Spud land

Aka Idaho.

Which happens to be where we will be moving!!!!!!!!!!!

TJ got a job up in Idaho Falls and he will be starting within a week and a half. I am so proud of him for getting this job. It's an awesome job with an amazing company. TJ will be a project scheduler for a uranium enrichment plant they are building in Idaho Falls. I know, my husband's pretty cool, right? :)

So, if you are ever wanting to go to Idaho Falls, or are passing through, you can come visit us! We went and looked at housing today and found some great options. We are hopefully signing a contract within a couple days! And possibly moving this weekend...what?! Craziness. It depends on how soon TJ starts, and we should find that out tomorrow...ish. I am so proud of TJ for getting this job! (did I say that? :)) We feel so blessed to have found employment so quickly after graduating. The timing, the location, and just everything fits so perfectly. We are very grateful.

Ah! We're really moving! It's hitting me more and more as we pack up our apartment. We get to be real people now! Haha. I will definitely miss Provo life, but we are so excited to move on to the next stage of life!

Idaho, here we come!!

Sew much fun

I got a sewing machine for Christmas and I wanted to share a couple projects I've completed! The first thing I made was a skirt. I had never made one before, and I was pretty pleased with how it turned out!

Brad and Angie (my brother and his wife) are expecting their first baby this month! For Angie's baby shower I made her this little sign for their little girl's nursery.

This was a project I made up. I pictured it in my head and then experimented to make it happen. It was a LOT more work than I thought, but now that I know what to do it wouldn't take quite so long. I love the way it turned out :) Maybe next time I'll make a little tutorial...if anyone would be interested?? The letters are all poofy. I stuffed 'em with batting and sewed them up.

The frame is made from wood scraps I got for free at Home Depot! This is a cheap project that can be really fun. You don't need very much fabric or batting at all and the wood can either be really cheap or free. Or you could buy a frame, but then you'd have to adjust the letters accordingly. I just did the name on the fabric first and then built the frame. TJ helped me build the frame (aka he built it for me :)) and staple the fabric on.

And that's what I've been doing with my new toy! I'm excited to get to bigger and better projects...sometime. And I would love your feedback on these ones. What do you think?! How'd I do?

Manti

About 2 months ago TJ and I took a trip down to Manti. We had been talking about going down to Manti and going to the temple, but we just never had time. It's kind of hard when TJ was going out of town almost every weekend. The first weekend of May there weren't any track meets, so TJ told me I wasn't allowed to make any plans for the weekend. He wouldn't tell me anything, not even a hint of what we were doing or where we were going. Friday I came home from work and TJ had packed a little suitcase for us and said we were leaving! He still wouldn't give me any hints of where we were going the whole time we were driving! All he told me was we weren't leaving the state of Utah. We pulled up to this cute little hotel in Gunnison, which is about 10 miles from Manti, and said he was going to go check us in for the night.

We spent the night just hanging out, watched a movie, and just enjoyed being away from Provo spending time together. So relaxing and wonderful.

The next day we went to the Manti temple! It was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. I love the live sessions, the art, the spiral staircases, the stone, and the area around the temple is amazing. I am so glad we got to take this trip! Such a great surprise :)

Last week we went with Chris and Emily down to the Manti pageant. We went down early so we could get a good seat. We took down Chris' little bbq and bbq'd some kabobs right outside the temple grounds.

Mmmm so good!

TJ and Chris played with the football while dinner was cooking.

We had kabobs, fruit salad (my absolute favorite thing about summer!), chips, and lemonade. Every person that walked by us was pretty jealous, and told us we had the right idea! We sure thought so :)

After dinner we went and got snow cones!!!

I had been dying for a snow cone. It was delicious!

Then we sat down and waited for it to get dark until the pageant started. It was so cool to be able to just hang out in front of this beautiful temple. The pageant was great. TJ and I had gone for the first time right before we got married, so it was fun to go back and see it again. I love seeing the history of the Church reenacted, not matter how cheesy it is :)

Yay for Manti! I'm really glad we got to go down. Thanks Chris and Emily for inviting us down!