Sunday, August 31, 2008

51 years...and counting!

Today my parents celebrate their 51st wedding anniversary!

51 years, 8 kids, 6 1/2 years spent pregnant, 17 grandkids, 4 grandchildren's spouses, 4 great-grankids, 3 family homes, hundreds of little league games, piano recitals & soccer games, over 40 years of producing the Family Nativity Pageant, hundreds of stitches, lots of ER visits and a few broken bones, dozens of amazing vacations both with the kids and without, 5 years of living and serving in the Philippines, too many BYU games to count, and thousands upon thousands of hours of service to their family, the Lord and their community all because these

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amazing people fell in love!

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad!

I love you more than words can adequately express! Thanks for being such great examples to me! I'm so proud of your 51 years and even more proud to be part of the posterity you've created! I hope the next forever is as great as the first 51 years!

Friday, August 29, 2008

quite possibly my favorite weekend of the whole year...

THIS...


PLUS THIS...




with all of my favorite people! Gotta love it!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

A place to call home...

I know that it may have appeared that I have dropped off the face of the planet, but alas...I am alive. These last few weeks have found us packing, scrambling to make things livable in our new home, moving, unpacking, not having internet, TV or even for a period...running water! But we have officially moved into our "project". It isn't even close to being as far along as we had hoped before moving in, but we are stoked to be out of the condo although there are things that I'm really going to miss...like the most amazing sunsets and one of the best views in all of Salt Lake.

The view from our condo.


It's a nice trade off however to have a little more elbow room and a real place to call home! :)

As is typical on most home remodeling shows that I watch...we are totally over budget and WAY behind schedule...but we are very happy with how things are coming together.

Although we still have much to do to truly make it home...here's a few pictures that show some of the progress...

The original living room...


And now...



The lovely formal dining room (or video game room?)



and now...

The room that I will always affectionately call the "purple room"...


no longer purple...



The fireplace in the huge master bedroom...

updated a little...


I cannot believe that I can't find any true "before" pictures of the "Pink Bathroom"

(it was complete with pink tile up the walls, a pink shower, a pink toilet and pink sinks to compliment the pink floral wall paper)


Although not complete...here's how it is starting to come together...



And of course...the original kitchen!


Completely gutted...



...And you'll have to stick around for the "after" unveiling...COMING SOON!

(atleast I hope it's soon)


After spending all of last weekend moving and trying to get as settled as possible...look what we found above our house to greet us as if to say...


"WELCOME HOME...You're going to love it here!"