MERRY MARINERS CHRISTMAS

So for Christmas I tried the impossible... to be a good wife. Brent and I had agreed no presents and I pretty much broke that agreement almost as soon as it was made. My parents got Brent a wii and I thought I would try to out do them with four tickets and a $20 gift card to a Mariners game. We all went to the Mariners game last year and had a great time. So I thought we would try it again.

This is the beautiful Safeco Field. It is in a beautiful part of town and the night life was very enchanting. I loved it!

Here is everyone we dragged along! Brent, Mom, Dad, Melanie and Sean. We all were present last year at the game where we ROASTED!!! It was so hot and unbearable! Luckily this year was an evening game... and therefore FREEZING!

Brent and I were finally able to just relax!! I bought Brent a Mariners Jersey (easily his most expensive piece of clothing) last year but it was so cold we both had to cuddle up in jackets (Brent is wearing his mom's jacket... He is 26 and his mom still looks out for him!!!)

It was pretty cold so during the 6th inning Brent really wanted ice cream but everyone else thought Hot Chocolate was more in order... boy were we right!

Sean and Melanie ended up buying a Mariners Fleece Blanket to stay warm. I think the Neon Pink and Seattle Blue really go well together. Up in the stand we saw two more blankets like this... Held by 6 14-16 year old girls in the shortest shorts I had ever seen... I am super glad I am not them!

Some of you know that I am personally NOT a huge baseball Fan, so you maybe wondering how I could possibly get through a whole game There are two ways...

First, Thank you to all my friends who texted me endlessly during the game. It was a lot easier to make it through a game when your mind is a million different places.

Second... I went walking a lot. Whenever someone needed water, a fork, napkins or anything else in the world I was off. I enjoyed walking around the stadium and taking pictures of the views! It is because of these two coping techniques that when I did watch the game I really really enjoyed it!
This was amazing! The view of the harbor and boats and city skyline was gorgeous. Really made me finally feel like I was home back in the northwest! Can you believe I was actually homesick for Utah this week?!?!

Like I said we did get a $20.00 gift card to the stadium when I bought the tickets so Brent and I ate stadium food and didn't even car how much we paid. We had garlic fries and hot dogs for dinner and then later we moved on to some healthier choices...
NACHO'S to share and another HOT DOG for Brent. It was really fun not having to worry about spending more money once we were already on vacations! (Don't you love the hair?!?! I wish I could get the windblown look everyday :)

Overall it was a really fun game to go to. The cold weather was something we decided bundling up could easily fix.

It was a really fun game. Brent and I had a great time! With moving, and starting new jobs, and packing and everything else this was a great time for us to reconnect and just have an amazing time being together! I love Brent and because of that I can officially say I am a true blue Mariner!

P.S. Mariners lost 8-0 next year we are going to an easy game, bundled up for an evening game! Yeah for thrid chances!

Family Pictures

The weekend that we all came home to see Blair at his farewell Maren, the studious sister she is, made sure that we got family pictures. I do not know what it is about family pictures but it is so entirely stressful. We wanted to be matching but not to matching and we didn't want to look to stupid either. There was a lot riding on these photo's considering we have two of the cutest additions to the family.

Here is our family picture!

Let me walk you through the family. At the top we have Mom and Dad. They have been married for 30 years and have produced the worlds greatest kids. You are welcome Mom and Dad it isn't always easy to make you look so good!!

On the left is Toren (the oldest child) and his wife Audrey. Audrey is so amazing to have around. Usually people assume Toren is the in law and Audrey and I are the ones related! Audrey is pregnant with their first and is due May 22nd. Then you will have some of the cutest pictures of my nephew in the world!

On the right we have Maren (The Oldest Sister)and her husband Blake. They have two beautiful Boys. Blake is holding Brody and they are currently living in Pullman Washington. I do not see my nephews often enough. I love Brody's look, he is so calm and cute but totally acting crazy!

Below Maren is Blair (He is just younger than me). He is currently on his Mission in Tallahassee Florida and I couldn't be more proud!

Below Audrey is Kalen. She is the baby of the family. She is currently a sophomore and is on the School Drill team.

Finally, US! I saved the best for last. I love this picture because Braden is so so so adorable and he is sitting right next to me!. It isn't often I feel intimidated by someone else but Braden really made me feel like I had to bring my A game to the picture. Hopefully I was able to live up to Braden's cutest! The way he is was smiling at the camera lady was so precious! You just knew he loved her! So there is the Quick version of my family. We aren't to complicated... yet!

Then we got two pictures of ourselves. We haven't had any since our engagement and were hoping they didn't turn out to engagementish... what do you think?

This is a really good picture of the both of us.

It was really stressful but the pictures turned out very nice and thankfully Maren had coupons ready to save us a lot of money! Tell me what you think of the pictures!

Baptism on the Farm

I have been a very bad blogger. Our lives have been in transit for the last month. We have been packing and moving and throwing things away all during that time but it is driving me crazy, luckily now we are done with that. I had my last day at work at Enterprise was on Wednesday. It was pretty bitter sweet. Everyone was getting along and I had figured out Paul (car prep) and I are pretty much best friends, so it was sad to leave my friends. I don't know why I couldn't leave during one of the weeks that I was miserable. It is probably better leaving when you are happy. Wednesday night I drove straight from work (after some sad good-bye's) to Boise to meet up with Brent and Family. We spent Thursday and Friday just relaxing and I did a lot of gym time, which was a ton of fun. Today we headed up to Weiser to hang out with the Kenley family (Christi, Mike, Tyler, Josh, Huntley, William and Micheal). They live on an amazing farm and it was a special day for William who was getting baptized.

Brent gave a wonderful inpromtu talk that was really good but seemed a little disappointed in himself.

Here is us with the Baptism day boy! He looked a little scared until Brent picked him up then he seemed to relax.

Here are the Three girls. Grandma, Me and Tyler (the secret favorite grand daughter!) She is wonderful and one of the best parts of seeing all the family together. (I am not just saying this since she is reading over my shoulder either!)

After the Baptism, we got to go home. Lately I have really wanted a farm and so these lambs are really really fun! They are pretty fun but I kept holding my hand out and they kept trying to find something in it to eat!

They also have Polish Chickens who will have little feathers Afro's coming out when they grow up!

This is a beautiful place and it is always a little sad leaving it. So I wanted a picture with us and the view... Had to make sure Brent looked pretty first!Aren't we so cute (the dress was only 8.99 at Savers!!! THANKS FOR THE GOOD FIND ERICA)

I had a great time nwinding this weekend. I am really anxious since my life feels so uncertrain right now but I am sure it will pass and I will feel more comfortable with life, but for now I will continue.

Follow Through

Sometimes I feel like I have zero follow through. That I say I am going to do something and then forget or get side tracked or just change my mind. Well here is one story about when I followed through.

I am currently working at enterprise, and it is going.... well it is going. One of the down sides is I feel a little trap to their standards which makes me feel I have no time to be myself (a little crazy, a little spontaneous, and a little more fun) Well I have been missing that side of myself and so I had decided a while ago (FEBRUARY) that I wanted a part of that back and was going to dye some of my hair purple. Well NO ONE liked that idea. Brent had a point when he reminded me that enterprise would not enjoy the color change and so I didn't but I SWORE I WAS GOING TO THE FIRST CHANCE I GOT...

Now I am two weeks away from leaving Provo for about 8 months. I am leaving Enterprise, and becoming a Camp Director and then moving to Europe. I knew if there was ever going to be a chance where I could get away with some funky hair this was it. So last night I made good on my promise to dye my hair.

WARNING: MY FACE IS REALLY SHINNY THANKS TO THE FLASH ON MY CAMERA BUT I SWEAR I AM NOT OILY OR THAT BLOTCHY IT IS JUST THE FLASH!

Here is a before shot. My hair was curled yesterday.
(The shirt I am wearing was an XXL that I got from a job interview I went to in which they gave me a shirt, a hat, a $25 gift card to Chili's even after I turned them down! Great company!)

What an innocent little chunk of hair!

After: See you can barely even tell!

Oh wait... now you can!

This was what my hair looked like when I went to church today. I received a lot of compliments from people. Everyone said it was really fun or kept there mouths shut.

I am pretty happy with the results. It isn't a drastic change, it isn't a big deal but Doing something a little crazy and outside the lines feels really good. I am not exactly sure what they are going to do at work tomorrow. I am working on figuring our how to braid it and pin it underneath all my other hair so I can at least keep my job for another two weeks until I FINALLY GET TO QUIT. What do you think about it? Go ahead and vote on my poll!

Conference Breakfast

So conference breakfast has been a tradition since before Brent and I were married and this year was even more special because it is our last one... for a while! Since we are moving to Budapest and the Gwynn's are moving back to the south we had to make this one count... and we did!

Sam is our assigned Omelet maker and Brent made homemade hash browns, which turned out to be delicious!

Warren kept himself busy making the bacon and sausage! Don't you love his amazing pose?

Terri Anne and Aarynn stayed busy with packets Sam made for us. We had to do all sorts of activities like color the ties of the speakers, word searchers, and other activities which would keep kids focused on conference! It was a winner for sure!

What about me? Well I stayed busy enough! Chloe needed someone to play with her and translate the talks into baby talk!

Another very successful Conference, although I didn't prepare myself like in times before and so I really feel like I could have got more out of conference this time... Luckily there is always the next conference to make it up!

Waters and Gwynn's we will miss you next October and promise to feast in your honor!

Caliah's First Bath

Look at our innocent Caliah-bear! She is just sitting by the door thinking she is going to go out for one last play before she has to come in and go to bed... little did she know that soon we were going to be getting her ready for her first bath!

Now we aren't terrible parents. We Love her but when Spencer commented on how bad she smelled we knew it was time to give her a bath. I was in charge of hosing her down, Brent held her (and got super clawed in the process, Spencer was in charge of the Shampoo application (suave kind) and Erica was on Camera duty!
Caliah was not happy, she freaked out really bad until Brent told me the water was burning so I turned on the cold and then she just started meowing SUPER SUPER LOUD, kept clawing but seemed a little more calm. Doesn't this picture break your heart?


A nice post-bath family picture

Caliah was so calm after. She just stayed wrapped in her towel and cuddled with me. We probably stayed together for a good ten minutes with her just letting me hold her.

All in all the bath lasted about one minutes and Caliah wasn't a huge fan, but if you saw the dirt that came off of her you would say it was worth it too! It should have probably lasted a little longer. I think baths will become a monthly family activity!

Our First Home

Brent and I are soon going to be moving away from Utah for 8 months. We usually leave for four months during the summer and keep our apartment and then move back when school starts up again. Since we are going to be gone for so long, we are actually giving up our apartment for good. We spent the first three years of our married life here together so it is going to be a bitter sweet good bye. Here is what our first apartment looked like so that we can always remember how we use to live!

First, how we found this apartment. I will admit I am very very thrifty... okay cheap. So before we got married I was looking online at the Brigham Young University housing website. There were terrible apartments for $400 dollars. They were small, dark, infested. One was so small you could sit you use the bathroom and the sink would be over your lap! Well I found this apartment listed for $425. As soon as we walked in I knew this is somewhere we could live! This was at the beginning of July. So I went to talk about and see if we could reserve the apartment in August. Well our landlord is 90 something and cheaper than me so she said NO and she has some "Mexican girl" who wanted it right away.

Well I picked up that the landlord really prefered to rent to us but was willing to play hard ball, so I used it. I said "Listen, I know you want us here. We are going to treat this like a home, not some party house. So we will take it this month if you could drop the rent $25 dollars a month." She was hesitant but finally agreed. Brent was able to sell his contract and moved in three days later. He also slept on the floor because we didn't get a bed until mid august anyway! She had no idea that we would stay for nearly three years losing her almost $1000 in rent! I didn't enjoy using her prejudice to help me

This is the taken from the front door.

Taken from the far window. Notice the big grate... that was our heater that we didn't mind. It was great when you were cold. Stand over it and be warm in 30 seconds!

Bedroom from the living room door. The hanging dog was my Valentines Day present, and I am not really sure how he got all the way up there!

This is from the far corner, my side of the bed! We had an entire wall of shelving and were SO SO grateful for it! By the way I made all the curtains and window treatments myself!

Our bed. Brent's Mom made the Comforter which we love. It is starting to look really worn, so now we have to try and convince her to make us a new one!

Back in the family room leading into the worlds shortest Hallway.

In the Hallway if you take and immediate right you will end up here. The Bathroom! Probably the worst places in our entire apartment, but something that we lived through because of cheap rent!

From the closed door at the far side!

What is through that door? Our Laundry room, which has the most junk in the whole place! That is why there is only one picture. Notice how the dryer isn't shut. It is because Brent broke it after he tried to climb in it while he was sick and on medication. That was a game of Hide-and- go seek that I will never forget. He didn't realize it was broken until he felt better the next morning.

From the Hallway into the Kitchen! Nothing to special. I got the white shelf for free from someone who was moving and the table was a gift from Maren. I make the wall Sconces too!

This is from the Back door perspective. I like that the cabinets are all country themed with white cabinets and green trim, and the floor is straight from the 1970's. I am not sure who decorated this apartment but it really adds to the overall chaos of the apartment! That Portable dishwasher was one of my single greatest purchases in history. The dishwasher is probably also from the 1970's and it took over two hours to run but it was the BEST $150 I have ever spent... thus far.

This is from the right side of the Dishwasher. Ever summer when we come home, before we can set her food out Caliah will run right next to the oven and meow... Notice her food. She is one odd cat because she ALWAYS wants someone to watch her eat. It starts out funny and gets annoying really quick!

This is from the left side of the dishwasher. This actually a pretty decent amount of cabinet space and a ton of shelving.

I always expected to live in a "dump" when I first got married and I think my expectations were pretty right on. Despite that fact this apartment made a pretty good home for Brent and I to spend the first three years of our lives together. This place was a hole, but it was a great find and keeping it for so long has permanently ingrained it in our minds and hearts! We consider ourselves pretty darn luckily for stumbling upon this humble abode at the right time.