Adventures

In my heart I like to consider myself an adventurer. Someone who has been all over the world and seen all these amazing places, met all of these interesting people, maybe solve a mystery or two. Couldn't you see me somewhere like these two places...


Since tomorrow is a new year it got me thinking about what this year will bring. And you know what I decided...I'll let you guess...ADVENTURES! (yay, I knew you would get it) I may not be able to go to Paris or Greece in the coming year but I know that whatever this year brings I'll be able to have lots of adventures.
"The purpose of life, after all,
is to LIVE it,
to taste experience to the utmost,
to reach out eagerly and without fear
for newer and richer experience."
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
Don't you love that quote! I know I do. This quote is going to be added to my fridge this year so that I can always remember what my new years resolution is. To live life, to always be looking for new experience's and adventures and to embrace them without fear.
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
~ Helen Keller ~
I love Helen Keller, she is a true adventurer and such an inspiration. (this is going on my fridge too by the way). How true is this quote. Life is an adventure. It always will be, whether you're traveling the world or like me, and living out your adventure at home with the people you love more than anything. Here's to a new year and whatever adventures come our way! Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all had a fantastic day!
Love,
Kirsten, Brandon, and Missy ♥

First Impressions

Well folks, the house is coming along quite nicely. And we're getting really excited. All we have left is to get the carpet installed and then we can officially move into the upstairs and stop living like hermits :) I will post pictures of the colors we chose once we finish the touch up work around the trim and ceiling. I've always wanted a house that leaves a really good first impression when people come and visit. One of the things Brandon and I were talking about the other day was our front door. Right now it's just white (with a couple cute crayon marks from the daycare that previously occupied the house) with a small rectangle window in the middle. Eventually we want to get a new one but for now we're wanting to paint it. These are some pictures we found of what we're thinking for a paint color. Eventually we would love to have it look like the bottom one. What do you all think?



Just a little Christmas thought to leave you with...
". . . for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself." -Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

3.14159

PIE! Yummy! Today has been pretty eventful. I had school off for Thanksgiving break so I went over to my parents house to help make pumpkin pies. It smells so yummy in here. Missy and I got up pretty soon after Brandon left for work so we could work on the house some more. So far we have everything primed and the ceilings done. Today I got one coat of paint on the walls in the spare bedroom/office. It's starting to look so good. I'll have to post pictures so you can all see how the work is coming along. We're getting really close and should be done painting by the end of the weekend! Yay! Then all we have left is carpet and it will be time to move upstairs. We're really excited!

I know I'm a slacker...

I've been promising probably the whole time I have had this blog that I'll do better at updating it. The truth is, I really want to...but then I forget. So I'm being serious this time, I'm going to do better. My reasoning is this. We have a lot of family that we don't see on a regular basis and I'm sure they want to know what's going on escpecially since we just bought our house. So...I'm going to start updating the blog more often, starting now. Promise!

Our life recently...

Our life recently...packing...waiting...packing...teasing Missy by putting boxes on top of her and pretending we're going to pack her...waiting...waiting...learning to know when a situation is out of our control and putting it in the Lord's hands...packing...and still waiting! Don't worry though we're doing it with a smile :)

House

Well...we were supposed to be closing on our house today...but...we're not quite done. Technically we signed all the papers and are done, but they're waiting on something from the bank for the seller since it's a short sale. So the seller isn't done. It's been five months since we put our offer in and we were so excited this morning that it was finally going to be finished, after everything that we had to do to get to this point. Let me tell you, I was a little beyond frustrated this afternoon. I came to school and did not want to be here, I just wanted to go find someone that I could blame for not getting their job done. As I calmed down a little bit I was reading some quotes on lds.org and I found one that I really liked. It's from the May 2007 Ensign from an article by Bonnie D. Parkin the part I really liked said:
"...receiving even tribulations with thanksgiving requires a broken heart and a contrite spirit, humility to accept that which we cannot change, willingness to turn everything over to the Lord—even when we do not understand, thankfulness for hidden opportunities yet to be revealed. Then comes a sense of peace."
I realized that I needed to hear exactly what Sister Parkin said over two years ago. I can't change what's going on...in fact at this point in time there is absolutely nothing I can do to make them go faster with the closing. The only thing I can do is turn everything over to the Lord and say "I don't understand why this is happening like this or at this time, but I trust You, I know that you would never give me anything that I can't handle and I know that so long as I have done all I can do that it will all work out how it's supposed to."

Looking back over a great year!

Can you believe tomorrow is mine and Brandon's first anniversary? It feels like it's gone by so fast, but I wouldn't trade one second of it. We have had an awesome first year. We are working on buying our first house (and hoping that it won't take much longer...we're going on three months of waiting, luckily we're close). We have had lots of fun adventures and have kept each other laughing. I find a new reason every day why I love him and can't imagine doing what I have in the past year without him. We were talking the other day about how much we are looking forward to the many many many more years and eternity that are to come after this first one. As part of this post I wanted to put some pictures of what we have been up to over the past year, (I realized the other day that I have over 500 pictures on our camera and none of them have ever seen the light of day except when I look through the camera :)) So I figured what better time to look back and reminisce then on your anniversary. Our first Halloween! That pumpkin weighed 50 pounds! Our first Christmas! Brandon played with the train every night before we went to bed, it was so fun. We got our first dog! She is so cute! We have been camping and gone to the cabin. We have been boating on Utah Lake. We went to the state fair and have a new tradition (2 years running) of getting a foot long corn dog for dinner! Looking back through these pictures has been so much fun, it has brought back a lot of memories that we have made over the past year. I love you honey! Happy Anniversary!

St. George

Hey everybody! So I’m down in sunny St. George this week helping my Aunt out. It’s been a VERY. long time since I last posted on here and quite a lot has happened. Missy is so much fun to have around I’m really glad we were able to get a dog. We had a really fun Easter and got a lot of candy. Missy even got a toy from the Easter bunny. (She’s already ripped a hole in it) School has been out for about a month now so we have had a lot of fun spending more time together. One of our favorite family night activities is giving Missy a bath (Missy isn’t too fond of it but we like watching Missy pout)
So far St. George has been really fun. I got here last night around dinner time. Grandma and Michele left this morning after they came to check on us. All of the kids (except Dustin) have been at school. Dustin really likes Missy, and Missy is doing pretty good around the kids. She wasn’t too sure of all of them at first though. Well that’s all for now!

Missy!

So once again it has been a while since I last posted and I apologize that I haven't kept my word on making my blog more interesting. As I’m sure most of you know (sorry to those of you who live down south) we got a dog! She’s adorable. So this is my excuse for taking so long to post… I wanted to post pictures but I’ve been so busy recently (and it took me forever to figure out how to get the pictures on the computer) that I just didn’t have time until now to post about her. But here she is. (Once again sorry there is only one picture, once I get the hang of the camera/laptop situation I promise I'll post more) Our adorable little dog’s name is MISSY. She just turned two years old on January 26. We got her from a really nice family on January 24 that we found on KSL, they actually ended up living about one street away from my parents house. (I think it’s fate) She is so cute! We love her. She is the absolute most perfect dog!
Her eyes are actually brown, not green. Her dad is a pure bred chihuahua and her mom is a mix between a poodle/shih tzu/maltese. All in all we have had an awesome February. I've gotten to substitute for nursery recently, which I absolutely love. There are only two little girls in there and they are so cute. I've been pretty busy with school, but there is only 5 weeks left in the semester! Brandon has been a ton of help, if he knows I'm busy then he'll cook dinner, or clean the house, or just stay up and keep me company. It's really nice. Well, that's all for now. Have a happy day!

Update...

I decided it was time for another update, so here I am. We’re doing great! We’ve been really busy between both of us working and me going to school, and everything else we are doing, but I can tell we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing because everything is falling into place and we’re able to do everything we need to. School has been going pretty good. It hasn’t gotten to hectic as of yet but I’m sure that day will come the closer we get to the middle/end of semester. I do have to say that I’m learning a TON in the classes I have. I was thinking about how fun it would be to start posting pictures of the projects I’m working on. There is also a lot of cool quotes/info my teachers tell us that I think would be helpful to everyone, so I decided if something really stuck out to me I would share it with all of you! It’s my goal to start posting a LOT more often than I have been recently so that my blog isn’t boring (my sister told me it was once, gotta love sisters, they’re always so completely honest with you!) In my modern furnishings class we’re learning about the arts and crafts movement and William Morris, one of the architects during this time, said this amazing quote that I’ve kind of taken to heart. He said “Do not have anything in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful” I just think that is such a useful piece of advice to remember, and wanted to share it with everyone. Anyways, that’s our update for now!

Happy New Year!

Hey everybody! I know it has been FOREVER since I’ve posted anything, but it has been a really busy holiday season. I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas. Our first Christmas together was so much fun (I’ll be sure to post pictures once I upload them to the computer). We ended up setting up our Christmas tree on Thanksgiving (which was before we threw away our jack-o-lantern because by that point it was dripping onto our neighbor’s balcony :) and neither one of us wanted to carry it to the garbage) and are kind of sad to take it down. Our fish are still alive and are so cute, they’re our little boys. School is starting again next week, and after this semester is over I should only have two left! Woo hoo, almost done with college! Happy new year!

Seasons

I love watching the seasons change, each new season brings something new to be excited about! Brandon and I got to carve a pumpkin for Halloween, which was a blast because this was no ordinary pumpkin. This pumpkin weighed 50 pounds! It was amazing! (We still have it sitting on our balcony, I'm kinda holding on to it) And next is Thanksgiving! We were talking the other day about Thanksgiving and we both said the same dorky thing at the same time (great minds think a like!) and decided since we can eat at TWO Thanksgiving dinners this year we were going to go into training so we could stuff ourselves as full as possible! And then there is the Christmas tree. We bought it last year while they were really cheap and on clearance. Brandon has been so excited to set it up (and his little train that goes around it) that he asks me if he can set it up every day when he gets home from work! We finally came to a consensus that we could set it up the day after Thanksgiving, but no sooner because it will most likely take up a large amount of the space in our front room. (I have a feeling though that we'll probably set it up on Thanksgiving I'm excited to set it up too!) Anyways, I'm excited for the rest of the holiday season to come!

And now...

It's been a MONTH! That's right everyone, officially 11 minutes ago it has been one month since Brandon and I were married. We have been so busy with school and work and the apartment that it seemed to just fly by. However, I am happy to say that out apartment is finally clean! We still have some stuff that will probably just stay in boxes, but we can sit on the couch and see the floor everywhere (except where the furniture is) in the apartment! Pretty exciting, I'll have to get pictures of it posted some time soon. (We got a way cool digital camera, and we pretty much take it everywhere with us, so now I'll be able to get lots of pictures on our blog!) Anyways, we went to church for the first time in our new ward two weeks ago, and it's HUGE! There are probably 40 women in relief society (which is a little intimidating coming from a ward of about seven) but everyone was really nice and friendly and like half the ward lives in our apartment complex. Oh, and I'm thinking about getting a hair cut, but I can't decide how I should cut it. So if anyone has any ideas just let me know. (Or ideas for Halloween costumes, I can't think of what to be:) )

Life continues

Well, it has now been officially 1 week and 5 days since I married my sweetheart for time and all eternity. It's hard to believe that all of that planning is finally over, and how wonderful it all turned out. Everyone that helped at the weddding was amazing, and I know nothing would have gotten done without each and every one of you. I'm hoping to have pictures soon so I can post them on here. Our photographer was really good (Brandon's uncle Jeff) and I can't wait to see how they turned out. Still life continues. Our apartment is still not even CLOSE to being unpacked (considering that my bedroom in my parents house is still a disaster :) ) but we're getting there. Every day brings new surprises and something to laugh about. I love being married (even though there are still a lot of adjustments to get used to, going from six people to only two is kind of weird). My Mom gave me some great advice she told me "things won't get back to "normal", they just get back to life." This is SO true, I kept thinking that after the wedding things would get back to "normal", but now that it IS after the wedding I have realized that my "normal" has changed, and now Brandon and I get the wonderful chance to start our own life together. Making our own "normal."

YAY!!!

So tomorrow is my WEDDING! I'm so excited. We have been moving everything into our apartment over the past week, but we still have a lot to move. I think it will wait until after the wedding. I know it has been a while since I posted last but I didn't realize that planning a wedding was so time consuming. (And to be honest, my Mom has been so amazing because she has really done a whole TON more than I have so that I can focus on my school work. I don't know what I would do without her.) All of the relatives from out of state are starting to gather this week. Brandon's grandparents from Michigan came last night, and I'm pretty sure my Aunt Liz and family are coming up today. I can hardly wait for tomorrow morning!

Wow!

Well, it has been a while since I have had time to post anything on here, so I'll do a quick update on what has been going on. Fall semester started, so I'm officially back in school. Which means that between trying to juggle homework and everything that goes along with planning a wedding I have been getting busier and busier. We're officially only 9 days away from the wedding! Woo hoo, single digits! I'm so excited for it to be here. I think the reception is going to turn out really good. And even though I am really super dooper excited for the actual wedding, I think I'm more excited about being able to spend the rest of my life with my amazing Brandon. Well, I'll try to keep more updates as the days go by (hey, that's a really good country song!) and hopefully I can keep this more up to date.

Bridal Showers

So, after a crazy but really fun weekend, I finally have time to make a new post. The bridal showers were so much FUN. I got tons of stuff that are going to help us a lot when we're first married. My bedroom is now completely full of stacks of gifts, but frankly I wouldn't have it any other way. Also, a funny story, Brandon and I got our first chair the other day...we found it on the side of the road for FREE. It's actually in really good condition and we're really excited about it. It's funny the little things that make you so happy when you're planning on getting married. (or newly married I'm sure) So we're now making our collection of stuff for our apartment and I'm sure our parents are sick of storing all of our stuff. Anyways, life continues to be as busy as ever, but I wouldn't trade a moment of it. Only 30 days!

Finally

It's finally the end of what seemed like a week with no end! Everything was taking so long and I felt stuck for hours. But now it's friday and almost the weekend. I'm so excited for tomorrow because I have two bridal showers! I can't wait to see what is planned, and what creative gifts everyone has thought of. I'm REALLY looking forward to it.

End of Semester!

So, yesterday was finally my last class for summer semester. It has been so much FUN and I love the school and interior design. It has been a lot of work though and that means that on top of that and planning a wedding I have been INSANELY busy. Brandon has been so amazing in helping with everything that is going on and is always willing to do whatever needs to be done. I think I have to be the luckiest girl ever to get a guy like him. Only 37 days left!