Rug dilemma

We have a problem! We have purchased a 5x7 rug for our living room. It's ok, the longer it is down the more it grows on me. But I kind of wanted a rug with a little attitude! So look at our living room in the below pictures... then compare it to the following two rugs.


The 3 rugs are the same size and relatively the same price. The only thing is the two on here I would have to order online...which is a little risky for my liking. Anyway, I think I am personally pulling for the ..well I don't really know. I used to like the 2nd one best but I don't know anymore. HELP!!!!

Welcome to our home!

We have been settled into our new home for just over a week now. It's crazy how much we've changed since we moved in... I can finally say it feels like home!! So now that our dining table is in (finally we have a table! A year and a half eating dinner on the couch is too long!!)--and thanks again to Ryan and Jolee for the great discount :-) ... and pictures are hung...and we have a desk...I finally feel like it's time to present our little home to the world...er...family and friends!

So here is a photo collection...we have 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and some other things you'll see too.

This is from our bedroom window...we can see the Timpanogos Temple, which doesn't look very close in this photo but it's actually a pretty good view. This photo doesn't show the 2nd vanity but that is probably our favorite feature of our new place!

And the lovely sunsets we have each evening to see off our balcony :-)


We love our new home! I love the kitchen, Justin loves the HD channels. We upgraded our cable to get the dvr box thingy and it is .. well I don't know that we can ever go back to not having it! It is so great to have our favorite shows recorded (for me it's HGTV Design Star, Project Runway and the Cake Boss and for Justin, well it's any guy-movie so far) so we don't have to watch a bunch of shows we don't really care about. In the end we end up watching less TV and so we feel very good about this upgrade! Pleasant Grove is great so far, everything seems at our fingertips and we're constantly surprised at how close things really are. We can't wait to have people over for dinner and games!

Yummy banana chocolate bread!

Honestly I don't really do much that I think is brag-worthy in the kitchen. And this post isn't about my cooking abilities, or lack thereof, but rather about a pretty yummy recipe I came across!

The recipe: Two-toned Banana Bread

(I did milk, of course, instead of rum).

The result:
You can bet that this recipe was pretty easy, or else I wouldn't have had such a good outcome! Unfortunately, I have a husband who won't eat anything banana-related so I get to enjoy this bread pretty much all to myself...that might not be such a good thing! Anyway, I would give this recipe 4 stars and a vote that you should try it!

Greetings from the Villas!

Thanks so much to everyone who helped us move yesterday! I haven't really done much moving on that big of a scale (granted, we don't even have that much stuff yet) but I thought it went really well. Justin especially appreciated the help when it came to the heavy things, I'm so glad for strong men!

Anyway, we're all moved in now! Almost everything is in its place, only a few more pictures to hang. I think I have a sentimental block when it comes to moving, I love our new place and it is so much nicer than what we had before, but it doesn't feel like home yet. Hopefully that will change very quickly :-) Pictures will be posted shortly so stay tuned!

On another note... since we're moving and changing things around a bit in our lives, we thought we would add one more change! No we're not pregnant.... sorry to disappoint! Justin was accepted into Westminister College's MBA program and after meeting with an advisor and praying about it, we feel like it is the right time for it and the right place. So Justin, in just 1 week, will be adorning his backpack once more to head back to school. He's starting with a light load this first term, 1 class - 1 night a week, and then will move to 2 classes in the second term. He'll still be working at Pinnacle Security full time so he's going to be a very busy man for the next few years! Grad school was going to happen next fall it was looking like, but this blessing came a week or so again so we figured why not go ahead and get started on it!

Anyway that's a little update from the Blackhams. Hope everyone had a great weekend! And again, thank you so much to everyone who helped us move!!!!!

This Saturday!

We're moooooovvvviiinngggg!!! If you want to help it's our place this Saturday at 9:15 a.m. Be there or be not cool, or square, whichever :-) New locale: Pleasant Grove! wahoooooo!

Our little trip to Montana

This past Thursday Justin and I went up to Montana for a weekend (really a mini-mission reunion) with his mission President (Pres. and Sis. Hill) at their cabin on Lake Placid. It was a lengthy 8 hour trip through {boring} Idaho to and from but we had a blast in between the road trips. There were 8 mission buds (who are still Justin's best friends) that came along (including Justin), 1 other wife, 1 girlfriend and 2 work buds. Quite a large group, thankfully the cabin was spacious, with the exception of the lack of private rooms and only 1 bathroom! yikes..I thought that many guys using one bathroom would be awful but it worked out great. This group of guys have remained incredibly close every since their mission, some of them live together, most of them work together and they hang out constantly so of course we loved spending time with them playing around on a lake.

Friday we got up early (thanks to Sister Hill's several coo-coo clocks throughout her house), had breakfast, then everyone was on the lake by 9:00 am. Surprisingly it was quite warm in Montana, as well as, the lake water was a good temperature. We stayed busy with President's sea-doos, a rented boat and lawn games. Although most of us lathered up pretty good with sunscreen we were all pretty red after being outside till 6 pm. I, unfortunately, got the brunt of the burn. So Saturday was definitely a no-sun day. Here are some pics from Friday:
Me and Amy (Ricky's girlfriend) were not getting in the lake at 8:45 am...that's just too early!

By far Justin's favorite toy were the sea-doo's...he spent more time on those than he did on land. That evening Justin and I went into town, Seeley Lake, which consisted of a small 100 yard stretch on a main road. I don't really understand how people live in such tiny areas...there was one small doctor's office, one small grocery market and one small gas station. It was quaint thats for sure.

Saturday we again got up early, this time though with the plan of hiking up to Morrell Falls. It was a beauiful forest-y hike and although it was probably more than 6 miles roundtrip, it was worth the walk. Here are some pics from the hike:
These are the lower falls, they were pretty amazing!
And these are the upper falls that we have to hike a steep trail to get to.

This flower below is called Bear grass (I think..) anyway it won't bloom again for another seven years!

After the hike we pretty much spent the day on the lake again. Although I stayed in my cover-up the entire time! Everyone played water volleyball in the shallow part of the lake, looked like fun. Justin says 'yea' in agreement that it was fun. haha ... That evening we took it easy and took some pics together on the lake....
the Hills' cabin


On Sunday we went to church at the Seeley Lake branch....it was small to say the least. It was great though. After church we took some pics with President and Sister Hill and all of Justin's mission buds. Then we took off to the long trip home. We had a great time and especially loved being with Pres and Sister Hill, they have such a great spirit about them and in their home. Sister Hill made amazing food the entire time, her chocolate covered grapes were a huge hit. You should try them, its an unlikely combination but absolutely the best chocoloate covered fruit I've ever had! Anyway here are a few more pics from the weekend...



That's all!

Allred Family Reunion

Friday we set out to Thayne, Wyoming for Justin's family reunion. Thayne is in Star Valley, where Justin's Aunt, Uncle, and several cousins live. It was a gorgeous valley! We left around 10:30 and with only one short stop we were able to arrive around 3:30. There was a great turn out of family and it was great to see everyone again! Friday evening we had a very yummy dinner then we went to the pool for an evening swim. (I chickened out since it was getting pretty chilly out and like I said the dinner was really yummy so I didn't feel like putting on a bathing suit...) but everyone had a great time swimming. We then sat around a campfire, had s'mores (the best part of camping in my opinion!) and cherry cobbler. We got to bed around midnight, or rather I should say 'sleeping bag' instead of bed, and did the best we could to stay warm. For as hot as it was during the day, it was equally as cold at night. It didn't take long before we were both sleeping with our heads buried under our sleeping bags.

Saturday morning we were awakened early(6 a.m.) by some lovely roosters giving their wake-up call. I would usually think thats a pretty neat thing to hear but not so early and not nearly so often as they did it. Then the cows started chiming in with their 'moo's'. But thankfully after tuning that out and ignoring the growing need to go to the bathroom, we were able to get in another 1 1/2 hours or so of sleep. After we had breakfast and packed up our tent and other belongings we headed up to Periodic Soring for a mile hike. It was gorgeous up there and the hike was really nice. That was, until we were actually hiking to the beginning of this waterfall. One point was so narrow with such a long and sharp drop off that I was quite scared, to say the least. Justin was great though and held my hand the whole way through that area. It was a very fun hike but we were excited to be back in our air conditioned car. We are pretty wimpy campers/hikers.


We left after the hike, headed back for Provo. We went up around Bear Lake on our way home, first time I have seen it or tried their famous (and tasty) raspberry shake. It was also the first time I had been into Idaho which, not surprisingly, looks a lot like Utah and Wyoming. We finally made it home yesterday evening, it was so great to see a city again, even if it was Provo. But we did really enjoy the reunion and the road trip.