3 years.....

Well, Steve and I have now been married for 3 years.... July 20th was our anniversary. In some ways it seems weird that we've already been married for three years... but in other ways, it seems like we've always been married!!!

A lot has happened in the past three years....

In three years we have:

~Lived in 4 different places.

~Gained two brothers in law, one sister in law, 3 neices and 1 nephew

~Lost 15 pounds (at one point or another in past couple years we have each been close to 15 pounds lighter than we were before we got married. Both unintentionally. We've both been working on gaining some back...)

~Been pregnant three times.

~Started a photography business.

~Visited Nauvoo, Illinois....California...... Steve went to Texas, Michigan, and West Virginia.... I went to Switzerland ....and Rome!

~I got braces on (which I get off in a week and a half... YAY!)

~Lost one loved one

~Started getting gray hairs (me...not Steve)

~Steve got into MEDICAL SCHOOL!

~Moved to Ohio : )

It is crazy to think of all the things we have been through together in these three years. It hasn't always been an easy road...but we are happy and doing well. We have been blessed in so many ways. I am so grateful to have such a loving, understanding, hard working, motivated, spiritual, wonderful husband! And I look forward to our upcoming years and whatever our future might hold.

Okay, enough suspense

I know you are all dying to find out where it is I will be wearing that snazzy uniform-- navy blue shirt and khakis. Okay, so you probably don't really care. But, here you are, back on my blog, so I am going to tell you.

I can't believe nobody guessed that I am going back to North Layton Junior High! I mean come on.... the braces.... the khakis and blue polo (part of the dress code/uniform at the junior high I went to). Don't I look like a junior high student?

Okay, so really this is my outfit for my new job. I got hired this past week at..........

No, not Walmart (although at the Walmart I have been to here in Toledo... they all dress in khakis and navy blue shirts)......

No, not a grocery store (sorry for those of you who were so confident in that guess)........

I will be working at Shoe Carnival.

(this isn't a picture of the exact store I work at... it didn't just open...)

That's right folks.... Shoe Carnival. That has got to be one of the stupidest names I have ever heard of for a shoe store.... I guess I should be glad that all they make us wear is khakis and a blue shirt.... there are much worse things I can imagine being forced to wear at a store with the word "carnival" in it's name.....

Anyway, this was not my first choice of places to work.... but, you take what you can get, right? Especially when there are thousands of dollars dependant upon whether or not you have a full time job within the next week or two! At the University of Toledo, if the student's spouse is employed full time in the state of Ohio by the time tuition is due, you are eligible to pay IN STATE TUITION. So, by me getting this full time job, we could be saving somewhere between 20 and 30,000 dollars (or so I've been told). So, a little full time job working a cash register at a shoe store is good enough! We looked tons of different places for people hiring. Plenty of places were hiring, but this was the first place we could find that was actually hiring for full time positions. I am actually glad I got this job, because if I didn't find something soon, I was going to have to resort to working telemarketing. And, for anyone who doesn't already know.... I HATE telemarketing.... I have a hard time even talking on the phone to people I KNOW and to people who WANT to talk to me.... Telemarketing is just not the job for me.

Anyway, that is my new job. As my younger brother put it.... "......that's different from photography...." Yeah, definitely nothing close to what I've been spending the past few years of my life doing.... but, it's all for a good cause and I'm glad I was blessed to find this full time job.

Oh, and for the record.... I think I really could pass as a junior high student.... one of my coworkers said to me yesterday, "So, have you graduated from high school yet? Where do you go?" I had to laugh to myself as I informed her that I had indeed graduated.... 6 years ago : )

Sights and Sounds of Toledo

On July 8th we experienced our first Ohio thunderstorm. (I know it has been a while since then, but I forgot I had gotten this video). People had warned us about how abruptly the rain will just start pouring..... but you never quite grasp the extent of it until you witness it yourself. We were out searching for a job for me and heard a severe thunderstorm warning issued on the radio. As we pulled into the parking lot at one location, the sky looked gray but, no rain yet. After being in the store for a few minutes, I looked out the windows and noticed that it was pouring sheets and sheets of rain. And the wind was blowing the rain nearly sideways at times. It was crazy.... I guess at one point the warning had turned into a tornado warning. We never actually heard that, but we watched in amazement from the shelter of Bed Bath and Beyond. You don't quite grasp the intensity of the scene from this video..... but, here is a glimpse none-the-less. Keep in mind this was in the late afternoon, not in the evening...

One of my favorite sights in Toledo are the fireflies!!! Oh my gosh, I have been excited about these from the moment I heard we were moving here! I have always LOVED fireflies. But, I haven't really been around them since I was about 8. I always dreamed of the day I would have them in my surroundings once again. It is so awesome to be walking through a bunch of trees and see all these little glowing lights flickering on and off and flying around. It seriously makes me feel like I am in Neverland and in a forest surrounded by fairies....... I think they really are fairies..... but everyone tells me they are just bugs.

Speaking of bugs.... as you watch that video I am sure you noticed that loud sound. That is the sound of bugs up in the trees. And boy are they loud!!!! We can hear them from inside our house. I think they are insects called cicadas.

To be honest, I've never actually SEEN the bug making the sound..... but I know they are up there!

Here is some more footage I tried to get of the fireflies. You can't see them too well on the video, but you can hear some birds. The birds are another neat sound out here. There are some awesome sounding birds. I'll have to capture some more of their unique songs some time.

Another incredible sight we saw this week was the amazing Toledo monkeys!!! Okay, so that was at the zoo, but still... those were some awesome monkeys!

Turns out Monday mornings you can get into the zoo for free if you are a resident of Lucas county (which we are). And we happen to live about a mile from the zoo. So, on Monday, we decided to head to the zoo! It was nice because we didn't feel like we HAD to stay the whole day and see everything because we got in free and we can come back any other Monday to see the rest. So, we met our new friends the Sacks there (hope you don't mind if we call you our friends... we like to think we have friends already......makes us feel better....). They have a cute little boy named Cohen. It is always more fun to go places like that with a little kid. So, thanks Justin and Julie for letting us enjoy the day with you guys and Cohen since we don't have a kid of our own!

(Oh, and I stole this picture off your blog Julie... hope you don't mind.....)

Okay, one more sight that has been glorious to behold in the past couple days......

I just don't know how I'd live without one of those out here in Toledo!.....no.... not Steve.... it's in the background........an air conditioner! Oh yeah, and Steve too : ) Thanks for installing the air conditioner in the window, Steve! I'm glad I have you in Toledo, too!

Where am I heading in this uniform?

So, this is what I am going to be wearing a lot for the next while

Take your guess of where I will be going in this "stylish" uniform.

A. To work at Walmart

B. Back to North Layton Junior High

C. To the Shoe Carnival

D. To work at the Grocery Store

Come on now, leave a comment and give it your best guess.... I'll give you the answer later....don't you just love suspense....

What is that.....???

We were stopped at a stop light yesterday and Steve says "What is that???" At first I had no idea what he was talking about. My attention was finally drawn to an animal grazing in the grass off to the side of the road. Now, out west I've seen cats, dogs, deer, foxes, racoons and the like...but this animal was not anything I had ever seen just wandering town. And the question remains...... "What was that......????" My first reaction was that it looked like a beaver without the big flat tail. Steve pointed out that it looked somewhat like a prairie dog, but it was much too big and fat. After doing a little research online, I have one guess of what it probably was.....a groundhog/woodchuck. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera handy enough to take a picture of the animal we saw. But, this is a picture of a groundhog I found online and I'm pretty sure that is the same animal we saw. What a funny animal....

Getting Settled

Well, the truck came a week ago and dropped off the trailer with our stuff in it. Big ol' truck.... but don't worry, it wasn't full with our stuff!! We only used 7 feet of the 28 foot trailer. That's what we liked about this company-- you only pay for how ever much space you use, then they fill up the rest with freight or something and drive it across the country for you!

Anyway, that day was the first day of real humidity since we had gotten here and we definitely felt it as we went back and forth from the muggy trailer, through the muggy air, and into our muggy, unairconditioned house! (We are looking into getting a window unit air conditioner right now). Thanks to some nice men from our ward (thanks Justin and Jon!) we had everything into the house in just under 2 hours.

It was nice to finally have something to sit on! We gladly welcomed the first chair in the house.

Then of course came the "fun" part.... unpacking and finding a place for everything! The funny thing is, for the first time in our married life, the trouble hasn't been finding enough room to put our stuff.... but rather, deciding how to use up all the room we have! Right now we definitely have more room than we really need, but we didn't want to have to move again before our 4 years are up here in Toledo. So, we have room to spare for now with hopes that our little family will grow and we'll fill it up eventually.

Anyway, we decided to paint a couple walls in the living room (and when I say "we" I mean "I" decided). I knew I wanted to do this before we even came. Because, I had seen the pictures of the living room in the upstairs unit and loved their red walls! (that was the picture I originally posted on here when showing where I was going to live). So, Jake and Jenny (our upstairs neighbors.... whom we actually haven't even met in person yet because they went to Utah to visit on the same day we left Utah to come here!) were kind enough to let me use their left over red paint to paint my walls! Before the walls were yellow.... I left the others yellow for now and I'm trying to decide whether to keep them or paint them a different color. But, one step at a time.

For now, I've at least got my red walls : )

Check it out...

I am starting a new blog dedicated to..... FOOD!

I decided I love food and I love cooking, but sometimes cooking fun meals isn't quite as fulfilling when there aren't more people around to enjoy it. So, since I live far from family and old friends, this is my way of sharing my culinary world with you. I will be posting recipes on there for you to try out for yourself. I'll also be giving random information about other foods I try or hear about.... I am excited. I hope you are too : )

Click here to visit my food blog.

There's not much on it yet... but just you wait..... it will be delicious in time....

ROAD TRIP ACROSS THE USA!

View Larger Map

Well, we set off Monday afternoon on a trek across the United States. Okay, so not ALL THE WAY across.... but pretty far. By the time we made it to our final destination, we had been in 7 different states. Thats right folks. The total driving time was supposed to be about 24 hours. Since we didn't have to drive a big ol' U-Haul around, we decided we'd take our time and spread the driving out over a few days. It was actually a fun little road trip.

On Monday, June 30th, we loaded up our car with our most valuable belongings, a week's worth of clothing, and the newest member of our family.

Oh... you don't know about our new family member? Well, it all happened so fast and we weren't really expecting it to happen when it did. I mean, I've always wished I could have one of my own and seen how much happier life is for people who are blessed with them. But, I never imagined that someone would give her to me... and just the day before we moved! She was great the whole trip. Got us little lost a few times with her chattering. But, for the most part, she was like a little guardian angel, helping us along our whole trip! Her name is Beula. Not my favorite name in the world, but that is what her original family named her and I'm not going to change it now. Too much confusion. She is almost 2 years old. She speaks English with a British accent but can actually speak about 10 different languages!

We love the newest memeber of our family and can't imagine how we would have made it out here without her!


Beula , the GPS

DAY 1:

Estimated miles driven: 650
Estimated hours spent in the car: 9


Good Bye to Utah Mountains!

(And good riddance to Utah road construction)

Wyoming= Winding roads, windmills, wonderous clouds, and the Wild West! (a couple of those pictures were actually taken the previous week on a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming with my family!)

Nebraska= Endless fields, smelled like "crop," Old Pony Express, stopping for gas again?, interesting incounter with a semi-truck (notice the picture), and the first night's stay-- North Platte. (by the way, that semi-truck that appears to be coming towards us was actually being towed away by another semi, driving away from us.... looks a bit alarming though, wouldn't you say?)

DAY 2:

Estimated miles driven: 525

Estimated hours spent in car: 8

Continued the stretch across Nebraska..... (nothing too exciting... more of the same smelly fields) and then...........

So, you heard about all the flooding in Iowa a few weeks ago, right? Well, we had made our Motel 6 reservation back before the flooding occured. When I heard about the flooding, I thought, hmmm... wonder if we'll be driving through that area. I watched the news with people standing in water up to their waist in Iowa City and Coralville.... and where do you suppose our Motel 6 happened to be? Iowa City/Coralville! Of course. Well, we assumed if there was any problem they would call and let us know. So, on that second night as we pulled into Iowa City to sleep for the night, things looked fine. Some sand bags along the high river. Not much sign yet of the flood damage yet. We kept driving, getting closer to our Motel. 1 mile to go, and still no big signs of damage that had been done. then, suddenly, when Beula told us we were .6 miles to our destination, we smell this awful smell of destruction, mold, rotting.... shops are closed, sandbags are still in place. The water was pretty much gone, but here we were right in the center of the previous weeks' destruction. Of course, we were suddenly nervous as we drove by all this.... sure that the Motel would either be closed from flood disaster or would be open but reek of mold and stuff!!! luckily, we went up hill a bit before reaching the Motel which was still there, open, and smelled just fine (you know, as good as a Motel 6 can smell). There were several people checking in to the motel that were there as volunteers to help clean up the flood damage. I thought that was neat. Anyway, that was our biggest adventure in Iowa!

Iowa= beautiful rolling fields of corn, flood disaster aftermath, second night's sleep, corn, colorful sunset, and more corn. Did I mention there were corn fields in Iowa?

DAY 3:

Estimated miles driven: 250

Estimated hours spent in the car: 4 1/2

We decided to keep day 3 a short day of driving because we wanted to stop and do some sight seeing in at least one fun place along the way. So, we drove about 3 1/2 hours from Iowa City to our hotel just outside of Chicago, Illinois.

We stayed at a pretty nice hotel that night. It is a branch off the Hyatt hotels called Hyatt Place. We liked this view of the hotel with the Jared Jewelers in front....for some reason it reminded us of Steve's best friend....... (Jared Hiatt...)

Anyway, after dropping our stuff off at the hotel we headed into Chicago! Neither of us had ever been there before. And we decided this was definitely the biggest city either of us can remember ever walking the streets of! It got a little confusing, and Beula couldn't pick up satelite reception amidst all the tall skyscrapers, but it was definitely an adventure!

DAY 4:

Estimate miles driven: 263

Estimated hours spent in the car: 6 (it should have only been about 4 1/2, but due to some confusion and then a huge traffic jam leaving Chicago... I'd say another 1 1/2 to 2 hours were proabably tacked on).

We spent most of day 4 in Chicago as well. There was plenty to see,do, and eat.... and we had a great time!

Illinois= CHICAGO! our first taste of Chicago dogs, view from the top of the Sears Tower, eating at one of the restaurants in Greek Town, an amazing aquarium, Chicago dog number two, Chicago Pizza, Lake Michigan, lots of WIND (hence my hair flying everywhere in several pictures...), the planetarium, and tall skyscrapers!

We left a little later than we had initially planned on.... then we hit traffic on our way out of Chicago (I think there was construction or something). But, finally we made it onto the toll roads....

.....across the state of Indiana.......

......and rolled into Toledo, Ohio at about 3 a.m. eastern time! Luckily, it only felt like 1 a.m. to us, but still.....

We are now at our new home where we will live for the next 4 years!

Our truck with all of our stuff on it won't be delivered until Monday, so we've been sleeping on an airmattress and fighting over the one "chair" in the house.

(Just kidding.... about fighting over the "chair". Not kidding about it being the only chair in the house right now though. hehe.) We actually had people we had been planning on staying with for at least that first night. But, we didn't think we should disturb them at 3 a.m. But thank you Jon and Keriann and all the others in Toledo who offered us a place to stay. I just hate feeling like I am just in people's way. but, we appreciate it.

We did go to a barbeque with a few families in the ward out here on the 4th of July, then watched some fireworks. We got to meet nice people and see a little of Toledo.We are excited to get to know people better and are already starting to feel at home... now if only we can get all our stuff moved in! Tomorrow should be fun!