Catch UP

Okay people.... I realize I have been completely out of the internet world and so I am way behind on reading my favorite blogs, catching up with friends on facebook, pinning cute stuff on facebook, and just cruisin' the internet period.  I feel so out of the loop!  Hopefully we will be able to get the internet at our apartment soon, but for now I'll have to make due with when I can come to the apartment's clubhouse and use there's.

Here's a quick update on what's been going on in our lives since we moved out to Virginia!

First of all, we got her on May 5th at like one in the morning.  We were pretty much wasted because we drove 36 straight hours here.  We were very excited that we got to stop by and see Katie and Aaron and their cute family in Rawlins, WY on our way over! Thanks for letting us say hi and showing us your dance studio!

Raulon pretty much went right to work selling door to door when we got here and I had a few days to unpack and get us settled, so that was nice!  I work full time in the office for this pest control company Raulon is selling for.  The job is pretty easy but a little stressful.  Luckily I've started to make new friends with the other salesman's wives out here so that helps!

Raulon is actually really enjoying his job!  He loves talking to new people and learning new things and he is actually really picking it up quick and doing well!  I'm so proud of him!  He also has an AWESOME attitude that really inspires me and he is such a good example to me!  I'm trying really hard to be supportive and helpful and positive for him, because I know his job is WAY harder than mine!

So far the only site-seeing we've done is going to Arlington Cemetery the weekend of Memorial Day, so that was really awesome!  We also got to go to the D.C. Temple that weekend which was really beautiful and amazing!

Unfortunately, we don't have a camera but it is first on our list when we get paid!  Then I promise to have exciting pictures of our adventure posted all the time!

Thanks everyone for all your support, especially our parents!  We appreciate all you do for us!  We've really been enjoying our summer here and are grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow together!!

"Oh the places you'll go"-Dr. Suess

While we are getting ready to live just outside of D.C. for four months, we have been thinking about the places we want to visit while we are there.

Raulon is going to be working Monday-Saturday from about 9am-8pm and I'm going to be working something like Monday-Friday from about 9am-5pm, so we are going to be pretty busy, especially Raulon.  AND he can only take one day off a month to receive all of the benefits.  So we plan to do most of our site seeing on Sundays.  Here are a few of the places we are excited to visit.  Hopefully we will be able to hit them all, plus more!

 The Washington, D.C. Temple.  Gorgeous!  Excited to see it for real!  Raulon actually gets off a little earlier on Saturdays so we are hoping to be able to go a few times during the summer!

The Capital Building.  This is especially exciting for Raulon.  He LOVES politics. Me...not so much, but it will still be awesome to see it in real life!

The Holocaust Museum.  I love learning about history and WWII and the Holocaust interest me so much for some reason.  I hear this place really makes you cry :(

 The Smithsonian Museum... Well part of it.  I wonder how much of it we will have time to see!

Washington Monument and all the other Monuments in D.C.!

And Arlington National Cemetery.  I'm sure this will be a very touching, neat experience.

Have any of you ever been to Washington, D.C.?  If so why were you there?  Where did you visit?  Where would you recommend we visit?

ALL ABOARD!

One of the perks of working for the pest control company this summer is....

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They are taking us on a CRUISE!!!!

Actually, as this post is being posted we are making our way to Long Beach, California where we will board our ship, the Carnival Cruise, as we head to CABO!

We'll post our own pictures when we get back.  Wish us luck!  Neither of us has ever done anything this crazy fun before, or left the country for that matter...

Bon Voyage!~

Going Lunch Crazy

If you haven't already heard, Raulon and I are planning on heading out to the D.C. area as soon as he finishes school in May (and I mean seconds after he finishes his last final...) to sell pest control.

Raulon is going to be going door-to-door selling and I will be working in their local branch office, which is great because I think I would go crazy staying at home all day while he was working.

We are super excited for out big adventure together and since we have known since the end of October that we are going to do this, I've been thinking a lot about planning and organizing for the trip to make it the best experience for us possible.

One of the things I've really been thinking about is our meals.  We will be staying in our own apartment. (Which will kind of be nice after a few months of living in my parents basement!  Don't get me wrong, we really appreciate them helping us save some money, it just gets a little crowded sometimes when you don't have your own home.)  This means we will have our own kitchen and of course be responsible for feeding ourselves, which I'm actually really looking forward too!

Anyway back to meals.  Todays post is going to be about my ideas for our lunches.  We decided that to really save on money and make sure we are eating healthy, we are going to take sack lunches to work every day.   Now, I don't know about you, but I think lunch is actually one of the hardest meals to come up with.  Besides your typical macaroni and cheese, or sandwiches or leftover dinner, I feel like I don't know what else to make!

So I've been doing a TON of research on the internet and particularly.....PINTEREST!  Oh come on, don't tell me you aren't addicted to it too!

I tend a little boy in the mornings and his mom always packs him a lunch.  I noticed she had Ziploc containers that kind of reminded me of lunchables.  They look like this:

I thought they looked pretty awesome and would be great for organizing lunches.  So I looked them up online and I found this product that is even better!!

These are called Easy Lunch Boxes.  They were created by a mom and you can find them at easylunchboxes.com

Why these are so much better is because they are stronger plastic (they wont warp or tear) and they are BPA free.  You can also put them in the dishwasher and the microwave!  They come in sets of four-so I bought 2 sets!  They also sell lunch coolers that the bentos fit perfectly into, so I bought one for each of us.  They should be here on Friday.  I'm so excited!  Anyway, I wont bore your with my craziness anymore.  If you want to learn more about the Easy Lunch Box System, click here.

Something else I Love, love, LOVE about this website, is that they have a TON of lunch meal ideas to put inside your lunch bentos as well!  I've also found that there are many moms that blog about different lunch meal ideas.  Here are a few of the awesome ones I've found, if you are looking for lunch ideas:

http://lilyanette.blogspot.com/search/label/Bento%20Days

http://www.anotherlunch.com/

http://www.parenting.com/gallery/bento-lunch-boxes

This is the page on easylunchboxes.com of meal ideas.  This one has 170 ideas with pics!:
http://easylunchboxes.smugmug.com/The-Best-Lunchbox-System/Yummy-Lunch-Ideas/10136835_YSuyb#!i=998960659&k=xSuiV


Anyway, that's my rant for the day :) Hope you enjoyed learning about this product.  I know I was sure excited when I happened upon it.  Happy Lunching!!

Feeling Inspired

Lately I have noticed that there are so many inspired bloggers out there.  I wish I was extremely inspired, crafty, passionate, organized and a writer!  I have found so many blogs lately that I love, by people I don't even know, that I don't think I can even link to all of them and follow them all... I don't have enough hours in my day to read AND do all the inspired things people are coming up with these days.  Here are a few of the new  blogs I've found and a photo of something they've done to inspire me:

http://tearosehome.blogspot.com

This lady has awesome tutorials and ideas for the husband and family.

aloveofthepast-cynthia.blogspot.com

This woman loves everything about the past and British culture and vintage, just like me!  Don't you just love this bathroom?!

jensownroad.blogspot.com
Isn't this t-shirt adorable?! I want to make one for myself!!

hatingmartha.blogspot.com

The coolest coasters I have ever seen...I so want to make some!

Well that's all for now.  I want to be a better blog writer like all these ladies, but unfortunately I can't make any promises... Hope these made you feel inspired!! :)

The renovation and the move.

If you haven't already heard, Raulon and I moved into my parents basement to save some money.  Thanks Mom and Dad!  The bedroom we moved into needed a lot of work from all the damage we kids had done to it through the years (a.k.a. numerous crazy paint jobs and thousands of nail and tack holes all over the walls.)  Needless to say, we had lots of patching and three coats of priming to prep the walls for the paint we actually wanted.

I forgot to take a before picture!!! The walls were all this bright blue color and you can see just on one wall how many holes we had to patch up!

Yum!  Just a little advice.  When something boasts "ODERLESS" it actually means that the product smells worse and is ten times stronger than the normal product.  We had to suffer through three coats of this nasty stuff for our ignorance!!!

It's a good thing we already knew we were going to get new carpet, because we made the old, nasty carpet even worse!

We finally got to paint it the colors we wanted.  Of course we had to make things really difficult on ourselves and choose THREE colors!!!

 Next we ripped out the old padding and carpet.... Yuck!

Thanks, Dad for being so awesome and knowing how to lay carpet so we didn't have to pay for installation!!

 My Sweetie helping my Daddy out.  Just so you know, at this point I'm laying on the carpet that's already been laid down because the carpet is so nice and soft and I'm so tired!  No pictures because I looked THAT bad.

Surprisingly, after all these boring photos you had to scroll through, I didn't get a picture of the finished product because, not surprisingly we are not all the way unpacked...

I'll take some pictures as soon as we're done!  Thanks everyone for all of your help and hard work!  Especially to my sweet husband, Raulon and my parents for helping us save some money! :)

Project: read.

Raulon gave me the best Mother's Day present this year.  And he completely surprised me with it too!

This book set was compiled for LDS families as wholesome classics, and as you can tell they are all pretty awesome!  I love how they've made them look really old and vintage.  I'd seen this set in the Seagull Book ad and I was so stoked to see that two of my favorite books are in it (Pride and Prejudice and the Scarlet Pimpernel) but at the time it was pretty expensive and I didn't even think about telling Raulon I wanted it.  That's why I was so surprised when months later he'd bought it for me (on sale of course :P) for Mother's Day.  If you can't see the picture very well, the books are Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Emma, Jane Eyre, Little Women, The Secret Garden, and Anne of Green Gables.  I took a picture of one of the books so you can see how awesome they look.

Each one of them has there own different color and design. I had originally read five of them and three were new to me but I decided I wanted to read the whole set so I started out with the new ones first and will end with The Scarlet Pimpernel, my fav!

So far I have read The Secret Garden, Little Women, Jane Eyre, and Anne of Green Gables.  Right now I'm reading Pride and Prejudice which I honestly think is going to be the hardest one to read just because I've already read it so many times and seen the movies so many times that when I read it I kind of zone out... ha ha.  But it really is such a good book and one of my favorites!

What books are you reading right now?  What are your favorite books?

P.S. Did you notice that Jane Austen is the only one that has multiple books in this set?  THREE to be exact!  Way to go Jane Austen!

i love crafts!

Tonight I had the opportunity to go over to my friend Katie's house while our husbands were at work and hang out with her and her sister and make paper flower wreaths. 




I first learned how to make these cute little paper flowers from my friend Keisha and then Katie saw online how to make these awesome wreaths out of them.  They are not done yet because there are so many flowers to go on them but they are going to be super cute!  This is the picture from the website:

What do you think?  I'll take a picture of mine when I'm done.


Ever since school got out I've been feeling super crafty but haven't had the time to do much.  I'm hopefully going to start working less soon and will be able to craft (and blog!) to my hearts content!


Have you done any fun crafts lately?

slow down.

I've been thinking a lot about all the people we've said we are going to hang out with "soon"-with all desires and intentions to do so-and then we never do.  We get too busy and we hardly have time to hang out with even each other or something comes up-or most commonly...we're at work.


If we've done this to you (you know who you are) please accept our apologies and know that we really want to hang out with you because you are so awesome and we'll keep trying!  We have the best friends and family and are so blessed to have you all in our lives!

smallVILLE

So lately Raulon and I have become quite addicted to a new show.... Smallville!


Have you ever seen it?



I remember Raulon saying that he liked watching it with his brother Reg before his mission, so when I found the first season used at Hastings for 15$ I snatched it up and brought it home to surprise him!  I paid for it first, of course ;)

He told me that I wasn't ready for it and he was right!  Once we started, we couldn't stop!

This is what we look like watching Smallville... kind of :)

After we finished the first Season in a few weeks I ordered the second season new on Amazon.com for about 25$ and it was hard waiting a WHOLE week for it to get here!

We watched that season MUCH faster... like 5 days...  We learned our lesson this time though and ordered Seasons three, four, and five before we were done with the second one.

They came in the mail today!  I love getting packages!  It makes me SO happy!  It's one of the simple pleasures of life, you know what I mean?

As soon as Raulon gets home from work today we're going to start watching Season three.  I can't wait!!!



We got my mom and dad started watching it, and so far they like it too!


Are you addicted to any TV shows?

Having fun at 21!

So, who says you can't have fun when you turn 21, even though you're LDS?

It all happened when Raulon and I went to try out a new deal that they had at the beehive grill.

The Beehive Grill was built in the same location where the old D.I. in Logan used to be. 

Mondays and Wednesdays they have a a deal that between 3-5 you can get a big burger and their house fries for $2.50.  They are SO delicious and they have their own home brewed rootbeer that tops of the meal perfectly!

Well one day we decided that we were going to go and try out this deal.  When we arrived, the place was pretty full and the lady asked if we were both 21 and if we wouldn't mind sitting at the bar.  At the bar!!!!  I had just barely turned 21 so we said yes!  It felt so weird but it was pretty awesome at the same time.  They even checked our I.D.'s.  I felt really cool, ha ha :)  We even had some guys sitting next to us that were stopping in after work to have a beer before going home.  I thought:

"Wow!  I'm so glad that my husband loves to come straight home to me after work rather than stopping in at the bar for a beer!  I'm so lucky!"

I just hope our Bishop didn't see us ;)

My good friend Keisha had her birthday Feb. 21st and I decided that we should take her for some beers (heavy on the root) at the grill to celebrate.  This is Keisha.  She is such a doll!

This is us having a girls night last fall

This is us eating caramel apples when we were roommates as freshmen when we met!

Anyway, we decided that she would come over to our apartment Saturday, March 5th, and enjoy some homemade Chinese food with us before we went out for "drinks" :)

Lol, actually, she ended up doing half the work of making homemade Chinese food, but it was MUCH more fun that way.  We cooked while we waited for Raulon to come home from work.  Here's some pictures of it:

I think Keisha did a lot more for this meal than me, even though she was the guest!

Making the chicken is the messiest part, but it is SOOO worth it!

I love hanging out with Keisha!  We understand each other so well!

Frying the carrots for the fried rice

This is ginger root.  Also known as "gingeroo".  Kind of like kangaroo.  Or at least that's what Keisha thought I called it.  It looks like a witches stubby finger or toe!  I've never used the real thing before, it was pretty cool!

Yummy beef and broccoli!

Spring rolls!  This was the first time we made them.  They were VERY tasty! :D

Aerial view of all the food.

Tiny Spicy Chicken, Beef and Broccoli, Ham Fried Rice, and Spring Rolls

Dinner was so yummy!  I owe these great recipes to:


Tiny Spicy Chicken: Ginafer Low (Katie's sister-in-law)
Beef and Broccoli: allrecipe.com :)
Ham Fried Rice: Kelli Stuart (my friend from work)
Spring Rolls: Keri Van Tassell (My sister-in-law)






After Raulon FINALLY made it home and we ate our delicious food, we went to the Beehive Grill.  We decided that Raulon was our designated driver because we were laughing so hard and acting crazy even though we didn't have any alcohol.

Really though... we were going to go alone, but he insisted on coming with us to watch over us and make sure we didn't do anything crazy or get ourselves into trouble.  Isn't that hilarious? :) What a good little protective husband I have! Ha ha

I'm sure the bartender thought we were CRAZY when we said we wanted to sit at the bar and that we were just "drinking" rootbeer tonight and not having any food. (We were stuffed from the Chinese!)


He still made us show him our I.D.'s though because we were sitting at the bar :)  

Raulon likes to try and use his concealed firearms permit as I.D. everywhere we go.  I think it's hilarious!  Ha ha, unfortunately, they ended up asking to see his license anyway.  Poor guy :)

Delicious Beehive Home-brewed Rootbeer

The Crazies sitting at the bar!

Maybe we shouldn't have take pictures of ourselves at a bar ;)

When we got back to the apartment we decided to watch an episode of Smallville...

We ended up watching at least three! :)

Thanks for the awesome night Keisha and Raulon!!!  I love you guys! :D