New appliances and apartments

Justin and I have been looking through Utah County for the last month or so for our next home. Our contract for our current apartment is up in August and there are already new tenants lined up. Plus we have really been feeling cramped in our rather small apartment recently. We found this new complex in Pleasant Grove that I really fell in love with. After looking at a few units in this complex, we came across a great deal that was opened for August. So August 1st hopefully we'll be able to start slowly moving our belongings to our new home! The official move date though is set for August 15th, Uhaul and all! We're reeeeeeallly excited to get into our new 3 bed, 2 BATH!!, apartment :-) More pics to come but here's the outside of the complex...

Annnddd a new feature of our apartment is a laundry area that requires a washer and dryer. Our current stacked washer and dryer wouldn't work in the area so we are in the process of selling it to the next tenants. Over the last few weeks we have been looking at washer and dryers.... whew these appliances are much more than I anticipated! The average top-loading set can go for about $800 for both but with the options that come with the front-loading washer and dryers really sold us. Water and energy efficient and they're more gentle on the clothes. SO after researching and price comparing these washer and dryers we decided upon these LG's. (You may notice the difference in the rim around the openings...we decided to get the bigger capacity washer and then a dryer from the next model down-if that makes sense?)


So those bad boys are getting delivered on August 8th. We're slowly starting to build up the appliances/furniture that will someday fill our house. Thank goodness we're able to do it over long period of time!

Extra news....believe it or not Pierre is still alive! We love playing with them...we take him for walks, tease him like we're fishing him with a toothpick and string, and ..... jjjjuuuusttt kiiddinngg.. Pierre is still very active and seems happy, I just can't believe he is still swimming. But honestly this fish isn't super exciting. We visited a pet store last night and I tried to work on Justin for this adorabe dachshund but that clearly is not going to happen. O well!

Justin and I are both working at Pinnacle right now. Justin is really doing great at this position he's been hired for and seems to really like it. I am doing customer service, not the most exciting job but it actually isn't all that bad. I am looking for other jobs and potentially more education in a more specific field. It is up in the air though right now.

This weekend we're heading to Wyoming for the Allred Family Reunion (Friday and Saturday) and then next weekend we're going to Montana for a 4 day excursion with Justin's mission buds (aka best friends) and we'll be staying with his mission President at his cabin on the lake! Mini-vacations...here we come! I am excited to see these different beautiful parts of the West. Hopefully if I am not as absent as I have been I'll get pictures up here soon of these upcoming adventures :-)

Flower petals and Pierre.. oh-la-la

This week has been fun...sorta! Justin and I went out and bought our 2nd set of fish Monday night. Spot and Lucky were their names (we joked that if Spot made it through the night he could also be named Lucky). Unfortunately, Spot had passed away by the time we woke up Tuesday morning. BUT! On the upside, Lucky survived all the way through Thursday morning! I had just started to get attached to him...he was a good fish. So now that our fish were starting to survive a little longer we of course had to go out last night and get two more. By this time we just accept whatever the PetSmart employee scoops up out of the tank. All in all I think we've spent $.72 on goldfish...little did we know that PetSmart has a 14-day guarantee, so if they die they replace them for free. (We're keeping our last receipt now that's for sure!) We've done a few things different since our 1st set of fish, a trial and error sort of thing. We bought water conditioner, which seems to help a lot. We also removed the glass stones we had at the bottom and that made drastic improvements in Lucky's activity. And lastly, last night we decided to go for these little shell-shaped blocks of food you leave in the bottom on their tank (made for feeding when you go on vacation)-they're used to eating on these in the store so we're hoping it will help out their situation. Anyway... last night by luck of the scoop we got an adorable goldfish whom we've named Pierre. He is completely gold except for this sliver of black right on his upper lip (look's just like a French mustache!). The other fish is completely white except for some orange above her eye's ... hence we've named her Alby (short for albino). It's getting a little tougher coming up with names every other day! I wish I could take good pictures of them but sadly our camera cannot get any good shots (darn camera!). But here's one that is a close resemblance to Pierre. (except Pierre's upper lip black really is a line, not a dot like the below fish)
Onto the next exciting event from this week! Wednesday was a very stressful work day for Justin. Something about the database and email being down for half the day...which may or may not have been Justin's fault... ;-) Things got fixed, no worries but Justin sure was exhausted that evening! So he decided to lay down and take a nap. At the same time I was trimming and fixing a lovely bouquet of flowers Justin had bought me for our anniversary (by Wedneday they were rather sickly looking). As soon as I touched one of the roses it's petals began falling off. So I had a handful of pretty pink petals and a sleeping husband on the couch. So I did what any loving wife would do...
He loves me...he loves me not.... Hopefully he still loves me after this post! Isn't he a pretty sleeping beauty??


I also got my real diploma in the mail this last week! While my parents were out here they so lovingly bought me a beautiful frame and mat for my diploma so I was excited to get it all put together! What do you think??

IPretty isn't she?? I'm so proud of my diploma that it is ... laying on our desk collecting dust already :-( ...It will get put up on the wall eventually I'm sure!

Well a large frustration of mine is our camera! We use Justin's 10 year old camera for everything and while it is great to have a working camera, it is so hard to get nice crisp pictures! So we've been looking at a Canon... it's really nice! It's a PowerShot SX110 IS
It's either this, a Citizen watch Justin really likes or new brakes for my Honda....Now what is the most practical choice?? I'm voting on the camera!

And the most exciting part of the week happens this evening! This investment firm we use invites us periodically to movie premiere events (last one was the Batman movie...which wasn't super exciting since I didn't like the movie) BUT they sent us an invite to the Night at the Museum premiere tonight! I'm so excited to see this movie (I loved the first one!) and it's even better that its free! So we're meeting up with Heather and Josh to go see it in Jordan tonight. I'll blog my reviews soon after I'm sure :-)


Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone, hope you enjoy it!

Improving our curb appeal!

For a while now I've wanted a little planter to put a few plants in to make our home look a little prettier from the outside. My grandmother was nice enough to give me a beautiful planter for my graduation present so today Heather and I set out to buy some flowers! Uhh this sounds bad but I really don't remember but one of the plants names so I have a lot of pretty plants, a tall strawberry n' creme (??) grass in the middle, and then my fuschia! Thank you Heather for helping me plant them! I love plants and especially flowers but when it comes to getting my hands in the dirt and planting them...well its not my favorite. Anyway, here are a few pics...I love it!

Our 1st Anniversary!

Well we came back on May 15th because Justin and I had our 1 year anniversary Saturday (May 16th). It is so hard to believe that it has already been a year! Time really does fly by. A lot has happened in this first year of marriage... but the biggest thing that stands out to me is how much more I've grown in love with Justin. Looking back at when we were first married I think I did have a difficult time adjusting to marriage because I remember getting upset about little things that now make me laugh. Justin is a wonderful husband and I have absolutely loved spending everyday with him. Anyway, it was wonderful celebrating our anniversary together (sorry I'm not a very sentimental person...)

Saturday we slept in (that's about 7:30 for us...) got ready and headed up to Logan, UT to do sealings. It was a wonderful way to honor and remember our wedding day! It was yet another beautiful May 16th in Logan! Justin's aunt and uncle were also working in the temple that day so it was wonderful to see them there!

Here we are a year ago...
And here we are yesterday!

After we left the temple we went to Grandpa Allred's to visit with him for a little bit. It was a lot of fun to visit with them and play his version of Rook! We hope to get back up there soon to spend some more time with him.

We headed down to the Gateway and had dinner and walked around. Then went to the most romantic place ever.....Wal-Mart! haha... while we were there we happened upon their fish tanks. Where Justin and I decided to buy fish. I had fish I think once growing up and remember how dirty the tank would get and how I loathed cleaning it and taking care of the fish...especially since they don't do anything but swim around in a tank. Call it a moment of forgetfulness or spontaneity but we then headed to PetSmart and bought 2 goldfish, their bowl/rocks and fish food. I think I was okay with it because fish are rather low maintenance and cheap! So it was exciting picking them out and naming them Saturday night. My fish was considerably smaller than Justin's and his name was Gus. Justin had a difficult time coming up with a name for his but finally came up with Vegas (after our first date... if this name is a precurser for children's names I'm a litttle worried... ;-). Anyway, we set them up, acclimated them to their fishbowl water and fed them just a little bit. Well we wake up Sunday morning and go see how they are doing and lo and behold poor little Vegas didn't even make it through the night!! That was record time for a goldfish, I mean we know they don't always last very long but that was only 10 hours! Aye aye aye.... So here is a pic of Gus yesterday afternoon all alone in his tank.

And about 2 minutes after this picture was taken Gus bit the dust too! What did we do wrong?! I am going to go back to PetSmart today to figure out where we went wrong and probably buy Gus 2 and Vegas 2. We are bad parents apparently! The lady at the store scoffed at how small our tank was and said goldfish grow up to be a foot long. She got our hopes up that maybe they would stay around for a while... well yesterday dashed all our hopes! Any tips as to what we can do better next time??

We consider our trip to Orlando to be our anniversary present to each other. I consider the fish to be our present since we bought them on May 16th. After how long they lasted though maybe I'll stick to the Orlando trip too. What is the 1st anniversary present supposed to be anyway? Isn't it paper or plastic or something like that...? I was just glad to be back with my hubby in time for our anniversary!

Vacation (part dos)

Justin and Josh headed back to Utah early morning on May 10th. Then a few hours later Heather, Matt and I took a quick flight up to Charlotte, N.C. for a little bit of family time! Heather and Matt were obviously quite tired...
We spent that Sunday visiting with our family and relatives over dinner and dessert. It was so wonderful to spend time with our family members that we don't get to see nearly as often as we'd like to. I love going back home!

Monday my parents, Heather, Matt and I headed up to Virginia Beach, where my parents are moving. My dad recently received a job offer up that way and so my parents have an adventure on their hands! Although I love Gastonia and North Carolina, I have to say that Virginia Beach is a great place! We were excited to see my parents temporary condo they're moving into and all the sights there were to see up that way. Tuesday we went down to the beach for lunch at Lynnhaven's (the best rated seafood restaurant at V.Beach-it was very yummy!) and then down to the boardwalk for a little ride. We rented a four-seater bike and road up and down the boardwalk. We all loved it but I think Matt loved the fake steering wheel the best!




Another interesting part of V. Beach is that since it is a navy city/port there are fighter jets flying overhead about every minute. Thankfully my parents live far enough away that they don't get any of the noise from the jets but when you get closer to the beach you see them constantly. I found watching the jets rather intriguing. Justin's favorite movie is Top Gun so I'm excited to get him back there to see all the jets and everything else V. Beach has to offer. I'm excited for my parents, too, although they are having to leave family behind this is a fun adventure and opportunity for them.

Wednesday we headed back down to Gastonia. My mom just finished her nursing program and graduated last week. So Wednesday evening we were able to go to her pinning ceremony, where she received her official nursing pin.



Isn't she beautiful? I'm so proud of you momma!

Thursday we spent shopping a little bit then had lunch at R.O.'s--yyuuummm- then spent time with the family again, with a late night run to Tony's :-) It was sad to leave them Friday morning! They're packing up their house this week and doing some home repairs... I don't know if I watch HGTV too much but that sounds like so much fun to me! I wish I lived closer to them so I could go over to their house and help out.

It was nice to be home at my home in Utah though after 2 weeks away! Not to mention see my hubby again!

Vacations all I ever wanted!

May 3rd-departure! Justin, Josh, Heather, Matthew and I take off from Salt Lake. Destination-Orlando, Florida!

Sidenote---departure was quite an adventure! We were supposed to leave SLC at 4:50 but due to "mechanical difficulties" we did not leave until 9:30! Thankfully there was some compensation given, food vouchers from Delta made the long delay a little more bearable as well as a flight voucher on another Delta flight. We finally landed in Orlando around 4 a.m. and still had to get our rental cars! We finally made our condo at 5 a.m.-whew!

Our first day was spent relaxing by the pool. Our resort had a plethora of fun pools so we definitely made good use of them! We needed to rest this day so we took it pretty easy.

Tuesday morning, Heather, Justin, Matthew and I headed out to Aquatica (Seaworld's waterpark). We surmissed that we went to Orlando at the perfect time-after Spring break but before schools were let out. The outcome? Little to no wait lines at the slides! We had a great time there, the rides were way fun! There is even one where the tube goes under water into a dolphin tank, it was crazy being so close to the dolphins! That evening all 5 of us went to Seaworld. We played with the Stingrays that evening and watched the Shamu "Believe" show. That's a big fish! After Seaworld we went out to eat at Giordanno's-a Chicago favorite of Justin's. Deep-dish pizza is so heavy! We each had one piece and were completely full. We had 4 pieces leftover, which in a to-go pizza box weighed what felt like 5 lbs! (Unfortunately, I dropped it upside down getting out of the car, it was that heavy! But it was still edible, no worries.)







Wednesday we took it easy at the pool, then headed to the Orlando Temple. Although it was closed for cleaning it was still gorgeous to look at! That afternoon and evening we went to the pool, which was again relaxing and fun.
Thursday, Justin and I headed out to Kennedy Space Center. We spent a loooonnng 5 hours touring the area and watching an IMAX movie. Justin was really intrigued by the space specs NASA had to offer. They were launching a space shuttle in 4 days so they had both launch pads occupied with space shuttles. My favorite part about the adventure was the drive into the Space Center. It's located on Merritt Island (I believe...) which is a natural animal refuge. So alongside the highway were alligator filled small canals. Seeing the alligators out in their natural habitat was crazy! After we left the space center we headed south about 20 minutes to go to Cocoa Beach. It was a very pretty beach!



Friday Justin and I headed back to Aquatica then met up with Heather, Josh and Matt for an afternoon at Seaworld. The highlights from this trip to Seaworld: feeding the dolphins, watching the Otter & Sealion show, and especially the dolphin show! Seaworld is a great place!





Saturday we headed back out to Cocoa Beach to visit the Pier and then back to our resort to soak up the sun for the last time! That evening we went out to dinner for Heather's *26th* (sorry sis!) birthday (May 10th).




It was a wonderful trip, thank you Josh and Heather for inviting us!!

Graduation!

I know you've all been dying for me to update our blog.... ;-) ... I blame it on our internet. It's quite in and out which makes blogging rather frustrating but we've actually had quite a bit happen in our little lives lately that make blogging worth the effort!

So about a month ago I finish student teaching at Sprucewood Elementary! Whoo! There was about a week between that time and graduation. During that time my parents and my aunt Betty came out. I spent a lot of time with them while they were out, it was a lot of fun! Thursday, April 23rd we attended BYU's commencement then my parents, my aunt, Heather, Justin, my mother-in-law and sis-in-law went out to a yummy dinner at P.f. Chang's. Then the next morning I had early morning graduation (8 a.m.!) and offically became a college graduate as I walked across the stage! It was a wonderful feeling but nearly immediately afterwards I couldn't believe I was done with my formal education. I loved learning and going to classes and feeling like I was working towards something. That got me thinking about getting a Masters in education...but I'm not quite sure that will ever pan out.




The week after graduation was kinda weird! I actually stayed pretty busy getting ready for our vacation and going to the spa everyday! My sweet hubby got me a combo package (facial, massage, eyebrow waxing, manicure and haircut) to a spa in Lindon. I had fun making those appointments and getting those treatments, it was quite relaxing! But at the same time spending all day by myself gets lonely! I need to find a job soon!