Michael and Lindsay Condie

BLOG HAS MOVED!!!

2008-12-31T10:24:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone... blog has moved!

lindsaycondie.blogspot.com

update all your links! thanks!

portuguese?

2008-12-30T20:42:00.001-07:00

Still can't figure out how to fix it... at least I've got it in Portuguese now!

sad day

2008-12-30T18:10:00.001-07:00

I tried to change my background and it deleted all the stuff off my page. so sad! too lazy to fix it now.

Best infomercial purchase known to man

2008-12-26T21:49:00.004-07:00

I got My Memories Suite by Polaroid off an infomercial for Christmas. I love it almost as much as Mike. It makes scrapbooking so easy and cheap and it is a really well designed program. You can add embellishments and match colors and it comes with tons of fonts and papers and everything! I can make pages so fast! They are also good enough quality that you can print them on your own or send them out to be printed into books. Or you can even add video and send them out over email. I seriously love it. It is SO EASY. No more printing pictures, no more very badly designed pages and having to buy and replenish supplies. Here are a few of my Christmas break pages. I'm still by no means a good scrapbooker... even if I do have a computer to help, but it sure makes it easier!

Mom Jeans

2008-12-23T09:25:00.002-07:00

When my good friend Brianne and I were in college together, we made a pact that we would never wear "mom" clothes... now that she is a mom, I had to check up on her and see how she is doing! Here's what she sent me...

http://www.hulu.com/watch/10333/saturday-night-live-mom-jeans

Thanks Brianne for a GREAT laugh!!

birthday songs

2008-12-15T15:34:00.005-07:00

Videos of my birthday songs... one from Dave, and one from my cute little neice's!

things I hate the most

2008-12-15T07:44:00.002-07:00

Being cold, being cold and wet, cleaning dogs who are muddy and wet, frozen pipes, low water pressure, high heating bills, sliding all over the roads (when I'm scared of driving mid-day in summer with no traffic), snow plows deciding they will take a vacation from the freeway, having to take 3 times as long to clean off you car and go places. I hate hate hate snow. It is the worst ever!

8

2008-12-11T07:42:00.004-07:00

Tavan tagged me with 8’s:

8 Shows I love to watch:
The Office
Flip That House
Extreme Home Makeover
Wheel of Fortune
Family Guy
South Park
Friends
Seinfeld

8 Places I Love To Eat:
The Melting Pot
Texas Roadhouse
Cheesecake Factory
The Pie
Chipotle
Greek Souvlaki
Olive Garden
Café Rio

8 Things I Did Yesterday:
Worked
Made birthday cheesecake
Went to the doctor
Played lacrosse
Phone calls with family
Took some videos
Sang with Mike (something we do… don’t know why but it’s fun!)
Avoided housework

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To:
Having a finished house
Small claims suit to be over
Having a child (not now—but someday!)
Portugal
Getting back into shape
Hair to grow out of the awkward “middle stage”
Paying off debt
Mike finishing school

8 Things I Love About Fall
Colorful leaves
Lightning/thunderstorms (I miss the good ones from Colorado!)
Cooler temperatures
Smell of rain
Not having to water my lawn anymore
Camping
Picking fruit from garden/vines
Thanksgiving

8 Things On My Wish List
Find a treasure (like in the movies… I keep waiting to find the loose brick in my house where some crazy old man hoarded all his money and then died and no one ever knew about…then I would be rich)
Travel the world
Live on a ranch
Go into outer space (but not really, I would be too scared)
Never feel pain
See into the future
Have a magic wand (haha remember Emily? So we could have stairs in our house? “Only Santa gets a REAL magic wand!”)
Die in my sleep

8 Favorite Eye Candy
Michael J Condie
Colin Farrell (in American Outlaws)
JUDE LAW! (sadly Julie doesn’t blog and won’t be able to enjoy this)
Brad Pitt
Johnny Depp
Cam Gigandet
Tim McGraw
Matthew McConaughey (but I swear if I see him act one more time I might throw something)

8 People I'm Tagging
I don’t like to tag people so you can do it if you want!

it's my birthday gift to me... i'm so happy!

2008-12-08T07:11:00.003-07:00

Name that movie...

Anyway... Our old camera is a Nikon Coolpix, one of those plain jane point and shoot cameras which I've had for probably 3-4 years now. Although a good little camera, it has seen its time and now must go. It doesn't take batteries very well, takes about 5 minutes for the flash to recharge after used, and then another 2 minutes to take the picture once the button was pushed. It also refuses to work in hot, humid places. If you turn it off manually instead of letting the powersave do it, it won't turn back on for like a half hour. Needless to say, it was time to get a new camera. I used to have the Nikon D40 SLR camera which was AWESOME, but only bought it for a class, so I sold it shortly thereafter. I wanted something that was similar, but not as expensive. I found the P80, which is kind of a mix between a regular digital and SLR, so it has manual modes, but is a little more compact--and cheaper. Also, it does video which is big for us. We have a video camera but we hate lugging both cameras around on trips and stuff, so we usually forego the video. We're going to sell the camcorder, which has barely been used. Anyone interested?

what I wake up each day for

2008-12-04T17:59:00.005-07:00

A story each night...usually I end up crying through the whole thing cause they are so sweet!
This is just hilarious. This is a cubby hole that was built into the wall in the kitchen for some reason. This is what I like to call the "Mike, could you go put this away please" cubby.

Also hilarious...I was trying to take a pic of the tree and Jasper just came in and posed. He does this all the time...

I was trying to take a pic of Mike looking sad when we found Stinkie the fish dead, but of course Jasper had to jump into the pic. So funny!Love this tree and love this dog!

Love this guy!

Midnight cheese ball pepperoni snack and movie

So sweet... Mike and the puppies

Love her! Never fails, put her on and I can get out of laziness! She's very talented.

It's official!

2008-12-01T14:47:00.003-07:00

May 4, 2009 - Flight to Paris

May 5, 2009 - Flight to Lisbon

Inbetween - Super awesome adventure snorkelling, golfing, horseback riding, biking, beach-ing, touring, exploring, side tripping to Spain..... castles, grotto caves, rocky cliffs, museums... speaking VERY BAD Portuguese! All with my very best travel friend Mike!!

May 13, 2009 - Flight to New York

May 14, 2009 - Flight to Salt Lake City :(

Travel points are awesome!!!

Costa Rica

2008-11-28T14:43:00.004-07:00

As I've been planning our next trip (Portugal), I've realized I haven't blogged about Costa Rica yet, which is a shame since it was such an amazing trip.

We spent only 4 days there, including travel, which is WAY too short (although it felt way too long when we were in areas with no air conditioning), but it was the best we could do. I had to plan it out so carefully to make sure we would be able to do everything we wanted. It all worked out perfectly. Pictures are out of order... too lazy to arrange them.

Mike at the San Jose zoo. There were just HUGE lizards wandering around everywhere! He loved them!

Arriving into Drake Bay... you can pretty much only get there by plane. The airport is in the background. The runway began right at the water edge, so as we were landing it felt like we were going to land in the ocean... scary!Checking in at the airport. We could not get over how third-world the airport was. The land surrounding it was all farm land with animals roaming around everywhere.
The dark sand beaches were absolutely stunning. Our camera didn't want to cooperate most of the trip since it is so hot and humid there, so we didn't get very many good pics of the beach, and the ones we did are pretty foggy.

Our hotel "Mirador" in Drake Bay. I don't even know if I would call it a hotel--I've had camping accomodations closer to a hotel than this was. This pic was taken at the bottom of the hill at the road. To get to the hotel you had to walk up this huge long, steep road which at some points could only be described as stairs. We had to haul all of our stuff up and then every time we went out to do anything it was up and down, up and down. The air is so heavy that it was hard to breathe while doing that.

This is Mike holding a type of scorpion. This was one of the coolest things we did down there--a night nature hike with a guide. There are so many things you could see at night that couldn't be seen during the day, we saw a ton of amazing insects, lots of stuff we'd only seen on the Discovery channel before. There were lots of frogs, amphibians, and we even saw a sloth way up in the tree. At one point they even took us in canoes to look at the fish. It was pitch black, so it was kind of scary in the boats!

The views were amazing! Pictures don't do justice. They also don't give you the feel of how crazy hot and humid it is there. This is a view from one of our "cabins" in Drake bay, it didn't have any air conditioning or a fan for that matter. You could not escape the heat... we realized how much we take for granted the things we have here! The people in Drake Bay don't even have electricity. As we'd walk down miles of dirt roads exploring, there would be houses made out of aluminum and inside they'd have these bluish lights that were powered by small generators. Some houses would have old TV's. The people there were very nice, but most didn't speak English in Drake Bay.

I love this picture because it has so much in it--the beauty of the hills and clouds in the background, as well as the plane we flew to Drake Bay. To this day, I cannot believe I got on that plane... I've never been so scared! They told me it was safer than a jet because if a jet's engines go out, it just falls. But if a propellor plane engine goes out, you can at least coast down and land.

This place was amazing, it is right outside of Arenal volcano, which is a very active volcano toward the north of Costa Rica. It is constantly erupting, but you really can only see it at night. It was a REALLY long bus ride to get there, I think about 3-4 hours to get there from San Jose. When we were planning the trip I wasn't sure if we'd want to travel all that way just for one night, but I'm so glad we did.

The view of Arenal volcano from our lodge room. It was amazing, the beds face the volcano so we just laid there for so long watching the lava spew out and the molten rocks fall down the side of the volcano. Never thought I'd see something like that!

Tons of hanging bridges everywhere, you'd walk over them and see so many animals and beautiful views of the jungle below them.

I can't even explain how beautiful the beaches are and how lush the jungle is!!

This was our biggest adventure for sure. We took a boat with two other couples from Europe and a guide to this island. I can't remember what it is called, but it took about an hour and a half to ride out there. We went snorkeling even though the waters were really rough and cloudy. The guide told us we would probably feel jellyfish stings, but that they weren't like normal ones, they were very small and not harmful. Sure enough, the whole time in the water you'd feel little stings all over your skin. On the island, you can hike to the top to see ancient artifacts left from thousands of years ago. Well, there had been a huge storm that had passed through a few days before, and had knocked over several HUGE trees at a really steep part of the trail. Our guide asked if we wanted to brave it, and we all did. So we ended up climbing through all the trees. It was super adventurous not only because we had to climb, but because it was a huge steep drop below us, and not to mention it was POURING rain so everything was very slippery. It was fun though, we all helped each other through and felt very brave. This is a picture of Mike climbing back down through one of the trees.

Exploring on the island

On the way back, the guide and boat captain were really laid back and let us stay out there for a really long time to watch for whales and dolphins. We saw a ton of dolphins and a couple whales. It was fun to be out there so close to them. The picture below is of Mike... he got REALLY sea sick and so while all of us were having a ball watching the whales, he moved to the back of the boat throwing up :( I loved how the trees grew right up to the coast. I also loved those huge black rocks, they told us they were from volcanic eruptions. What a beautiful place it is!! Even though we were only there for a few days, I'll never forget all of our adventures!

Things I do when I'm bored

2008-11-25T20:22:00.004-07:00

I was sick for the better part of this last weekend. In fact, on Sunday I stayed in bed ALL day. I got a little bored, so I thought I'd share how I spent my time. 3D Home Architect 1.4, from 1993. Best computer program ever! I know you all think I'm a dork... but secretly I also know you're jealous.

1st floor:

2nd floor:

Basement:

Twilight...

2008-11-23T21:56:00.001-07:00

was super lame. But I loved every minute of it! Thanks to Stacey for taking me as an early birthday present!

i cannot wait

2008-11-20T08:01:00.001-07:00

only a matter of hours now... 50 to be exact.

things i'm looking forward to

2008-11-14T08:00:00.009-07:00

The end of fall is approaching and there is a lot to look forward to! Here are the things I'm excited for in the next 2 months.

1. twilight - nov 21 - stacey's taking me to see it for an early birthday present!

2. byu/utah game and arrington thanksgiving, nov 22 - fun afternoon thanksgiving potluck and football

3. lacrosse - wed nights

4. thanksgiving, nov 27 - half the week off work, food at the condie's, and lots of time to work on the house

5. cutting down christmas tree tradition, nov 28 - can't wait for the smell of pine in my house

(can't you smell the pine when you look at this next picture??)

6. my 24th birthday, dec 10 - don't know if we're doing anything, but here are some other people who were born in 1984 also.

Scarlett JohanssonMandy Moore
Ashlee SimpsonAvril Lavigne
LeBron James

7. christmas, dec 24-25 - we decided to have our own christmas this year and not buy very many presents... but still will be giving some amazing gifts to everyone!

8. new year's, dec 31 - jan 3 -- beautiful park city (first time ever skiing!). for 4 days we'll be swimming, hot tubbing, ice skating, basket-weaving-bacon-ing, olympic park-ing, alpine coaster-ing, skiing, snowboarding, tubing, and sleigh riding!

"french fries...pizza...french fries...pizza..."

and that will bring us to 2009. it will be here before we know it!

Romans 14:10-13

2008-11-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

I came across this today and really liked it. God does not take sides nor does he judge according to how we judge each other. We will all be judged according to our hearts. He asks us to live according to what we each know is right and not put stumbling blocks in the way of another.

Romans 14:10-13

But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost though set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

For it is written, as I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.

the un-halloween

2008-11-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

Since everyone else is doing their halloween posts, I thought I'd do my non-halloween post. :) Not to be a downer, but I don't love Halloween... I think I did when I was younger, and I probably would more if I had kids, but right now I just don't see the point. I'm not into going along with the whole retail extravaganza and getting caught up in decorations. I have a couple fall decorations, and we'll get a Christmas tree--but more for the tradition of going and cutting it down. And MAYBE Mike will let me dress Jasper up as Santa.. but no further than that (perhaps something similar to the picture below... lol). I guess I'm starting to get more into what the holidays actually mean, and Halloween just doesn't have any meaning for me so I don't see the point in putting the time and money into it.

So instead of doing the whole halloween thing, we just hung out and played with the dogs and worked on the house. It was fun, and especially relaxing since we got the extra hour of sleep!

The crazy dog people...

2008-10-27T09:19:00.000-06:00

…had a crazy dog weekend. I’ll spare you the long details of the story, but basically Sophie is in heat and the other dogs (mostly bandit) have gone crazy. I’m surprised our sleep-deprived neighbors haven’t yet organized something resembling the mob on Beauty and the Beast to kick us out of the neighborhood. Last night we ended up with 3 dogs in different areas of our house, and one left outside, hoping to minimize the barking noise. We didn’t get any sleep of course, but hopefully the neighbors got a couple hours.

The really sad news is, we might not be able to keep Bandit. He is just so aggressive and always has been, but now it is worse than ever. I don’t even think neutering him will help at this point. He starts fights with Jack constantly, and yesterday they both were limping around like they had hurt legs. We’ll give it a couple days, and then see.

Other than that, the weekend was busy but good. Lots of church stuff, also we went to see our brother in law Kyle’s band play at the U of U and then stayed up way too late playing basket weaving bacon at Denny’s. Then we slept in till noon… it was great! We also went to see the Body World’s exhibit downtown Salt Lake. It was really crowded, but super awesome! It was hard to imagine all the displays were once real, live people. The fetus display was my favorite… something you would never see anywhere else.

Overall, it was an okay weekend. But I can hardly keep my eyes open!

Correction

2008-10-23T18:12:00.000-06:00

Mike corrected me on the "bless his soul" thing, it is supposed to be "bless his heart"...

So, you can say anything you want about someone, no matter how mean, as long as you say "bless his heart" after.

Mike is such a child, bless his heart.

You can say anything about someone, no matter how mean, as long as you say "Bless his soul" after.

2008-10-22T07:37:00.000-06:00

He is such a child, bless his soul...

Take 2: Before/After

2008-10-19T19:07:00.000-06:00

This time it's with Stacey's bangs! She wanted me to cut them this weekend... here's the results!

So cute!

Before/After

2008-10-19T18:43:00.000-06:00

Here are some before and after pics of our house. The upstairs is finally done... so much work! But it's been really nice to enjoy it. The before pictures were all taken before we closed on the house so the previous owner's stuff is in it, hopefully it doesn't make it too hard to imagine.

Hallway into kitchen BEFOREAfter! (minus the blinds--they weren't in yet)Office/2nd bedroom BEFOREAfter!
And this room gets the Most Improved award... here's BEFORE
AFTER!!! The colors look a little weird because the lighting made it hard to capture how it really looks. This is the closest I could get.

(3 pics... the last one is the laundry shoot door that Mike made from scratch!)

Girls only want husbands who have great skills

2008-10-10T12:45:00.000-06:00

As Napoleon Dynamite once wisely said, girls only want boyfriends (in this case husbands) who have great skills. So--in celebration of the upstairs of our house being finished this weekend--I thought I would post some of the skills Mike & I (mostly I, since Mike can pretty much do anything anyway) have learned from remodeling.

Tiling/grouting
Drywall
Wall putty
Wall texture
Ceiling texture
Painting
Wood floor sanding
Wood floor staining/finishing
Demolition
Lawn fertilizing
Pouring cement pad
Jackhammer concrete
Chain link fence
Wood fence
Wood staining
Installing a new doorway
Installing trim
Planting/raising a garden
Installing toilets
Installing sinks
Installing hardware
Finding a leak and replacing plumbing
Unclogging sewer pipes
Building cabinet-type doors
Installing/reinstalling doorknob/locks
Starting furnace/water heater
Fixing water softener
Repairing broken windows (good job Mike for breaking it first! LOL)

It's making me tired thinking and sore just about it! Here are some new skills we will learn coming up soon to finish the basement:

Electrical work
Framing
Insulating
Building cabinet doors
Leveling floor

And no, we will not come help you with your house projects! j/k... but seriously.

Is Monday already here?

2008-10-06T07:41:00.000-06:00

This weekend we painted the bathroom and tiled the kitchen counters. Not done yet, but below are some pictures in-progress. Also a pretty picture of our house with a big storm behind it.

Then I have some random pictures from this weekend...

We went to conference Saturday morning, but didn't take any pictures. It was fun, but I'll just watch it on TV in the future. Too much hassle to get there, parking, walking in the rain, standing in line, sitting for 3 1/2 hours, etc. We had good seats though.

I also got a flat tire heading up for a girl's night with the Condie's. Stephanie changed my tire all by herself while we all watched. Good thing someone knew what they were doing!

Stacey & Kyle slept over Saturday night, we went out to eat and Kyle helped us with our Portuguese. It's really sad how bad we are. It makes me sick to my shtomagoo. Stacey woke me up early Sunday to tell me the kitchen had flooded. Since the sink plumbing is open, something had backed up and had been spilling over. It proceeded to flood 9 or 10 times throughout the day. We had to build a contraption to keep it from flooding while we're at work today.

Enjoy the pictures!

Like how we gave up on the lawn for the year already? No, Mike... you don't EAT the wood filler!
This is what a 60 year old sink looks like... gross. I can't believe we ever questioned whether we should replace it or not.
Long job ahead of us..
Getting closer
Mike says he likes this pic because I "look like" I'm working.. HA! He wishes he was as good as me at tiling.A couple of last minute touches

I cannot believe how good it turned out!! The color is perfect. and the new sink is bigger than the old one!! I'll post more when it actually is grouted and clean and doesn't have little green spacers in it :) The sink didn't quite fit, so he had to cut a little out.
Checking out the plumbing. His shirt got slightly wet...Jasper doing what he does best! Mount Jasper. He loves to sit on top of piles of blankets, pillows, laundry, etc. Maybe it makes him feel bigger?
Clearly he is a big help with laundry.

Blinds

2008-09-25T07:40:00.000-06:00

We finally placed the order for our blinds yesterday. Yay! In 3 weeks the upstairs will be DONE!

The color we ordered is very similar to the pic. The only difference is they have to be mounted on the outside of the trim since the old windows aren't deep enough :( I might cry out of joy to take the blankets down when they come to install them.

Oh... and the carpet

2008-09-20T11:46:00.000-06:00

Stacey saw my last blog post and reminded me that I can't STAND people rubbing feet or hands on carpet or couches!!! It gives me the willies!

My quirks

2008-09-19T10:51:00.000-06:00

Tavan tagged me about being quirky. Here are the rules: Link the Person who Tagged you. Mention rules on your blog. Tell about 6 quirks of yours. Tag 6 fellow bloggers to do the same. Leave a comment to let them know.

Every day I have to listen to the news on the way to work, and country music on the way home.

I love fondant frosting (the really smooth hard stuff on the outside of wedding cakes)

I hate when people ask me how to spell a word--in elementary school I was a really good speller so I was the one everyone would ask and it would drive me crazy!!

I love history and sometimes go to the history library to look at stuff just for fun.

I have to use a really, REALLY flat pillow. When I'm visiting someone or on vacation, I sleep without a pillow because they are always too fluffy

When I get something done that wasn't on my to-do list, I write it down and then cross it off.

That was hard!!! I couldn't think of stuff... I guess I'm just too normal :) HA!

Grape Juice

2008-09-09T06:57:00.000-06:00

We made grape juice last weekend, from the concord grape vines on our East fence!

TILE! and Park City

2008-09-04T07:34:00.001-06:00

Everyone told me it would be a lot of work... but I didn't realize how much it would really be until we did it ourselves! These pictures aren't that great, it was dark and the tile is still really dusty, we haven't finished cleaning it yet. But it gives you an idea!

Laying the tile to measure

Fitting it all in Mike loves his new tool!

Laying the tile with Mortar this time This one is a tricky piece!!! Jasper is so lazy, he didn't help at all. When he lays down his legs disappear!
Now on to the kitchen... Stairs took as long as the rest of the floors combined!
So dark, but you can kind of see the almost-finished product. Wow, so much work! Jasper trying out the new stairs
Finished bathroom

Maybe we should have blocked the doorway to the kitchen??
And now on to our Park City pictures... we went for a day while the tile was drying and had a ton of fun!
Watching the Ski Jumpers
Good timing!
Even though there's no snow, Mike decided to go skiing
Watching the bobsleds... that thing is coming sooo fast!
THE END of our Labor Day weekend!

Stress Update

2008-09-03T06:59:00.000-06:00

Labor Day weekend we chose not to take our Idaho/Wyoming trip and stay home and tile. We did go to Park City for a day, which was fun. We went to the Olympic park and watched the ski jumpers and bobsleds, and went to the museum. It stormed really hard that night, which was great!

Also, here's an update on my previous post

Mike's phone - insurance covered it, his new phone is arriving today

Mike's classes - both are on his schedule now

Mike's financial aid - still don't have the funds yet, but things are at least processing now

House - tiling is all laid, grout is almost done in bathroom, and will be done in kitchen/stairs tonight. Then, on Saturday we will seal it and it will be DONE! Biggest project ever but worth it!!

Me - feeling much better even though my body is super sore from tiling!

Car - should get certificates and be registered today.

Small claims - Going down to courthouse to pick up forms today or tomorrow

So...... things are slowing down a little, but the basement is the next phase of the remodel, which will take a few months!

Out of Sorts

2008-08-28T12:02:00.000-06:00

Do you ever feel like life is out of sorts and you're totally helpless??? Check this out:

Mike's phone - he waits months to get a new one since his screen was broken, finally gets a new one, and a week later the dogs chew it completely up. Hopefully insurance will cover it.

Mike's classes - one of his classes was full, so I spent 2 or 3 weeks emailing teachers trying to get him in the class. Classes have now started, and it still hasn't been taken care of.

Mike's financial aid - tuition still isn't paid, and he can't get his books. His loan has been processing for about a month now with no luck yet and no one seems to know the answer to anything.

House - the upstairs is torn up yet again, this time to tile... we've never done it before so there is a lot of uncertainty!

Me - I've been getting sick the last couple of days... great!

Car - Unbelievable. I take it in to get safety and emissions and windshield replaced in order to register it. $400 and 4 days later, it still didn't have safety and emissions and I couldn't get a straight answer out of these people. We're now going on about a week and a half, and still can't seem to get anything done. I'm taking it to a new place today, but I'm down to the last hope.

Small Claims - I've been working a lot on our small claims case against Gold's Gym, but haven't had time yet to run downtown and pay for the forms. Once I do that and serve the papers, there's just more waiting time.

To make matters worse, my house is a mess and laundry isn't being kept up.

How do people do all this stuff with kids?!?!? I don't know if I'd ever be able to!!

The Zoo, otherwise known as the Condie residence

2008-08-25T13:55:00.000-06:00

Here is our family picture finally!

Left to right, it's Bandit, Mike, Jack, Sophie, Lindsay, and Jasper. This was taken in our super nice backyard (sarcasm?) but at least we have a good view of the mountains :) Missing from the photo is Hewie the hampster and Stinkie the fish. I got enough battle scars as it was from taking this picture, I don't know how we could have added them!

Summer Update

2008-08-07T13:24:00.000-06:00

Thought I'd update on what we've been doing this summer...

In April/May we went on a cruise to Mexico with Stacey, Kyle, Julie, and Dave. That was where Julie and Dave fell in love! (and are now getting married)

For our anniversary, we luckily still had flight benefits, so we flew down to Costa Rica for 4 days, and it was amazing! We've never been anywhere like it. It was definitely an adventure and I did things I thought I'd never do--like fly on a super small propeller plane! It was scary, but I'm glad I did it.

The day after we got back, I started working at FranklinCovey as a meeting planner. It is a much better job for me and for the first time since we got married, we have the same work schedule, meaning we finally have nights and weekends off together! It has been really nice to have more time together, especially to play with the dogs and work on the house. We have been working on the house a lot, and have made a lot of progress. Within the next month we should be done with the upstairs and have the blinds installed. Then we can turn our attention to the basement, which will be like starting all over again! I have to sometimes think about how worth it it will be in the end. It's a lot of work.

Julie and I found a little homeless yorkie wandering around a few days ago, so we picked him up and took him home. He is a sweet little dog! We are keeping him until we find his owners... or if not, who knows?? We also got a hamster, Mike named him Hewie even though it's a girl. I won't touch the thing, but he loves to play with it (aka tease) a lot.

Other than that, we've been enjoying the HOT HOT weather, and getting a lot of sun!

I can't believe it's already the end of March!

2008-03-31T13:26:00.000-06:00

The title says it all, I don't know where the time has all gone!

We got our little puppy, Sophie about a week and a half ago, she is so fun! A lot of work, but that's a given with puppies.

I'm doing well on my goals list, I have 6 done I think and have a few more planned. I'm also looking for another part time job for some extra money, so we can pay off some debt and get the house finished. I've gone to a few interviews so far, but as of yet, nothing has panned out.

Julie moved in with us this week (downstairs) and is looking for a job also and getting settled. Over spring break, the rest of the family was here and did a ton of work on our house! It is starting to be really organized and finally giving us space to finish remodeling the rest of it. Still a LOT of work to go though!

Other than that, we are just plugging along, looking forward to being on our cruise in Mexico in 4 weeks!

101 in 1001 List

2008-02-06T11:33:00.000-07:00

And here are my 101 goals, sorry Emily, I copied some of yours and your format!! I'll update my progress as I go.

Crafts

1. Make a quilt for my first baby
2. Have Mike teach me, and make a memory chest
3. Finish a cross stitch project
4. Sew a dress and wear it

Personal History

5. Scrapbook Mike’s Mission memorabilia
6. Plan a system to organize personal history now and in future
7. Carry out the plan to organize personal history
8. Do a concise personal history of our ancestors for our kids
9. Edit and compile all family videos, including those from our childhood
10. Write in my journal once a week for 6 months (0/25)

Community/Friends

11. Host a dinner party
12. Go to an enrichment activity
13. Vote in the presidential election
14. Give a 100% tip

Cooking/Food

15. Learn how to start a garden and grow 3 vegetables
16. Plan an elaborate meal for the dinner party
17. Live as a vegetarian for two weeks (0/2)

Church/Spiritual

18. Go through 12 endowment sessions in 12 months (0/12)
19. Explain my beliefs to someone not of my own faith
20. Read the bible and take corresponding lecture classes
21. Pray personally two times a day for a month (0/31)
22. Go through 10 new temples (other than where I’ve already been) (0/10)

Home

23. Put up the back fence by the end of this March (2008)
24. Finish the home remodel and sell the house (Summer 2009)
25. Landscape both the front and back yards with flowers and vines
26. Create an organizational system that is easily moved and accessed
27. Make our bed every day for a month (0/31)
28. Go through our clothes and get rid of ones we don’t wear anymore
29. Take down the ugly window coverings outside the house

Finances

30. Pay off all debt, at least with sale of home (Summer 2009)
31. Buy our 2nd house
32. Buy property in a place we would like to settle, for division and resale
33. Make a profit from a business
34. Save $10.00 for each goal I complete = $1001.00 (0/101)
35. Write a living/death will
36. Invest in a company and watch the stock for 1 year
37. Get a life insurance policy

Family/Parenting

38. Get pregnant and birth our first child
39. Train the dogs to come when called
40. Train the dogs to walk on a leash
41. Do one “101 Nights of Great Romance” activities per month (0/34)
42. Sacrifice to do something for Mike once a day for a month, write it down (0/31)
43. Have a family picture taken each year (0/3)
44. Buy and send Grandpa a bird book
45. Send out a Christmas card each year (0/2)
46. Take our dogs sledding

Travel

47. Get my passport
48. Stay at the oldest hotel in Germany and tour castles
49. Visit Greece
50. Go camping in Kauai, Hawaii
51. Visit every state in the United States
52. Go to archeological sites in Mexico
53. Go on a float trip
54. Camp at and visit an archaeological site
55. Rent a boat and camp at Lake Powell
56. Go to New York City for a weekend trip
57. Stay in a hostel
58. Explore a ghost town
59. Go fishing
60. Sleep under the stars
61. Visit Forks (probably with Stacey)

Personal Enrichment/Fun

62. Create a book club and run it for 12 months (0/12)
63. Face my fear of heights - Go on a hot air balloon ride
64. Write a letter to my congressman of an issue I feel strongly about
65. Find family graves at Bountiful cemetery
66. Give a speech
67. Face my fear of flying – take the helicopter shuttle to Manhatten
68. Go to a movie theater movie in pajamas
69. Make an emergency preparedness kit for both cars
70. Take pictures of all my 101 goals (0/101)
71. Acquire 100 new books for my library (0/100)
72. Buy an antique piece of furniture
73. Write a Wikipedia article
74. Write a children’s book, have Mike illustrate it
75. Go to a murder mystery dinner
76. See “Wicked”
77. Complete an entire crossword by myself
78. Learn to play a challenging song on the piano
79. Have the courage to eat at a restaurant alone
80. Buy and play each of the classic board games in the set
81. Let Mike choose something I should change about myself, and change it
82. Do a 1000 piece puzzle
83. Design my dream house/ranch property
84. Go to a piano bar
85. Go to a water park

Education

86. Finish Associate’s degree at LDS Business College
87. Finish History Bachelor’s degree at BYU
88. Learn 100 Greek words and their present day meanings (0/100)
89. Read 20 history books (0/20)
90. Rent 5 history movies and watch with Mike (0/5)
91. Rent 5 travel movies and watch with Mike (0/5)
92. Learn 10 constellations and spot them (0/10)
93. Apply for a scholarship for both Mike & I

Physical Health

94. Stretch once a day for a month (0/31)
95. Go to the gym two times a week for 3 month (0/24)
96. Learn to swim for exercise, go at least 5 times (0/5)
97. Climb a Salt Lake mountain
98. Whiten my teeth
99. Play 18 holes of golf

Career

100. Keep a job at least for a few hours a week
101. Hand out 50 business cards (0/50)

101 in 1001

2008-02-05T01:28:00.000-07:00

I decided to do the thing Emily is doing and make my list of 101 goals I want to complete in 1001 days. I have my counter up, but I've still got to complete my list. I'll post it as soon as I'm done.

From Oregon

2008-02-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

I'm here in Oregon right now visiting for the weekend, I came for Christine Frogley's baby blessing, it was really nice. I will fly back on Tuesday..

Basically I am just hanging out and doing homework and taxes while I'm here. Mike stayed at home since he has so much to do.

Kind of random, but I decided I really like the name Alice. I think if we have a girl that will be her name. I always kind of liked it, but the Twilight series sealed it for me :)

Welcome to our Blog!

2008-01-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

Hello! Here is our blog, so everyone can stay updated on our family.

First, I'll bring you up to date.

In May 2007, we bought our first home! It is in Bountiful, Utah. We are working hard to renovate most of it, and have almost finished the upstairs. Then we'll start on the basement. It has been a lot of work, to say the least, but we are really enjoying the results! Mike has already learned how to do several big projects, including building 2 fences, sanding and refinishing our floors upstairs, and doing cement and fencing for the dog run. He also had a whim one day to build our dogs a 2 story dog run with windows and everything!

I (Lindsay) started working for Continental Airlines as an at-home reservation agent in September, and am loving the flexibility of that. We have already been able to take a few trips. Before Christmas, we flew down to Houston and spent a couple of days in Galveston with my parents. Then, we went to Stacey & Kyle Leybas' wedding in Oregon right after Christmas. We were back in Utah for New Year's, but took off again a week or so ago to San Jose to visit my grandparents and see San Francisco. It was a fun weekend trip. We already have several trips planned this year already, including New York City and Germany, where we won a free stay at the oldest hotel in the country. I also have my eye on Greece, but that might have to wait until next year.

Other trips we've taken in the last couple of years include the Church History tour back east, Yellowstone, and several trips down to Moab, Arches, and Little Sahara for camping.

Mike is still working for Campbell Construction, and he loves it there. He doesn't like working in the cold much, but it interests him and he is learning what he needs to continue his career.

We are both going to school full time again, which makes for a busy schedule. Mike is going to Weber State University for construction management, and will be for a couple more years. I am (finally) finishing my associate's degree in general studies at LDS Business College this semester and completing the transfer over to BYU to finish my bachelor's in History. So for right now, I'm taking classes at both schools.

We also have 2 dogs now (as you probably figured), Jack and Bandit who are siberian huskies. They are fun, but a lot of work also. Jack is big and michievous, and likes to run away every chance he gets. Bandit is really smart, and has already figured out how to get out of their kennel (so now we have to keep a lock on it), and has chewed off 3 of Jack's collars, usually within a couple hours of us getting a new one (he does this while Jack is sleeping).

That at least brings you up to date, and now I can start writing from the present!