There's no place like home...

Well we have not been very good at updating our blog because we have been very busy. A great deal of our time has been spent making tons and tons of decisions for our new home. Here is a tour of our new place right now. It should be done by the end of September. We are very excited.

Here is the outside of our home. They are getting ready to stucco our house this week. I am nervous about the stucco matching our brick. We will have to wait and see how it turns out.

Here is the front entry when you walk into our house.

Here is our great room. I love the arch.

Kitchen

Dining room.

View outside our back windows. We absolutely love the view.

Master Bedroom with a bay window.

I love the archway in the door and the nook above.

Master bath.

Hallway down to the bedrooms and other bath.

This will eventually be the baby's room.

Here is the closet and little nook above it which will be great for decorating the baby's room.

Here is the other bath.

The other spare bedroom.

Our two car garage. Mat is really excited he gets to park in the garage so he doesn't have to scrape his car in the winter.

The stairs to the basement.

Our future family room downstairs.

We can also have a bathroom and a couple of bedrooms downstairs one day.

My very long storage space. This will be really nice to have.

This past month we obviously have been very busy with our home and Mat has been very busy with his new job. However, here are some of the things we have done this past month:
Went to the demo derby with some friends
Celebrated my 25th birthday
Saw GI Joe
Got a primary calling. We teach the CTR 7 & 8 class. We love it. We have about 12 boys and 1 girl.
Mat joined the ward choir
My sister finished her time at the MTC and left for Germany
We visited grandparents
Mat's work moved their offices. They moved to a different floor in their building.
Babysat our niece and nephew and took them to a movie Monsters vs. Aliens
Had game night with my dad and step-mom
Had movie night with family
Had dinner over at my mother-in-laws
Hung out with some friends from our old ward who have also moved out and our building a home as well
Been to the temple a couple of times.
Enjoyed the delightful summer evenings by going on some walks in the neighborhood.
Meet our future next door neighbors

Mat and I are staying busy, but doing very well.

Life Update

Well we sold our condo and we moved in with my mom. We have been house hunting forever. Mat and I have looked at over 100 houses with absolutely no luck. We finally decided this last week to build a home. We are building a Perry home. We are very excited. The home should be done by the middle of October. We won't be finishing the basement right now, but the house will be plenty big. It will be 3 bedroom and 2 bath. The house is about 3100 sq ft and will have over 1600 sq ft finished for now. Here is a picture of our house right now.

Mat has started a new job. He has been at his new job for 3 weeks now. He is working at a home health care business right now. He basically is running the company. It is really stressful, but it is getting better for him. He is really enjoying it. It is such a great experience for him. That is about all that is going on in our lives. We are really excited for our house to be done.

Mat and I went hiking up Big Cottonwood Canyon this weekend.

The hike was beautiful. Look at the scenery. We live in such a beautiful state with the magnificent mountains and trees.

There were many wild flowers along the trail.

Here is us finally making it to Dog Lake. The hike is not very long, but it is pretty steep just before you get to the lake. This was our first hike of the year. We enjoyed it and need to get out more on some hikes.

Here is my cute little Matty.

5 Glorious Years

Today Mat and I celebrate our 5 year Wedding Anniversary. We got married in the Salt Lake Temple for time and all eternity 5 years ago today. We have had 5 years of wonderful marriage. We have had good times, not so good times, and everything in between. Mat is an amazing husband. I love him so much and glad that he decided he wanted to be with me forever. Mat is so great and his motto in life is happy wife equals happy life and he does a great job of following his advice. Mat is so wonderful and sacrifices so much on my behalf. Mat is so good to me and helps me with whatever I need. He is such a life saver in my life and does a nice job of trying to alleviate the stress in my own life. He can always make me smile. I am excited for many more glorious years of marriage with him.

Ten Things about Mat:
1. Funny
2. Sensitive
3. Athletic
4. Friendly
5. Unselfish
6. Good looking
7. Smart
8. Positive
9. Hard worker
10. My Eternal Companion

Happy Anniversary Sweetie!!!

Curbside drop-off

So we dropped off my sister Kami off to the MTC on Wednesday for her mission. The whole process took about 8 minutes from finding a spot along side the curb until we pulled out of the MTC without Kami and her luggage. Once we got out of the car they said we had 2 to 3 minutes to say good-bye. We were able to take a quick picture, give a hug, and then Kami was off. It was really fast.

So on Sunday some of the family got together to wish Kami off because this was going to be the last time they would see her for 18 months.

A last picture of Kami, Ben, and Ellie.

Payton playing in the backyard at Kami's going away party.

A last picture of Kami and Jessica (our cousin).

Kami got set apart to be a missionary on Monday night because her Stake President was going out of town. Here is some of the gang that was able to make it to her setting apart.

Here's the picture of the men who were able to help with the setting apart of Kami. Afterwards we went back and had a BBQ at my mom's house.

On Tuesday night we had an outting to the Temple with Kami. It was really nice. Wednesday we took Kami to the MTC. My mom, Cloy, and Kami came and picked me up from work and then we drove down to Provo to the MTC. Here is a last picture of Kami and I infront of my work.

This is us dropping her off alongside the curb at the MTC.

Here's Kami walking away as some of the Elder Missionaries wheel her luggage. She will be missed, but she will do a fantastic job.

A Wonderful White Wedding...

Mat's youngest brother Josh got married last Thursday in the Salt Lake Temple. It was a lovely day. Here are some pictures from all of the fun festivities. Melissa (Josh's new wife) went to the temple for the first time a week and half ago. She took her endowment out at the Draper Temple. Here is all of us that went to that. It was a great occasion.

Here is a picture of Mat and I in front of the Draper Temple. It is a very beautiful temple. We are lucky to have so many so close to us.

The Wedding Dinner was at the Gathering Place at Gardner Village. It was decorated beautifully inside. I had never been to the Gathering Place before and I really enjoyed it there.

Here is the bride and groom coming out of the temple after their marriage was performed inside the temple for time and all eternity. Melissa looked absolutely beautiful on her Wedding Day.

Here is good old Josh carrying her dress. He is learning fast. I think this picture is really adorable and Mat did a great job of snapping the shot.

Here is another cute couple at the temple.

Mat and his bro's.

A nice picture of one of the grandparents and the couple at the reception. This is Mat's mothers parents.

Here's us at the reception.

Mat's brother Bob and his cute family.

Our nephew Kaimen trying to eat the cake.

Josh and Melissa finally eating the cake.

It was a great day and wonderful that they were able to be married in the temple. This made me reflect upon my marriage to Mat and we are coming up on our 5 year anniversay in9 days. Time has gone by fast, but it has been wonderful. Marriage with Mat has only gotten better with time. His is such a wonderful husband and I love him so much. I am glad that we will have eternity together.

She's my sister and I'm goin' miss her.

Me and My Sister.

My sister is going on her mission on June 10th and I wanted to spend some time with her before she left. So last week I took an afternoon off to hang out with her. We went to lunch, played some tennis, and then went to a movie. We had a nice time together. We are all going to miss her.

Kami's non-Farewell was on Sunday. She did a great job speaking. After her speaking in church everyone got together for a little shin-dig.

There was a lot of good food.

and more food

and even more food. Mat did not even get pictures of all the food we had. My mom always thinks there never will be enough, but every time we have way too much.

Here's a picture of my little sister with Mat and I.

Here are some of the kids pretending to big dogs. Kids are crazy.

My sister will be a great missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in her Motherland- Germany. I am really excited for her and I am going to miss her a ton, but she will be back before we know it. Good luck Kami!