Seven

One new house to call our own.

Two college degrees.

Three cities we've called home.

Four members in our family.

Five vehicles we've driven.

Six anniversaries.

Seven amazing years of being married to my best friend.

I love you sweets. 

Happy Anniversary.

Hill Air Force Base Museum

This week we headed up to the Hill AFB museum. I was told that it was amazing, and I have to say... it definitely did not disappoint. The boys were in heaven in a huge open field with plane after plane. We will definitely be returning.

 My boys held hands almost all day long.  I've never seen them do that.

 The planes were amazing. I've been reading the book Unbroken (I highly recommend it by the way) and it was awesome to see the actual planes that had been discussed in the book.

 

I love the symbol of the United States Air Force star painted on these retired massive planes. The entire experience left me with a huge rush of patriotism, and pride in my country. (And a desire to get back and finish my book.)

 The belly gunners were the boys favorite. Mainly because they were the guns that they could reach.

 Me and my boys beneath the biggest plane on the field... it's enormous by the way.

 Me and Porter with my favorite plane behind us.

Bridger's favorite was the shark... "be rea-ee careful... oh, it bite me!"

 A successful trip, and one that we are sure to repeat in the future.  Anyone want to join?

one month

A lot can happen in a month. A lot has happened, and a few things didn't happen. (Like blogging... blogging didn't happen...) Let me summarize the past month.

June 2nd I got a job offer. A job offer that would allow me and my family to return to the same home town we left just 4 years ago.
Later that day I accepted the offer and cried when I realized that I would be leaving my good friends and second family in southern Utah.

After some in depth discussions, we decided we should buy a house. It all made sense. We love the area near my family and we want to raise our kids near family. We want our kids to know their grandparents/aunts/uncles/cousins. So, we knew that if we headed to northern Utah, that it's where we would want to stay and raise our family... so why not buy a house if we plan on staying there right?

So, in the middle of packing and moving, we grabbed a fantastic realtor and headed out house hunting. We saw some nice homes, some not-so-nice homes, some REALLY not-so-nice homes, and two beautiful homes. One of the beautiful homes was in the perfect neighborhood with beautiful tree-lined streets, and when we left I turned to Kyle and said, "That one... I want that one."

For all who know me... I'm a tad on the indecisive side.  Knowing that I want something immediately and that I won't regret purchasing it does not happen. I have to debate it back and forth and think of the pro's and con's, then leave it for a little while and hope that someone else will come by and purchase it so that it will make the decision for me (no joke, I've done this multiple times). So this was new for me. I walked out of the house, and I knew I wanted it. Not because I felt pressured to find a home quickly, and not because it was one of the only nice homes we had seen, but because it felt right. I could see my family in that house. A beautiful little house, with a garden, and flowers, mature trees and a pear tree, cause I love pears. And a wood stove, cause we love us some wood stoves. So later that day, we put in an offer and later accepted a counter-offer (days from time of new job to home offer... 13 days). Come the end of July, we should have our own home.

Then, for the last two weeks, I've been orienting to a new job and jumping back and forth between my parents home and southern Utah as my place of residence. But as of Monday this week, Kyle turned in our keys and we are done with our move back to Northern Utah.
One month is all it took, and it has completely transformed our lives. It's been a wild adventure.

Stay tuned for pictures... I'm sure there will be some eventually.