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…

We Have Walls!!

As cute as our Cozy Cave was, after one month of poor heating and a bout of appendicitis, we were done with it. Cheap rent isn’t always the best thing.

So our great friend Cami told us that an apartment next to her was opening up as soon as they were done remodeling, and we jumped on it. I’m sure the landlady thought we were crazy as we raved over this little apartment and the fact that it has WALLS!!

The word “cave” now refers to our kitchen. Mom likes to say that it’s efficient, because you can stand in one spot and just spin to get everything done. I still say it makes me claustrophobic.

The pretty table made the trip with us J It looks so much happier in this dining room.

Our living room is now separate from the bedroom, so we have room for a real couch!

Still trying to get everything unpacked, but there’s room for both mine AND Levi’s clothes in this closet. AND shoes, AND gun cabinet! Woot!

Our luck with furniture continues! The last entertainment center that any store in Logan had that was the style that Levi wanted, and a sweet new TV found on sale. (The entertainment center WILL be painted black eventually. But for now, we’re just thankful that it’s functional.)

We love our new happy home!

"Will there be a mint on my pillow?"

Levi had been sick for about a week. Every night when he came home from work, he had a horrible stomach ache and was way more grouchy than usual. But big boys don’t need doctors. On Friday, we were at a friend’s place and as Levi was lying on the floor in severe pain, Hatty and Mitch looked at him and said “Dude, you need a blessing.” So thankful for good friends with good intuition!

Saturday night, the fever hit. I thought Levi was just finally in a good mood, but as he started talking nonsense and giggling uncontrollably, I realized that it was something different. Luckily I’m a die-hard ibuprofen girl, so once I doped him up he seemed much better.

Sunday was the day it all went to pot. That night we were at Hatty’s again and Levi was still in pain. After going home, he decided that it was time to see a doctor. Checking in to the ER at 11:00 p.m. is never something looked forward to.

 

After 5 hours, 2 doctors, an ultrasound, and a cat scan, the 7 foot tall doctor came back and said he thought that they could see the “remnants” of his appendix. (Levi likes to call it his shrapnel.) Doc said that his appendix had probably ruptured Friday, but miraculously his body had walled off the toxins and kept them contained, rather than spreading and trying to kill him like normal appendicitis. Levi and I looked at each other, and then I cried. Mitchell and Hatty probably saved his life with that blessing.

 

Around 5 a.m. on Monday, they finally let us out of the ER and took us up to an actual hospital room. As they wheeled us into an elevator, Levi asked the nurse, “Will there be a mint on my pillow?” Always my lighthearted boy. J

The doctors wouldn’t do surgery where his appendix had already ruptured for fear of those toxins spreading and causing more damage. So, the next four days were full of lots of antibiotics, pain, visitors, and healing. Now we’re home and still doing antibiotics, trying to get things back to normal.

Not where we thought we’d be spending our 1-month anniversary, but we’ve quickly learned the truth to “in sickness and in health”.