Home Sweet Home

This is the current state of my parents' home... the home I grew up in.

Yeah, pretty embarrassing.  The worst part is that the whole half-siding thing has been going on since before I was married... 5 YEARS ago.

This is the house that my family of 11 which includes 2 parents has occupied for the last 30+ years.  It is where I took my first steps and said my first words.  It is the place where I shared a 9 x 9 bedroom with 3 other girls for several years.  It's home.

Now the house has not ALWAYS looked this way.  This is actually the third revision of the outer appearance.  It's gone from yellow to brown (wood) to tan.  The inside of the house had changed even more times than the outside.  The whole house has probably never been finished in my lifetime.  If you walk around the house, you will notice that there are various levels of unfinished-ness.  These pictures below of the kitchen and bathroom have been this way for years.  We're just used to it now.

 

The latest reason why the house is in its current state is my dad's new ideas for additional construction.  Basically what he wants to do is rip off the front right side of the house and extend it about 10 feet or so.  He has some really great updates in mind, but he's decided that he wants to do it himself.  Recently he called a contractor to get an estimate of the foundation.  It was around 7:00pm and I was at the dining room table talking to my dad about it when we had the following conversation.

Jenny says, "Hey Dad, this new house remodel is really expensive. Why don't you just buy a new house?"  Dad says, "Eh, I've thought about it before."

30 minutes or so later... We're both downstairs on the computers. Dad is probably reading conservative news articles. I'm searching realtor.com for houses in the area. (Just for kicks and giggles.)

After searching for about 10 minutes. I say, "Hey Dad, what kind of street name would be good enough for our family?" I say a few and then I find a funny looking one and say, "Ohh, what about this one... 'C' Dr. That sounds just like a street our crazy family could live on!" 

Then Dad says, "Hey, that's where the Bishop lives. It's right next to the church. How much does it cost?" I tell him.  I then tell him a few other specs like land, bedrooms, and bathrooms.

Literally, about 5-10 minutes after I mention the house he tells me, "Print it out and have your mother buy it." Mom walks downstairs and I hand her the paper. "Dad says that you should buy this." Around 9:00pm, mom calls the Realtor and asks if the house is still available.

I leave that night not really thinking that they're actually going to buy a house.

They drive by it Sunday. Walk through it Monday. I get a call around 7:00pm Monday night (less than 48 hours later). Mom says, "We just signed the papers."

Seriously no joke, that's how it went down.  My parents after 30 years of living in the same home are buying a house.  For those of you that are worried about losing the old house, don't worry... my dad has decided to keep both houses.  This house is in foreclosure so it's quite the steal and it's in great condition.  My family has never done anything the normal way, so I guess I didn't expect them to start now.

So that's the story of my parents' new house.  

Here are some pictures.  This new house is slightly bigger than the older house with a whopping 6 bedrooms and 3 1/2 baths.  It sits on 0.71 acres and backs up to the church.  Dad says that we can, "Walk to church like Mormons in Utah!"

 

I've actually started to get a little sentimental when thinking about the "old house."  Instead of being embarrassed as I drive up the street, I think of all of the fun memories I have had in that house.  I think of how much character it has.  I know that we're not getting rid of the old house, but it makes me sad to think that my family will not be living in it anymore.  Maybe one day in the future they'll move back in it.  My dad says he wants the space so he can work on finishing the old house.

You're probably wondering what in the heck my parents are going to do with 2 houses.  Well, as it turns out, the missionaries from our church are actually staying in the house that is being foreclosed on, so he's looking into having them stay in the old house.

For right now it's all a little hard to believe, but well... that's my family.

School's Out!

The school year ended this last Friday.  Life has been crazy!  I don't think I actually slept last week.  Not only was last week, the last week of school, but it was also when I scheduled my Activity Day Girl's Etiquette dinner.  We hosted about 22 people for dinner and it actually turned out really well.  The other Activity Day Girl's leader went to culinary school so dinner was amazing.  I didn't take pictures, but you'll just have to believe me that it was nice.

All of Thursday night I worked on my classroom DVD.  I've been doing a DVD as an end of the year present to my students all of the years that I've been teaching. I take pictures throughout the whole school year and then put them to music on a slideshow on the DVD.  I look forward to creating it all year!  This year I created my fourth DVD.  I have to say that it was my best one yet.  Here is a picture of my DVD.  I can't actually show you the whole slideshow and you probably wouldn't be interested in watching pictures of my fourth graders anyways. 

I miss my class already.  I was shucking some corn for Doug's Father's day dinner last night and I was thinking that I should bring in an ear of corn and talk about how it was pollinated with my class.  Then I remembered that the school year was over.  I can't believe these kiddos won't be in my class anymore.  I guess I should be used to it now being that this is the fourth group of kids I've taught, but I'm not.  Putting the DVD together was pretty crazy because you could physically see how much they had grown this school year.  I guess I'm going through teaching withdrawal.  I'll have a new group of kiddos in no time!

Maybe I'll have time to actually blog now that school is out and I am on summer break!

New Header

So... I changed my blog design.  I'm sure you can tell.

Whenever I started my blog back in 2008, I designed a simple header that went with my selected web address and it was done.  I was tempted to change it MANY times as I watched others change theirs and make them beautiful.  I didn't want to mess with it, so I just told myself that I liked the dullness consistency of the look of my page.  

A couple days ago a link appeared on the toolbar that said Design.  I tried it and was hooked.  So here is my new blog design.  Even though the header says that the blog is amazing, it will still be the same old lame stuff that I write day to day or month to month depending on how blog motivated I am feeling. I created it in Picasa, a free google download that is simple to use.  These are all pictures that I took during our vacation to Hawaii.  And for those of you that are wondering... those are my toes.

We Painted

Doug and I finally got around to painting his office on Memorial Day weekend.  We went with a deep blue color.  I like how it looks, but we're definitely going to need more light in the room.  It looks great during the day when the blinds are open and tons of sun is shining in.  When its night time, it can seem like a black hole.  I'm happy with the deep color, but I think this is the last deep color we will paint with.  It took four coats for the blue and then I screwed it all up by waiting too long to take the tape off.  It peeled a little at the top.  I told Doug that this means we need to put in crown moldings because I'm not repainting...

Here are some pictures.  We still are looking for a good desk to go in Doug's office.  I want to get an L-shaped desk with lots of space.  Unfortunately those can be pretty pricey so we're keeping an eye out for sales.

I haven't taken a picture of the room yet without the tape on, but here is what it basically looks like.

 

Hawaii Vacation

SEE, I said I would blog about my vacation.  Warning!! It is a LONG post!

Well, we arrived in Hawaii on a Monday afternoon and spent the rest of the day settling in at my sister's house and catching up.  My sister is a GREAT cook, it's always a treat to have her cook for you.  It was nice and relaxing and helped us recover from the long plane ride.

Tuesday - We went to Waikiki in the morning and did the touristy thing... posing for silly pictures, buying souvenirs, eating shave ice.

The trees were pretty neat looking there, so Doug took advantage of a photo op.

We were walking down Ala Moana Blvd in Waikiki when this guy sticks a bird on my shoulder. He was charging $10 for a picture, but told us afterward.  We didn't have any cash on us.

This picture cracks me up every time I look at it!  Doug really thought that the bird was going to bite off his ear and the homeless looking man holding our camera was going to run off any second.

Doug LOVES shave ice and jumps at ANY opportunity to eat some.  

 

 I just like turning my tongue different colors!

After walking around Waikiki for several hours, we decided to hike Diamond Head, this huge old volcanic crater that has a great view of the island.  It was really windy, but a lot of fun!

Wednesday evening, we went a a "fancy pants" place called Roy's.  I had swordfish.  It was awesome!  I didn't take pictures because it was TOO fancy.  Seriously, the waitress put the napkin on my lap for me.

Wednesday - Seriously the best part of my day was waking up to this picture below.  Doug is always an early riser, but he claims that all children annoy him.  Bekah's two boys were up and about getting ready for school and Doug was reading them a story.  He actually... had a smile on his face...

We hiked Maunawili Falls Thursday morning.  I already blogged about that here.  Here are a couple pictures that I didn't post before.

This is what happens when Doug holds the camera for 30 seconds of our hike.

Doug forgot his walking stick at the waterfall by accident, so he made another one (it was WAY cooler) out of a fallen piece of bamboo.  Everyone commented on it on our way back. 

After our hike, we randomly starting driving to try to find a place to eat.  After running into TWO construction zones, we happened upon a place right on the beach called Buzz's.  It had yummy crab sandwiches and there were blowfish hanging from the ceiling.

See!

We walked across the street to Kailua Beach Park and walked the beach for until the evening.

Thursday - Doug went into work for a while and I lazed around the house.  We tried the whole find a beach by just driving toward the ocean again and failed horribly.  We ended up in some ghetto neighborhood and needed to call my sister at work for directions.  Luckily, she was able to lead us here...

I played in the sand and read a little while Doug read a lot.  It was very relaxing!

Friday - I've blogged about Doug's salt water aquarium here. While we were in Hawaii, he wanted to see some of the fishy life up close and personal.  He forked out $$$ to go on two scuba diving excursions.  We are not scuba certified, but they gave us a little class on how to get by and were able to take a supervised dive.  Doug has a history of some serious seasickness, so he made sure to take some non-drowsy Dramamine, but unfortunately it was not enough.  We got all suited up by the time we were to our dive point he was too sick to even get off the boat.  I went ahead a went because we were paying so much to go and Doug had to sit on the rocking boat for several hours puking while we were on our dives.  Needless to say it was NOT a good experience for him.  Don't mention it if you talk to him.

Pre-boat - All geared up and ready to go!  He was just being goofy at this point... he wasn't actually sick yet.

Saturday night, we went to the Paradise Cove Luau.  It was a lot of fun!  He got to throw spears, get our faces painted, watch a great show, and eat some yummy food!

The whole tribal face tattoo thing was Doug's idea.  I was a lot of fun!

 Saturday - We went to Lanikai Beach and hung out with Bekah's family for the morning. 

Kate then joined Bekah and I at the mall where we all got mani/pedis and went shopping.  Bekah bought me an AMAZING purse and some awesome red shoes.  She knows I'm a cheap skate, so she spoils me.  ...I don't mind one bit!

This is the day after my bad sunburn.  My skin is so red and swollen!  When he went to do the mani/pedi at the mall.  They did a pomegranate scrub on the legs before my sunburn had shown up. OUCH!  They did this foot scrub thing that tickled so much, I couldn't stop laughing.  I'm not really cut out for this fancy stuff, but it sure was fun!

Sunday - My sister and her family took us to breakfast at Turtle Bay Resort.  It was SUPER nice and the food was amazing.  The boys did a little Easter Egg Hunt afterward.

 I found this color filter feature on my camera.  Doug is colorblind and only sees the color yellow.  I call this picture, "Dougy Vision"

It was breezy, but you could feel the heat radiating off of my skin!

After breakfast at Turtle Bay, we went to Shark's Cove, which is a beach nearby that is surrounded by sharp lava rocks.  Fish get washed inside the cove and can't get back out again.  We saw some pretty neat creatures.  It helped Doug feel a little better after the scuba diving fiasco.

Monday - Monday morning, we hiked another falls near Waikiki called Moana Falls.  Doug and  I are LOST fans and were really excited to see part of the set near our hike.  We actually just saw the scene a couple episodes ago where Whitman locks Kate and Sawyer in the cages again.  It was so awesome to see it in Hawaii and then see it on TV a few weeks later!

Taking a picture in front of Moana Falls.  It's over 100 feet tall!

...and people say everything is bigger in Texas.  Have they been to Hawaii??

Here's the LOST set that we saw a few episodes ago.

After hiking the falls and stalking some LOST sites, we drove up o the North Shore to spend the rest of the day at the Polynesian Cultural Center.  We got to make kissing fish and headbands.  There were tons of things to do, but unfortunately we couldn't get to everything.  We ended the night with an awesome show by the students of BYU-Hawaii.  It's one of the biggest attractions on the island!

The picture I didn't post before... :)

 Final Scene of the show at Polynesian Cultural Center

Tuesday - We had a flight to catch in the early afternoon, so Doug and I had a lazy morning and met my sister for lunch.  Doug went to go visit Jon, Bekah's husband at work, and Bekah and I went shopping!  We picked up lei's for my whole class and I walked around Target with 25 leis around my neck.  It's always a good time when I get to hang out with my sister. 

We flew back home Tuesday afternoon and arrived in Dulles Wednesday morning. 

 

Here is a picture of my class with their lei's.

Hawaii was awesome!  I hope to be able to return again soon!

ALOHA!

5 Years

Doug and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary this weekend.  Yes, 5 years.  Our first milestone anniversary!  I loved Doug more than I could possibly imagine whenever we were married.   If you would've asked me if it was possible to love him more than I did at that point, I'm not sure I would've believed it.  It's been an awesome 5 years!

On Friday, we used one of the Subway gift cards I received during Teacher Appreciation Week for a quick dinner, bought anniversary presents for each other at the mall, and then went to go see Robin Hood.  It was a good movie.  I'm not the violent movie type, but this one didn't bother me.  I haven't really figured out why though.  It was nice to be able to just spend time together with how demanding Doug's work schedule has been lately.  I'll probably rant about his work schedule in a future post.  This post, I'll keep dedicated to anniversary talk.

Saturday, Doug made reservations at some nice restaurant in Tyson's Corner called The Capital Grille.  Doug really likes seafood, but I'm more of a steak person, so he picked this place for me.  A friend of his at work recommended this place pretty highly and Doug was excited that it had complimentary valet parking.  It was a beautiful day/evening, so we took the S and kept the top down.  Not that I usually try to do my hair really fancy or anything, but I didn't even try.  I was going for the wind swept look. ;)

Capital Grille was REALLY nice.  They put little heart confetti on our table so everyone that passed by us wished us a happy anniversary.  At first I was wondering if they made some secret announcement to the staff or something, but then I realized that our table was one of the only ones with the little hearts.  I totally figured out their code!

We both started with a bowl of the most amazing lobster bisque soup I have ever tasted... well I guess it's the only lobster bisque soup I have ever tasted, but still it was GOOD.  They brought out this bread basket that had like 6 different types of bread it in.  All very tasty.  Doug and I both ordered steaks.  I can't remember the exact name of the steak that I ordered, but it was HEAVEN.  I have literally never tasted a steak so amazing in my whole life.  We also had a side order of lobster macaroni and cheese because of a recommendation by a friend.  It was excellent as well.  Before we ordered, the server told us to save room for dessert because he would be purchasing it for us as an anniversary present.

One of the things about this place that makes it so fancy is it's impressive wine list.  Doug and I do not drink so we were obviously there for the steaks.  The front of the menu listed appetizers, soups, salads, and the main courses.  The complete inside of the menu listed the wines and it was in like 8pt font or something.  We let the waiter know at the beginning of our meal that we did not drink, so they took away the wine glasses.  When we ordered our dessert, we picked some yummy strawberry ice cream.  There was no description on the menu, but it was highly recommended by our waiter.  We started from the top (obviously).  Doug and I scooped from the bottom of the dish at the same time and got quite the surprise.  I'm pretty sure there was some sort of alcohol in the bottom of this dish.  I have not tasted any sort of alcohol before, but I've smelled it and Doug and I both agreed that we had probably just sampled our first taste of alcohol accidentally.  Needless to say, we did not finish it, but we had already polished off most of it anyway.  My first reaction... yuck... I guess it's an acquired taste or something.

The waiter took a picture of us when we were received our dessert and I handed him my camera to take a digital picture as well.  We had a great time!

Nightmare

I had a nightmare last night that I finally blogged about my trip to Hawaii and it was full of typos!  Ha ha!  It was terrible!

Anyway, Doug and I are back home and trying to get back into the flow of things.  We really enjoyed our trip.  I'm uploading the pictures to Facebook as I type this.  I'll go ahead and post one of my favorite pictures of us together during the trip for today's post just so this post can have a picture.  I love this picture, not because it is particularly flattering, but that I just remember being so happy when we took it.

If I get the chance this week, I'll try to blog a little more about our trip.

Maunawili Falls

Doug decided to go into work today for a little tour of the Hawaii branch of the division he works for.  I'm enjoying a quiet relaxing morning that will hopefully rid me of the constant headache that I've had since yesterday.  We really are enjoying Hawaii.

Here are pictures of our Maunawili Falls hike yesterday.