Furniture

Ever since we got married, we always knew we would move to Hawaii, so we didn't dare buy anything bulky that we would have to store.  The only furniture we own is our bed and our dining table.  Now that we're back in Utah for good, we can finally start collecting things!

My parents' old bedroom set was up for grabs, so Tanya and I snatched up their dresser and nightstands.  We decided we wanted to update them a little.

This is how they all looked before

 

Tanya got right to work (with a TON of help from her mom) sanding and painting and staining and sanding more (I helped a little when I could).   

 

We got some sweet hardware from Anthropologie (the green ones were on sale from $10 each to $2.95 each!)

 

These are our nightstands

 

And this is our dresser and mirror

 

Ender & Chloe

Our little nuggets are here and we couldn't be more excited! 

Amy, Ender, and baby Chloe just got here from New Jersey and the party has already started. We went to a parade, had a picnic, and then to fireworks. We kinda love these babies. 

 

Grandma Cheryl and Ender waiting for candy and other assorted goods that were thrown out at the parade

Bountiful sunset

Rod loves this one because it looks like a palm tree on an island with fireworks!

The next day we took Ender on a special date for his birthday. He loves cupcakes so we went to The Sweet Tooth Fairly and he chose a green funfetti cupcake. He licked all of the frosting off and he couldn't have been happier. I then let him try the lemon frosting on my cupcake and he said it was "too salty!" He was trying to scrape the icky flavor off his tounge so I let him rinse with a diet coke 

(aunt and uncle of the year?)

So cute.

Duh, Winning!

With my teaching job not starting until August and Rod still looking for work we've had a lot of time to be together lately. Even though he worries about getting a job all day every day we are trying to enjoy the time because we know it will never be like this again.

Exhibit A:

Baby Peach = Me

Diddy Kong = Rod

Just sayin'.

I promise this isn't all we are doing these days. I have actually been working at my school this week trying to help get all of our students assessed for the new school year. It's not a ton of hours, but it's good for now. Rod is studying for the GMAT, he became certified in Google AdWords, and he has had 3 job interviews in the past week with one more coming up on Thursday. I'm not worried about him one bit. It's a tough economy, but he is so smart and personable. He's going to make sure the job he takes is a good fit for him and the company is one he'll want to stay with for awhile.

In the meantime we are living with my parents. My brothers love it (maybe because of all the Wii?) and my mom feeds us (which is a huge blessing).

We will be moving back into our basement apartment at Rod's house soon. Cher Bear has also been providing countless delicious meals and offers us food anytime we stop by. We have great family taking wonderful care of us.

We are a bit transient right now, but I don't mind it too much. We've been living out of suitcases since the end of May! But like my mom says, we'll never be this free again so we'll take it for what it is.

Campfire

Last weekend all of our tin foil dinner dreams came true. After driving up and down Big Cottonwood Canyon for quite some time we finally found a free fire pit. Curtis built a fire and we started cooking. Since we were short on time we had the s'mores as an appetizer - twas a good choice. 

 

 

Fresh Air

We've been trying to spend a lot of time outside lately. I love Utah in the summer and I'm SO glad we moved home in June instead of January! The other night we had dinner on my parent's back porch followed by S'mores on the BBQ. Nothing says summer like S'mores.

 

Last night we had a family party at my Uncle's cabin up Big Cottonwood Canyon. We've been going to the cabin since before I can remember and it brought back so many fun memories.

When I was really little we even had a kids club every summer. In order to be in the kids club you had to be a cousin and be able to cross the stream by jumping from rock to rock. The club still exists and luckily Rod passed his entrance exam last year.

 Rod and I still have a craving for a camping trip and some tin foil dinners. We're hoping we can make that happen soon!

White Blank Page

I love this song. And the tear on his face at the very end.

Drive-In

This weekend we went with Curt and Ash to the drive-in. I hadn't been in years and it was actually really fun. We had chairs, blankets, diet cokes, and candy - twas perf. C & A were smart enough to put a mattress in the back of their truck, GENIUS!  We watched Transformers 3, which was okay. The second movie was Super 8 (which we had already seen and LOVED) so we didn't stay for the whole thing. We're happy to have friends who like to do fun summer-ish things. Keep em' coming, keep em' coming!

Walking The Dog

We're pretty much obsessed with this music video right now. 

How did we not know it existed before?

Happy 4th

 Our 4th of July was very low key this year. We went to lunch with Rod's family and had a BBQ with mine that evening. We played games and lit some fireworks. It was fun to be with family and relax (we're really good at relaxing these days) . . . Let the dream summer continue!

 

 I missed this smelly pup very much while we lived away. His name is Winslow and he is adorable. He wakes us up most mornings with a kiss just like this! 

LP

We spent the past week in Lake Powell for the Rasmussen family reunion.  Despite some windy conditions at the beginning of the week, we ended up having a great time.  The food was the tops, the games were non stop, the tube wars were competitive, the surf was always up, and the company was everything we could have hoped for and more.  We have an unusual amount of fun cousins, aunts, and uncles. 

Here are some highlights of the week:

Picturesque sunsets nightly

Xander is a one man show and kept us in stitches.  He has a way with words and could talk ANYONE into taking him out on the jetski when he wanted.

We tubed until our arms turned into jello and we got tossed like rag dolls across the channel. 

We did lots of wake surfing

  

 

 

We played Ticket to Ride at least 20 times

 

Cousins - right before jumping from the 3rd level

My Uncle Rod's houseboat is nicer than any house we will ever own in our lives.  

Gang's all here! (for the most part)

 

Perfection

 

Let's do it again.