Thursday, February 27, 2014

Roommate reunion

One of the fun things about being back in Utah is seeing my great college friends that have turned into life friends!  Marissa, Becca, Kelly and I all got together at Becca's house and had lunch.  It was so fun to see them and to have our kids all in one place! It's crazy to think that we were all roommates for so long, and now we are all moms.  So fun!

Capri (Marissa's babe) and Jody. Destined to be life-long friends!

These pictures were hilarious to take of them! 




Holding hands!


Jody is all about touching faces.  I'm sure Capri loved it!


Kelly, Becca, Marissa, and Me


Cuddling.



 The kiddies, in the same order as their mamas!


Jody loves her kisses!  Capri doesn't look so convinced...


It was such a fun time getting together and it's amazing to see where we are now! I love this stage of life! 

Joanne's first time swimming!

Uncle Lynn swims everyday, and so one day I brought her in to watch, and she ended up being handed in to play with Lynn.  She obviously LOVED it! She splashed and played and then took the best nap ever right after! Our house will be a let down after this one! 



She finally looked up after I tried to get her to look at me for a long time.  That's how excited she was! 




We have a water baby on our hands!


The Move

We took the move from Hermiston to Provo in two sections - so that Jody would be a little happier.

It was a crazy crazy couple days! 

On the Monday we loaded the U-haul truck and cleaned out the house. It was a seriously stressful day! Half way through the day I left Lance to work, and my sweet friends threw me a goodbye lunch! Thank you Beth and everyone who came! It was hard to leave you all! 

Finally we were done with everything by 5 and because of the weather forecast for the mountain pass, we decided that we had to leave that night.  I drove our little pickup truck with Jody next to me, and Lance drove the U-haul with our Subaru in tow.  

It was a LONG two days doing the split drive.  Roadtrips are much different with a baby! Thankfully Joanne and I could see each other the whole drive, and she was amazing!! Seriously, she is one resilient baby!  

FINALLY we got to Provo at Lynn and Marians (Lance's dear aunt and uncle) - where we will be staying until we find a home.  They are so so kind to invite us into their home for who knows how long! We just love them!! And really, I can't imagine wanting to find a house because their house is just amazing! They have an indoor pool that we are excited to use, and their home and company are delightful! 

That first week of being in Utah, we searched constantly for a home.  We were able to look at about 20 houses, and have learned so much about what we want in our home!  After not loving any of the homes we saw in our price range, we saw a house that was for sale by owner and decided to check it out.  Well, who would have guessed that that is the house that we would end up with! 

We love this house, and we are thrilled with eveything about it! It is in Spanish Fork, pretty close to the freeway.  It's halfway between Lance's work in Mona and BYU where I will be teaching harp in the fall.  It has a costco five minutes away - major plus! It's exactly across the street from the ward building.  The neighborhood is delightful, and full of young families in similar situations to us.  We went to the ward and we love it, and we are excited about everything about this home!
We put an offer on it, and it was accepted, and now we are just in the closing process. We are excited to be homeowners! And we are excited to be in Utah with so much family around.  We are so blessed! 

Monday, February 24, 2014

5 months old!

Our sweet baby girl is 5 months old! She is a complete delight. She really is the perfect baby, and is pretty wonderful.  Our only complaint is that Joanne does not sleep very well! She takes pretty short naps, and still wakes up THREE TIMES a night. But the poor girl has gone through so many changes with traveling so much and now this move, I have a while before she has a normality to help her sleeping.

Here are some sweet little pictures of her in our house that is getting quickly packed up.

How big is Jody? Soooo big! 


That smile kills me! 




This girl has totally and completely stolen our hearts! She is perfection!



Sunday, February 23, 2014

Job Switch

Lance here writing a guest post today, as my dear wife felt I'd be more informative on this entries' subject matter.  As you may have heard already, we ended up switching jobs and are now back in Utah.  My new place of employment is in exotic Mona, Utah, where the defining features of the town are the factory where I work and the rope swing at the pond down the road.  As luring as these attractions are and despite Annie's efforts to persuade me to live in the rural outskirts of society, I finally convinced her to reside in the more populous town of Spanish Fork.  We are currently waiting for our house to close (and wouldn't mind waiting a bit longer since our intermittent residence is equipped with an indoor pool) and should be moving in during the first part of March.

But on to the reason for these big life changes.  Those who know me know my passion for the outdoors, hunting and shooting.  For those that don't, let me enlighten you.  While some youngsters made paper link chains to count down the days until Christmas, my boyhood friends and I employed that same technique for the opening day of the deer hunt.  The snipping of each link was accompanied by endless debates about who was the better shot, who had the best gun, and why so and so's caliber was better than what's-his-face's.  As a boy, I never got into trouble with girls, drugs, or bad crowds, but constantly made my family and church leaders laugh for getting grounded because I sneaked out to go fishing in the middle of the night, or was caught bbq'ing the neighborhood squirrels and birds that had fallen victim to my 760 Pump Master BB gun.  Aside from my friends, there was also a pull from within the walls of my own home.  I would wait up every night on the deer hunt until my brothers and uncle returned, to see their harvest.  My brothers enjoyed having a younger sibling with such fascination, for it gave them lots of leeway when they lowered me into the chest cavity of a hung deer by my ankles, or persuaded me to eat raw deer liver, because to a certain extent, that little boy in me loved it.  After preparing the fruits of the hunt, family dinners as a child bring a flash of memories of the epic struggle between my young jaws and the tough sinew in that game meat I was raised on.  At times I felt it would be easier to eat my way through the radial tire swing in the back yard, but it was what I was raised on and had learned to love.

As life progressed and I got into BYU, I maintained my manly mania by going on as many weekend hunting, shooting, fishing and backpacking trips as I could.  As I studied Engineering, my interest for the physics of bullet flight and mechanics of guns grew deeper, and I eventually found myself renting out DAQ's and thermocouples to attach to my rifles at the range for heat transfer projects.  While limited in what I could bring to school grounds, I took every opportunity I could to incorporate some part of my hobby in my school work.

As my graduation date closed in, I accepted a position with the railroad up in Oregon.  I was able to learn a lot about trains, but was away from home a lot.  I was working holidays, weekends, and was gone for long periods of time, enough so that it was taking it's toll on my family.

One evening, as I was checking the Barnes Bullets site to see how I could spend some money on products that I would never have the time to use on my current work schedule, I noticed they had an opening in their R&D department.  My shakey hands started to click the links, as I was experiencing something relative to buck fever (the adrenal craze that overtakes hunter upon seeing that "big one," with the mysterious side effect of causing accuracy malfunctions in equipment).I realized that there would probably be a very high amount of applicants for this position, so was trying not to get my hopes up.  I couldn't help but wonder "What if?"  I decided to go ahead and at least send in the application for the position.  14 hrs later I was contacted, and the rest was kind of history.  I am now working at Barnes Bullets and couldn't be happier. I have a great boss and great work schedule, and get to participate in the design and testing of new products in a field I love and have been passionate about my entire life.

I feel incredibly blessed.  I am one of the few individuals that gets to do my hobby and passion for my profession.  More importantly, I have time with my family.  The one thing I learned in this job switch is what mattered most to me.  I had a job with the railroad that would've been highly lucrative had I stuck with it, but I would've missed out on a lot of the little things that matter most.  While I do have an obsession with my current field, my family is what I am most passionate about, and couldn't be happier to have a job that allows me to do what I love and be with whom I love.

Hermiston, we love you!

We have been in Hermiston for 8 months now, and have gone through a lot of stages here.  

Here I came pregnant, and we were immediately received by a warm welcome and help moving us in. 

Here we gained a family with the Puzeys - thank you for adopting us into your family! We love you!! 

Here I made some amazing lifelong friends. I love you, thank you for being so welcoming! 

Here we had our sweet sweet baby girl.  Joanne has blessed our lives beyond belief.  For this alone, I will treasure my time in Hermiston.  

Here, we accepted our first job and learned SO much. 

Hermiston, we love you! And we will miss you. For we have accepted another - a better - job offer! But you will always be in our hearts! Our friends that we have made - we won't forget you! thank you for being so wonderful! 


Friday, February 14, 2014

Christmas in Hermiston

Christmas was wonderful! Lance was actually home the WHOLE day, so we were able to spend the day as a family, and it was wonderful!
We spent the night with the Puzeys, and it was so fun! We had dinner, opened Christmas crackers in honor of my time in England - given me by my parents (thanks mom and papa!), and relaxed. It was a great time!


Joanne sucking on Sophie the Giraffe (Thank you Holland for this stellar toy!) while relaxing in the morning. 

Jody and Lance Cuddling at the Puzeys. 


It's so fun to see everything from her perspective! 



I love our little family! 


Joanne's first Christmas!


Cairo and Holland - Jake and Jen Puzeys kiddos! I love these kids! 


With our cracker crowns and prizes!


Relaxing post dinner. Lance and Julie.  Goodness, do I LOVE Julie! She's the best pseudo-mom I could have had while in Hermiston!


Dallin and Jake


Kim with his crown and very glamorous watch that came from the Christmas cracker.


Overall, an amazing Christmas! We love being in Hermiston, largely to the fact that we have such wonderful people that have really become our family! Thank you Puzeys for inviting us to join your Christmas!

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Another Dad post

Lance likes guns. Did you know? "Likes" doesn't really describe it...it's more like he LOVES guns. He is obsessed with every part of them, and every part of bullets.  It is his hobby, and he loves it! He sometimes tries to get me to love them like he does, but I don't have the same relationship with them. 

Here he has both of his loves. He is trying to get Jody into it too. 



And then they play!





Let's be honest. She is THE CUTEST baby in the world!

bathtime!

Bath-time is my favorite time of the day! Joanne loves the water so much, and the bath is her favorite! She splashes and plays, and it gets her tired out for bed! 

We took a few pictures of this party that aren't very exposed, don't worry! 



There is nothing better than this. I LOVE being her mom!

Monday, February 10, 2014

Grandma Shelley Came to visit!

At the end of the week spent with my mom and Lucy working on our advent calendar, Lance got back from his business trip, and we picked his mom up from the airport! She came for a  long weekend with us.   It was Great!  So fun to have Grandma at the house and for her to see where we live and spend time with Joanne.

On our way back to Hermiston we stopped by lots of really beautiful sites for mom to see. Don't judge the pictures of me in my pajamas and slippers. I forgot to bring shoes to Lucy's house and also forgot that we were going to hike a little of Multnomah falls! Oh dear, the looks people gave me!









This is the big sturgeon named Herman at the fish hatchery. 


I love this picture! Shelley made Joanne that sweet blanket!




I love that smile!


We had such a great time with Grandma Shelley here!!