Cute Little Kitties

My cats are spastic to say the least, and listening to them tear up and down the stairs after a little ball with a bell in it can be rather frustrating at 3 o'clock in the morning.  But they have their moments.  Like this one.  Xiao, our new kitten, has become extremely attached to Tango, who is still mostly a kitten himself.  They play around and have a grand time together.  One day, they did something else, which warmed Michael and I's hearts to see.  They cuddled, and Tango gave Xiao a bath.  It was so adorable and so unexpected, that we just had to take a video.  Here it is.

Later that same day, we found them on Michael's chair like this:

I love my kitties, and it's moments like this that I remember why.

The Living Room + Misc

I have finally finished another room.  We went and got the last of our furniture on Saturday, and by Sunday I was all done unpacking the living room.  Here you go!

Well, there you have it.  Our living room.  Sorry the pictures are kind of hard to see, but my phone doesn't take the best pictures.  The large entertainment center (above) is our family altar, which is the place where we keep special and sacred religious items.  The rug is actually a map of the United States that my father and I made several years ago.  It's made from carpet remnants.

One more room done.  The family room is almost done, just a few more boxes of things to put away and I can put pictures up.

As for the other news, I got an A on my extremely time consuming weed collection.  50 weeds, all pressed, mounted and labeled.  I'm pretty happy with that.  I also finished the last of the canning (hopefully).  We got 8 pints of vegetable broth, 8 half pints of strawberry jam, 8 half pints of strawberry-apple jam, and 8 half pints of apple butter, all homemade.  We are really starting to build up our emergency storage, and I look forward to next year, when I can do even more.

The weather here in Logan has started to get cooler, most days in the low 60's and high 50's.  The leaves are gorgeous and the air has that crisp, earthy scent of fall.  We went up the canyon Friday evening with Marty and built a nice little fire and just sat around and talked and had fun.  It was beautiful.

Next week Michael and I will celebrate our 1 year anniversary.  We couldn't be more excited!  We are proud to say that we are happily married and that life is going quite well.  We look forward to many more anniversaries to come.  Our love and prayers go out to all our family and friends who have been right there with us and supportive all the way.  There have been some times of sorrow and some moments of jubilant elation.  We are eternally grateful to all of you who have helped us get through our crisis of finding a house, and then helped us to make it a home.

Tha gaol agam ort.
(I love you.)

Anniversary Photos!

At the end of the month, Michael and I will have been happily married for a year.  In celebration and dedication of the event, we took some anniversary photos.  Our good family friend Marty came up with his camera and we went up Logan Canyon.  He is truly amazing.  He edited the best photos and here they are!

I think they turned out amazing, and they will soon be on our wall.

In other news, I got a B on my weed identification final.  I am pretty pleased with that.  Now let's see if I can keep up the good grades through to the end of the year!

More Canning and a Finished Room!

My mother-in-law was kind enough to save me a few pounds of tomatoes this year and I was able to make spaghetti sauce.  I really do love canning.  It is one of the few stereotypical 'female/wife' activities that I actually enjoy.  As opposed to doing laundry, which is the bane of my existence.  I was able to get 6 pints out of the few pounds of tomatoes, and I am really pleased with how it turned out.

In other news, we have finally finished a room!  We got the pictures hung last night, and I found the rugs and the curtain.  This is our main bathroom!

And, as requested, I also have a picture of the entire front of the house.  Next spring we will be repainting the exterior to either dark green or dark red.  We will see which we prefer.

We're getting stuff done and it's coming right along.  We have a party at the end of the month, so we are trying to get the house presentable for that.  I will make another post as soon as I have another room done.  I'm actually almost done with the master bedroom.  Unfortunately midterms have been getting in the way of unpacking.

Speaking of midterms, I have gotten two of my three back.  I got 87/100 on my weeds lecture midterm, which is a B+, and 245/240 on my annuals midterm.  Yep!  I have gotten 100% or better on all of my tests in that class.  I am rather proud of myself.  I am doing just as well in my food science class.  I am really looking forward to having two A's on my transcript again.

I have decided to change my major.  I don't do very well in science classes, and it isn't really what I want to do.  So instead of Plant Science, I am changing to Residential Landscape Design and Construction.  That way I will have the design background for doing floral design and I will have a viable career option when I graduate.  One which it will be possible to do from home once I have children.

That's all for the news from us!  I will post another room and the results from my final midterm as soon as I have them.  Hope all is well with everyone.  We think of you frequently!

Our Family

Recently, Michael and I have added a new member to our family.  In dedication of this wondrous event we have decided to make a special post letting everyone know all about our family.  We will start with the oldest and work our way down.

 This is Coco.  She is 8 1/2 years old.  She is a long haired black calico, a rare coloring.  She sleeps most of the day and doesn't really like to socialize.  As the eldest, she is quite the queen of the roost, but that doesn't stop the littler kitties from chasing her and trying to convince her to play.

 This is Alexis.  She is a 6 year old tortoise shell.  She spends most of her day hiding from the other animals, hissing and growling if they get within a few feet of her.  She loves Michael, but pretty much hates everyone else.  She does love watching the TV with us, jumping up when something on the screen moves.  It's adorable watching her try to catch the things on the screen.

 This is Sedric.  He is a border collie/blue heeler mix, weighing in at around 80 pounds.  He is a fun loving dog, and has a tendency to get far too excited.  He is 4 1/2 years old, but still thinks he's a puppy.

Ah, Tango.  He is our little spazy kitty.  As such, it is very difficult to get a picture of him sitting still.  He has some kind of kitty-sense that there is a camera nearby and he runs away.  Randomly during the day he will run up and down the hall like the Reaper is after him, for no apparent reason.  He is a feral black and white tuxedo and is 2 1/2 years old.  Still our little baby.  :)

This is our newest addition.  He is 3 1/2 months old, though he is quite large for his age.  He has beautiful siamese markings and striking blue eyes.  After much deliberation and going back and forth, we finally decided on a name for him.  Xiaolin.  It is pronounced shaolin, but we are using the Chinese spelling.  We call him Xiao for short.

Well, that's our little family.  And until circumstances change, they are our children.  :)  We love them all dearly, and it makes my day to get out of bed and say good morning to at least 2 or 3 of them.  Let's hope this little family doesn't get much bigger though!

THE HOUSE

Okay people.  Here are the first images of the house.  There aren't very many of them, but there will be tons more once we are finished cleaning and painting.  Which should be sometime next week.  We are extremely excited to move in to our first home!

Here is the front of the house.

This is the living room.

Our stove.  We are so excited that it's gas.

This is our kitchen with the dining room in the same area.

Entry/Coat closet.

This is going to be Michael and I's bedroom.  Yes, the carpet is ugly.

One of the bedroom closets.

The utility/laundry/food storage room.

The family room.  It is twice the size as shown here and will double as my office.

This is the downstairs bathroom.  The upstairs is laid out the same though.

This is the under the stairs storage area.  Which will only store things that can wait until Michael can pull them out for me. :)

Well, that's our home!  We will have lots more pictures later, but we have just been so busy trying to get it cleaned and fixed up before we have to be out of our apartment.  I will post those photos as soon as I have them.  It's finally happened.  We're growing up!  :)

Bear Lake

Well, the camping season is officially over.  We came home on Labor Day from our last camping trip of the year.  We packed up the gear and we won't pull it out again until May.  The trip to Bear Lake was more like a vacation than your typical camping trip.  All the trailers were hooked up to water and power and we had a pavilion with tables and lights.  But we were right on the beach.  The water in Bear Lake has risen significantly this year due to all the rain fall, so we didn't have to walk very far to get to the water.  I spent almost the entire time stitching, while Michael read his book.  Our good family friend Marty Estrada Jr. came with us.  It was wonderful to be able to spend some time with him.  Sedric loved playing in the water.  I honestly have no idea where he got his energy.  Here are some pictures from our trip.

This is Marty.  If he looks familiar, it's because he's the one who married Michael and I.

This is Kira.  She followed me around and loved playing with Sedric.

This little guy sat on my hand for nearly an hour.  Isn't it cute?

Sammy had kind of a hard time in the water.  His life vest floated him so well that he ended up slipping and falling face down in the water.  Luckily Uncle Michael was right there to grab him.

I'm a plant girl at heart.  I was digging up weeds for my plant class.  There were tons of them!

Sammy sure did love his watermelon.  His whole face was covered.

Steven was being adorable and trying to hide from my camera.

Well, that was it.  Our last camping trip of 2011.  We had tons of fun, and are seriously looking forward to going again next year.  For more pictures visit:  http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.277454775601145.75992.100000098751896&l=67e01f9c7d&type=1