Cheap Latte's

Thanks to my good friend Don I am now a proud owner of a latte machine! He found one at the Goodwill that wasn't working, brought it home, fixed it and gave it to me! I think he was also wanting to help us save some money so I would make lattes at home instead of going out for them. Lattes are really expensive! I think a lavender latte from Symposium costs $4.25 or more! This past weekend we went to Seattle for my grandpa's 80th birthday (I'll post about that soon) and brought my espresso machine! I made my brothers lattes and Nate complimented his so much that he said the next time he was in Seattle in the hotel room where our parents had stayed the night before he would take another latte from me. Uh, not likely - I sure hope that he did like it and wasn't just saying that he did to make me feel good! :) ha ha ha. Anyway here is a picture of the beautiful thing! Thanks again, Don!

And of course I had to photo the gorgeous mugs that Jon & Tamara got me for my birthday! Love them (the mugs and J&T too) :)

Update

Well, we told our good friends good-bye on Sunday. I did manage not to really shed a tear (outwardly) until we got into our car to leave. It was super hard to see our friends go, but somehow I thought it might be harder for them to see me crying at their leaving. That day and the next, both Dennis and I were walking around the house quoting things that Ava has said through the past year that we thought were cute! We are really looking forward to when we can see them again - hopefully soon!

The appraisal came back from our house yesterday. It appraised for more than we offered - so both our loan officer and realtor said that it was instant equity! We also picked out the hardwoods that we want to put in there - however can't purchase them until we close on the house. This proves to be tricky - because we have to pay 1/2 when we order the wood and it can take 3-4 weeks to get into the shop. Our closing date is less than 4 weeks from now. And, the it takes the wood 1 week to acclimatize to the house before anything can be done with it. Good thing the carpet needs to be torn out, the whole place cleaned and painted before we lay the hardwoods! We picked out rustic red oak. We both like it and I hope that it looks awesome in the house. Also, yesterday, I picked up a bunch of boxes from the place where I used to work. It is always fun going back, especially now that some time has passed since I got laid off.

Dennis has been getting more hours at work this week - he has a co-worker who quit last week. That is a very good thing and hopefully it'll continue going this way for him! 

Next week (Thursday) is my interview with Horizon! Wish me luck! I would love to work for an airline again and am looking forward to being able to help people as well as having the flying benefits!

I'll put more updates about our house on here - and when everything points towards the direction of the house being ours - I'll tell the story of how we found the house and the timeframe of the process. :)

Recent thoughts and happenings

It seems that there has been so much happening in our lives recently that I haven't had time to update our blog. Or rather, it is more like I haven't been wanting to update our blog. Since December 15th when I got laid off, I thought that I would have all sorts of time (which I have had) and would spend the time updating said blog. However - that hasn't happened. So - this is a quick post with words only - no pictures - about recent happenings and thoughts.

We went to the zoo today with about 11,000 other people. It was Packy's 50 birthday. Packy was the first elephant born in the US in 44 years. Asian elephants usually live to be 44 years old (in captivity) but Packy is now 50. I want a baby elephant! I love elephants. They are so smart, cute, and since gas prices are so high, I would ride mine to work every day (when I get another job). Maybe Dennis will get me one for my birthday! :)

We put an offer on a house. It happened really quick - almost too quick it seems. When the house is actually ours, I will put all the details about the house, the process, the timeline and of course pictures. We are officially in the waiting period right now, which is hard. We hope to hear something this week about the appraisal and then we'll be a little more at ease that the house is ours - but we'll see - anything can happen. Right now, I am in the purging process of things in our house hoping to not move as much stuff into our new place. I haven't even started packing yet.

I have an interview in 2 weeks with Horizon Air as a flight attendant. I would love to work for an airline again and I think being a flight attendant would be fun for a while. I'm not sure that I could do it forever - not sure that I would like being away from home in the evenings. How cool would it be though, that when we have kids and I still worked for an airline that we could fly places for free? I've always said that I don't want to work when we have kids - but working for an airline to get free tickets might just be worth working a couple of days a week. But, I do have to get the job first (although I am planning on it).

Next weekend I get to see a lot of family on both sides and I AM REALLY EXCITED. It is so sad to me how busy everyone's lives seem to be and how much life has changed even from when I was a kid. Has life really changed or is it my generation that's changed? It seems that we want everything RIGHT NOW and can't wait for anything. Technology has made things easier - or has it? Email and cell phones (both calling and texting) has replaced the old-fashioned-pick-up-a-pen-and-write-a-letter-to-send-in-the-mail. And it has lost the personal touch. My mom has told me that her mom called her mom every Saturday morning (is that when it was)? to talk. Money was tight and my grandma looked forward to her weekly visit with her mom. Today - when I want to ask my mom a question or share an idea I just pick up the phone, talk for 2-3 minutes and then hang up. Back to family... Families are amazing. I have amazing families. I don't let them know often enough how amazing they are. Families stick together. Families love each other. Families stick up for each other. I have such wonderful memories of playing with my cousins - cousins whom I hardly see now or even talk to now. Could that change? What are your thoughts?

This last one is really hard for me to write ... my best friend and her sweet family are moving far far away from me. 2,334 miles away to be exact. They are moving to Texas for her husbands work. They sold their house and we helped them load their moving trailer on Wednesday. Then they came and spent Wednesday night at our house. Of course after going to Jem100 after gospel meeting - a tradition that we started a couple of months ago on Wednesday nights. We stayed up until 2 am - just chatting - something I have not done in a very long time but it was so worth it. I will remember that for the rest of my life (or until my memory goes). I will get to see my wonderful friend tomorrow, and I am going to try so hard to not cry. I don't want to make it harder for her ... but we'll see how I do. Her sweet 2 year old (almost 3 year old) we'll miss a lot. She is such a beautiful, intelligent, loving, (sometimes stubborn), child with an amazing sense of humor and personality. We'll miss Ava so much. Another reason why I need to work for Horizon - flight benefits to Texas! Another sad thing is that I wont get to see baby #2 when she is 24 hours old like we were able to do when Ava was born. Jenny - thank you for all the memories that you and I made - the heartfelt visits and for you just being you. I will miss you incredibly, however know that you have a huge opportunity awaiting you in Texas. I do hope that you really are planning on moving back to Portland area in 5 years or whenever you can! (Oh and by the way we got into the zoo today for free so I should put the money we saved into our "going to Texas to visit our friends jug)." :) 

I think this about sums up my life for the past couple of weeks/months ... and I'll try to update with pictures soon. 

Thanks again for reading! :)

New House!!!

We just bought a house!!! We found out today that the bank accepted our offer! More details later! :)

October happenings

It seems as it's been forever since my last post. Lots has happened since that time so I'll try to get it all down in here! :) 

In October, we spent a day in Tacoma with some friends and their 2 adorable kids. We ended up going to the pumpkin patch with Chris, Krista, Poppy and Oscar. Oscar slept pretty much the whole time but we had a good time anyway and got some really good pictures. After the pumpkin patch - we ate supper and then they introduced us to Settlers of Catan! We had a lot of fun playing it and ended up getting home around midnight. Thanks for the great time! We're looking forward to next time! :) 

Poppy with her adorable blue eyes

Poppy, Krista and sleeping Oscar

Poppy again

This poor witch

Poppy playing with the small pumpkins

Poppy enjoying a carmel apple

Hansen family

Hansen family with a HUGE spider!

Elephants!

Dennis and I - one of our favorite pictures! :) 

Glacier again!

Because it was foggy on Wednesday while we were in Glacier, we decided to go back through on our way home. It was slightly out of the way - but not too bad. So, Sunday after meeting and the potluck we headed out for Glacier. The drive was beautiful and so was Glacier. We were wishing that we had another week off work to spend there. We entered Glacier through the East entrance and drove  on Going-to-the-Sun Road again. Next time we are in Glacier we hope to go to Many Glacier - we've heard it's gorgeous! Once we arrived to Logan Pass we hiked about 2 miles in to Hidden Lake and saw some mountain goats! I think that was the highlight of this time in Glacier for me. I was thankful that Dennis was driving because it was starting to get dark as we descended that windy, narrow road! After our stop in Glacier, we drove until 2 am, where we stopped for a hotel. It was an amazing day!

Entering Glacier again - only through the East side this time

Glacier Park Lodge - looked gorgeous

Water and this side of Glacier's vegetation was drier than West Glacier

Dry side of Glacier

Sad to see the effects a forest fire had on Glacier

The Welcome sign! 

Pretty mountains and water

Pretty mountains, water with the moon

It's starting to get greener - lovely sunny day!

More mountains and trees

This is at Logan Pass

Us near the interpretation center at Logan Pass

Can you find the marmot?

The mountain goat that we saw! I think he liked all the pictures that were being taken of him!

Another shot of the mountain goat

A close up of his cute face. I'm glad that his cute face didn't come close to me, though ... :)

Another mountain goat quite a ways down from where we were standing

Us with the mountain goat behind us

Us at Hidden Lake

Sitting in wildflowers

My handsome husband

Pretty wildflowers and mountains

Mountain with moon

We were there at sunset and the colors were gorgeous!

Another picture of us by the Logan Pass sign - not foggy this time (but getting dark) 

Shelby Day 3

We were sad that this was to be our last day in Shelby. But we really enjoyed our visit again - even though this time was quite a bit shorter than the previous visits. This day being Sunday, we loaded up all our stuff and headed to meeting. Meeting was special, it was all family. After meeting there was a potluck which of course we stayed for. The surprise birthday party that I had planned for Dennis didn't quite work out the way I thought it would - but that's okay! 

I was extremely happy to be on 'hair duty' this morning! French braids for the older girls!

Even Mari has french braids. I think Rowena's hair was this length when I first put french braids in her hair

Dale, Kari, Rowena, Mari and Katelynn - a gorgeous family!

Rick and Julia (at Cliff and Jewel's cabin)

Rick and Julia again

The kids table - Mari, Lonnie, Rowena, Ian and Ivan

Dennis as we were singing Happy Birthday

Roy and baby Joe

Lonnie and Joe

Rick and Mari - both have such beautiful blue eyes!

We had a wonderful time here. We left around 2 and then headed back towards Glacier. Pictures of Glacier to come shortly. Thanks to all who saw us and put up with yet another visit of ours to the Shelby area!