Yes those are hot air balloons with the mountains as a background.  Very hard to beat as a view.

This is the view literally out our front door.

Basically the most blurry picture I've ever taken, but this handsome guy did a tri two weekends ago.  He did awesome like always, I have way better pictures of the whole event that will need to be posted.  Yay Evan!

Thankful

I am so thankful for our friends.  We are always doing stuff with them, and it makes situations (such as our crappy home buying/selling) seem frivolous.   I especially love our REAL group.  Even when it's a late weekday game, and I have to be up at 5:30am.  Makes it all worth it.

The Group (*missing Jen and AJ*)

I'm MOST thankful for this wonderful guy

Last Week

It's the end of an era, we move this week.  Pretty crazy, we will actually have a yard, garage, and twice the square footage.  I literally CAN'T wait.  The whole buying/selling process has been beyond frustrating, anyone that knows us pretty well knows the whole background story of the mess we've been dealing with.  But, it has finally been straightened out and this is the magical week.  We were sitting around this weekend, and Evan was getting a bit stir crazy because he didn't have any home improvement projects to do.  Yes, you read that correctly.  We both are very type A personalities about doing projects and flipping something.  It might be our hidden calling.

In other news, I sprained my back last Monday so this whole week has been positively awful.  I missed about 3 days of work, between full and half days.  Needless to say, my work and co-workers have been wonderful and extremely understanding.  The joys of picking up heavy objects right?  I'm hoping it's back to normal for this week though since we are moving.  It's frustrating having a bad back since I'm only 27, and I don't have the luxury like my sister does of having a husband who is a sports medicine doctor on hand.  She gets regular adjustments the second something happens...SUPER JEALOUS.

Other then that, we had little Kiki for a couple of hours on Sunday.  Alta loves her.  Photo evidence

I did go to Vegas last weekend for a bachelorette party for my good friend Rachel, I didn't take hardly any pictures.  But here is one as proof I was there, Kiera you were missed!!!

On the go

We had quite the exciting weekend.  Never a dull moment at our house.  Shannon, one of my closest friends, decided to text spur of the moment and ask if we wanted to run a half marathon.  Of course, Evan said we should.  So a week and a half before the race, we decided to do a last minute training and go for it.  Shannon killed it, it was her very first half marathon and the course was a beast.  You basically run through a golf course, and it was EXTREMELY hilly.  And for 13 miles, to constantly go up hills was a huge bummer.  Let's just say records aren't made on this course.  And I still can't find my chip time anywhere on their site.  Still a great experience, Evan was his usual perky self and feeding me shock blocks.  At one point he yelled at me 10 mile jelly!  And the ladies behind us started laughing and saying they wished they had someone feeding them jellys at mile 10.  I have to say I am super lucky to have him go super slow with me, when I know he can fly through these things.

Shannon and I before the race started

After the race with Evan.  He is much happier then I was at that point :)

After the race we headed to lunch with my parents, then ran home, showered, and headed up to Snowbird for our work ski day.  It was such a pretty day up there, and totally worth going up.  Great snow, sunshine, and fantastic company.  We work with amazing people that are so fun to be around.

Slow motion trick, great picture. (Thanks Vanessa!)

This was probably two runs before his accident.  We all took a group picture, then took off one by one, with me bringing up the back.  And I saw Evan had double ejected out of his skis.  Normally this doesn't concern me, but since we were spring skiing he didn't have gloves on (none of us did), or a ski jacket, or helmet.  No one thinks twice about any of this, because it's spring skiing, so not exactly pushing yourself.  So when you fall, you are at the mercy of the snow.  Evan popped up and was shaking his hands a bit, got back in his skis and kept on skiing.  I didn't think anything of it.  We stopped before the last run and his face was pretty white and he was complaining about his arm hurting.  So he lifted up his sweatshirt to find this disgusting gash in his arm. At that point, he went completely white and said he wasn't feeling too great.  We skied down, and I high tailed our skis back to the truck, got him in the car and off to instacare we went.  He was not feeling good, and I felt so terrible for him.  We got to instacare, and the Dr. told him the gash was really deep.  We still have no clue what hit him, pole or ski, but it did quite the number on him.  He had to get 3 stitches deep inside his arm, then 4 or 5 on the outside.  On top of it all, he tore some ligaments in his hand so had to get a brace. Overall, he wasn't feeling too great when we left.

Right when we got there, so sad

This was the gash in his arm

And the brace he has to wear for the torn ligaments

And his favorite thing in the whole world, calf compression sleeves

Overall, we did have a good day minus Evan getting pretty hurt.  He has some huge bruises down his legs too and some what looks like road rash on his side.  He got pretty beat up.  But true to Evan form was still happy and not grumpy the whole day and we still did go to the REAL game.  I'm just thankful that he wasn't seriously injured, ski accidents can get pretty scary.  Hope everyone else had a great weekend!

Before/After

Well, we have officially sold our townhome.  It's actually extremely exciting since we were only on the market for 10 days.  I was looking at the before and after pictures last night, and I feel like hardly anything looks the same.  See for yourself!  Keep in mind, the afters were taken by a professional photographer, but hey they look a ton better that way!

As a side note....these before pictures were taken literally after we moved in.  Hence, no blinds and no furniture.  It may or may not have been that way for about 3 weeks, but isn't that the fun of being newly married and moving into a new place?  We've come a long way needless to say.

Family Room Before

Family Room Before



Family Room After

Family Room After

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom After

This is the guest room, we didn't have a before of it.

Second bathroom before

Second bathroom after 

Master bathroom before

Master bathroom before

Master bath after

Dining Area before

Dining Area after

Kitchen before

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

Kitchen after

A special thanks to both of our parents, for all the jobs we suckered them into doing with us.  Also to Evan, he has learned so quickly how to do basically everything and it's been incredible.  Couldn't have done all of this without them.