Called to Serve

At the end of October, Chris and I were called to serve as Welfare Service missionaries in the Home Storage Facility (Translation- we help people do dry pack canning for food storage)!  The church has a facility in north Houston where all of their welfare services are located: LDS Family Services, the Bishops Storehouse, the peanut butter cannery and the home storage center.  We were set apart on Sunday the 28th of October and went up right after school/work on November 1st for our first night of work/training.  We learned a lot and still have lots to learn, but I came away very impressed and anxious to start building our own food storage. 

The facility serves both members and non-members of the church and is generally only open by appointment.  You can buy pre-packaged items (like wheat, flour, beans, powdered milk, dehydrated apple slices, rice, etc.) or purchase individual cans for canning yourself from the bulk items the facility has on hand.

We will only work on either Tues., Wed. or Thurs. evenings (if there is a group scheduled) and also periodically on Saturday.  We are so excited to learn more and to serve our first mission together!

New Furniture

We knew we would be hosting Thanksgiving this year, so, as fun as it would be to sit on the floor to eat the big meal, we thought we should probably get a dining room table.  After going in to "just look" at a furniture store a few weeks ago, we ended up buying a dining room set and a sectional for our game room upstairs.  Oops! Hahaha!  We really are happy with them though and got a pretty good deal.  The table was back-ordered so we had to wait forever to get the furniture, but now that it's in we LOVE it! 

The delivery guys moved everything in and set it all up for us, so naturally we weren't sure about the placement and had to move it around a few times.  But I think it's settled for now.  Bring on the turkey!! :-)

Tucker's Farewell & Family Pictures

Tucker turned 19 and got his mission call to the Oklahoma City, OK mission!  He entered the MTC on October 17th so he had his farewell on the 14th.  We were so excited we got to go to Washington to celebrate with the fam! 

We got in late Friday night and went straignt to Spencer's house where we stayed.  He has such a nice house and was a very gracious host.  We stayed up waaayy too late talking to Spencer, but it was totally worth it.  Saturday morning we met the rest of the family at the soccer fields where we got to see Libby and Ryker both win their games!  Afterwards we got lunch at Round Table (Chris' favorite, and home of the dragon pizza) and then spent the rest of the afternoon chatting, watching football and doing a little shopping.

Sunday morning was church and Tucker's talk in sacrament meeting.  He did such a great job and bore such a wonderful testimony.  He will be a great missionary!  There were lots of friends and family there and it was nice to see so many familiar faces! After church, some of the extended family came over for a big lunch and then we got to visit for a while until the open house where friends came by to see Tucker. 

Monday morning we got all prettied up and took family pictures at a park down by the river.  It was a little windy but such a beautiful day! The pictures turned out really well.  Here are a few:

We were done super fast so we had time to go back to Spencer's and relax for a bit before we had to pack up.  Then we got to meet the Mortensen's, Jeff & Teresa and Grandma at the Mercantile for lunch and ice cream (Yum!) and then Blake, Kassie, Chris and I left from there to drive to the airport in Spokane.  It was a very fast trip, but totally worth it.  We love our family so much and are so proud of Tucker and his decision to serve a mission!

White Coat Ceremony

Chris is officially a chiropractic student!  He got his first white coat (really just a lab coat, but it's still cool!) in a ceremony the first week of class.  Each student was called up one by one to get their coat put on.  I didn't get very good pictures since I only had my phone, but here's a picture of most of his Tri-1 class after the ceremony.  Pretty exciting! :-)

Painting the Garage

We were (ok...I was) having a hard time figuring out where to start with putting things away and finding places for things in our new house.  The prospect of having Chris home and with no school for 3 weeks at the end of August was super exciting and I was trying to decide what to do first.  Finally we (ok... Chris) decided that we should start with the garage.  That way we could get everything organized out there, and we'd be able to park our cars in the garage, use our freezer, have places for all Chris' tools, etc.  Once we have space for all the garage stuff in the garage, we can get it out of the dining room, laundry room, upstairs and closets.  I'm hoping that having it all out there and having the other spaces free will inspire me to fill those spaces with things that should actually go there, therefore getting things put away and more organized! :-) 

We moved a bunch of stuff into the house, threw lots of things away, took everything off the walls (including all the weird shelves and hooks they had up), wiped away lots of spiderwebs and then painted the walls and ceilings a nice boring white color.  It makes the space look bigger and much much cleaner.  It looks awesome!  I love having my worker-bee hubby at home doing all this hard work!  Now on to the hard task of re-organizing and getting everything put away...

Ranch Trip (& Garner State Park)

August 16 - 19 we spent a long weekend at my parents' ranch as a celebration of Kat & Glen's anniversary and of Chris finishing his last pre-requisite class.  We got there late Thursday night and turned in after chatting a bit.  Friday we had a lazy, relaxing morning and enjoyed hanging out at the house together before heading down to Garner State Park.  Dad had some work come up last minute that he had to get done, but fortunately he was able to drive down and meet us not too long after we got there.  We swam in the Frio River and loved all the rope swings! The water was cool and refreshing even though it was hot outside!  We swam and played until Dad got there and then we had some lunch and then set off on our hike up to the top of the peak overlooking the state park and the river.  

 

It was a bit more challenging than we anticipated, but we made it to the top and the view was awesome!  

The river looked so inviting when we finished our descent, very hot sweaty and tired.  Then Glen showed us his favorite part of the Frio River which was just on the other side of the dam where the current was stronger.  There are several shallow spots where you can lie in the river and the water washes over you.  It was the perfect way to cool off and relax after the hike.  

I enjoyed relaxing with my dad and Kat while mom & Kaden walked up the river to play near the dam and Chris & Glen walked down river to jump off boulders in the deeper water.  All too soon it was time to dry off and head out, but we all decided that it is definitely worth another trip! 

 

We hurried home to eat a quick dinner and then went into town to catch the tour to Devil's Sinkhole.  We learned a bit about local history and rode a bus out to see the sinkhole and the nightly exodus of the native bat population.  It was really cool to watch them fly - spiraling higher and higher to get out of the cave.  

 We also enjoyed watching the owl that had a nice feast as the bats flew by! :-)  We got home late but still talked for a bit before heading to bed.

 

Saturday morning Chris, Dad, Glen and I all got up early to hunt hogs.  Chris and I sat together in a stand which was fun (except he said I made too much noise). :-)  Maybe it was true though because we didn't see any hogs.  We did see several wild turkey and then on our way to pick up my dad we saw a whitetail doe.  Not quite the hog hunt we were hoping for, but it did get me excited for hunting season to start! Once we got back to the house, we had some breakfast and then got to work.  First, Dad, Chris and Glen moved the deer cleaning station away from the water well while Mom, Kat, Kaden and I went to check game cameras.  As we were heading off down the road next to the house, we saw this baby stretched across the road.  Anyone know what it is??

Yup...rattlesnake.  Luckily, we recognized what it was before running over it, stopped far enough away not to spook it, and then called Glen who came running with his pistol loaded with snake-shot.  Two shots finished him off and then they burried the head and saved the rattle.  A little too close to the house for my taste, but at least it makes for a cool story! :-)  After that excitement we set to work again taking turns using the sledge hammer to knock down the chimney from the old house and then Chris and Glen pushed it over.  It was awesome!  

 

While we were there we all worked together to fixed the screen door in the front, clean out the mud room and cut down a couple more dead trees.  Chris grilled us some delicious burgers and we enjoyed lunch together before mom & dad had to leave.  The rest of us went up and put legs on one of the hunting stands and then did some shooting before we went back to the house to shower (finally) and have dinner.  We had a relaxing evening (i.e. we were too tired to do anything) chatting and watching "spOILed" and then heading to bed. 

 

Sunday we went to church out in Uvalde and then headed back to the ranch where we packed up, cleaned up and headed for home.  It was a really fun weekend and I'm glad we got to go to the ranch again before Chris starts school and life gets even crazier. 

We Bought A House!

So, for anyone who is still checking our blog (moms), sorry for not posting in a long time!  I'll try to do some catching up, starting with this post from the end of June 2012...

 

We bought a house!

We saved and saved and searched and searched and finally we found the perfect house with the perfect yard in the perfect area! :-)  Ok, well maybe everything's not perfect, but it's pretty darn close and we're SUPER excited about the home we bought! We have learned a ton throughout this process and really appreciate the support and patient teaching of our family/friends/realtor/etc. as we successfully made it through the home-buying experience. 

 

Here's an old picture of the front of the house (this was one they had posted on the online listing):

 

 

We closed on the house on Monday, June 11th and then the sellers leased it back from us through the end of Thursday with us finally taking possession of the house on Friday, June 15th.  We went up to the house Friday night and were very surprised when we walked through the front door. There were lights left on, the front door was unlocked, and the house and garage were full of junk. We were very disappointed and frustrated in the condition of the home when we got there, but after a good night sleep, we headed back to the house Saturday morning with lots of trash bags and cleaning supplies. With help from my family we got all the junk at least out of the house (the garage is a different story) and lots of the house cleaned and it made a huge difference. Chris and I picked out paint and carpet and this past week we had almost all of the house painted and then Saturday we had all of the carpet replaced. Wow! It looks so much better! It smells much more fresh and new and looks much nicer and well cared for. The carpet guys finished installing the bottom floor carpet first so we were able to move most of our stuff into the master bedroom and living room (thanks again to my super-buff family!).

 

We got our bed put together Saturday but due to an unfortunate series of events (we forgot the sheets, went back to my mom & dad's to get our sheets & our dog but then I got sick so we crashed on their couches), we didn't sleep at our house until Sunday night. Now that we have a bed and a fridge and have moved some of the boxes around to where their contents go, it is starting to feel more like home. I'm pretty sure that date-nights for the next several weeks/months will all involve unpacking boxes or working on our house, but we're super excited to do it together!