Catching up! Summer 2016

Wow, I have been terribly bad about blogging this summer. I guess since Steven's been done with school I haven't had too many nights home by myself to update my blog. Shame on me. I will get better--but for now, some major updating! I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

STEVEN GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE! Yee-haw! We are so excited to have college behind us now, and have seriously enjoyed only having to worry about our full time employment, and taking care of each other and our home. Steven is still working at his sandblasting job, for now. He is hoping something will pop up in his field here soon, but if not--he has considered obtaining his teaching certificate and pursue a career as a high school English/Writing teacher. I think deep down he has always wanted to teach, because it is a job he can do and also be able to look into coaching high school football (which is really his dream job I think). I am still working as a designer full time, and work has been super busy! We have done so well this summer with sales which is really encouraging and I am so excited for some of the new products we have coming!

Celebrating Steven's Graduation with his family

We went on a 4-wheeler ride out to help Steven's dad move some water. We got a little dirty along the way.

I bought Steven and myself some hiking gear this last spring (thinking we would be hiking all summer long). We have used these like, a grand total of twice. Haha! But when the weekend rolls around we have a lot of other things we need to get done as well and it has been WICKED hot lately (which also makes it hard to get out). It's starting to cool down slightly now though, so maybe we will get in a few more hikes before winter rolls around.

Steven's "Doofy Hat" his brother gave him. He loves it.

We tried out our ice cream maker this summer. I don't think the recipe we used was the best (the texture was a bit off), but it did make good homemade peach milkshakes!!

Dinner together!

 Heading to Steven's parents again to have a little "mini-vacation" for Memorial Day weekend. We saw this crazy weird homemade camper on our way down. Steven thought it was so awesome (even though it was quite ghetto looking too.. Haha)

What-the-WHAT?

Hiking in Almo

Even the panoramic doesn't do this valley justice...

Hiking with friends!

Back home for our steak dinner on Memorial Day

We thoroughly enjoyed having our holiday off together!

 We have been so blessed by our families since we have been married. Our washer and dryer were given to us by Steven's aunt and uncle right after our wedding. We have been so spoiled! However, this spring the washer was struggling to drain water and finally quit spinning all together. Steven and I spent a Saturday trying to diagnose the problem to see if it was worth it to fix. Turned out to be a transmission problem and we decided it wasn't worth the fix, so we bought a (used) new one. The best part? The new one still matches my dryer (but is a model year newer than our previous one). We were still super grateful we didn't have to spend a fortune to replace our washer!!!

"New" Washer

I planted flowers in the yard again this year!! Can't wait for my own yard so I can get a little more crazy with the gardening!!

Steven and I went to the farmer's market here in town one Friday night to check it out. We shared a HUGE scone (with an assortment of flavored butters) and some mexican corn. We even bought a bag of Washington cherries to bring home!!

YUM!

 Since Steven is no longer a student--and I haven't been a student in over a year now, we made the switch from our married student ward to the traditional family ward. We have loved being in our new ward and are grateful for our new calling as primary teachers! It's rare for a husband and wife to get to serve together like that and we have been enjoying getting to know the kids in our class and attending sharing time and singing time with the kids!

After church

 We still love to get a sweet icy treat every now and then (ok... probably more often than we should...) But there was one night in particular we saw some small planes practicing some aerial tricks, so we enjoyed the free show while we ate our Italian ice. 

We also attended one of my cousin's weddings earlier this summer. It was fun to get together with some of my siblings and my mom for a couple of days!

We made our annual trip to the drive-in theater back in June as well. We saw Finding Dory and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Well, I should say that we saw Finding Dory, and Steven saw Alice... I always fall asleep during the 2nd feature. But it doesn't start until after 11 PM and that's WAY past my bedtime!!!)

Waiting for the sun to set so the movie can start!

Snuggling with snacks helps the time go by though. :)

I honestly don't remember what was special about this picture... We are probably getting ready to eat or something....

 My company has an annual summer party at the local waterpark. Steven and I had a blast going down the huge water slides (and trying out some mermaid tails of course!!!). It was a little chilly out that night (which was a bummer because it had been BLARING hot all week up to that), but everyone (us included) seemed to have a good time regardless!

After swimming at the Fin Fun company party

 For the 4th of July we spent the entire day hanging out at the park with friends. It really was a blast just lounging around in the shade and cooling our feet off in the river while we waited for fireworks. We are so grateful to have such good friends so close right now!!

The girls!

I love these ladies!

The whole gang!

Steven and his little buddy, Quinton!

Waiting for the sun to go down.

Still waiting... But we had good seats!!

Kayla's face!! :P

Almost time!!

As I mentioned above, we are primary teachers in our new ward. We teach the Valiant 8 class. We currently just have 2 boys in our class, but they are awesome--we love them. 
We have also loved getting to do primary type things for church--i.e. coloring, drawing, making cool stuff, singing fun primary songs and acting silly during singing time. Our boys have so much energy and they can be difficult to keep up with, but they are ours and it's been fun to get to know them.

Steven didn't finish his in class this day, so he finished at home. What a cutie!

We colored and assembled our armors of God!

Any guesses on what this lesson was on? We made one main flag for the lesson and had each of the boys write their own too. These are Steven's and mine.

 Steven's company is so generous. They provided us with a Sam's Club membership for the next year, so we immediately went to check it out. It really just made us miss Costco, but this is what's here.. And the membership was free, so we will take it!

OUR FIRST SAM'S CLUB EXPERIENCE! 

 We of course had Steven's annual summer work party as well at Heise Hot Springs again this year. We didn't go swimming, but enjoyed the yummy food, visiting with some of his coworkers, and the beautiful view of the river. We even took the windy back roads home so we could follow the river back as far as we could. It was a lovely evening!

Steven skipping rocks on the river.

 A couple weeks ago we had a weekend BBQ with some of our closest friends. We mostly hung out at the park all day and just enjoyed the beautiful weather and each other's company.  I love when we get together to do fun things like that. It makes for a fun-filled Saturday!

For our 3rd anniversary we actually celebrated a couple days early by going out to one of our favorite fine dining places in a neighboring town. It's a little expensive so we usually save that place for special occasions--mainly our anniversary. On our actual anniversary, I actually cooked Steven steak this time and I have to say that it turned out really good, if I say so myself. Steven even seemed slightly impressed with my steak skills as well. 

It's hard to believe that we have been married for 3 years already! It doesn't seem like our wedding was that long ago, but we have enjoyed every moment we have had together so far, and are eager to see what our future has in store for us. Lots could change in the next little while, and life may be SO different in the next year. But Steven has been my rock and has given me all the loving support he can, so bring on the changes! We are in this all together!

This last weekend we went to Boise for a couple days to visit my brother, his wife, and their cute little 3-year-old daughter. They are expecting their second child this month, so I did some maternity/family photos with them. They took a couple photos of us for our anniversary as well. I will share those on my next blog post. This week has been crazy, so I haven't got to editing them just yet, but plan to get those finished this weekend.

Until next time!

Graduation is approaching!!!!

Steven is basically done with school now! Just one more assignment left to complete and he is FINISHED!!!!!! We are SO excited to have school behind us forever!!! It has started to become real as we have attended our last Sunday at our married student ward (since conference weekend is the last weekend of the semester). I am just so excited for the possibility of Steven switching back to day shifts... We have been doing this opposite schedule thing for what feels like forever now. I was just reminiscing on what our lives were like when we were first married, and how I used to wait up as long as I could for Steven to return home... Compared to now where I have my tea and am in bed by 10 every night no matter what and he comes home and crawls into bed and I barely ever wake up for that. I am just so excited to have Steven home for dinner and in the evenings and to not be worried about homework or any of that. WE ARE SO CLOSE!!! Just waiting to hear for sure if Steven can get the day shift worked out.

We enjoyed our Easter this year by celebrating with some of our closest friends here. We hosted everyone for dinner and relaxed and enjoyed each other's company. I love having our friends so close!! 

Spring is still just around the corner but I finally saw some blossoms today from the bulbs I planted a long time ago!! This coming weekend is supposed to be really nice but it was cloudy and rainy today and is supposed to be the same tomorrow... I have some serious cases of cabin fever, though, and the warm weather can't get here fast enough!!!!!

In our Sunday best for Easter!

Is it Spring Yet?

February and March is always a hard time of year for us where we currently live. We LONG for it to be spring, but unfortunately it takes so long for spring to actually happen here. Today, the sun came out and it hit 50 degrees! I was puppy-sitting tonight so I took the dog to the park to run off some energy (as I am sure he has been cooped up all winter as well) and it was PACKED with lots of people trying to soak up any amount of sunshine they could. It gets nuts around here as soon as the weather gets above freezing... But I so get it. I am getting sick of being inside, freezing all the time. It's supposed to be nice again tomorrow, so if I can get Steven to muster up the energy, maybe we will go do something fun outside. Then again, it will probably still be pretty cold, so we will see. 

Steven is still wrapping up his last semester of school and we are still SO eager for him to finish. His mentor even told him today that he can tell that he has hit the point where he just needs to graduate. I am so excited to get him back!!! He is so tired all the time that it's hard to suggest doing stuff because I know all he wants to do is kick back and relax for just a minute before he is off to work on his project or head to work. Poor guy...

So we kept it pretty low-key for Valentine's day this year.  We attempted to go out for dinner (without a reservation... We are dumb for former restaurant workers...) and decided it was easier to avoid the crowds and we went to Chick-Fil-A instead.  The next day (actual Valentine's day) Steven made me a delicious steak dinner and we enjoyed ourselves at home together. We had a pretty cool stake conference that morning with Elder Rasband at the I-Center on campus.  He came to speak to all the married student wards in the area. That is one perk for remaining in the student wards. However, come April, we will make the switch to the family ward as we will no longer be students. 

At the beginning of February we attending my niece's baptism. It was fun to see her so excited and to see that dress I made in good use. She looked so lovely!!

Steven and I have been doing our low carb diet again since we got home from Christmas. We both had been feeling so overweight and lethargic.  It has been a nice change--even if we haven't been losing as quickly as we did the last time. We do cheat every now and then but it's made sticking to it this long not nearly as hard.  I have also found that even when I do cheat, I don't even cheat that bad because I can't stomach all the junk food as much as I could tolerate it before. I say that's great progress. It's been a fairly easy transition to make this a lifestyle too. I admit that some days when I am trying to meal plan that it sounds easier to just be done with the diet, but I feel much better when we stick to it. 

Work has been going well. This week was tough for some reason. I pin it the the fact we didn't really have a very restful week/weekend before this week began. I attending my cousin's funeral on Thursday last week and then we left town to go to see Steven's family and attend his niece's baptism and his other niece's baby blessing on Saturday and Sunday. We hustled back home so that I could be back in time for an interview I had scheduled and then spent the evening with some friends.  While all of that was great and we needed to be there for our families, it made Monday really hard when it came time to get back to work. I can't be more grateful for a Friday night and a good weekend ahead of me to get caught up on some housework and get some rest as well.  We have another stake conference on Sunday but this time it is just our stake, so church will be an hour shorter than normal which is awesome for getting some rest!

I do still try to document our lives through pictures, so here is a few for your viewing pleasure and as a small window into our lives:

Not really sure what this pic was for, but my hair has got that fun SWOOP goin' on!

So grateful that I can still manage to have dinner every night with this handsome man!

Steven got an awesome reward for being an awesome employee! We have still yet to use that gift card...

Home and awake at the same time?!? Must document this event!! ;)

Sunday's are the best--especially with my eternal sweetheart. <3 I love listening to him play and sing hymns on a Sunday afternoon.

With my cute little niece the day after she was baptized. She loved her dress!

Steven came home early the Friday before Valentine's Day with this lovely surprise in hand!

He made this copper rose himself!!!! It's so beautiful!

Sunshine and a clean house? Say whaaaat!?! 

Before our big stake conference with Elder Rasband on Valentine's day! We clean up alright. 

Valentine's Day dinner. I married myself a good chef!

Good workout followed by a protein green smoothie!

Why yes, this is on my diet... And it was DELICIOUS! Chicken, creamed spinach and sautéed mushrooms! YUM!

I love him!

Dressed up to go out! We went to a play Steven had to attend for a class.

Making dinner for me again!!

He is so good to me!!

Steak dinner round 2! Steven has some great recipe ideas!

He can present it really well too!

I have THE coolest parents around!

My immediate family. So grateful they are all mine for eternity!!! I couldn't imagine life without these people!!

Until next time!