And along came Bandit!

So Curt and I had talked about getting a dog but we also wanted to wait until we were settled in a little more... I wanted a dog as soon as we found out we were moving into a house. Curt wanted to wait  years 2 years... we finally agreed on a year and a half. That only lasted a month...

Curt's sister in law's neighbor got a dog for their daughter and didn't think she wanted it so they said she needed one more week of caring for him then if she didn't want him we could have him. He is a Border Collie/Sharpei mix. So we were prepared to get a dog but then they said they needed more time with him so I decided to start looking for another dog just in case they decided to keep him. I found this beauty...

Meet Tootsie! Lab, Border Collie, Boxer Mix

She is the sweetest dog! I found her for free on KSL my co-worker and I fell in love with her she is gorgeous! She was in Weston Idaho and my co-worker grew up there so we left after work and went a picked her up so I could bring her home :) Curt didn't like that idea so much. He didn't get to help pick her out and she is so mellow which is a good thing but she had no interest in playing fetch or in playing at all plus she wanted to fight my neighbors dogs... So my co-worker that helped me pick her up said she wanted her for a playmate for her other dog. She has her now and I am sad without a dog but I know that she is happier with Copper and Holli than here with us.

So we had Tootsie Thursday night, Friday day and night and Saturday gave her to Holli and picked up Bandit. Curt showed me some cute puppies in Cove, Utah that were German Short hair(Pointers) and Blue Heeler mix. We decided those would make good dogs so we tried to call the guy but he never answered. Another set of puppies(same breed) came on in Bear River, Utah so we called him and scheduled a time to see them. On June 30th we picked up our first puppy!

Meet Bandit! She has one brown eye and one blue eye!

She is too cute! I love her so much and she has the funniest personality! It is kind of weird to have a dog other than Jackie who I have had since I was 9 years old. It's funny how different, different breeds are. We have had her 5 weeks now she is 17 weeks old, she has grown so much it kind of makes me sad I want her to be a puppy forever! She is the floppiest dog you'll ever meet. Playing tug of war isn't even really a game if she wants to lie down and growl in the middle she will and you can drag her all over the floor until she decides she is ready to stand up again. She loves to grunt, sigh, and whine when she is upset about a situation or wants you to know she doesn't approve. She is kind of a chicken dog she is very shy and timid when faced with a new situation until she decides she is comfortable with it. If something is her idea she is all for it but if not she gives you this look like "Really, you want me to do what now? I don't think so." She has recently, about a week or two ago, realized that she is part cow dog and has started to herd to goats when we go check on them it is darling. Just yesterday she realized she is part bird dog too and stood in perfect point Curt looked down and back up and she was darting after a sparrow she saw. Now the big training begins so she can know what is okay to chase and herd and what is not. She loves to jump on people and be chased.

Look at that face! Can't stay mad at this cutie for long.

She is a silly sleeper, this is her favorite sleeping position.

She uses the scale for her pillow a lot. I think she needs a real pillow.

I no longer get to sleep in because she is used to being up early during the work week to go out to relieve herself in the morning, but I can't imagine not having her! She makes everyday an adventure and she is always giving me great stories to tell. I love my little Bandita!

Our New Life!

So as we learned in the last post! We love our life! Our new house, our land, town, our ward, and our neighbors! We live in one of the prettiest places on earth! Curtis always tell people when they come to visit welcome to heaven!

So since moving in the first item of business for us was to get animals :) that's right that was the first thing we wanted to do. Like I said we live on 5/8 of an acre, most of which is animal/horse property. Curtis was mowing the yard the first time and he mowed one strip of the entire length of the property he came inside and said we need goats or sheep or something to eat down the animal property so he could just mow the part with would be considered the "yard". So that night we started looking on KSL for some goats, we found cute little goats in a town about 10 minutes away but the lady never got back to us on them. So we found others in another town about 20 minutes away and went and picked them up! Two little doelings, Jolly and Josephine.

Josephine is in the back with the darker markings and Jolly is up front with the mostly white legs

So Jolly got her name from the Hunchback of Norte Dame because that is Esmeralda's goat. Josephine got her name from her Uncle Michael(first name Joseph) he makes a goat face that looks like a goat our Uncle and Aunt have so to pay him homage we named one of our goat girls after Michael. I wanted to name both of them after him (Josephine and Michaelina) but Curt said no... :(

So these are our sweetie goats we love them and they have done a fabulous job keeping the weeds down. They brought much enjoyment the first few weeks we had them. Curt told me that they had taken over our lives because they were all I could think about when we weren't home and then when we were I wanted to be down with them. They have the funniest personalities and I was never aware how much attitude and personality a goat can have!

The long catch up/OUR OWN HOME!

 So life has been a little hectic lately! I am so sorry for leaving you on such a sad post for so long!!!

So we had a great Christmas and the rest of 2012. We got up at 2:45am on Christmas morning to surprise my family in highland. We showed up before they got up so that they could see what Santa brought, US! My parents didn't even know we were coming that early they thought we were coming later in the morning. It was great to be able to surprise them like that!

In February Curt and I kind of toyed with the idea of buying a house. We thought about it and how a down payment would be cheaper than rent or about the same, we would be paying ourselves, we could have pets, do whatever we felt like with the house, and be one step closer to being grown ups.
We looked out in Hyrum and didn't find anything that we really liked, there was a house in Clarkston that was down the street from our friends that moved out there a few months prior. We weren't sure we would like the commute into Logan but we thought we would look at the house. I fell in love! We loved that Clarkston is a small town, we could have horses; we could begin our dream of starting a farm/ranch. We made an offer on Tuesday it was accepted Wednesday morning and we signed the contract on Wednesday afternoon! WOW talk about fast! After we got the inspection we were informed that the foundation was crumbling and we had to back out because it was too expensive to fix... :( we were heartbroken, we already had our apartment rented out and we had no place to go. Luckily Curt's sister Connie lives in Providence and loves us enough to take us in for 3 weeks, until we could find something else out. We found another house we liked, it was more money but a much better house with more land! It technically wouldn't be on the market until May 1st (we found the house on April 30th). So we moved out of his sisters house and borrowed Curt's dads Fifth Wheel camping trailer and lived in a trailer park for another 3 weeks! Ugh... I was so fed up with not having our own 'home'/place to live. Finally we signed the contract and moved in May 11th. Almost 3 months from the time we packed our first box!

I don't know why this is sideways but this is our first box packed

Front of the house!

Front Room!

Kitchen

Dining room with my gorgeous red wall I painted!

2nd bathroom

Extra room that is doubling for a shed right now until we build one

Guest room

Office/craft room

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

Mud Room/back door

So we are loving the house! So much space and yard, we live on 5/8 of an acre. In a small country town with wonderful people! We couldn't be happier to be where we are now!

What a week..........

Wow it has been quite the week.... a lot of bad news.

It started on Monday November 12th with a good friend of mine from high school posting on Facebook that her little girl had to be taken emergency C section and she was struggling... then by Thursday she had posted they were letting her go. She had, some how, gotten a brain injury while in the womb and since being born she had yet to open her eyes or breathe on her own... they had decided the next morning they would say goodbye to her. So Friday she posted her amazing testimony as they said goodbye to her perfect, precious, beautiful little girl. I am amazed at the strength she had at this time of trial for them, she is so strong in the gospel to be able to be positive while it is happening.

Precious little Paislee

That news was followed by Curtis calling me from work to tell me that he got in a fight with a lawnmower and it won... he was in the emergency room with lacerations to the index and middle fingers on his left hand (which is his dominant hand) he ended up loosing his fingernails on both fingers, he broke the bone in his index finger with a hairline fracture in his middle finger and had to get over 20 stitches. My poor man can't do much for himself I have to help him eat, get dressed and tie his shoes... He has at least 6 weeks of recovery. Then therapy to follow... poor guy! *WARNING* I posted pictures of his exposed fingers if you are squeamish just skip over them... they aren't too bad but just in case.

poor hubby's fingers

The bad news ended with finding out a friend of mine died while duck hunting with his 2 friends on Saturday... they were on the Great Salt Lake when the weather changed and caused huge waves that capsized the boat and one of his friends hurried to swim to shore to get help, but my friend Chad and his best friend Logan chose to stay with the boat. The water was only 47 degrees, and they ended up getting hypothermia and they passed together... poor Logan he leaves behind his wife and 2 children. Chad was and is such a great person he was a friend to all those who knew him and was the friendliest guy. I know he is doing a great work in Heaven and that Heavenly Father wouldn't have taken him from us so young if he didn't need him for something bigger and better.

My friend Chad

Well as the saying goes bad things come in 3's so I'm done right? I sure hope so I'm not sure I can take much more bad news... All I can say is that I am so thankful for the true gospel in my life... it doesn't make the pain go away completely but it helps to ease the pain some.

Happy 2 Year Birthday

My cutie cute nephew turned 2 on Sunday. He is such a fun little guy! He's starting to talk and has more energy than a barrel of monkeys.

 

 

My mother-in-law made the cute cake! He loved it and was great and blowing out the candles! Happy Birthday Tye Boy!

True Aggie Night

There is a tradition up here in Logan we have a block "A" and on certain nights, you stand on top and kiss someone at midnight to become a "True Aggie". If you and your kiss partner both are not True Aggies you have "A" day or Homecoming night to become True Aggies but if one of you is already a True Aggie, you can go on a full moon night at midnight and kiss on the "A" to make the other a True Aggie. 

Since Curtis and I, both, were not True Aggies, we needed "A" day or Homecoming night, and we missed them last year because we were gone so much. This year, finally, we were here for Homecoming night! So last night we made a date night of it. I had a pressure cooking class at 6:30 but after that we went and got Jamba Juice and went home to set up our tent, sleeping mats and sleeping bags in the living room for a campout! We watched some TV until 11:30 and we hiked up Old Main Hill to the block A for our True Aggie initiation.

Holy wow was it packed full of people! I was reminded why I don't miss being single. It's crazy how things change after you get married, because when I was single I would have had a blast there. But being married it bugged me there were too many people and it was late and loud and cold and I just wanted to go to bed. It made me feel like a party pooper, but I stuck it out and kiss my hubby on that A good and long and then we unzipped our jackets to show our True Aggie T-shirts that we can now wear with pride.

sorry its kinda blurry

24

Holy wow I thought it was huge that I turned 22 well big news people my hubby is 24 he's almost a quarter of a century!!! He had a bigger birthday than I did. He has this place he is in love with The West Desert! It's out past Tooele by Dugway Proving Grounds. It is his favorite place to go camping but it isn't fun unless you have the big toys to play with ;)

So I'm fired, I can not be trusted to take a lot of pictures... but in my defense it was an intense trip.

 

It started on Friday Curt and I met his dad and step mom at their house loaded all the stuff from our truck to his dad's big "Bertha" truck! We headed out to the desert to set up camp. Curt was helping his dad and they sent Trudy and me down the dirt road on four-wheelers to meet my parents and munchkin to lead them to camp. Trudy has never been on a four-wheeler by herself so she was leading and it was a good thing too because she caught a soft spot in the sand rolled the four-wheeler on top of herself! Luckily she didn't get hurt too severely she has some bruises and a few scrapes but overall ok. We got back to camp and Curt said "it turned out to be an expensive trip" he accidently ran the truck into a stump and blew out the radiator. Oops! So then his brother had to come rescue us the next day. My brother's drove 40 miles the wrong way and had to meet Curt's brother in Rush Valley so he could give them a ride the rest of the way so they didn't get lost again. My parents also tipped a four-wheeler over, they are also ok thankfully!

So when Joey came to our rescue we packed up his truck with our stuff and hooked up to the trailer, we got back to Magna (Curt's dad and step mom's house) at about 10:30pm then Curt and his dad went to pick up a trailer to tow Bertha back to the house. They got back out to the desert by 1:45am and it took them 30 minutes to load the truck up and it barely fit, then they didn't get home till 4:30am it was a late night! But a fun memorable trip! Happy 24th babe!!!