Observations

I feel like the morning commute was invented to give people time in their cars to ponder and to observe the world around them. During my drive the last few weeks these things caught my eye...



I think there is an appropriate way to propose to someone, and a way that says I only had $2.88 in my wallet and cups were on sale. I'm pretty sure I would have cried if Isaiah proposed to me with cups on a walkway. I'm hoping that Kelleen said yes and that they name their first child Dixie.










The clarity on this is a little rough but this car has magnetic cut outs of her kids. This might fall into the category of things I think I'll never do when I'm a mom but I will have to eat my words someday. I promise to never put magnetic cut outs of my kids on my car.









On a lighter note here are a few things I love seeing every morning...

This is what I see when I open our garage. The view of the mountains is spectacular. Every morning I sigh and think about what a beautiful place the valley is.

I also get to drive past the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple every day. This temple is beautiful! It's really neat to live so close to a temple. There is a park just around the corner from our house and you can look at the temple while you run laps around the grass field. It's pretty cool.

Hog Heaven

Hey everyone this is Isaiah. I finally decided to make a post of my own.

This mean looking gang I'm with took a trip down south to test our courage. Lucky for all the locals in the towns we visited, the craziest member of our gang had to stay home and study physics. AKA Rosie.

One of our first stops was Scotty's Castle in Death Valley. It was really cool to see this amazing structure someone built in the 1930's that had every modern technology we find in our homes today.



Our second destination was in Arizona. In route to Oatman we stopped by Hoover Dam to take pictures of everyone just in case we didn't all make it back from the winding roads. Also because of the beautiful view.

Luckily we all made it to Oatman and were able take some pictures with the locals. Oatman is an old mining town that has since turned into a biker town. There are donkeys that roam free and have been since the miners left years ago. To forgo any confusion I'm the one on the far left, not the one in the middle.

After a long days ride we found ourselves at the meanest cantina (safari restaurant) we could find to fill our bellies with some grub.

Lastly, you can't pass through Las Vegas without visiting the M&M factory. It was fun to see all the stuff they have done over the years with chocolate, covered with a thin candy shell. P.S. I'm still not sure how they get the M's on those little candies.

It all comes out in the Wash

It might be silly to post about our laundry room but it is a very important feature in our house. I should have done a better job of taking pictures of our old laundry room. It was a narrow hall way between the garage and family room. The washer and dryer sat next to the furnace and water heater. It was really dark and dreary. The best part is our washer and dryer were about 3 inches to wide to sit confortable side by side so the dryer stuck out about 7 inches in front of the washer and into the walk way...it was lovely.

Now we have this! Our laundry room is located on the main floor. Which is sooo nice. We don't have to lug laundry up and down the stairs.


The laundry room is adorable! After the delivery guys left Isaiah and I sat and watched the washer and dryer do it's job. It's very mesmerizing to watch your clothes spin round. The washer is AMAZING too! I fit our king sized sheets, a king sized blanket and a few towels all in the same load.

Last but not least I LOVE the window in the laundry room. No more dark hall way. For now we have a lovely view of the sky. The lot behind us is empty so I'm enjoying the laundry view while I can until someone builds a house back there.

Well, happy washing everyone!

Our new kitchen...and artichokes!

I figured I would post pictures of our house as we get rooms put together. Of course the most important room in the house is the kitchen.

Here are a few pics of the kitchen under construction. There was a lot of dust EVERYWHERE for quite a while.


She cleans up quite nicely. This was before we moved in. Note the beautiful hardwood floor...ahhh I love hardwood :) We had hardwood put in throughout the main living areas. They look great!

All moved in! One of my favorite features is if you walk straight back through the arch you can go into the garage. This makes it soooo convenient to bring groceries in. We also love that the sink is in the island so you can do dishes or cook and you're still apart of whatever is going on in the great room.

The dining area is set in a lovely bay window. It has an excellent view of...our neighbor back yard :) Lovely.

I am also the lucky owner of not 1 but 2 pantries!! The closed door is a pantry that is inside the kitchen, and the open door in the back is the extended pantry. It is a dream come true. Our last house had no pantry to speak of so I put our food storage in the office closet.

Pantry 1:

and Pantry 2. I love that I can put food on one half and all my kitchen appliances on the other side.

Isaiah and I have enjoyed breaking in the new kitchen. Isaiah lost a bet and got to cook me dinner...Iron Chef style including a secret ingredient...ARTICHOKES! We always see these in the store and Isaiah tells me about how he ate them on his mission in Chile.

The Iron Chef himself skillfully preparing the artichokes.

I thought the artichokes looked really pretty.

Me enjoying my victory dinner of oven roasted artichoke, cajun lemon butter dipping sauce and lemon pepper grilled chicken. MMMMmmm. It was delicious!

Well I hope you've enjoyed your first tour. Hopefully I'll get more rooms finished soon.

Dear Blog

Dear Blog,

I'm so sorry that it's February and I just barely removed your Christmas background.

Love Rosie

PS. We're all moved into the new house. Hopefully I can get some pictures up soon :)

What the season is all about

We went to the Festival of Trees with my family earlier this month. I always get a little overwhelmed and emotional when I go to the festival. It's cool to see all the trees that people donate and how much money people pay for them in order to help support Primary Children's Hospital. This is what Christmas is all about.

For those who didn't go...Here are a few of the cool things we saw.

This gingerbread house was AWESOME! It was probably 5 feet tall and even had lights that shined in all the windows.

What more could you ask for? Health, wealth, and a little bathroom regularity.



We found a few trees Isaiah wouldn't mind purchasing like the Jazz tree.

and the Harley Davidson tree.

It was fun to see the tree that his work sponsored. Icecream anyone?

We probably only made it about a fourth of the way through everything. There is almost too may things to see in one night.

We wope everyone is having a great Christmas so far. Only 10 more days until Christmas Eve!

Hard Hat Required

In case you were curious, here's the progress on our home...


Just a lonely lot and a lot of dirt...
On 10/22 they broke ground. They dug out a hole and laid the ground work to pour the foundation.

The funny part is they don't dig out where they are going to put the garage so there was an island of dirt left.

Then they set up the supports for the foundation.
After a night like this....

You get this. Wah la!

They spent a few days putting in the utility lines (plumbing down to the sewage main, etc). Then they back filled the dirt around the foundation.



Ah, home sweet home to be.

A little smooch in our future garage :)

The house really started coming together once they started framing it lastweek.

It went from a bunch of cement and dirt to this overnight!

The far wall is where the master bedroom will be, right now I'm standing in the living room.

Front door and front bedroom. It's hard to tell in this picture but there is an AMAZING view of the city from the front bedroom. You can pretty much see all the way east up the mountain side.

It's a little freaky to walk around since they haven't put the stairs to the basement in yet. I keep worrying I'm going to step back and fall down the open stair well. yikes!

Well here she is. I'm so impressed our house has gone from just an empty lot to this in about 3 weeks. They're estimating to be done by the end of December, early January!