Home Sweet Home

We are finally here!

The awful part, aka the big move, is over and everything is finally unpacked. You never realize how much junk you have until you have to move it. Thankfully we had TONS of amazing help from both my family and Corey's, and we definitely couldn't have done it without them. Our couches came last Friday, and our house is looking more like a home all the time and I finally feel like we are getting settled in.

I absolutely love my house. I love all the space we have. I love (for the most part) that Raylee has more room to explore in. I love having more cabinet space, so I don't have to store stuff on the floor. I love having a pantry. I love coming back from grocery shopping, and not having to carry all the groceries up three flights of stairs. I love having a garage, and I know I will love it even more in the winter when I don't have to scrape the car windows. I love that we have a yard, even if it is just dirt right now. Most of all I love having my walk in closet, where I can actually see what close I own.

Seriously, can you feel the love??

*Unlocking our house for the first time after getting the keys!*

I've been tagged

Sorry it took so long Linsay. I was excited you tagged me cause I think it's a great way to get some information down that I otherwise wouldn't have mentioned, but with the move I am just barely getting a second to do it.


10 years ago...1998
I was 14, about to turn 15. It was the summer between 7th and 8th grade and a time I don’t like to think about much. I don’t remember anything in particular happening this summer. I probably just spent my days reading on the porch and hanging out with friends.

5 years ago...2003
I had just returned from my first year at Utah State (and what a year it was!) where I had met Corey and a whole bunch of new friends. I had gotten a job at a day care taking care of 14 two year olds for the summer and on the weekends Corey would come down from Tremonton to visit me. Corey was also lucky enough to go to the cabin for the first time that summer.

5 months ago...February
We had started looking for houses again in January and decided to build and so on February 8th we signed all the papers to begin the process. Raylee also turned 6 months old and got to start solid foods (yum!).

5 things on my to do list tomorrow...
1. Wait for our new couches to come (Wahoo! We have been couchless for a couple of weeks now and have had to watch TV white-trash style, sitting on camp chairs. Not very comfortable.
2. Work my dreaded 5 hours.
3. Play with my baby girl
4. Go to the quilted bear to get some baby legs for Raylee ‘cause having all this room to crawl in is eating up her poor little knees. I saw them their awhile ago and hope they still have them.
5. Make dinner. Any suggestions?

5 things I would do if I was suddenly a billionaire...
1. Quit my job
2. Get completely out of debt
3. Give money to family and charities
4. Go on a major shopping spree
5. Travel, travel, and travel some more.

5 bad habits...
1. Procrastinating. I work best under pressure. In college I actually tried to start a paper a week before it was due and worked for a couple of hours and got no where. So, I put it of until the night before it was due and did it in an hour.
2. Stubbornness. Corey says I am the most stubborn person he knows, but I have to say he is definitely right up there with me.
3. Not eating my green stuff. Corey will not eat any vegetables and so I usually don’t end up making them as much as I should.
4. Cleaning, or the lack of. I am definitely not the worlds best house keeper, but I have made a vow to keep up with it in this house.
5. Eating out. I love eating, but hate cooking so whenever I can convince Corey to go out to eat, we do it. I have made a vow to cut back to just once a week. We will see how I do!

5 places I've lived...
1. Taylorsville
2. South Jordan
3. Logan
4. Brigham City
5. West Haven

5 things people don't know about me...
1. I love musicals. Not just the current musicals like Moulin Rouge, and Chicago, but the old school ones with Doris Day or Gene Kelley. My favorites are Calamity Jane, Singing in the Rain, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but the list could go on and on. Lame, I know but there’s just something about everyone magically breaking out in song and dance.
2. My nicknames include but are not limited to: Weez, Weezer, Cheese, Cheeser, Bean, and Reece.
3. I love naps. There is NOTHING like a good nap. I don’t get to take them anymore since I have to use Raylee’s nap to get as much work in as I can, but on the rare occasion that I do get to take one I am in heaven!
4. I am NOT a morning person. I hate waking up early, and when I do I need some time to myself before I deal with those abnormally cheerful morning people (that’s you Corey!). I do not hear alarms. They can be on full blast right next to my ear and chances are good I won’t hear them. In high school my dad would have to come to room every morning and wake me up, and in college my roomie would have to yell my name in order to get me up.
5. I love to read. Most people know that about me, but I can’t think of anything else. I am a sucker for a good romance novel (the clean kind) or a historical fiction. The library has always been one of my favorite places to go.

I tag Alison, Josi, Julie, Sarah, and anyone else who wants to. I won't be offended if you don't want to participate.

A Week in HEAVEN

A couple times a year my family goes on vacation to the family cabin in High Valley, Idaho. It is my absolute favorite place in the world, and no matter how many other different places I go, there is nothing that beats a trip to the cabin. It is a vacation in every sense of the word, total relaxation. It is nice to go somewhere for a week where you don't have any plans and can just do whatever you want.

I look forward to this time for months and am never disappointed with the time spent there. I was also lucky enough to marry someone who loves the cabin almost as much as me (I say almost because I am sure that no one can love it as much as I do!). Corey got to go up to the cabin with my family before we were married and now he teases me that the cabin is the reason he decided to pop the question. I have to say I can't blame him!

Our trip started last Wednesday; we were going to Caravan up with my parents and my sister Alison and her family. My fam called when they were about five minutes away and so we headed down and got in the car and headed out. We ended up being about ten minutes behind my family and just figured we would catch up to them eventually. After about 40 minutes on the road we heard a loud noise from the car, and pulled over to see what the problem was. We got out of the car and saw that a tire had blown. Since we were so close to home, Corey decided to change the tire, drive home and switch vehicles and it was back on the road again!

We got to the cabin at about 1:00 in the morning, and just the first breath I took after getting out of the car was worth all the trouble getting there. It is the best smell ever!

Since this is my first post about the cabin, I must put a picture of the cabin in all its glory and one of Leo's lake which is just a short walk away. It is incredibly beautiful there and these pictures don't do it justice.

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The thing that Corey looks forward to at the cabin is fishing, and lots of it. Leo's lake usually has some pretty good fishing if we go after they stock it, but we also usually make a trip to Tripod lake which is about 15 minutes away. Between Corey and Baylen (they were the only ones that got a license) they caught about 30 fish there. Every time we have gone there we have seen the same eagle, and it is always so exciting, but this time we actually saw it fly down and catch a fish out of the water right in front of us which was AMAZING!

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On Saturday my Uncle Randy and Aunt Caroline came up to visit and all the guys got to help fix the dock. Corey and Baylen just got waders since they've decided to take up fly fishing, and so they got to go into the yucky water (it is full of gunk and leeches and who knows what else. Definitely not a lake for swimming) to hook the end of the dock in.

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Our vacation is always full of lots of ATV rides. There is usually always someone out on a ride and we always come back caked with dirt.


This is an amazing view from one of our rides. We are DIRTY, DIRTY in this pic. You always know it's been a good trip when you come back with some battle wounds.
Raylee and Ashlyn both had their first ride on the ATV's this trip. Raylee was not a big fan.
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Although Leo's lake is not a lake for swimming it is a great lake for boating. We have a paddle boat and a canoe which is always lots of fun.

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And you can't have a trip to the cabin without lots of campfires. This time we tried smores with strawberry marshmallows and they were delicious.

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Raylee had her first ride on the tire swing and absolutely loved it. She kept giggling the whole time.

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It was really hot and so we blew up the raft and filled it with water and turned on the sprinkler and the kids had a water party to help keep cool. I forgot to bring Raylee’s swimsuit so she just wore a onsie and a regular diaper which was HUGE by the time she was done swimming.
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We also went on a Sunday walk over to the huge rock and so of course they wanted to climb it.

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One of the best parts of the trip was that we got to spend lots of time with the fam.

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The wildflowers were absolutely gorgeous this time, and so of course I had to get a picture of Raylee in them! This was the best picture from my attempt to be a photographer.

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And last but not least is the picture of Raylee and our little fam next to the bear. My sister started this tradition with her kids because its fun to look back at these pictures and see how much they've grown and so of course I had to copy.

I am already counting down the days until the next time!

Preparing for Departure

The fun has officially begun. As most people know I HATE packing, with a passion. Any kind of packing. When we go on a vacation, I always wait til the last minute to start packing and when staying somewhere most people will unpack their clothes and hang them up or put them in drawers. Not me. The less packing and unpacking the better. When we get back from a trip I usually just leave the bag on the floor and take things out of the bag as I need them, this way I avoid the unpacking (yes, I realize I probably shouldn't admit this).

As our moving date has been moving closer and closer I have been having mixed feelings. So EXCITED to be getting my own house, to have more storage, to actually have a yard, and to have a fresh start. But... I have been DREADING the packing. Knowing how much stuff I have to pack and go through is absolutely depressing, but there is no way to get around it like I manage to with unpacking from a trip.

The closing date on our house is July 9th, and we are going on vacation next week, so I wanted to get a jump start on the packing so I won't have as much to do when we get back. The last couple of days we have been packing things up a little each night and it really hasn't been to bad. It is a good thing no one really comes to visit us because OUR HOUSE IS A DISASTER ZONE right now and it is depressing to know that it is only going to get worse. I will be so glad when this move is over!

But on a happier note, Raylee has been in seventh heaven with all these boxes to climb on an play with.

And here are some random cute pictures of Raylee from the past couple of days

A Costly Mistake

Yesterday afternoon, I was hard at work on the computer, which was sitting on the arm of the chair as it always is, and Raylee was playing on the floor. She crawled over to the chair and started crying, so I leaned down to pick her up, and somehow the computer fell off the chair. I went to pick up the computer, hoping and praying that nothing was wrong, and about died when I saw what had happened. There was a big crack in the LCD screen (or something like that) that looked like a spider. It wasn't a crack in the actual screen which I thought was good, but it turns out this is much worse.

I made the dreaded call to Corey, and he was pretty nice about it since it had been an accident. He was still pretty upset since this really couldn't have happened at a worse time, since we are about to move into a house and all our extra money has to go to that, and he said that this is one of the most expensive things to fix on a computer.

Corey called into Dell today to find out how much it would cost and the amount is a whopping 498 buckaroonies! It still works, and so for now all my work will be done while looking through a spider, and I guess we'll fork over the mula when we can't see anymore.

As dumb as this sounds, I am secretly hoping that it will somehow fix itself, and it does look a little better today, but I am thinking it isn't likely. Sigh.

Story Time

Ever since Raylee was a little baby I have been reading stories to her. I love spending this time with her doing something that I love. Sometimes she will just sit and stare at me as I read, and other times she will look at the pictures, and lately she just tries to grab the book and turn the pages herself. Whenever I put her on the floor to play, I always put a book on the floor with her and the last few days she has been picking up the book and then she will start talking like she is reading the story. It's kind of funny to watch and it's good to know that something I have been doing is getting through to her.

After reading a story there is always room for a yummy snack of cardboard!

A Welcome Relief

A little while ago Corey was writing in Raylee's baby book (yep, that's right. Corey writes in Raylee's baby book every month, and does a great job, too! I'm a lucky girl!) that she had started scooting and that we were SURE she would be crawling by next month.

So here we are two months later, and Raylee FINALLY started crawling a week ago. At first she was really slow, and still ended up scooting half the time, but she has gotten so much better now .

Most of the time she uses her new skills to crawl over to something so she can pull herself up and stand (she has now become a pro in that area!) and at first she would only crawl over to where I was and just look up at me and cry until I picked her up. Now she actually entertains herself and will stay on the floor for up to two hours!

It is a welcome relief and a dream come true! I know the day will come when I will wish she couldn't crawl, but for now I am going to enjoy every minute!

Honk! HONK!

Watch out everyone, there is a new driver on the road!

Wordless Wednesday: Fishing for Catfish

Climbing Mount Laundry

Lately Raylee has been trying to climb on everything in order to get herself into a standing position. When I am holding her she is always grabbing on to the neckline of my shirt trying to pull herself up (people have been seeing a little bit more of me than they were supposed to see, which has created some very embarrassing moments). She can't quite pull herself up to furniture yet since she is so short, but I have a feeling it's not too far in the future. Well, last night Corey was doing laundry and Raylee found a new love: climbing the mountains of laundry. We were just happy it kept her entertained for awhile!