Pittsburgh

I know everyone has been waiting for this post, so I apologize to all of you who have been waiting so patiently. :) Here are a few pics of our trip to Pittsburgh.... and of course some pics of our house. We finally found a house on Monday, the day we were to fly home. We had originally found a house that we were pretty excited about but there was a whole lot of fixing up to do on the home, so we would have ended up putting a lot of time and money into this house. Plus once I realized we could do some remodeling I started naming off all the things I would have liked to do... I think that's when Jeff started having second thoughts. He didn't exactly have all the remodeling plans in mind that I did. :) We actually went in to sign the papers for the house and our realtor, after looking at the home inspection, informed us of a few more things that needed fixed... such as a whole new roof. So... we thought about it for a night and decided that maybe that wasn't the best idea, we would have been forking out a lot of the money we had saved up just to fix the house and who knows how long it would have ended up taking us. Anyway, to make a long story short, we had looked at a house a couple days before that that we both really loved, but we were uncertain of the area. We talked to a few people who are going to dental school right now and live in this area. They told us we would be in a great ward (the other house was in a branch) and that there is about 7 other LDS couples going to dental school who live in this area as well. Anyway, they eased our doubts and we bought the house. We both are excited and feel really good about it. Plus we love the house! It was by far the best one we had looked at. We were lucky to get it, the house had only been on the market for a couple of days. And we just got the home inspection back and they found nothing. They said the house was in perfect shape and that it was one of the best homes they had ever seen. What a blessing! The people living in it now have really done a good job at keeping it up and making it look cute. Everything is up to date and I even like the colors they painted the walls with! Did I mention that this house is 96 years old??? :) It has 3 bedrooms and one bathroom. One of the bedrooms is quite small so we will use that for the computer room and Jeff's study room. There is a basement as well that I didn't get pictures of. We will mainly use that for our storage and to do laundry. That was also an eye opener for me, the basements weren't what I was picturing. Some of them I didn't even dare look at. I just had Jeff go look at them. They are creepy, and I just know there are spiders just waiting to attack. If you've ever seen a really old home you'll know what I'm talking about. They are the basements with the cement floors and no finished ceilings. A lot of them have toilets, but most of them haven't been used in 50 years. And they have like 5 doors leading to who knows what. I wasn't about to open them to find out. The basement is where everyone has their washer and dryer hook ups. Luckily the house we got had the best basement I'd seen. I might actually dare go downstairs without Jeff to do our laundry now! I kept asking Jeff, "is there a way we can have the washer and dryer upstairs?? I don't think I'll be able to do the laundry unless you come down to do it with me!" He thinks I'm a wuss, and I'll be the first to admit it!


The view of Pittsburgh...




We are up at a lookout point, overlooking the city. It really is quite pretty.


Pittsburgh is known as the "city of bridges." I've never seen so many bridges.


Lots of tall buildings...


Here is Heinz Field the football stadium where the Steelers play.

Welcome to our home....

This is how close the houses are in Pittsburgh. It's so crazy! And everything is so hilly! It's so different from Utah where everything is basically flat..

This is our front porch. They said they would leave us the swing!

The living room.... I love the wood floors.

The dining room...

I love the old phone on the wall!

They really kept this house immaculate. Everything was so clean and organized!

We also talked them into leaving all the window treatments...

Love the stairs...

Nearly all the homes we looked at only had bathrooms upstairs. We maybe saw one with a bathroom on the main level, and we probably looked at over 50 homes.

Guest bedroom

Master Bedroom... the one thing about old homes is there is never any closet space. We are going to have to make the small room into a half office/half closet.


Looking down the stairs.

Our backyard. All of the yards in Pittsburgh are so little. It's nothing like what I'm used to. A lot of the homes we looked at didn't even have a yard, but I'm not complaining, it's less for us to mow.

This is for my mom. She loves trees, and this one is in our backyard. Everytime I told her about a house we were looking at she'd ask, does it have trees in the yard??" Haha... here you go mom.

Last day of work...

Here are a few pics of my last day at work. My coworkers were all so nice, everyone brought some kind of dessert and then they ordered sandwiches for lunch. I felt like I just kind of wandered around all day because the new girl had already taken over my drawer. It actually turned out pretty nice, I was able to talk to whoever I wanted for as long as I wanted without having to feel bad about the long line. :)

No More Work!!

Tomorrow is my last day of work.... hooray!!! I'm going to be a little sad leaving some of my coworkers and some of the customers I have gotten to know really well. (Notice I said SOME) haha. But it will be a relief to finally be done with work so I can get started on packing up our stuff and cleaning our apartment. We have so much to do before we leave... ahhh!

Jeff and I are flying out to Pittsburgh early Thurday morning to find us a place to live. I'm excited to finally get to see the city. Wish us luck in finding a place!! I will take lots of pictures and post when we get back...

Dinner with the parents...

On Saturday Jeff and I, and both of our parents enjoyed a nice dinner at Deer Cliff Inn in Preston. I love the atmosphere, it's such a pretty place to have dinner. The food was great... but the company was even better. Thanks Tony and Kathie for inviting us all to dinner. We had a great time!

I was also able to spend Friday night with a few of my friends. We've been trying to get together for a while since I am going to be leaving soon. Although not all of us were able to make it, we still had a good time. Kelli, Abby, Stacey, and I went to dinner at Firehouse and then went to Stacey's afterwards and talked until all hours of the night. It's so fun to reminisce and laugh just like old times. We missed all of you who couldn't make it! (Once again, I forgot to get a picture... dang it!)

4th of July

Even though the 4th was a couple of weeks ago I still wanted to post about our fun filled weekend. We drove home Thursday night and stopped at Angie's for a minute to visit with Jeff's fam and wish Kenna and Tayler a Happy Birthday. Then we met up with my family at the research park by Lee's to watch the fireworks from Romney Stadium. We ordered some pizzas, played some games, and just hung out until the fireworks started. Then of course we ended the festivities by sitting in traffic all night. Gotta love it...



Here we are.... waiting for the fireworks!

Ohhh.... how cute...

On the 4th we went with my family to the Bee's game in Salt Lake. It's a family tradition of ours that I always look forward to. They always have the best fireworks and yummy hotdogs.

Doesn't he look good in glasses?? :)

My mom, Marci, Jason.... and Brynli in her carrier.

My sister Ashlee and her boyfriend Hayden.

Me and my madre...

Jeff got pooped and decided to take a quick little nap before the fireworks started. He found a great headrest!

We were walking back to our car and I just thought this was a darling picture of my neice.

On Saturday we met up with Stacey and Brian and had lunch at Cafe Sabor (Jeff's favorite restaurant). He was finally able to convince me to go. (It's my least favorite restaurant). Then we played games that night with my family. Sunday was Brynli's baby blessing and I'm mad I didn't get a picture of that. We had so many people over at our house... it was crazy! I'm glad we've been so lucky to spend so much time with family and friends, I'm really going to miss them all when we move...

We also made our decision to go to Pittsburgh this weekend. It was a tough decision but we both feel good about it and are excited to make the trek out there. Thanks everyone for your love and support! We will be leaving August 17th and Jeff's parents have so graciously offered to drive with us out to Pittsburgh. They will be driving our car and we will be driving the U-Haul. It's going to be an adventure... :)

Another fun weekend

This last weekend Jeff and I made our usual trip down to Utah. This time we went home because it was my Grandma Western's 90th birthday party. My cousin Libby had the party at her house down in Kaysville. Here are a few pics from the weekend.


This is the birthday girl herself! My sweet grandma... she definitely doesn't look 90 to me.

Me and some of the fam... and Cortney and his new fiance, for those of you who were wondering.

My mom and her three girls.... oh and my niece and nephew.

Jeff decided he needed a nap too... I should have brought him a blanket!
They were exhausted! Not to mention the 90 degree heat...

And a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Angie, Grayson, Andy, Rich and Kathie!! They all had there birthday just within the last week. We love you all and hope you had a wonderful birthday!

Tufts University or University of Pittsburgh?

So we got a phone call on Thursday from the University of Pittsburgh offering Jeff a spot at their dental school. Although this probably should be a good thing by giving us options it has kind of thrown us both for a loop. We have been planning on going to Tufts Univsersity in Boston for the last three months and now we have to evaluate that decision.....and we need your help. Let me give you the highlights.

Boston is undoubtedly a nicer city and we have friends and family that are already living there. Everyone seems to love Boston.....plus people say they would visit us there. Ü


VS.


PITT has a large population of LDS students (15 out of 80) in the incoming class. The tuition and cost of living is much less here and would save us somewhere around $100,000 in four years of school.



We really do feel lucky to even have a choice........but let's hear your input!

Father's Day Weekend

So this is what our weekend consisted of.... eating.... eating.... and more eating! Too bad I didn't get pictures of all the places we ate at!

Friday night right after I got off work (Jeff doesn't work on Fridays) we headed off to Logan (Again). It's starting to become a bit ridiculous and is only going to get worse. But I would dare say that 95% of the times we go home, there is always something going on. And we (mainly I) don't want to miss out on the fun! Maybe I'm just looking for excuses to go home. So what, I enjoy being with family and friends. We often joke that maybe we should have lived in Logan and commuted to Idaho Falls for the week days to work. We would have spent just about as much money in gas!! Oh well... we might as well take advantage of the 2 1/2 hour commute while we can. I have a feeling we won't be coming home quite as often when we live in Boston. ;)

When we arrived in Logan we planned on going to Jeff's nieces' dance review but we were a little late getting into Logan and we couldn't get a hold of Ang. So instead we got a call from Jeff's dad to come join him, Andy, and Missy at Firehouse. If anyone knows me at all they will know that I CAN'T turn down an offer to eat at Firehouse. Even if we had just eatin at Bajio's for lunch and I wasn't all that hungry. :) Firehouse is my all time favorite resturaunt! For some reason, I am always in the mood for it, even if I ate there the day before. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do when we move to Boston. I told my mom she may have to send some chicken cordon bleu pasta and foccacia bread in overnight delivery. (Although I'm not quite sure how it would taste once it got there.) Anywho, after dinner Jeff and I went over to Angie's and played Settlers of Catan with Ang and Shane. It's starting to become my new favorite game even though I've yet to win! Dang you Jeff!



Saturday for lunch we met up with Stacey and Brian at Fredricos. It was fun to get to talk with them over a very yummy lunch. It's seems like it's been forever since we've seen them! Thanks Stacey and Brian for going to lunch with us! It was fun catchin up!

And here is Stacey and Brian... don't they make such a cute couple?? :)

I was unsuccesful at getting a picture of all of us together... so you get them in peices...

Jeff and I went to dinner at Chili's with Marci and Jason, my cousin Janelle and her husband Dan. Kelli met up with us at dinner. (I only got a picture of the two of us.) It was fun to see her, even if it was only for a little bit. She had just gotten back from Bear Lake, if you can't tell from her sunburned skin! Afterwards we went over to Marci's and played Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan. Yes I know, we played again. And although I still didn't win, neither did Jeff. So that makes losing a little easier.

For Father's Day, Angie invited all of us over to her house to have tin foil dinners. It was a blast! This is a few of us sitting around the fire waiting for our banana desserts (bananas with chocolate chips and marshmallows) to finish melting. I've never had that before... definitely a must try! Jeff added it to the top of his list of favorite treats. That's sayin something coming from Jeff!

Here we are enjoying our delicious dessert! Thanks to Steve and his kids for introducing it to us!

One more picture of us eating our dinners. Jeff made mine and his tin foil dinners with hamburger, potatoes, carrots, and onions. Very yummy Jeff, you did good!

I failed to mention that before we went over to Angies on Sunday, I went over to my grandmas with some of my cousins and my sister and her kids and had a little taste of their traditional ham and potatoes meal for lunch. So as you can see... the majority of our weekend was spent eating! Bajio and Firehouse on Friday, Fredricos and Chili's on Saturday, then grandmas and Angies on Sunday. Wow... time to burn off some of those calories I put on over the weekend. I should probably be running instead of blogging!

Even though Jeff isn't quite a father yet, I wanted to let him know how much I love and appreciate him and how excited I am for him to be the father of our kids! I know he will be an excellent dad... I can tell just by watching him interact with all his neices and nephews. It's so going to be so fun when we have kids of our own to play with! One day we will experience the joy of being parents! I can't wait! (Well, I can wait for a while)

Also, since I was unable to spend Father's Day with my dad (my parents were out of town) I just wanted to tell him thanks for being such a great dad! I really appreciate all you do for us. You've always been such a hard worker and a great example to me. Sometimes he may come across a little gruff, but he really is a kind, soft hearted, caring guy on the inside. You just have to crack the shell a little to find that out... :) I remember countless times he has been the one to stick up for me even when the rest of the family is against me. Maybe that's because he feels bad for me. Whatever the reason, thanks dad! I know you'd do anything for us, even if that means breaking your pocket book! Like I said, just crack the shell and he'll soften up.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY EVERYONE!!!!

Barack Hussein Obama

So...this is my first post on the blog and I think it would be very valuable to everyone to watch these two videos. Kimi thinks I'm too opinionated about certain things but I'm OK with being opinionated on something as important as electing a new president of the United States. I'm posting two videos dealing with Obama. I have a hard time seeing why people are so enamored with him. The first video is pretty long (13 minutes) so when you have some spare time, check it out. The second video is Barack Obama's view on the military. Now, I'm not some military nut but I believe that we can achieve "peace through strength". We have had the most powerful military in the world for some time and all we have done with it is liberated the oppressed and freed nations. I can't think of anything scarier than to have him leading our nation. I don't know who I will be voting for but I do know it will NOT be Barrack Hussein Obama. -Jeff

My cute niece and nephew..

Here are just a few pics of my new little niece Brynli and my cute nephew Carson.

This is the first day I got to see her! She was born while I was in Hawaii so it gave me something to look forward to on the long trip home. She is such a doll! Don't ask what my little sister is doing behind me... she'll love that I put this picture on here. haha

This is Memorial Day at my grandmas house. Every year my grandma cooks a huge breakfast for all the kids and grandkids... such a fun tradition. I only got a picture of me and Brynli. :)

You'd think this was our own little family. It kinda makes me laugh to look at it, this could become a reality check in a few years... We couldn't get Carson to smile, he was too involved in his show.

This picture was taken about 5 seconds before she literally threw up (not spit up) all the milk that was in her little belly. I have never seen a baby do that before. Seriously, I've seen a lot of spit up in my day... but I would dare say she could have filled up a very large cup. I guess I shouldn't have been throwing her up in the air so much. :) jk... It was so sad... and she didn't even cry! She really is such a good baby, I've only heard her cry once.

I love this picture...

Baby Brynli... 3 weeks old.