Changes

So I haven't posted for awhile, because, honestly, I've only had one thing on my mind, and everything else paled in comparison when I thought about posting. I know many of you know by now, but Josh and I have some big changes that are happening in our lives. In April, we made a snap decision and bought a house. Honestly, Josh and I have talked about buying a house since the day we got married, but were never sure if it was the right time, or where would be the best place for us to buy. The last 2 weeks of April, because the tax credit was running out, Josh decided that now is the right time. I have been the one pestering him to buy a house for 4 years, and when he finally committed, I started freaking out. (Of course, that's how it goes, right?) I'm still getting used to the idea of staying in Cache Valley, and right now, I think both Josh and I are just dreading all the work ahead of us, but I do think it is the best idea for us right now.

This is the front room.

Kitchen

and more kitchen.

Family room.

Master bedroom.

Second bedroom. :)

And mine and Josh's full time job for the summer. The yard is pretty big, and has a quite a bit of work required. I've promised Josh that I will help if he will help paint. And I promised I would mow the lawn if he doesn't spend all of our money on a riding lawn mower.

So that is actually just one of the big changes that is happening, but the one I really care about is...The new addition to our family! For my birthday this year, Josh got me an ultrasound to hear my baby's heart beat. (And so far, this baby is only the second most expensive birthday present Josh has gotten me, because 4 years ago, he proposed on my birthday. Like I said, so far... We've only made a "down payment" on the baby-so I know that record is not going to last long.) According to the ultrasound, we are due on Halloween, and so far, all of our appointments have been very routine, and everything seems normal. (Which I know, is amazing, Josh and I are normal!) So far, I have had a very "No Complaints" pregnancy because I really haven't been very sick. I've just been very tired, and hungry all the time-which is not that different for me. Right now, I'm about 16 weeks along, and we'll find out in June what we are having. So I'll keep you posted!!!

Success after 3 years!

Yes, we are alive and I think about posting every once in awhile, but I talk myself out of whatever I was going to post because nothing is happening in our lives that I think anyone else would really care about. So I know that our lives aren't super exciting, but I want to point out that the last line of my last post said, "I hope I post again before Christmas!" Well, I didn't quite make it. So... Josh and I enjoyed Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. My goal this year was to take pictures of some of those events, and you can tell how well that worked out by the fact that I didn't post about any of them.

This year, Josh and I have enjoyed going to the Utah State football and basketball games. We got a really good deal on season tickets, and I'm finally accepting the fact that I am not a student anymore, and have been out of school for almost a year longer than I was ever in school, (which was a hard realization for me to come too.) and therefore, we don't get to sit in the student section anymore. But this year has made me realize that I can enjoy basketball games even when I'm not in the student section.

Josh and I finally succeeded at Valentine's Day after 3 years of practice. I've kind of struggled with Valentine's Day for the last little while, because I think that it causes more fights, than makes you think about how much you love each other. Most years, I tell Josh that we don't have to do anything big, and he takes that literally, and so I end up mad when we are either watching sports with his brother, or he tries to take me to Angie's for dinner. But I think Josh and I are getting better at this marriage thing, because we talked openly about what we wanted to do for Valentine's Day (instead of me dropping vague hints, and waiting for an amazing surprise that never happened.) The only thing that didn't go so well about the day is that we tried to get breakfast at McDonald's at 10:30 and 5 seconds, and they refused. (See, McDonald's breakfast is a tradition of ours dating back to Josh's family bringing it to the temple on our wedding day. We have pictures of walking out of the temple doors, and then both of us eating an egg McMuffin.) After the McDonald's disappointment, we went snowboarding, ate dinner at Iron Gate Grill (one of my favorites in Logan) and then went to see the movie Valentine's Day. And we made it through an entire Valentine's Day without any screaming, fighting, or not speaking to each other. YEA!

Catch Up

I'm finally posting, honestly, because I've been threatened by more than one person about the things they will do to me, if I didn't update my blog. And, yes, I did think it was pretty sad that the last noteworthy thing that happened in our lives was in July. So just to prove to everyone who was doubting, Josh and I are still super cool people, who have very exciting lives. (Not really, but whatever.) First of all, at the end of July, Josh realized that because of his 1988 Jeep we could probably qualify for the Cash for Clunkers program- and boy was that drama for about a week straight! We weren't really looking for a new car, and we weren't very excited about a new car payment, but honestly, Josh had been thinking about selling his car for $300. So why not get $4500 instead? So one thing led to another and we decided to trade in my car :( and the Jeep and get a new car. I know I've already posted about my car and it's getting to be kind of sickening, but I just have to say, that when we had finally decided to trade it in, it was really hard for me. I had that car for eight years of my life! 1/3 of my entire life was spent in that car!!! I've known that car for longer than I've known Josh! We had been through a lot together, so before we traded it in, I drove it as much as I could, (whereas before that I had always tried to pawn it off on Josh, because I wanted to drive the Jeep instead.) So, anyway, it is what it is, and since then the only hard day was the day that I saw someone else test driving it. So here are some pictures of the only car that I will ever officially be able to call "my car." Isn't she beautiful?And just as an interesting side note, these are some of the things that I found in the console along with the license plate that I will forever treasure. The items are... my tassle from HIGH SCHOOL graduation, the warranty for Josh's wedding ring, my earrings that I had seriously been looking for for about 6 months, and the receipt for our wedding invitations. (And that is proof that the entire cost for our wedding invitations was $280.76! Man, I am frugal!)And this is our new car. We got an' 09 Hyundai Elantra. I know that so many of you are thinking that you can not tell the difference between the two cars. Yes, again Josh and I are very boring. We traded in a red jeep for a red jeep, and now we traded in a manual four door black car, for another manual four door black car. and yes, it is starting to grow on me. I'm sure we'll have great times together as well.

Now, on to a new topic!
We had our Lewis family reunion at the end of July. These are my two nieces Chloe and Audrey. Isn't this such a cute picture?The family played baseball. Here's Josh swingin'. Perfect form!
And Chloe not only got the ball, but the tee as well.Chloe just looks as ready as ever on third base, using her mitt to hide, and wearing her yellow flower shirt, pigtails and flip flops.Up to bat next...Audrey... and her mom.... Again, perfect form!
Ah... everyone is so enthusiastic, this must be a really close game!And Audrey is done. We did other things at the family reunion, but these are the only things I have pictures of.

Next subject...
My niece Gretchen was blessed the beginning of September or maybe August (sorry Emily) And I just love this picture. She slept like this for a very long time. She looks like Superman.

In September, we went camping with my mom, dad, my sister Bethany, her husband Ryan, and their daughter Audrey. The next day, I went on a hike with my parents. This hike is actually super cool even though the pictures don't really do it justice. The hike is in Little Cottonwood canyon and it's called Donut Falls.

You can see why it's called Donut Falls-the water has made a hole through the rock, and it's cool because you can climb behind the water falls.Here's mom and dad at the falls.

After the hike, Josh and I played dodgeball with...

THE UTAH JAZZ!!!

So Josh had a friend who put a team together for a charity dodgeball tournament that Kyle Korver and Deron Williams organized. I said that I would play if I had to, but I would rather not, and at the last minute, they called and said that they needed me-so I stepped up!!! Ha Ha! Really, I went straight from camping, so I was so embarrassed that people probably thought I was homeless, and in the 6 games total that we played, I got ONE person out. I always just tried to stay away from the ball, and eventually I would be the last person out. But the problem was that then the entire other team of eight people would throw the ball at me AT THE SAME TIME!!!- How embarrassing. I was really glad that Josh did it though, because he really likes the Jazz, and it was cool, because at first everyone was asking for the players autographs, but by the end of the day, everyone had been around them for so long, that everyone could treat them like normal people. Our team, overall didn't do so hot. Next year, we'll have to schedule practices.

So that's us for the last three months. Hopefully I'll blog again before Christmas!

Gone Cruisin'

Josh and I have been married for three years! In celebration of that, and just because we needed a break, we went on a cruise for the last week. We had lots of fun, but it was a perfect vacation, because by the time it was over, we were ready to come home instead of longing for more. (Not ready to go back to work, because I don't think we ever would be, but at least ready to be in Utah, with our own food, with our own bed, with our own TV, and WITHOUT people trying to sell us (basically) crap everywhere we went. We went on a 7 day, Royal Caribbean cruise that left from LA, then went to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. As is always the case with me, these pictures are in no particular order, because I don't care enough to make them that way.

This is the stage where most of the shows were held. And here is exhibit A: this show was the farewell the last night of the cruise. We also saw illusionists who had insane tricks, a juggler, two comedians, an ice skating show, a tribute to the Temptations, and the cruise variety shows. I thought they were all entertaining.

This is the deck, I don't know who needed that explanation but there you go.

This is Josh in our room. I actually thought our room was kind of fun, because it overlooked the promenade on the fifth floor. So we didn't have an ocean view, but a mall view-I guess you could say.

Josh took this picture of me in our room, from the promenade.

Another shot of the deck. I thought our ship was pretty nice, and it actually had enough pools that we could swim sometimes, unlike our last cruise!

They also had a rock climbing wall. You can tell that it isn't too difficult, but I couldn't even make it to the top! I guess I was just exhausted from the 20 lbs. of extra food I ate over the week!

Josh FLEW to the top. I barely had enough time to take pictures of him.

And if this isn't the most flattering picture, I don't know what is.

For anyone who's been on a cruise, you know that they make animals out of the towels everyday. This was my favorite-the monkey!

In Puerto Vallarta, we took a hike to this waterfall. It was actually in a town called Yelapa, and it was absolutely beautiful!!!!! So here's a picture of Josh freezing his buns (he's the one standing on the rock in the back in the green swimsuit.)

See, B-E-A-utiful!

And I am the one who appears to be blind in this picture

This is the small fishing village, Yelapa. The town has about 1,200 people, and just got electricity about 4 years ago. It was quite an experience to go there, and see how different people live.

Man, I picked some real keeper pictures of me, eh? We went snorkeling in a place near Puerto Vallarta called Majahuita. This was definitely the most interesting part of the trip, and the story we will probably tell for years. See, we all jumped in the water to go snorkeling, and I have really dry skin, so the salt usually stings a little. When I got in the water, I felt little sharp stings every few seconds. I pulled my head out and asked Josh if he felt it too, and he said yes. Then we heard screams from several people in our group. Josh and I tried to rough it for about fifteen minutes, and finally decided that the few fish we were seeing just wasn't worth it. We got in a kayak, and asked people what the stinging was. Apparently there are microscopic jellyfish in that part of the water, that our tour guides were fully aware of, and just tried to find places that weren't so bad. When we got out of the water, we all had little red dots all over our skin. I like snorkeling, but not when it comes at that expense.

And... blackmail for Josh.

This is the actual city of Puerto Vallarta.

In Mazatlan, there was a resort that let us use their pool, towels etc.

If Josh had his choice, this is what he would have been doing 90% of the time...Sleeping

Ah... Beautiful sunsets.

This is the beach in Mazatlan. The beach there was so nice. The sand was soft, and really looked golden everywhere, the water was perfect.

This is the view of the promenade from our room.

Josh in Cabo

This is our ship "The Mariner of the Seas"

Shopping plaza in Cabo.

The city of Cabo behind us.

And, a picture of Josh and I (again, probably no need for explanation). Like I said, we had a lot of fun. We were able to relax a lot, eat good food, see so much beautiful scenery, but it's good to be home.