Picture a Christmas...

...In the basement.

That's right. This is our second Christmas since we've been married. It's also our second Christmas in the basement. Despite what you may think I'm actually very grateful for this cozy little place we've had to call our home and that the Johnson's are gracious enough to lend it to us. Especially considering they remodeled the brand new basement complete with fireplace and giant flat screen just in time for us to invade. Plus, all I have to do at Christmas time is pull out my little alpine trees and voila!

Christmas was great. Our families are so good to us. All we wanted was stuff for our home and we were taken care of. Add to that the fact that this little guy came to stay with us Christmas Eve and I'd say we had the perfect Christmas.

There was so much snow Christmas day that we actually went sledding that night. Lucky for us my parents live just up the street from a terrific sledding hill. I haven't been sledding in years, I felt like I was 12 again. I even had the guts to try the hill Jeremy created that looked somewhat like this.

Only with a sledder instead. I'm not even kidding. I caught some good air. Since then I've been dying to go snowboarding. Jeremy and I have never gone together and last year I even got a snowboard, boots, and bindings. It pays to have a little brother that outgrows his gear fast and just happened to purchase his gear when he was your size. Those are the best kind of hand-me-downs. Thanks Bry, you're my favorite brother!

Our new addition

I'll give you some hints:

It's new.

It's made of wood. (So far.)

It's in West Layton near a blue port-a-potty

There are gargoyles nearby.

You guessed it! We're building our home. We started 5 weeks ago actually. That's right. We finally got the go-ahead from the city. We are so thankful that we found this builder. He has been amazing. We have no complaints. And thank heaven for the weather. It has been perfect. We really feel like Heavenly Father has been watching over us throughout this whole process and helped us find the right guy for the job. Here's a quick rundown of our new place.

Week 1.














Week 2.














Week 3.














Week 4.


















Week 5.













And in case you were wondering, the gargoyles next door.

Thanksgiving

Just leave it to me to post about something two weeks after it happened. Thanksgiving was wonderful this year. We slept over at my parent’s house the night before so that I could help with the cooking the next morning. I love making Thanksgiving Dinner! Unfortunately I was too hungry I forgot to take pictures of the spread before it was destroyed. It was delicious though. Thanks mom and dad! It was just my family and Grandma Raine at my mom's. We celebrated with Jeremy’s family the Sunday before Thanksgiving. So, since I missed Thanksgiving, here are a few things I am thankful for…

My sweet husband and best friend.
Family.
Friends.
Lucky. My parent’s dog.
My job.
Jer’s job.
Our sunbeams.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Our corner of the basement.
The chance we have to build a home.
Prayer.
The Book of Mormon.
My space heater at work.
Cheap gas.
The Temple.
Warm weather.
Freedom.
My education.
Christmas lights.
Faithful bloggers that entertain me.
Reduced fat Wheat Thins.
Crafty people.
My future puppy. Hopefully.
Cookie dough.
Maverick Cocoa.
Christmas music.
Black Friday deals.
50¢ bread from Great Harvest.
Slippers.
Our General Contractor.

A Revelation...

So, after meeting with my new visiting teacher the other day, I have decided I have a problem. She wanted to get to know me, so she was asking what hobbies I have. I went blank.

Hobbies? Am I supposed to have hobbies?

I told her I like to make treats. Oh no, that wasn’t good enough. What do I do with my spare time?

Spare time? I do have spare time now. I’m just not used to having spare time because of school. But for the first time in my life, I’m not in school. What do I do with my spare time? I’ve been out of school for 7 months now. Umm… I like to make treats.

Next question. As she sees Jeremy walking by in the kitchen she asks if she’s interrupting dinner. No, no. I don’t make dinner. By the time I get home from work I’m too exhausted to make dinner so we eat a lot of grilled cheeses. She just looks at me with a blank face.

Moving on. Do I collect anything? I sure don’t. I’m grasping at straws for a good answer at this point. All I can find is this: that I don’t have a home of my own and so I don’t have a lot of stuff. Brilliant.

I can only hope that this encounter was less awkward for her than it was for me. And let's all pray that I can find some hobbies.

Be Smarter Than The Car

I have never really been in a wreck. But my car has. I'd say it was about three years ago...

I drove my trusty little manual Jetta home from school, pulled on the parking brake and went inside. I put down all my school stuff, looked through the mail and started getting something to eat. By this point it had been about 15 minutes since I got home when I heard a sound almost like one knock on the door. Luckily I went to the door and looked out the window, because my car was not there. My car had rolled down the driveway and into my parent's brick mailbox, making the mailbox fall over and crumble. It is a good thing the mailbox was there; otherwise I never would have heard anything and my car probably would have made it to the highway. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture because I was absolutely humiliated and thought no one would know if I pulled my car back in fast enough. But lucky for me, the neighbor told us a few days later that they had seen my car leaning up against the mailbox. This is how I learned to put my car into first gear when I park.

So yesterday morning I was running late for work as usual. I ran outside and my car was frozen. I can't wait to have a garage! So, I jumped in the car, pulled it out of gear and turned it on to warm it up. Jeremy was the last one to drive so I could barely reach the clutch. I grabbed my fancy little ice scraper Jeremy got me last year (he's so thoughtful) and started chiseling. The last window to scrape was the passenger side windshield. I started scraping and noticed my car moving. Before I knew it, my car was backing into the street. So there I was, in heels, running around the back of my car that is about to run into me. Luckily no one was in the street and I don't think anyone saw. When I finally got in the car I noticed that Jeremy doesn't use the parking brake, he only puts it in gear. The moral of this story is: When parking a car with a stick, always use the parking brake and put it in gear.

A Belated Halloween

I love this time of year. I love that me and Jeremy were both born during this time of year. I love the crispness in the air and the smell. I love wearing sweaters and coats. I love the leaves. I love the rain. I love it when it snows for the first time. I love sitting by the fireplace. I love cocoa. And I love Halloween. This year was so much fun. Jeremy and I don't have much to do on Halloween - no kids, most of our friends are out of town. But we had fun hanging out with our families. We both took the day off. Jer went fishing and I got to hang out and cook with my mom. When it was time for trick-or-treating we went back to Johnson's house. All of our nieces and nephews were there. May I just say that we have the cutest niece in the world, I love them all, but just look at her!

We also got to see four of our five sunbeams. They are the cutest little things in the world. I call them my babies. Their parents don’t know that. They would probably be scared. But I can’t help myself, they’re so adorable. We had a pirate, a power ranger, a fairy princess, a witch, and the little girl we didn’t get to see was a skunk. How cute is that? By the time 5:00 rolled around I was glued to the front window just waiting for my babies to come. It was one of my favorite Halloweens so far. I can’t imagine having my own kids. That will be fun.

After we had seen most of the neighbor kids we went back to my folk’s house for homemade chili, breadsticks, cinnamon twists and a movie. After this holiday I have decided that two things must go:

1. Skankalicious Halloween costumes. Particularly married women who choose this holiday as an excuse to dress rather inappropriately. Is that really necessary? I sure don’t think so.

2. Me and Jeremy not dressing up. We have never dressed up for Halloween together. This definitely must go.

3. A certain red-head who makes me afraid to take a day off. And who makes me afraid to come back to work after I have taken a day off. Even when it’s a holiday that my employer gives my for my birthday, that must be taken in the month of my birthday, and after I hadn’t taken a lunch twice during the week trying to get my stuff done. And who tells me I can’t take off the day after Christmas. And who then adds three days to his holiday vacation.

And two things that must stay:

1. Parents who legitimately dress up to take their kids out. I saw more parents dressed up this year than ever before.

2. TV Williams. He is a friend of my Grandpa Bruce. His wife died the same year that Grandpa died. He lives by my parents and dresses up every year to go trick-or-treating. This year he brought cookies with him to hand out. He’s adorable.

The house that Jack built.

Or Mike or Debbie or Ryan.

Once upon a time…

Jeremy and I found a little piece of dirt in West Layton.


The market was going nuts and lots in the area were selling like hotcakes. So Jeremy and I decided we better buy before all the dirt in the world was taken. We made a brilliant plan to pay down the dirt a little bit and save while we lived with Jeremy’s folks for about a year. Then we’d have tons of money saved and we’d do a lot of work ourselves and we’d end up with a brand new home with a ton of equity. Perfect…

So we buy the dirt and the next day the sky falls and the market crumbles.

We patiently wait and save, all while living with the in-laws. We even try selling the expensive dirt, which now isn’t worth what we paid for it, to no avail.

Days pass… fall turns to winter… winter to spring… summer comes and we graduate. It is time to start the building process.

Lucky us, a general contractor, Mike, owes Jeremy’s dad. He’ll build it and give us a deal! We find a house plan, customize it a little, and pay for it. All of this is done while living with the in-laws. We save and save. We decide to go through the bank I work at in an effort to save on closing costs, plus, because I’m an employee it should go super smoothly. So, we start the process in the middle of July. Days become weeks. A few angry phone calls later and it is now September. The loan has made it to underwriting.

One Saturday we get a message from our builder. He’s up and moved his family to Idaho where he took a job with a contractor. No worries – he’s willing to help us out for maybe an hour on Saturday’s. Um… I don’t think so. Instead we’ll do it ourselves.

That week we finally find out about enormous extra costs that are associated with this type of loan. They add up to about 10% of the loan balance. We need that up front in cash along with the closing costs. What the heck! Sure we’ve been saving this whole time but we’ve also paid down the dumb dirt and paid for school. We start to realize this was a bad idea. Stupid dirt. If only we would have known and we could have just saved for a year instead of spending a fortune on the dumb dirt that now we don’t even want to build on because it’s going to cost us so much money, not to mention the time and ulcer I will inevitably develop if I have not already.

So, we take everyone’s advice and begin looking for an existing home. They’re supposed to be cheap right now, right? No, no they’re not. Not in our price range. Not in the area we would like to live. That market is still stable. However, in this process we find a builder who can actually build it cheaper and faster than the original guy. Perfect! Shewas a ridiculously insane woman, Debbie, who only builds one house plan over and over again. We go through the steps to get things ready to go with her. We are about to sign the contract when lo and behold we find another contractor, Ryan, who is sane. Needless to say we chose the normal builder. Right now we’re just waiting for the approval from the city to go ahead. Wish us luck!

Meet the Johnson's

So, for all of you who don't know us that well, allow me to introduce ourselves.

Meet Jeremy.

The fisher, hunter, outdoorsman who sometimes prefers to spend his quality time with a big fish than with his wife. The following picture is from one of his recent fishing trips to Flaming Gorge. Jeremy caught this huge fish. His guide said it probably weighed over 20 pounds. This is not a fish story.

Meet Heather.

The baker, treat-maker and eater, wannabe owner of a little cafe like the one pictured here. Somehow I ended up as an accountant cooped up in an office all day. A girl can dream.

We met in our third year of college in a macroeconomics class... very romantic. We were best friends for a year and got engaged a year later.

We got married March 10, 2007. After about a month of living in a nasty apartment we decided we wanted to build our own home. So here we are one and a half years later living in Jeremy's parent's basement waiting for a home. That's a story for another day.

In the meantime we both continued going to school and were able to graduate together with our Master's degrees this May.

Right now we're both working our little hearts out while we wait to get into a home.

We're Bloggers!

Well, here's to all of you faithful bloggers out there. I have been so inspired by your blogs that I have decided to start one for ourselves. Happy reading...