Another Invitation

Hopefully one day I'll get to the point when it's not huge news that I actually found someone who'd pay me to design a wedding invitation... But as for now, it's pretty exciting stuff for me! This is the first invitation I've done for a PAYING customer. Pretty exciting if you ask me.



It was fun to go to the printer today to check the proof before they printed. It was the first time I've gone to a printer without getting butterflies in my stomach! I'm always so afraid I'll say something stupid and they'll catch on to the fact that I just graduated and have no idea what I'm doing.

However, this time made me feel pretty good! The printer I went to specializes in designing and printing wedding invitations. The designer there looked at my work and said- Wow! Paisleys! Where did you find paisleys? She told me how a girl had come in wanting paisleys for her invitation but they had to do something else for her because they couldn't do them. She asked where I 'found them' assuming I'd purchased some clip art. When I told her I'd drawn them myself she was thoroughly impressed- it made me feel pretty good about myself for the afternoon!

Weekend in Idaho

Doug and I went up to Idaho Falls for the long weekend. It was so nice to have nothing to do for three whole days!
This is the view from their front door. I mean, how could this NOT be relaxing?
Doug's brother Carl who lives up in the Idaho Falls house just bought a Nintendo Wii. We had a blast with it. I even have to admit waking up sore from playing so much the first day... Before this, knowing a 'video game' of any sort was present just meant there would be no sign of any of my brothers for days at a time. Not saying the Wii didn't have this affect... but it really was amazing to see what a wide variety of people could enjoy playing together.
We spent an evening 'bowling' with Doug's parents, Aunt, Uncle and Grandma

Families

My Aunt Janet is one of the most spiritual people I know. Among many of the amazing things she does is help her grandchildren recognize the blessings of the Gospel in our lives through writing books with them. Janet writes real stories that happened to their own family and she has the kids help her illustrate them. Janet gave me one of these books as a graduation gift- it truly was inspiring and really cute to look at the pictures. I got to the last story and realized it was all about me! I was so surprised! It really made me realize what an amazing family I have. I am so grateful for their faith and for how much effort they have put into staying so close even though we live so far apart.

Here is my story!

Omelet Face!!!

A good friend of mine, Kristi McMurtrey, is currently serving as a missionary in Japan. I love getting letters from her! Mostly because I love reading her letters, but I also very much enjoy the amazing Japanese stationary she finds. This is one is my personal favorite of all she's sent me- this is the back of the envelope.

Miracles

When Jessica and I started dating, Jessica had just returned from her mission to Argentina. She had to come home early because she had gotten a really nasty virus. So nasty in fact that she was really sick for over a year and then pretty sick for another year after that. This last year we have seen great improvements in her health. We reached a great milestone this evening when we went JOGGING together for the very first time.


Now I am certainly not saying we are ready for a marathon or anything, but we are certainly happy with what we have accomplished. We really feel so blessed that Heavenly Father has allowed Jessica's health to improve so much lately.




Here is a map of the route we took: as you can see we went a total of 4145 feet. We walked most of it but ran for the entire stretch of Alaska Ave... a whopping One Thousand and Forty Feet!!!!!! We are pretty proud!

Not Made for the Rain

It seems like every time I get sick of house hunting, something comes along to remind me how nice it will be to get our of our current apartment. I don't mean to be a complainer, but I do want to remember all of the adventures this apartment has given us.

We had an idea that our complex would give us a few problems when we moved in. Our place is set on the bottom of a hill, creating a 45 degree angled drive out of the parking lot. I remember thinking- lots of people live on the side of mountains. I'm sure there's just some secret I don't know about. For those of your who've never lived on the side of a mountain- I was wrong!

We got a clue of how ill designed our parkinglot/driveway was when it started raining last fall. Here's a picture taken in about December of last year. You'll see that I'm standing in the middle of our parking lot with water up well past my ankles. And if you think it goes away as soon as the rain stops, think again! We were stuck parking up on the street for days after any rain.


Then the snow came. I made the mistake of leaving my car in the parking lot during one snowfall. There was no way my car was getting up the icy incline that was our driveway and I was stuck taking the bus until it thawed. After that I never made the mistake of parking anywhere but the street when there was any sign of snow. It wasn't too bad, though I did often think it'd be safer to just keep a sled up on the top of our driveway and ride down every time rather than try to walk through the ice.

The snow went away and we've spent a few months without any surprises- until yesterday.

Here's a picture of our current apartment complex- our apartment is on the bottom left. You'll notice we have to go down some stairs to get to our semi-basement apartment. Well yesterday I found out that with some heavy rain those stairs become a pretty amazing waterfall- gushing water onto our porch. Unfortunately I didn't have time to enjoy this new bit of landscaping provided to us by Nature. As soon as I saw the waterfall, I noticed that our porch was rapidly filling with water. It was so deep and came so fast that I was certain in only a few minutes it would be high enough to start seeping into our apartment.

Being the only one home in the complex, I ran around in the pouring rain trying to find something to block the water from pouring down our stairs. I must have looked pretty funny to our neighbors! I was eventually able to use two big garbage cans and a plastic bag full of potting soil to stop the flooding. Not quite sandbags, but it was all I could find close by on short notice!

As they say-third time's a charm- and after this adventure I'm official really excited to move.

More Cousin Design

I've been doing some freelance design since graduation. My favorite jobs are ones for family- I already know them and their personalities and so it's a lot easier to figure out how to design for them. I recently finished some things for my cousin Laura. She graduated in fashion design and so has sewing and pattern making skills that we should all be envious of! She's making a website to start selling her creations. She sent me some pictures of her work and they're amazing! I'm so excited to see her site when it's complete!

Here's a few ideas I made up for her. The first two are tag designs (she'll print them up onto tags to put in her finished products) The last one is a web banner for the top of her site.

The House Hunt Continues!

Jessica and I have come a long way. I would say that our house hunt began about 6 months ago when I randomly looked at a homes for sale website and realized that buying a place to live would cost about as much as renting one. I looked at the price of condos and townhomes and got really excited when I realized that for not much more than we were paying in rent right now, we could have a nice condo like this one:


I continued searching online on my lunchbreaks and got really excited about the idea. I was getting pretty set on the idea of a condo until I spoke with my sister and brother-in-law and other "grownups". I learned about how condos don't hold their value as well, are harder to sell, and so on. . .they suggested a house. They also planted the seed of the "duplex" idea in our heads. We weren't too sure of it at first (although I did like the idea of being called "landlord" and having nearly ultimate power over tenants lives. . .can you tell I've been renting for too long. . .)

I crunched some numbers and started looking at what was available online. . .the numbers started to add up. . .("In exchange for sharing a wall with some people and taking their money every month they are going to pay how much of our mortgage?!??!") Soon Jessica was on-board the duplex train too.

And now the search is on. We have looked at a few possible winners, and a bunch of losers, and as an added bonus got to tour a demolition derby graveyard/duplex. . .

We also have found some really good ones! We might be making a move soon. We are thinking of maybe something that needs a little fixing up. I must admit, taking a distressed property and fixing it up into something really nice sounds very rewarding and fun. However, if a duplex comes along which is immaculate, extremely low priced, in a good neighborhood, and rented by ultra-rich obsessive compulsive clean freak nuns. . .we would probably take that too.

This is one of our possibilities. . .although I don't think it is rented by nuns:

Icecream Sodas

When Doug and I first moved into our apartment in South Provo we had a lot of fun getting to know our new neighborhood. We live just a few blocks from downtown Springville- a very small city whose 'downtown' is full of cute little family run shops. One caught our attention right away- an old drugstore complete with a soda fountain. Unfortunately, as typical of most of the little shops in Springville, this drugstore is only open until 2pm on Saturdays.

For months we've been meaning to go, but would remember only after it had closed. Yesterday we finally made it. It was a lot of fun. I'm no expert but it seemed like everything, stools, menu items and wall hangings had been around since soda fountains were a typical find in drugstores.

We enjoyed a good old fashioned chocolate malt and a grasshopper ice cream soda. The soda was a new thing for me- it consisted of mint chocolate chip ice cream mixed into a glass of unflavored soda water. Kind of a creamy minty soda. Not bad- but we decided the world of milkshakes has come a long way.

I need a cookie

Last summer we went to my parents house in Ohio. My brother Nathan was there with his adorable 3 year old daughter Ella. We all got in their van to go somewhere. The car ride started to get a little long for a three year old and Ella started getting cranky. Nathan did the best he could but after a while told her she'd just have to wait till we got out of the car to get what she wanted. She sat back in her car seat and sulked for a minute. Then, loud and clear in the cutest, saddest little voice she said-

...I need a cookie.....

It was so cute that Doug, my dad and I all burst into laughter that was quickly silenced by Nathan, who I'm sure didn't want to have to hear that line a million times after she found out it was funny.

Ever since then, the phrase 'I need a cookie' has become a big part of our vocabulary. Whenever one of us has something we don't want to do or has had a bad day we make a sad, pathetic face and quote our amazing niece.