a little reunion fun...

stone reservoir / flashbacks of getting lost with Brandy years ago / three days away from the job and the cupboards / sleeping in the 100 degree camper / early morning walks to see the water / dead fish freaking out the little sister swimmer / braceface marie / sunburns / naps / riding the razor / scalding heat / visiting with extended family / swollen pregnant feet / ice packs rubbed on swollen pregnant legs by my little buddy zayne / and only five pictures to prove the fun...

Little Baby S...

Oh hey! So...we're pregnant! I am sure you are curious on the details of this [NOT the actual "details". geesh. pervert.] especially because last you heard, I was completely and totally against the idea of kids right now. Well, leave it to the big man upstairs to change your mind. You know, Jake. Just kidding. Bad joke.

Truth is, we weren't planning this. Not even a little. Jake likes to joke that it was 50% planned but in all reality, we were both completely shocked at the news...me a little more than Jake though. Okay, a lot more. Jake was excited from the second he heard the news. And having him excited helps lessen some of my own anxiety over the whole thing. It also didn't hurt that he insisted on making me dinner and washing  the dishes and doing the laundry and letting me nap to my heart's content. I could get used to this whole pregnancy thing. Okay, that's a lie. What I meant to say is I could get used to having Jake take care of my every need. Yah, that's better. 

Basically this pregnancy couldn't have been more perfectly planned if we were planning it ourselves. I found out I was expecting not too long after my last semester of college. Perfect timing, right? Right.

I wont lie, even with the perfect timing, it took me a while to get used to the idea. Well, I am still getting used to the idea. But my anxiety is slowly being replaced with excitement. Slowly. It's hard not to get excited when my husband is so over the moon. Gosh, good thing I have him. Even more, good thing this little baby has him. 

We are 15 weeks pregnant and due in January. And absolutely, positively unprepared for a baby. But hey, that's part of the fun, right? Please say yes...

Join Me On A Tour, Won't You?...

Remember when I mentioned we bought a house? And remember when I said my husband bought me a new camera? Let's combine the two and get a fun little tour brought to you by yours truly!

But first, a little back history. Jake and I have been searching for a house since before we were even married. We knew we would be stuck in Pocatello for some time while Jake finished school. And the thought of throwing away all of our money into rental properties just made us angry. Se we house hunted. Turns out, our price range offered less than perfect options. So we pushed buying a home off for a while.

Then we decided, "What the hay! Let's buy a crappy home in our budget and fix it to our liking". So we did. 

The home we settled on was a foreclosure which basically means the last owners left us with a fun little mess of a house. Our home has a lot of potential but it will take us a while before it gains my complete stamp of approval. But I am so excited to finally have a "home" with my cute husband and we have so much fun making decisions on how we want to fix it up. 

Okay. Enough rambling. Picture time. And I really mean "overload of picture" time. 

Here is the front of the house in all its glory. [yep, you better believe I am going to include useless captions after every picture]. Soon this beauty will have a new garage door and a new paint job that will resemble this [green just isn't my color]....

via 

Opinions?

Oh, you noticed the absence of grass? Yah, me too.  Because, believe me, the whole "weed lawn" just really isn't cutting it for me. Speaking of cutting, this big tree will soon disappear as well. Funny story by the way. We called for a quote to cut it down. Then decided we would do it ourselves. Well the company we called for the quote took it upon themselves to decide to cut the tree down without permission from us. Luckily Jake was there to save the day. Or unlucky. I would have loved to ask them who gave them permission to cut it down AFTER it was gone and then refuse to pay the bill. So Christian-like of me, I know. 

Speaking of "weed lawn", check out our backyard. Oh. My. Goodness. It's like the owners just decided, "Hey, grass is for losers. Let's forget about watering it! And while we're at it, ignore the trees too! They look better dead!".  Believe it or not, this is ten times better than when we first bought the house less than two weeks ago. Jake and his heaven-sent parents have been working their little hiney's off back here. Our goal is to build a fancy fence around the whole property and plant grass. 

And the past owners were even so kind as to leave a grave for us to use. Watch out Jake. You annoy me, you get buried. 

Here is a lovely panoramic view of the backyard in all its glory. Heavenly.

Welcome to the beautiful kitchen. Well, soon to be beautiful kitchen.

Here it is with the one coat of primer I finished last night. We also got rid of the ugly ceiling fans and will replace pretty much all the lighting in the entire house. We are also getting shiny new stainless steel appliances and we hope to either replace the counter tops or try out this new technique of painting that makes it look like granite. The white on white is not cutting it for me. We are also adding knobs and cup pulls to the cabinet doors.

The sliding glass door goes out to this lovely deck. I am hoping to sand off all of the green [what was the past owner's obsession with green?] and stain it instead. There is also a lower deck that we will stain as well. 

Say "hi" to Jake! 

Welcome to the construction zone. Er, I mean living room. This room will pretty much stay the same [minus the mess] except we are going to replace the ugly baseboard heater with a Cadet instead. I am also going to paint the banister white. And maybe get new curtains. What? You don't like the sheet?

This is Jake and I's bedroom with a freshly painted ceiling [thanks Kimmy!] and a new fan. We will also get rid of the baseboard in here too. 

And this is the baby's room. Besides the freshly painted ceilings [again, thanks Kimmy!] any redecorating will wait until we know if we have a little girl or a little boy growing inside of me. Oh, did I forget to mention we're pregnant? Oops. My bad. Surprise, I guess. More on this later...

Upstairs bathroom. One word. Yuck. This will go through a major renovation. New lighting, new mirror, new vanity [or I might refinish this one...I haven't decided yet]. This is also one of the rooms I want to paint right away. Any suggestions?

This the the split entry front door. We don't love this aspect of the house but hey, we weren't looking for our dream house just yet. Like I said, the banister will be painted along with the missing handrail. We are also replacing the front door. And see that little track lighting there above our stop sign window? It will be replaced with a hanging light of some sort. 

This is the opposite side of the split entry. It kind of looks like it heads into a dungeon but I promise it is just a bad picture. The handrail will also be painted. 

Downstairs bathroom. We replaced both toilets the day we bought the house. I insisted. Something about using the past owner's toilets just freaked me out. You think the bathroom doesn't need much renovations, right?

Wrong. Whoever installed this mirror and lights really needs a lesson on centering. We are replacing everything in this bathroom too. 

This is the downstairs construction site a.k.a the guest bedroom. We had a wonderful leak in this room two days after we bought the house. Luckily we were able to fix the problem but the whole room will need to be repainted. I haven't decided on a color though. Speaking of repainting, all of the ugly brown doors throughout the house will be painted white. 

And last but not least, the downstairs living room. This room had a freshly painted ceiling [one last thank you to Kimmy] and will soon have the new ceiling fan actually attached.

And this concludes our lovely tour for now. I am sure you got way more than you bargained for. Stay in touch for updated pictures. Jake insists the kitchen has to be completely done before we can actually move in so feel free to come on over and paint some cabinets! We will let you know our move in date as well so you can come move us in, kay? Thanks! 

P.S. Do you sorta feel like I left you hanging on the whole baby thing? Great. That was my plan! 

it's [just me] with a quick hello...

You know, usually when I take a hiatus from blogging I blame it on the fact that I have nothing worth mentioning going on in my life. That could not be further from the truth this time. Things have been happening. Lots of things. A crazy amount of things.

So I guess we will blame this hiatus on being...lazy. Yep. We will go with lazy. For now.

We've celebrated birthdays. Cuddled a new nephew AND a new niece. Housed the cutest evacuees ever from the Charlotte fire. Attended family reunions.  Traveled to the annual Independence Day celebration in good ol' Malta.  And guess what? I didn't take one picture. Terrific. 

But then my cute husband surprised me with a belated birthday present. So my excuse of not taking pictures because I don't have a good, working camera can't be used any longer. 

And to celebrate our new camera purchase, we took an impromptu road trip. Okay, not really. They just happened to fall on the same weekend.

And what a fun vacation it was.  I didn't do my hair or wear make-up to celebrate. As you can probably tell. We visited IKEA, ate out way too much, got my wedding ring fixed, visited the new mall, and spent way too many hours hanging out by the pool. It was glorious. 

In other news, we bought a house. Did I forget to mention we have been shopping around since we got married?

Whoops. 

Anyways, the new beauty needs...well... a lot of work to say the least. Maybe one of these days I will stop being so gosh dang "lazy" and get up the energy to post some before and after pictures. Maybe. 

Until then, I will be working my little big hiney off trying to get the place livable. Okay, okay. Mainly I sit on said "big hiney" and boss everyone else around [have I mentioned we have the best family ever?]. Ah well, someone's gotta do it. So I will post the details later. You know, like in a month or two. Maybe...

12 on the 12th: May

So I am a little late. Whatev. 

one: My new favorite morning treat. Even better? I bought myself a Magic Bullet. Now I can take my smoothie with me to work right in the blender. Saweet.

two: Morning smoothie plus a little "me time". Every year after finals I have a tradition of reading all of the Harry Potter books. Yep, I admit it. I am a nerd.

three: How can you read the books without watching the movies too?

four: So I admit, I didn't take this picture in hopes of debuting it on my 12 on the 12th. I actually bought a new skirt so I took a picture to send to Jake at work for his approval. And then I realized I only took 11 pictures to be on my 12 on the 12th. So it made the cut.

five: Driving home.

six: Got a call from my favorite high school friend on the way to Malta. Love her!

seven: And the reason for my visit home. I made a quick stop at an old friends wedding reception. She looked beautiful!

eight: I made my Mother promise we could eat at Taco B if we went to the reception. This is one of the top things I miss about living in Malta.

nine: A little "Sister and Me" time.

ten: Almost home!

eleven: Ah, home sweet home.

twelve: This is why I need to have a kid! I said "Zayne take off my shoes for me." And guess what? HE DID!

The One Where We Graduate...

You know, since I have started college I have had my fair share of majors. Freshman year, I walked on campus as a Social Work major. Ha, that lasted about a year. I didn't even take any classes related to the field. Not one. But hey, I did get a great scholarship for it.  I then treaded the water of a General Education major. You know, the "cop-out" choice for those people who have no interests whatsoever. Then I got the bright idea that I was destined to be a teacher. And I stuck with it. For three long years. I stuck with my passion of English and focused on Heath Ed as my minor. [Sometimes I wonder...Health Ed? I have absolutely no interest in it. Silly past me.]

Then one day after teaching a short English lesson to a bunch of high school kids who really cared less about what I had to say, I had an epiphany. An epiphany that started with "What the heck" and ended with "am I doing?" I realized I had no interest in spending the rest of my life in school. So, I quit. Six credits to go and I gave up on Education. Phew. Dodged a bullet with that one.

But then I realized I had been in school for four and a half years and didn't have a major. Yikes. So, I counted up the credits I had acquired while in school and decided Literary English was the way to go. 

And now I am done. 

What to know what my favorite part of being done is? When people ask what I graduated with. Oh man, talk about a crack up.  "So Kate, what did you spend the last five years in school getting a degree in?" My answer, "I now have a bachelors degree of Literary English in my back pocket!" Them, "Literary English? What the heck are you going to do with that?" My answer, "Who the heck cares! I am a college graduate!"

Truth is guys, I can't do a whole lot with my silly degree. But hey, it's a degree. That is a whole lot more than a lot of people these days can say. So yah, I am proud of my Literary English degree. I am even prouder to shout from the rooftops: 

I AM A COLLEGE GRAD!

To make the day even better, my big brother Alan and I graduated on the same day.

it's [just me] playing catch up...

You know when you have so much to say that you just don't have a place to start? Yah, me too. So instead of taking the extra time searching my mind to come up with some cleverly witty introduction to the madness, I am just going to jump right in. Prepare yourselves for quite a few RANDOM blog posts.

The One with the Spanish Gift Giver..

Remember my creepy Spanish friend Ben and Jerry? Oh goodness, I could have a whole blog [not just a post, mind you. A. Whole. Blog.] dedicated to him. You know those people who just love to hear themselves talk? Ben and Jerry. You know those people who make themselves feel more intelligent by using big words even when they make absolutely no sense? Ben and Jerry. Every time he opened his mouth, I mentally pictured a Friends episode I have seen a million times. I even caught myself giggling right out loud a few times at the image. Don't know what I am talking about? Not to worry, I have linked a lovely clip for your viewing pleasure.

Ah, "Baby Kangaroo Tribbiani". Gets me every time. Anyways, throughout the semester Ben and Jerry became one of those students where every time he raised his hand, the whole class groaned. I groaned. The boy sitting next to me groaned. Gosh, even the professor groaned. Needless to say, I tried to keep my distance. His mohawk [dyed yellow, but still showcasing his grey hair], his cut-off shirt that no longer attached at the bottom so it was worn like an awkward bib, his chewing tobacco noticeably placed in his bottom lip DURING class, and his extremely creepy winks helped in my "keeping of distance" solution.

So I missed a few classes in a row once. Like two weeks. No big deal. Anyways, the day I came back, Ben and Jerry moved from his normal desk and sat right behind me. I tried to ignore the move like any good "gosh, this guy creeps me out" girl would do but, alas, he tapped me on the shoulder. I very hesitantly turned around. Mind you, I don't remember the exact words he used, but believe me, it made absolutely no sense. Sorta like this, "Katie, your absenteeism in Spanish tutorial has not gone undetected. I solitarily have missed your facade within the architectural confines of this here learning facility. As a perfunctory symbol of my feelings regarding your nonappearance, please consent to the reception of this efflorescence."[Ha, you better believe I used a "Thee-saurus" for that bad boy]. And then he pulled a little flower out of his backpack.

At this point, I am sure I was about as red as the flower. It didn't help that Mr. Ben and Jerry was talking so loud that the WHOLE class had turned to watch the conversation. Even the professor. I almost died. I almost died again when one of the guys sitting next to me leaned to Ben and Jerry and said, "Dude, how can you not notice the big ring on her finger?"

Needless to say, the entire Spanish class had a good laugh at my expense.