Upgraded Rig

Levi decided it was time for us to upgrade from the Jeep to a truck. He bought the Jeep the same week that we started dating, so I was pretty attached to it. How would we load everyone into one car now and go to Idaho Falls for 4^th of July? And what would we use for shade while sitting at Stone Reservoir?

We let the Jeep go out in style though!

Jazz will be missed!

Levi searched and searched for a truck that met his incredibly specific requirements (silver, under 150,000 miles, double cab, bed size, engine type, spotless interior, etc.) and ended up finding one at a dealership here in town, where a very good family friend works. Completely different situation from the Mazda. ;) Thank heavens. 

He did get an awesome deal and it’s in great shape. Welcome to the family, Jack!

Familía

First week of August my family came to town! HOORAY! Mom, Dad, and the kids stayed one night with us before going on to Oregon for a week. Longest week ever. When they came back, Dad got to stay one more night before he had to go back to Nebraska to work. But Mom and my kiddos got to stay a few more days. :D It was so great to see my family again!

I didn’t realize until now exactly how much I suck at picture taking haha. I didn’t get one picture of my entire family, but managed to snap a couple random ones here and there. This one of Zane trying on hats in TJ Maxx made me crack up. Ü

After we had to say good bye, I decided that my hair needed something different. So…

I straightened it for the first time in… months? Years? I’m pretty sure it’d probably been about 2 years since I was curl-less. AND, this is the first time I’d ever done it with an actual straightener instead of a curling iron. Thaaaaanks Cami!! :D

Fun in the Sun

Holy craziness! This summer has been jam packed with fun. Levi and I have both been working full time, but somehow we still found time to enjoy the summer.

MAY: 

I made it to Idaho just in time for the AFHS 2011 Graduation ceremony.

With my girl, Ash Adkins! Congrats to all my friends who graduated!

JUNE: 

This winter we got TONS of snow, and now everything is flooding.

Yes. That used to be a road. And now a RIVER flows across it. So what do we do?

Walk across it, of course! I thought my husband was going to get swept down the icy river and die on the mountain. Luckily he made it over and back to the Jeep safely.

JULY:

Thank heavens this picture is blurry. And small. I tried to straighten my hair. This is how far I got before I decided it wasn't worth the next 3 hours of work and frustration. People, I may be part white but sadly this hair does not work like white girl hair. Believe me, I tried.

And so, I decided to go this route instead:

That’s right. When all else fails, chop it off!

Also, I learned something important about having darker skin:

When this girl sunburns and then peels, she looks like a spotted tree frog. Not pretty.

At the end of July we had a bridal shower for friend and old roomie, Kaylie, the second one of us 6 girls to get married.

Blake was super excited at the prospect of rings for all, even if they were just Ring Pops:

I wonder if this next picture is a premonition of anything…

TP wedding dresses! On the right is our actual bride, Kaylie. On the left is our girl, Chandi. My bet is that she’ll be the next roomie taken off the singles list ;) Time will tell.

Love for the Cornhuskers Ü

I know I mentioned going to Nebraska in our Mazda post, but I never shared any pictures from that trip! (There was a lot of other stuff going on that weekend. Like buying gallons of oil.)

My Morgan and Zane are growing up too fast! It was so much fun just to spend some time with them.

Of course we made the required trip to THE Cabellas of all Cabellas. 

(The white things in the middle above the man’s head? Yeah, those are mountain goats. Ü Pretty fun to see the large variety of animals around the store.)

The whole way there and back we tried to count all the windmills. After 50, I gave up.

 With Mom and Dad in Sidney, and Levi’s family even further east in Nebraska, it’s a good thing that both of us enjoy driving so much!

Mazda Woes

On April 4, we stumbled on what we thought was our dream car down in Lehi, UT. A 2005 Mazda 6, with relatively low miles, in the color I wanted, and in our price range? Heck yeah!! We signed the papers with the dealer that night and came back the next day to pick it up. That’s when we noticed that the car had one snow tire on it, and it was in terrible shape. One snow tire? It’s not even legal to put only two snow tires on a front wheel drive car! That should have been our first warning. But the dealer paid to have it replaced so we forgot about it. (As a side note, we sold my sweet little Corolla that same day! On KSL for 10 minutes and 3 people had called haha. I cried as we drove away from my first car.)

A week later, I took the Mazda in for an oil change and was told it’d probably been at least 6,000-7,000 miles since it was last changed. (2^nd warning!) Jiffy cleaned my whole fuel system though and said I should be good. A few days later we left for Nebraska. Ugh! That whole trip, we burned about 2 quarts of oil every 100 miles. Talk about a long drive! When we got back to Utah, we drove straight back to the dealer and told him to fix it or we wanted our money back. They promised that they’d be able to fix it and would even help cover most of the costs. After having our car until the end of June and avoiding most of our phone calls, the dealer said that it was done. Levi and a friend drove down to get it.

Not only did the car STILL burn oil, now one of the cylinders wasn’t firing. We took it to a good friend up in Pocatello, and prayed he’d be able to do something for us. After finding that the crappy dealer’s mechanic had screwed up even more stuff, we decided that it would be cheaper and smarter to replace the whole engine rather than try to fix the old one. Thank heavens for savings accounts! We may not have one anymore, but it was there when we needed it.

The “great deal” on a Mazda ended up altogether costing us the same as if we’d bought one several years newer. In perfect condition. And what have we learned? NEVER believe a deal that seems too good to be true, don’t trust someone who just wants your money, and never EVER buy a car from a creepy, sinister little Venezuelan man…