Fall has arrived!

Apples are on sale at the store, I've made my first pumpkin dish (pumpkin apple streusel muffins), and it's starting to get chilly in the mornings.

Routine has been pretty standard, work, school, homework, etc. Not even many super exciting things happening on the weekends at the moment. But, I'm sure that will change soon like it always does!

New Place part 2

So we've actually moved in now! It will take until next post probably to post real pictures of the place because we still have quite a few semi unpacked boxes hanging around. It was a pretty rough time getting everything over. We had lots of help from the ward moving all the furniture and big stuff but it really is amazing how much stuff gets left behind when you just don't have enough boxes to pack everything up at the same time. We finally managed to get everything except Dave's snowboard out on Monday so when I finally make it back to clean I should be able to clear that out. It actually does fit in my car. Not terribly excited about the clean up though. I don't want to know how many roaches I've been cohabitating with.

The New Place

So the exciting story of this week is we got keys to the New Place. Yeah, I still think of it in capitals for now. Our new lease began on Friday. So a lot of my week went into measuring and making a schematic so we could decide how to arrange the furniture and I got permission to paint, so I picked out paint and spent essentially all of Saturday painting. I don't think I give painters enough credit, my entire body is sore from painting today. And I'm only about halfway done! (Luckily?) there are only 7.5-8ft ceilings so I didn't have to use a ladder to get the upper corners or anything. It made the process much faster. However, we still have a lot to go to get the apartment ready to be inhabited. And I'm going to have to get used to living in a basement again... Definitely going to need to find some really good bug repellant/insecticide again.

Dave spent the week in North Carolina visiting a buddy. We'll have to see if I can get him on to post his adventures and pictures and such. All I know is he took Kiwee (the bike) and says the winding way he took was about 1700 miles of riding. And that it was supposedly really pretty. Guess I'll find out as he edits his pictures.

More moving fun in the works for this week!

Time flies

Hard to believe summer is almost over. In two more weeks Dave will be back in school. Doesn't feel like it's been long enough yet.

This week was fairly standard for what's been going on. Had a double header in softball, barely lost both games. We played really well though. Went to King's Dominion on Saturday, had a good time until it started raining. But, the threat of rain did keep the number of people down a bit.

I had a team building activity at work on Friday which was fun. We went to a driving range which keeps score like darts. Out of the five of us teeing off from my tee, I won one game which I was very proud of.

The most exciting thing going on is we're moving in the next two weeks! Yay! Should be pretty exciting. Similar sized apartment for $200 cheaper than we're paying right now. It's the basement apartment in a house so we'll have access to a yard too! Stella will like that. Not as terribly excited about the whole moving part of the move though. I don't think I know anyone who really likes packing and unpacking though so that's pretty standard.

We'll have to see how it goes though

Happy happy birthday hey!

So the last couple of weeks have been pretty fun. I turned 24 (OMG!) and got to have a fun birthday with my hubby. Also got some super sweet muffin tins from my little sister. Check out the mini cheesecakes below. We went and saw Batman 3 (I thought it was pretty good) and saw a musical called The Addams Family (dadada dum!). Actually was really quite funny. Spent a little time at the pool, went looking for a new apartment, had a BBQ with my work friends, and found this fun new show called full metal alchemist.

Right now at work I'm absorbing half of a coworkers desk which is kind of interesting. The melding of the two will be a lot of work because the previous desk owner ran it quite a bit differently than I like to.

Dave is finishing up his summer internship this week and he is pretty excited about that! Except it means he has another two weeks and then school starts up again. Hopefully he does just as well this semester as he did last semester!

Vacation!

So I would easily say the highlight of the last few weeks was our vacation with my family.

Dave, Stella, and I flew out to Utah only one day after my parents were allowed back into their house. Their entire street had been evacuated due to a wildfire burning just up the mountain. Luckily, unlike in Colorado, this wildfire managed to be put out with no people or houses killed by the fire. I'm pretty sure there was at least one barn that got destroyed, but all in all that's really quite good.

So we spent most of Saturday helping my parents move stuff into the trailer so they could bring it up to Wyoming with us. We also met Jon and Delsa's puppy Daisy. She is really cute but definitely still a puppy. Then Sunday was church and family dinner and Monday we went up to Richards Ranch in Wyoming. Dad put us to work moving stuff and setting up camp. The Holyoaks joined us on Tuesday and the rest of the family joined on Wednesday. We had a good time hiking around the property and shooting and playing with the niecen and the dogs and taking the gator and the four wheelers around. We went into Afton a couple of times for milkshakes and to swim with the niecen at the hotel Grandma and Grandpa were staying at.

Stella did manage to not eat any of the chickens, although mom did give her the opportunity once, and thoroughly enjoyed all the outdoor running and swimming and such. The only real blemish on the week was Daisy instigated something under the table and Stella gave her the doggy equivalent of a black eye. Biting or scratching we're not sure but Daisy might bear the proof forever.

We did have to come back home eventually though. We were very proud of Stella for handling the flying very well. She did come home and sleep for about three days straight but we're pretty sure that was because she over exerted herself because she's lazy when she's at home.

Getting back to normal life took some adjusting but we might finally be back to the humdrum of our daily routine. On Saturday we went to a dinner theater in Woodbridge. It was actually really fun. The food was pretty average and the acting was pretty average and the singing wasn't anything stellar but it was quite enjoyable. We saw I do! I do! a play following a married couple from day 1 to moving into a retirement home. I thought it was actually quite true in its generalizations about marriage. Luckily Dave and I are still in our twitterpated newlywed stage.

That's about all for now. Guess we'll have to see what the next week brings!

How bout that weather?

So I guess the big highlight of the last two weeks would be the weather! Record breaking heat wave and a majorly severe thunderstorm that knocked out power to more than two million residences and business in I think it was at least five different states. Not sure on that last one. But it was widespread and a lot of people affected.

Fun stuff first though. Last week was Kings Dominion with one of Dave's buddies. It was pretty fun we had a good time out in the sun and then we got to feed the missionaries that night. They were pretty funny.

We implemented a new software system at work over the weekend so the last couple of weeks has been about prepping for "Go Live" and we're finally there. All told, once everyone gets used to it I don't think it will be that bad. But for now it's difficult because so many of the people we work with are in other parts of the world and you can't be sure how much training they got and we don't get training on how other functions work to know how they use the system so it'll be an interesting adjustment.

Over the weekend Dave and I lost power during this heat wave. Massive (and sudden) thunderstorm knocked out our power around 10PM on Friday night. Good thing we didn't go try to see a movie, right? So it was pretty miserable at our place with no A/C and the pool was closed because of all the storm debris so there wasn't even that for relief. Saturday night I had a coworker get her power back and take pity on us so she let us crash at her house. Stella especially was happy to be out of the heat. It has to be really rough not being able to sweat.

Dave went shooting on Saturday (can't escape the heat so embrace it?) and got his very first tick. Which of course he made me pull out and then freaked out that I did it wrong. Really? There's only one way to pull out a tick. I was surprised he'd never ever had a tick before but I guess they aren't all that common in the southwest. Or so he says. It was the first time I'd ever pulled a tick off of someone though. Good thing I'm crazy and carry tweezers in my travel bag.

We finally got power back on Sunday night (they canceled church because the building had no power) although the lights in front of our complex are still out so for fear of my life I'm driving to work now. But by next week everything should be back to normal. We hope!