Slide The City 2016

So...if you've never heard of Slide The City, it's basically a two block water slide where you can bring a tube and pay a registration fee and slide down it. I've heard about it before, but completely forgot to ever look it up. While we were down in St. George we happened to stumble upon the one that was down there and we both thought it looked like a lot of fun. We got back to find another one would be in Salt Lake the following weekend, but registration seemed steep. I found out there was one at the end of July in Provo and early registration for three slides, a tub, and a bag of goodies wasn't too expensive so I immediately signed us up!

Being able to slide the city after a week long of moving and cleaning was just what we needed, unfortunately it was probably the most disorganized things we've experienced since getting Larry out of the military. I'm a big stickler about starting things on time, but this place obviously didn't consider the set up schedule at all. We parked in front of this house and the guy who lived there mentioned he thought it was odd they didn't start setting up at 3 AM like they normally do...so that was dead giveaway it was going to take a while since we go there at 8:30 and they hadn't even started.

Luckily we still got to go pick up our stuff and had plenty of time to inflate our tubes and get some snow cones while we waited. The most annoying part is they had "road closed" signed where the slide was supposed to be, but people kept driving past them. This security guy started to get so irritated he was yelling at a couple of the drivers and found some cones to drag over to stop people...he made me laugh! Finally around noon the slide was set up and we got to get in line.

We were supposed to have carpet cleaners come at 2:30 but since we didn't start the slide till 12 I decided to cancel that and have them come the next weekend. I didn't want to stress out and end up rushing the slide instead of having fun. We went down once and had a lot of fun. I told Larry I paid for three slides so we should at least get 2 out of it (the line was really long and we debated if we wanted to stay in it or not). We went down a second time and had even more fun.

By this point the line had shortened drastically and we already were there and soaking so we decided to go down a third time. It was so worth it to stay! I mean setup sucked and starting 3 hours late was irritating, but the slide is a lot of fun, so how can you be mad at that point?

After we finished up we dried off and drove back home. We noticed crazy gray clouds started showing up so we seemed to get done just in time. Once we got home rain came down so hard! It was so nice being home and just listening to the rain come down, our first storm in the new house (I'll try and limit "first in the new house" to only real things)

I'm hoping to get my video editing software up and going and I can create a good slide show to add here with the pics and videos from the slide. I got some good ones, I think. Happy Weekend!

First Week Down!

And hopefully many more to come, right? This past week has been so fun! Well, not the last two days, but before that. It's gone too quickly though :(

We were able to get most things unpacked and set up Sunday. Larry was cleaning out his computer on the back deck that night and I realized it's really fun to just sit and watch the sun set and talk back there, it's great. We also go to watch some awesome fireworks from our dining room.

Monday I spent at the zoo with the Wilson clan. They are here all week so we're trying to keep time open to see them as much as we can. It's hard, though, when we're busy getting the house set up, but I promised I'd give them Monday for the zoo at least. We went back to the house (where I found out we got cable hooked up finally!) and they all also got to check it out and let us know how much they love it too :)

Tuesday morning I realized we get a morning bunny visitor...he's brown with a white fluffy tail and I hope he stays a visitor forever! He's so cute! We also got our awesome movie shelves set up and our movies organized and put in. They all fit perfect and I'm so excited to have them out in the open again!

Wednesday we spent unpacking and cleaning and what not, but we also went to Ikea with the Wilson's, where I finally got the picture set I've been dying to get for forever!! We hung out at Becky's for a little bit, since this is all their last day before heading down to Marysvale for the reunion, where I got to cuddle with baby Rachel, who just warms my heart! I'm glad she seems to like me now.

Thursday and today have been cleaning the condo and touching up paint non stop! We're supposed to have carpet cleaners come out on Saturday so we wanted to get walls scrubbed, counters cleaned off, and floors swept, mopped, and vacuumed. We got about 6 rooms closets, and the hallway done Thursday and then the last two rooms done today. I'm so ready to sell this place already! I hope it goes quickly. I'm in so much pain from scrubbing walls, I hope this is our only manual labor we have to do for a while.

We also had our first real, home cooked meal tonight. Larry made steaks with potatoes and corn and it was delicious! It's nice finally cooking again! Also, we don't have Internet hooked up till next week so we basically walk around the new house and watch movies all day haha. (all posts were written beforehand and posted later)

Oh yeah and the kitties officially love the house! They were nervous the first couple of days (Baby Girl also meowed like crazy each morning once the sun came up...so that was fun). But now they love exploring and they are all way more playful and loving. I'm so happy they all like it...I even got our traditional "staring out the sliding door in wonder" picture:

You'll see the original in the linked post at the very end haha.

That's our first week here. As much as I love the house, I'm ready to be back at work and talking with the girls there again! Hopefully I still remember what I'm doing there ;)

A Very Honest, Sad Post

Today is a day I thought would be the hardest to get through. I expected to not want to get out of bed. I told Larry I needed him to take me somewhere fun, where I could only smile, to avoid thinking any sad thoughts. I am not sure if I'll regret this post and take it down later, but for now it'll stay because I can't ignore it.

Today was my baby's due date. A date I thought would take forever to get here. A day I anxiously awaited from the moment I found out I was pregnant. Unfortunately, it's a day I don't get to celebrate because I lost my baby on Christmas Eve. It was the most heartbreaking thing to go through, I will never forget the pain, the tears, and pretending to be happy while I opened gifts the next day. Thinking about it now still breaks my heart.

I've read a lot lately how miscarriages are very taboo and how they shouldn't be. For me, it's easier to just not talk about it, to not remember the worst day I've ever had. To know it happened on my favorite holiday makes it 10x harder, I feel. You see, on my birthday we had seen our sweet baby. We went to Fetal Fotos so that I could hear the heartbeat. We didn't, but they told us it was because we were measuring earlier than we thought and I was okay with that as long as I got to see it (we didn't get an ultrasound at our first doctor appointment so I was desperate to see real proof). They gave us a disk and pictures and sent us on our way. I remember being so excited, talking to Larry about names and plans on when we could tell people. I had told a couple friends and my parents (of course), but we were trying to keep it to ourselves for a bit longer, until we were out of the scary first trimester. I had no idea I only had week left to enjoy those talks and feelings. I'll spare you the details of the day it happened.

The hardest part, in my opinion, is never feeling normal again. When people around me were pregnant it was the hardest to be 100% happy for them and not think "why can't I experience that?" "Why did I have to lose my baby?" I went each month thinking "I'd be XX months right now and feeling this way" or "I'd have my shower about this time, if I was still pregnant". I drove home from work crying many times. Gosh it is heart shattering just reliving it. When people tell you they are sorry, how do you respond? You can't say "It's okay" because it's not. It's never going to be okay again. I'm never going to feel normal again, because I should feel like a mom, but instead I feel like a failure.

I was afraid as this day approached I'd be thinking I should be holding a baby in my arms, not feeling my semi-flat stomach knowing nothing was there anymore and who knows if it would be ever again. I was afraid I'd cry all day long and not think about anything else. I was afraid to go onto social media and see someone else's baby and picture my own little human and how obsessed I'd be.

But you know what? I'm okay. Not 100% normal (as I'll never be, I know that for sure), but about 98% I think. The thing is, up to this day I knew what I'd be feeling, I knew what would be happening each week/month as it passed along. But after today anything is possible. I have no clue what it would be like with a new baby in the house so it's hard to imagine how I'd feel and what would be happening. It's almost like a fresh start again...and it's the biggest relief I could ask for.

I know what you are thinking...will we be trying for another baby? And that's a hard thing to answer. Anytime I think about trying again I remember the pain and heartache and think it's just not worth the gamble again. But then I read stories about other miscarriages and people getting pregnant afterwards and how they are so happy and I think "I could try again, we can't be scared forever." For right now we are content with our lives as they are. We are in no rush to have another baby. In fact, if we don't have one we know we will be completely happy. If we end up having one I'm sure we'll be happy with that too. For now, I'm just focusing on my relationship and my cats, because they are a constant, happy thing in my life and that's all I can focus on.

Thank you for reading this so far, it's been a hard thing to keep locked up. But it's out now and I can move on with my life again...for the most part. I'll always have that little being that almost was in my heart.

We're Home (Again)!

So we're in our new home. We actually got all moved in 3 hours ahead of schedule today. The worst part was getting the fridge out of the condo (turns out even taking the door off the frame still didn't help it fit through and we didn't have to tools to make it fit...so that took some maneuvering with the help of a neighbor's tools). We had a bunch of family members help out and they were all awesome (minus the occasional complaints here and there). Around 1 ish we knew we were in so I went to pick up pizzas and my grandma brought over Cindy's girls so they could all check it out. Everyone seemed to love it and we only had a few dings on the walls from moving stuff in. I cannot wait to make this place our own already! I can't wait to set up the rooms.

The poor kitties hated the moving part (we brought them over first thing this morning and locked them in our bathroom). As you can see in the picture above, they look sad, but I think they'll be happy soon enough. They are too busy exploring it all right now, amazed at all there is to see.

Having everyone finally see the finished product was such a great feeling! I love showing this place off and I see inviting lots of people over in the future...would really love to sell the condo before we do that though. Cindy's girls didn't want to leave and I told them if we had a guest bed already I'd let them sleep over in a heartbeat! I really can't wait to have our first guests...once that room is set up. But right now that's a long ways off, our own room isn't even set up yet. Speaking of...I should probably go help Larry with that now.

I'll update later on the week we're taking off, until then Happy Saturday everyone! And a HUGE thank you to everyone who helped us move today! We literally couldn't have done it without you all!

P.S. our new shower has the best water pressure ever! And it's SO big! I love this house!!!!

Once again, if you don't hear from us in a while...

...We're moving, again!!! We officially signed our closing papers this afternoon, we sold our old microwave after that, went to dinner, then picked up our rental truck! While it was so stressful closing, I'm SO happy we're moving in this weekend! We loaded up the truck with our first load tonight and took that over. We even met another neighbor of ours, Jessica, who was super nice, helping us move so late and in a white dress of all things!

We really got a lot done for the first night. We are still planning on getting an early start tomorrow though. We have a lot of people who have volunteered to help us, so hopefully it goes smoothly. Although I'm still planning on it taking us all day. I think I'm mostly excited to eat pizza and show off the house to everyone. We checked it out today, our first time in a few weeks, but we were so excited to use our own official house keys. Our final walk through went pretty well. We found a few things for them to fix or add (somehow we/they missed an entire wall in our laundry room). It was intimidating hearing about all the things we were responsible for now, but I think we'll get used to it soon enough. It's not like no one else has ever owned a house or anything. And we have awesome neighbors to ask if we have any questions about things. Seeing our lawn and trees in was so exciting! It looks like a real home. And there's so much space, oh my gosh!

So thanks for following us on the building a house journey. It'll now be a making it into a home with memories and fun stuff journey from now on. Can't wait to post on the move and week off! Stay tuned...

Moving Onward

So while we haven't gotten the official word on when we're closing, I, being an optimist, chose to move onward with home plans we have. We decided to spend the weekend appliance shopping. We still needed to get a washer, dryer and fridge for the new place and a microwave for the condo (the one we had was too big for the hole so we'll have to sell that one on KSL). Luckily we had some gift cards to Lowes and Home Depot so that helped with the shopping.

We ended up finding a washer and dryer really quickly at Home Depot. The fridge was a different, funny story. I normally hate those fridges that have the freezer as a drawer on the bottom. It was on my absolutely not list for a fridge. We went looking a few weeks ago and I found one of those with the freezer on the left and the fridge on the right, but the fridge has like two doors to it (one like usual and then one that opens that one up half way for condiments and stuff...does that make sense?). Well the salesman was showing us one with the drawer on the bottom and when I tried to protest he showed me why that one was really the better choice. It was cheaper for one, and it had a bigger ice bucket inside and we use up a lot of ice. Plus, the drawer wasn't too large so it didn't make me feel too small to get inside it. Done! We have both set to be delivered next week while we should be in the home. They even offered us a military discount even though we forgot Larry's papers showing he was in the military! It was probably the best experience buying appliances (our dryer is a steamer, has a rack for drying shoes, AND opens two different ways!! I love new gadgets!)

Now onto Lowes to find a microwave, that wasn't as easy a task. It's odd because I didn't care what microwave we got. Just that it fit into the hole we had and was white (to match our other appliances) and not too expensive. I found one that seemed decent, but couldn't get someone to help us for anything! I was so frustrated. I found a guy at a computer nearby and asked him if he could help. He said all the appliance people called out so he could order something for us, but not give us specifics. We ordered it through him (which took longer than the fridge and washer and dryer for some reason) and got it ready. We could finally leave and go home now! When we were checking out I started to feel bad because I noticed he was leaving for the day and it was like 15 after 5 and so I realized we probably got him right as he was ready to leave, which would make any one irritable right? He was nice enough to help us as he was leaving, so I appreciated that.

Today I've spent the day watching the Christmas in July movies on Hallmark (which is getting me SUPER excited for the holidays, damn you Hallmark Channel!!) and packing. We've officially started since it should be our last weekend in the condo. We actually got a ton done today, which is nice. Less to worry about throughout the week. It's weird to see rooms emptying out now. I know I'm happy to be in the house, but I'm sad to leave our first official home, especially as a married couple. I think of all the happy moments as well as some of the sad ones and it makes me choke up a little knowing I won't have those memories as fresh in my mind (although some of the sad ones can go away so I'm okay with that). I just hope I documented them well enough on the blog and with pics and videos on my phone to keep the best ones! And here's to hoping the cats really like the new place...I'm suddenly nervous they won't for some reason.

Work Parties and Closing Struggles

So tonight took an unfortunate turn. Remember how the last post I was saying we had one more week left? Well that's changed and it really sucks. Tonight is my work party, a luau themed party at the aquarium, so it should be a fun night right? Well...

I got home and Larry told me there were issues with closing due to an old loan under his name. What was originally scheduled for the 20th has been pushed back to the 22nd (at the earliest, it could go later). I just want to live there already, is that too much to ask? This really put a cramp into our moving plans, as well as our plans for enjoying the party tonight!


...Ugh! Whatever!

Whining time over...

On to the party. As stated, the closing issues really put a damper on our party spirit, but I decided we should still go. It would have free food, lots of fun activities, cute little animals to check out, and it was a free event at the aquarium (a place I feel is overpriced as it is so I would rather not pay to check it out). We got there and immediately got into the food line (there were rumors there wouldn't be enough food for everyone). It was decent, good enough for free food, but nothing to write home about. We then went to check out the different areas while eating dessert. Larry had never been there before, but I had, and I was obsessed with the shark tank area (if you've been there you know why). We went to check that out and get some cool pictures, then went to walk around other places. I wasn't feeling very social so if any work people are reading this I'm sorry if I came off as angry, but we still tried to make the most of it. We also wanted to see the new cat they had there, but the brat was hiding when we got to it's spot, boo! They did, however, have some awesome fire dancers, which reminded me so much of our honeymoon and seeing the dancers at the luau in Hawaii...it was pretty cool. After we had our fill of the dancers, we went back to the shark room for a bit and then I decided we should call it a night

I love that my work puts these things on. This one was probably one of the more fun summer parties we've had. We even won a gift card to Crate & Barrel (which will help get some cute home stuff, right?). Overall it was a decent night. Fingers crossed we can close by next Friday!

One More Week!

This. Is. Crazy! We are one week away from closing on our new house! Have we started packing yet? NO! Are we going to get it done? Hopefully. That's what this weekend is for :) I can't believe we're a week away. I would say you wouldn't know it by looking at the house yet though, I feel like there's still so much to be done in the next week, but they have gotten a lot done since the last update.

So we have our deck, our exterior is all done, we are officially locked out so we can't see the interior (have been for a couple weeks now, which is why there hasn't been a house update lately). We see they installed carpet through the window, but I couldn't get a good enough picture to really add here. We have our final walk through the day that we close, which makes me nervous for if we find anything that needs fixing, but we'll worry about that then.

The plan for now is to close Wednesday, move small things in that night and Thursday night. We'll rent a truck Friday to Saturday and spend Friday night moving as much as we can ourselves. Saturday is the big moving party with family. Sunday will be moving any last minute things over and then we're taking Monday through Friday off to unpack, clean the condo, get that ready to sell, and switch over all utilities and internet and all that fun stuff.

So here's to making this next week go by as quickly as possible so that we can hurry and move in...we hope the kitties like their new home!

Oh yes, as another note, we (Larry and I) were talking about our PTO hours we have left to use and realized we both had a few days we needed to use up. So we've officially picked our next vacation spot (our last for the year): South Dakota! You may be wondering why South Dakota? What's there that is so exciting? Well it's a good thing you asked, I thought the same thing. You see the conversation went something like this:

Me: Where should we go for our last vacation this year? It's gotta be cheap
Larry: I've never seen Mount Rushmore before...
Me: I have...it's not THAT exciting. Besides there's nothing else out there to do.
Larry: Oh yeah? (looks up things to do near Mount Rushmore) Look at this list!
Me: Well damn, that does look fun! Let's book it!

I'm very excited because it'll be a long road trip and I LOVE road trips! I'll do a post about the trip once we're back so I'm not putting what there is to do now...it'll be a nice surprise...in a few months haha.

Fourth of July Weekend - LONG post

So as stated before, we spent the first doing stuff for Larry's birthday, which was a GREAT kickoff to this four day weekend we now had. I decided this weekend should be a fun one. We didn't have a place to set off fireworks this year (I wasn't sure how the new neighborhood would feel about us doing them, especially since we hadn't really moved in yet), I didn't want to spend money going to Stadium of Fire again (it was fun, but not worth the price of the tickets), but I knew we HAD to have fireworks. I found out there were still tickets to the Salt Lake Bees game for Saturday and they would have fireworks at that. I figured that was perfect because we hadn't been to a Bees game yet this year (I LOVE going to them) and it would mean we wouldn't have to buy fireworks or pay a lot of money to see them! Plus I'd never been to a Bees game with fireworks.

Before the game started, my brother wanted to get together during the day. He had a school assignment to do at the Natural History Museum, I like going to the museum and getting together with him every once in a while to catch up (the boy is awful at texting back most of the time!) so we decided to meet up and I'd help him with his assignment. After the museum we went to eat lunch and then headed back to the condo. Cindy had also text me while I was out saying she was going to be near our area and wanted to check out the house. I don't pass up an opportunity to check progress on the house so I was in!

when we got to the house I saw that they had installed the granite, sink and appliances, we had all flooring except the carpet in, and we had our bigger shower installed (long story, but basically they originally installed a shower that was 8 inches smaller than what we were supposed to get...I LOVE the bigger shower even though I didn't think it was necessary). It was awesome to show it off to Cindy and grandma and see their reactions. I'm noticing people love our big pantry (I guess I didn't realize how big it was until I saw it through other eyes) and Cindy kept mentioning our big window sills...again I didn't notice until she pointed them out haha. But man our sink! I am SOOO thrilled for our big sink. That's another part of building I was looking forward to the most.

This is really our laminate...I guess I didn't get any
Pics of the granite...weird

After that we said goodbye to everyone and Larry and I headed off to the baseball game. The Bees lost...really badly...I think it was like 1 to 7 or something. It wasn't my favorite game I've been to, but it was still nice to go and be outside. We both hadn't eaten dinner really (I only had what I ate with Andy) so we ended up getting some popcorn and nachos to hold us over halfway through the game. The fireworks afterwards were really great too (they pretty much made up for losing so bad)! It was such a fun way to end the day that I'm considering doing a game every year. Unless our neighborhood is cool with fireworks, then we may trade off.

Sunday I decided we had to go on a hike. I'm hoping since we're starting earlier this year we'll actually get more than one in this time (last year was sad!). We hiked up to Lake Mary and had a picnic. It was really nice. I forget how much hikes kick my butt, but I love them afterwards. I love if they have a waterfall or lake at the end. It's makes for great scenery while eating lunch together. I love when it gets warm enough to start hiking again.

Monday was kind of lazy. We already did the Fourth of July activities I wanted to so I didn't feel the need to do anything special yesterday. We did watch The Sandlot since I hadn't seen that movie in so long and it was about baseball and all. I forgot how cute and funny that one is...I may need to buy it now.

Today I spent the day with Stace saying our "good bye". She's moving to Texas this week and while I'm so sad to see her go, I know it's a good move for her family. We're already talking about visits while she's gone and doing a big vacation next year with her family (Disney World!!!). We ended up having a great last day together (learning about all the places that are closed the day after Independence Day!). We laughed, shared baby stories (well I have no babies, so that was mostly on her end), hugged, teared up, everything you need in a last best friends day together. Good luck in your new home Stace, I know you'll love it once you're settled!

Overall it was a great way to spend the weekend. Probably one of my favorite weekends this year, so far (aside from the sad goodbye today). Happy Birthday America!

Larry's Birthday Day

That's right folks, I'm actually posting about Larry's Birthday. If you remember how sad his day ended up being last year (from this post), you'll know I had some making up to do as far as celebrating the day went. I think I can say, mostly confidently, that it was successful.

So to start I'd like to say lately we've been remembering days before we had our condo and less money more bills of our own. Days when we'd go get movies from FYE, hit up Little Caesar's and Godfather's for some yummy pizzas, and just relax at home watching movies and pigging out (ahhh...those days were nice). Well this year for his birthday Larry decided he wanted to do that exact same thing (add in some other fun things we used to do like going to Nickel Cade [ahem, City these days], eating Leatherby's Ice Cream, and playing games together) just to relive those days a bit. I called it a day to be 19 again.

To start out we got some errands out of the way, I had an eye dr. appointment and Larry needed his oil changed. We got both done early in the morning so we could focus on our blast from the past day. Once all those were done it was close to lunch time so we ended up heading to Godfather's and picked up some cinnamon pizza (if you haven't tried this, go get some now...it's amazing!)

Then we headed to FYE where we roamed the many aisles of movies, music, and games. I told Larry I can't go spend crazy there (like we used to), but I was willing to get us both one thing. I picked up The Longest Ride and a Central Perk shirt (because I had to right?). Larry didn't see any movies or games so he just got some watermelon flavored pop rocks (silly kid!)

Then we headed over to Little Caesars to get some regular pizza and root beer...time to pig out!

After stuffing our faces we headed out to Nickel City. We played many games together (he even got me to like playing DDR...a little at least). We scored many tickets which means I got a butt load of candy, Larry got a butt load of prizes, and we got a couple fun toys for the kitties too.

After playing arcade games we headed to Leatherby's for some ice cream. Larry's favorite is their bubblegum (to the disappointment of the scooper worker who, for some reason, said it tasted like cough medicine to him....what??). I normally go for the brownie, raspberry, chocolate sundae thingy, but since we were getting it to go I settled on some play dough kind...yum! Again, time to head home and pig out some more.

One of the requests for the day was to watch a movie and play a game together. I was expecting him to get a movie at FYE, but since he didn't, he went with one we already owned, V for Vendetta (great movie!). Let me tell you, laying in bed, eating ice cream, cuddling with kitties, and watching a movie...it was pretty awesome (and just fyi, the scooper kid was wrong, the bubblegum flavor is so good. The pieces of bubblegum are another story though).

As for the game, one of the gifts I got him for his birthday is a game called Carcassonne. It's a board game where you build the board as you play. We'd never played before, but we heard of it from a YouTuber we watch regularly, turns out it's really fun! We played a couple times just so we knew we had it figured out...Larry killed me both times, of course!

The picture above is one I posted for the day. There's a thing going around where you post your first picture together next to your most recent one just for fun, I guess. It's funny because seeing other's versions I just thought "oh, cute", but seeing ours is crazy. The first picture is from 2004 right after we started dating (like within a week, if I remember right). It was a last minute decision to go to the Sadie Hawkin's dance, but I'm not sure why we were handcuffed together. I know it was some kind of joke and we stayed like that for a good chunk of the night, but I can't for the life of me remember why. I learned that night that I make really cheesy grins and Larry doesn't...which makes me look way more excited than him haha. The second picture is just from St. George last month. That's close to 12 years between the two and it's crazy to think of how much time has passed...and how we aren't so skinny anymore haha.

Anyways, we ended up having such a great day! I loved reliving all our fun past times. And as a bonus the radio station we listened to in the car throughout the day played old songs from when we were kids all day long, so it really added to the reminiscing today. I think this might become our new tradition...us getting to plan our own birthday day and the other one gets to pay for it ;)

Happy Birthday SLP...you're amazing and I hope you had a great day and I was able to show you how great you are! Love you forever and then some!