Graduation & Real Life

Well most of you know that Jake graduated a few weeks ago with his Bachelors of Science in Computer Information Technology. It's amazing how fast those four years went by. When we first got married it seemed so far away, and now here we are. It's been a new adjustment without school being a part of our lives at all and having him home everyday since he works remotely. For those who don't know Jake works as a Senior IOS Developer for a company called Apprio Inc. They're located in Washington DC but have allowed him to work remotely from home instead. It's an amazing opportunity for us and we feel so blessed.

We are staying in Rexburg (I know crazy right?). Our main purpose for staying here is because we have a goal in 13 months to buy a house and put 20% down. Staying here where it is so cheap to live will allow us to easily do that. We feel very fortunate to be able to have the option to stay here to work towards that goal. Our other reason for staying here in Rexburg is that we just don't know where we want to move yet! I always thought it would be easy to decide because it would be wherever Jake got the best job. But low and behold he scored the best job where he can work anywhere so it really has made the decision so much more difficult! Right now we've narrowed it down to the south end of the Seattle area (Puyallup most likely), or the Salt Lake area (Draper, South Jordan, or Lehi). We're still very much undecided, but are relying on prayer to get an answer of which area is best to raise our family.

I feel very lucky that I have such a hard working husband who makes enough money with his job so that we are more than comfortable and I'm able to stay home and just focus on being a mom. I can't imagine doing any other job. It's the toughest and most rewarding job in the world.

For now we're just enjoying our time in Rexburg, and looking forward to this next year as we work towards our goal and narrow down where we will end up. We head off to Jamaica in just two short weeks to celebrate our 4th anniversary a little early and we are so excited to go!

First furniture refinish!

I've been getting really inspired on Pinterest lately with all of the DIY things you can do at home, especially with furniture. Since we've been in college for our whole marriage most of our furniture is comprised of cheap laminate put-it-together-yourself type. Which I'm okay with because for the most part it still looks decent. I've always seen more quality furniture at thrift stores but it always looks super old and gross, or even broken. But, with Pinterest anything is possible right? I picked up this cute little solid wood side table on the Rexburg Garage Sale Facebook page for only $25. Awesome deal! I bought it with the intention of refinishing/painting it because the color just doesn't go with our decor. So with a little help from Pinterest I completed the job and loved it! I've now realized how much I love refinishing furniture, so I've taken it on as my new hobby. Excited for all the possibilities to come and to furnish our house with such a custom look! 

Here's how the table looked when I bought it. Not crazy about the color, but beautiful shape and was in pretty good condition. I first primed it with two coats of oil based primer so that it would stick, because I didn't do any sanding. Then I painted it with two coats of paint, mustard color to be exact :) Lastly I did one coat of polyacrylic clear coat to seal it all and give it that nice smooth shine. Oh and added some new hardware to the drawer to make it look a bit more modern.

Here's the end result. I LOVE how it turned out! Matches our living room so well and really brightens it up!

So in love with my little mustard table <3

The Big Move

January flew by and was super hectic this year because we finally moved! We weren't planning on moving at all, we were going to stay in our small two bedroom apartment for another year just because the rent was so cheap, we loved the management, and just planned on saving up our money. We've been wanting a bigger place for a while just because the additional space would be nice, but we were content in the apartment. That was until we found this town home listed on craigslist for a screaming deal and would only cost us a little bit more money every month. We had to take it! So we packed everything up and made the big move. Jake is in school and working so most of the moving fell on my shoulders, but we made it work! We love our new place so much, and it already feels like home. Here's some pictures of it (couldn't get a picture of Reese's room because he was napping :))

The front of the house. We share a porch with our next door neighbors.

Living room. We love how many windows/light there is in this room!

Entry way/front of the living room

Kitchen (aka my favorite part of the house)

Dining area

Stairs leading to the second story

Our bedroom

Master closet

Upstairs bathroom with two doors connecting to the master bedroom and hallway

Shower/toilet room

Laundry room (i love that it's upstairs so I don't have to haul laundry up and down the stairs)

3rd bedroom-Jake's office/guest room (still need a desk in there)

downstairs half bathroom

Christmas Break in Seattle

This Christmas while Jake was on break for school, we headed to Seattle for 2 1/2 weeks to spend the Holidays with our family. We had a lot of fun and it was nice getting a break from Rexburg(aka the freezing cold) for a while and spend some quality time with our families. I was super worried about how Reese would do on the long drive there and back, but he did awesome! He's such a good little baby who rarely fusses or even cries. We split the trip up both ways by staying in a hotel close to halfway so that the trip didn't seem quite as long. On the way there when we stayed the night in Caldwell, ID I had to give Reese a little bath in the sink. He was just so cute in there I had to take pictures!

One of the highlights of our trip was going downtown Seattle for the night with just the three of us. We took the light rail, which I haven't done in years, and just putted around town. We shopped at Pacific Place mall, ate dinner at one of our favorite mexican restaurants, shopped at a few stores around Westlake, and went to see the Gingerbread houses in the Sheraton. They were so amazing. Every part of each art piece was completely made of candy, and some were so creative! Here are the pictures from our trip downtown Seattle:

Reese's first trip on the light rail! You can just tell how enthused he is :)

At the mexican restaurant. He got to try tortilla too!

Jake and Reese in line to see the gingerbread houses

Reese got tired of waiting in line….ZZzzzZzZzzzz

Reese got to meet two of the Seagals at the mall, they loved him!

Trip home on the light rail <3

On Christmas Eve we spent the evening with Jake's family, which was a lot of fun. We had french dips for dinner, yum!, and opened each others presents, and visited. It was a good time and it was so fun for Reese to meet his new little cousin Colton this Christmas!

We spent Christmas Day at my parents house and it was a lot of fun. We woke up and opened gifts, spent the afternoon relaxing and vegging out, had a delicious prime rib dinner, then a few of us went to see Into the Woods. I loved the movie, but I've heard a lot of people say they didn't like it! Reese was totally spoiled this Christmas and he loved every minute of it. 

My parent's got tickets for Jake and I to go see A Christmas Story musical at the 5th Avenue as one of our Christmas gifts. I was so fun to get a date night just the two of us while on our trip, and the show was so cute! I'll definitely want to see it again another year!

New Years Eve was a lot of fun as well. We hung around my parent's house and had our great friend Trudy come over. We did fondue for dinner, then just played games and relaxed until midnight. I was so glad to get to spend so much time with Trudy this Christmas!

The rest of our break was spent just spending time with family, shopping, going out to eat (too much), and just getting in some much needed relaxation. The only downsides to our vacation were when we got food poisoning from a chinese place (yuck), and I got the stomach flu for about half a day. Luckily no one else got it though! It was such a great trip, but we were also so glad to be back in our home and our routine! Looking forward to this new year and all that it has in store for our family!