It's Offish....

Here we go again....moving that is!

We must love inconveniencing others because we sure do this a lot. This will be our 5th time moving in our 4 years of marriage.

Kind of ridiculous, I know!

However, hopefully we are almost done. In my dreams, we live in this new apartment for the next two years and then build a house. But don't count on that...

So this is where we are moving. Canyon Cove Apartments in Brigham City. They are kind of by Walmart and right behind the Flying J on 1100 South. We absolutely love them! We are on the 3rd floor so we have vaulted ceilings, which I didn't know I needed but apparently I do. They are pretty new and our apartment has hardly been lived in. We are moving on Saturday and are pretty excited about it.

I went back and read the blog from the last 5 months and realized I have been referencing us moving and Jared getting his job(all that good stuff) since about April. That's a long time!

It is actually here.

I have started packing. Weird. We went and signed our lease last night which makes it really official.

Things I'm excited for:

*Unpacking all our things and seeing all the stuff I haven't been able to use for the last year.

* Decorating our new apt for Fall/Halloween. Heck YES!

*Having cook-outs on our balcony.

*Finally having a place a little bigger so we can have people over.

*Cleaning(I know it sounds weird but I like cleaning, ok!)

*Being independent again.

*Dancing in the kitchen with Jared

*Having a big ole' closet.

*DVR

*Cooking dinner(I think this may wear off after a couple of weeks)

We really cannot express how grateful we are for Richard and Susan and their willingness to let us stay here. We would not have made it without them. They did not have to offer their home to us but they did because they are just good people. Jared would not have graduated so soon. Having Jared quit his job and focus on school full-time helped us tremendously. It was rough at times and we had to make a lot of adjustments in our lives to get by, but we did it. Life is getting back on track. We were talking the other night and realized this will be the first time in our marriage that life will be "normal". We live on our own, both go to work during the day, come home, and see eachother each night. We get to cook dinner together and just be normal. No school or anything to worry about.

*Sigh*

Life is good

Deer Hunt...

Last week I spent my time in the mountains bow hunting with Jared. He drew out in San Juan Elk Ridge for a deer tag, which he had been waiting about 12 years for. He and his brother, Matt, put in together and both got tags this year so they were super excited! Only 9 tags in the whole state of Utah are given out and Jared and Matt had two of them.

We left on Thursday, got there at about 3 am Friday morning, slept for 2 hours in the truck and then went to find where all the deer would be for opening morning on Saturday. On Friday we saw so many deer, especially that night. The deer down there are huge! I have been hunting a time or two in my life and these are the biggest deer I have seen.

We spent Friday playing cards, eating junk food, Jared and Matt practiced shooting, and we may have snuck in a nap somwhere along the way.

Jared practicing up to get himself a big buck.

The other days were filled with hunting. We did a lot of that. Then we would come back about 10 am, have some breakfast, they would play Spades for a few hours, we would hunt some more, come back, play spades, eat some dinner about 5 pm, then go back out for the night hunt. Good times.

It was nice because we got rain everyday we were there..which was six(that is a lot). So needless to say there was lots of mud, but I would rather have mud than dust.

And yes, we had our own personal Flying J down there with us. That may look like we had plenty of gas for the four-wheelers but we almost ran out. If we would have stayed through the week we ould have made an emergency trip to Blanding for gas. Jared put about 350 miles on his four-wheeler.

Here's a fun story:

On Sunday we all went on a hike up a mountain. We all split up but we had 2-way radios to communicate with one another. Jared and I were about 3/4 the way up the mountain and about 80 yards straight across from us was Matt. A couple of other guys we were with were slightly down the mountain and could see us from where they were. They called Matt on his radio and said a mountain lion just ran right between Jared and Matt down the mountain. We must have spooked him. I heard them saying they had seen a mountain lion about 30 yards away from us, but I thought they were talking about earlier in the day or something...not at that moment. Probably a good thing I didn't know that until we were off of the mountain. I may or may not have freaked out. Not to mention the couple of bear sightings on our trip, one of them just down the road from our camp. Yikes!

Here's our camp.

All the men playing Spades. It's tradition. I simply am not very good at it so I mostly just watched so Jared didn't get frustrated with me. Also, since he and Matt share a brain they are really good at Spades.This was our camp pet. Her name is Daisy and we could expect her in camp every morning, noon , and night. She was not really afraid of us and we kept giving her chocolate chip cookies, Pub Mix, and chips. She was a frequent visitor and quite enjoyed our snacks. After a couple of days she started bringing her friends with her and by the end of the week there were about 5-6 deer in camp at times. The only bad thing about Daisy is she ate our bar of soap we had by the water jug to wash our hands...

These are the Sweet Alice Hills. Beautiful.

Jared got his deer on Monday night. He doesn't think it is as big as it should be, but I think its a pretty good looking buck. The problem is he had expectations of getting a 30 inch 5 point and since he only got a 4 point he was slightly disappointed. Its pretty big in my eyes though. Plus, I was with him when he shot it and it was cool to see.

I actually had a really good time. We rode the four-wheeler A TON and I was not going to complain about that. We got to see a lot of deer and he and Matt both got off a a lot of shots. Matt got his deer on Tuesday night so it was a successful hunt.

However, it is good to be home!

#4

Thursday Jared and I celebrated our 4th Anniversary! I can't even believe it has already been four years. I couldn't imagine spending my life with anyone else. Jared makes me smile and he lets me know I am loved. He makes me a better person and is always there for me. I love that I can talk to him about anything and I know he will always love me. He is such a good man and I am very blessed to be with him for eternity.

I love you, Jared!

Happy Anniversary!

To celebrate we had dinner that night at the Timbermine and then went to a park and just sat and talked for a while. We kind of just reminisced about the last 4 years. It was really nice and low-key. Sometimes I think the more simple the memory, the more it means to us in years to come. It was such a nice night and I don't know how, but I fell even more in love with my husband.

All Growed Up....

On Monday, August 1, Jared started his job as an Engineer at Hill Air Force Base. Its so exciting that this is actually his career and hopefully he will work there until he retires. We are so blessed that he was able to find a job so quickly after graduating and it is such a good place to work. He really likes his boss and he is enjoying it so far. I am so proud of him and am glad to see all his hard work be put into good use.

So with this big step in life, we are finally able to start looking at apartments and getting everything ready to move...again. We will probably live in Brigham for now since I am still working in Logan and will be until next summer, maybe longer. I am planning on going back to school but I won't be able to do that until next fall, but at least we know where we will be for the next year...kind of. After that, we might move a little closer to Layton, but we aren't sure. Only time will tell. Its all good though. It was been a long time coming for us and we can't wait to start this new chapter in our lives.

Campin' Trip...

Last weekend we went camping with my family. It was such a blast! I love camping anyway, but it was a nice getaway and my family hasn't gone camping together for like 8 years so it was good. We camped up Logan Canyon(the best/prettiest canyon) at the CC Camps. Loved every second of it. We relaxed, did lots of four-wheeling, ate a lot of really great food, hunted for firewood, talked, played games, laughed, and played in the river.

Doesn't that sound like the best weekend ever?

We always tease my mom about not wanting her picture taken and putting her hand up to block the camera...so her and Jared are doing their best to block the picture.

The kids enjoying their pancakes and bacon for breakfast.

Jared cooking lunch. Its tradition to have the men cook while camping...unfortunately this is all I could get Jared to do. Oh, he did cook the bacon one morning.The manly men sawing the firewood....old school.Our camp.

Everyone was jealous of Doug's chair, good thing he was willing to share.

Carter and his huge chunk of ice, it was really hot that morning.

We had such a good time. Ever since we got home I keep saying I want to go back. Its so nice to be in the mountains and feel like you don't have a care in the world. Thanks everyone for coming and we can't wait to do it again next year! Oh and thanks to Jason for doing most of the delicious cooking, fabulous!