Our townhouse!

Welcome to our new townhouse in Draper, Ut! We love it here and are so happy to be new owners of our very own house!

Come on in and I'll give you the tour.

This is the front of our townhouse. Ours is the middle townhouse in this picture.

This is what the family room before we moved in.

Walk in the front door and this is what you will see. There is three stairs that leads into the room. The kitchen is just off to the left and a half bath off to the right. The huge sliding doors lead out to a deck and have an AWESOME view of the valley. (I tried to take a picture, but it didn't work in the dark)

Trevor's pride and joy - the mounted tv. He get's plenty of call of duty and football in on this tv.


Now let's take a look at the kitchen.

This is the kitchen before we moved in.

And the kitchen after we were finished. What a HUGE different a little paint can make.

If you go downstairs instead of upstairs you'll find an open space, the laundry room, and the entrance to the garage which is on the back of the house.

Off to the second floor...

This is the extra bedroom/tv room on the second floor. This is where I go when I need a break from the video game playing.

And, the office also on the second floor. Needs a little bit of love, but we are working on it. :)

The rooms on the second floor have a perfect view of the Draper temple which is about a mile away from our house.

Not pictured is the full bathroom also on the second floor.


Here is the master bedroom before we moved in. There are about seven stairs from the second floor to the master bedroom and then seven more stairs to the master bathroom and walk-in closet.

The master bedroom after a little painting and a few decorations.
Go up the few stairs and you get to the master bathroom.

And, the master bathroom. I really wish I had a before picture of this bathroom. It was a MESS, but cleaned up quite nicely.

Thanks for dropping by! Hope you enjoyed your tour. :)

This summer has flown by!

Life has been a little crazy and I have slacking on the blog.

This is what has been happening in our lives since the last post...

I graduated from the University of Utah with a communication degree in August! I decided not to walk or anything, but now I am wishing I would have. It was kind of a big deal, huh? That explains the lack of pictures.

I have been working at 4Life as an event coordinator which has been so much work, but I have loved every minute of it! I have a great boss and have already learned so much. Our big convention for distributors from around the world was about two weeks ago. I spent the last couple months preparing for the food, logo wear to be sold, a fashion show, props, photography, housing, and employee logistics. I think I have found my niche and can't wait to see what else this job has to offer.

Trevor started up his fall semester at Westminster. He also applied for the Westminster nursing program in August. Hold your breath...we find out in November if he made it or not. They had double the applicants that they usually do for the program. Yikes!

Trevor turned 23 in June and I turn 23 on Thursday.

I learned how to drive Roxy - our manual Toyota Corolla. If you see a white Corolla jerking around on the road - be patient - its probably me. I'm still trying to get the hang of it.

Other than that the summer has been pretty laid back. No big trips or events. Just enjoying every day to day life. I can't believe it is already the end of September! I'm sad that summer is over, but I am getting a little excited for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas!

I'll try to keep you updated...And take pictures. :)

All this for $15 bucks?

Maybe someday I will finish my last post about Turkey...
But for now, I have too post about the greatest thing my friend Brittany told me about and I took advantage of.

Anyone ever heard of Bountiful Baskets? It is an organization that gathers fruits and veggies from around the state and provides them at a low cost. You sign up for the basket on Monday night and pick it up on Saturday morning. The basket includes 6 fruits and 6 veggies - all for only 15 bucks. Every week the food varies. The only catch is you have to volunteer every six weeks for each time you sign up. Not bad at all.
This Saturday I picked up my first basket
5 plums
7 peaches
Bag of apples
Bag of grapes
3 mangos
bananas
3 weird little fruits
12 corn on the cob
2 cucumbers
5 tomatoes
4 onions
10 peppers
Head of lettuce

What a deal! Thanks for a great shopping tip Britt!

Part 3

Israel was by far my most favorite part of the trip.

With my sunburned body, and nasty lips we left the hotel before the crack of dawn (3:15 am), hopped on a bus and made our way to the airport.

After an hour plane ride we landed in Israel about 11:00 am. We met up with our tour guide and hit the ground running. We only had 8 hours to see Israel!

We first stopped at a place where the landscape is very unique. Because of the geography one side of the hill is tropical and plush and the other side is pure desert. The far mountains in this picture are African mountains.

Our next stop was to drop by the Israel BYU center. It was Sunday so nothing was open, but it was fun just to drop by and see it.

We then made our way to Holy Sepulcher where Jesus was supposedly crucified. The building was beautiful and everything was done with such detail. A couple different Christian religions own each part of the building. They all had a little shrine where people were praying and chanting. I was a little taken back by the atmosphere. If this was really where Jesus was crucified I was shocked at the lack of reverence. But, the Latter Day Saints believe that Jesus was actually crucified and buried in a completely different place. Trevor and I want to go back some day with an LDS tour guide. It would be so incredible to see Israel from that point of view.

After the Holy Sepulcher we went to the Mount of Olives. The trees were incredible! Our tour guide said that the outside bark very well could have witnessed the days of Jesus. What happens is even though the bark might die the roots are eternal and new branches grow through the old tree.

After those sights we took a tour of what they call “The Old City’. The city is divided up into 4 quarters. A section owned by the Jews, a section owned by the Christians, a section owned by the Muslims, and a small section owned by the Armenians.

Each section had its own look and feel and it was fun to just walk around the city and see the ruins. The city is actually built on top of the city from ancient times. So in some places archeologist have dug into the ground, not to find dirt, but to find ruins of a city.

In the Jewish quarter we saw the Wailing Wall, which is where the Jews believe that directly underneath it is the wall of Solomon’s temple. It is a place of worship for them. They write notes and stick them in the wall so that their prayers will reach heaven.

After seeing Jerusalem we took a bus ride to the Dead Sea. Trevor and I were debating if we were going to get in the water or not because we didn’t want to ride back on the airplane all stinky and wet, but we did and I am SO glad! The water was so dense that we didn’t have to swim or tread water. All we did was sit down and we floated. It was so cool! We took the mud and rubbed it all over our bodies. The water and mud has a lot of minerals in it so it is supposed to be great for your skin and health. I believe it. My skin was so silky smooth afterwards. Trevor bought some Dead Sea skin care product for me. It has magically made all my acne scars, wrinkles, and sunspots disappear!!!! Ha, kidding…I only wish it made your skin flawless.

(not the greatest picture, but that is us out there floating away)

(not us, but you get the idea of the mud bath)

Our last adventure was eating dinner at where the Dead Sea scrolls where found.

After a full day we made our way back to the airport. We arrived back at our hotel room at 2 am.

It was a full 24 hours of tourism and we LOVED every bit of it!

New Pet Peeve...

People that don't fess up when they make a mistake.

If you make a mistake, don't act stupid and try to play it off!

Admit that you were wrong and made a mistake, apologize, and try to help figure out a solution!

Gees!!!!

(Still working on the 3rd and 4th post of Turkey. It'll get posted eventually.)

Part 2

On Tuesday, May 11th we flew from Istanbul to a resort town on the Mediterranean called Antalya.

For the next couple of days we hung out at the pool, played games, went to the beach, read books, and just enjoyed each other company.Sisters Leslie and Jessica

Trevor and me playing boochie.

One of the days we went on a boat tour along the coast.Jessica, Trevor, and me swimming in the Mediterranean.

Curtis, Jessica, me, and Trev on the boat.

The boat tour went right past our hotel.

This is Cleopatra's face. Turn your head and you should be able to see it. I still haven't figured out how to flip photos. They say that this is where Mark Anthony met Cleopatra because Cleopatra used to like to bath in this part of the Mediterranean because it is so rich in minerals

For those of you getting jealous I have to tell you that it was during the day of the boat tour I became...well...a little beat up.

I woke up the day before with a couple of cold sores on the inside edges of my lips and cankers in my mouth. I have maybe had one or two cold sores in my life, but it had to be on this trip that I got the cold sores/cankers from hell -we think maybe I was allergic to something there. I had been using medicated chap-stick, but while we were swimming in the Mediterranean Sea I came up with the brilliant idea to rinse my mouth out with the nice and salty sea water. Worst idea ever! That night my mouth sores went from bad to worse and I spent the next couple of days not even being able to speak my mouth hurt so bad. Notice the pathetic half smile of mine in pictures of me from here on out. I'm not kidding when I say it took all I had to muster up those pathetic grins.

It was also on this day that I was tired of waiting for the elevator so I decided to take the spiral staircase and race Trevor to the lobby. As I took my third step I misplaced my foot, my bad ankle popped, I gave out a yelp, and vol la...a sprained ankle.

If you are not feeling sorry for me yet let me tell you about the nasty sunburn I got on the boat tour. The whole trip I had been using SPF 85. I was determined not to get a sunburn! But of course on the day of the boat tour I decided to only use SPF 30 and for some idiotic reason I only used it once the whole day. The next day I woke up to blistered shoulders and blistered and swollen knees.

Needles to say I was pretty pathetic for the following few days. Good thing I had a wonderful husband and family to nurse me through and an amazing one day trip to Jerusalem that took my mind off of everything.

Stay tuned for the details!!!

Our Adventure to Turkey - Part 1

Its hard to believe that our 10-day trip to Turkey has come and gone. Despite a few kinks in the plans a combination of beach time and sight seeing was a perfect recipe for an amazing trip. We have lots to report on so enjoy and so stay tuned for the next three parts of our trip!

My mom, dad, brother, two younger sisters, Trev and I left bright and early Saturday, May 8th. Our adventure began by taking a 4-hour flight from SLC to the JFK airport in New York. We made the 10-hour flight to Istanbul, Turkey, but not before sitting on the runway at JFK for 2 hours making the already long flight even longer. But none-the-less we made it to Istanbul in one piece early Sunday afternoon.
Later Sunday night we ate some dinner and took a stroll on the on the local boardwalk along the Mediterranean Sea. It was such an amazing view it made us wish we had something similar to that in Utah.On Monday we made our way to downtown Istanbul. The city is unbelievably huge with a population of 13 million. My family was expecting a more middle-eastern atmosphere, but we were surprised to find that only half of the women in the city wore the traditional head scarves.

(A street market near the Blue Mosque)

We visited the Blue Mosque.
And the Hagia Sopia which was my favorite of the two buildings. They are built across the street from each other. The Hagia Sophia was built before the Blue Mosque and the Blue Mosque was supposed to outdo the Hagia Sophia. I still think the Hagia Sophia is still far more impressive though.The Hagia Sophia was the 3rd church built in that exact location. The first two churches had previously been destroyed. The building was used as an Orthodox basilica and then the overtaken by the Muslims and used as a mosque until it was turned into a museum in 1934. Both Christian and Muslim elements are displayed in the Hagia Sophia. I was amazed to see the incredible detail of the building.

We also took a bus tour of the entire city.

(The city wall)


That sums up Istanbul. Next to come will be our stay in Antalya, Turkey.