What we’ve been up to lately

Projects, projects, and more projects.  I’ve been neglecting the blogging aspect of everything cause we have been so busy.  Our apartment is pretty small, and we don’t have a closet or anywhere to put baby girl’s things,(we barley have space for her…) so we had this old TV/computer cabinet that we were using as storage for some other things, so we did a crazy de-junking, and decided to refurbish it into a closet for the baby.  It turned out really cute.  Dan engineered the whole project, but he let me help a lot, and even taught me how to use a table saw, circular saw, router and various other tools.  It was really fun to be together and learn new things.  Dan is so handy, and I love having him around to help me create stuff.  Here is the before and afters of the cabinet…I mean, closet. :)
Then we went to Ikea and got these little boxes for the drawers.  It turned out really cute, and I’m really happy with it.  There still isn’t much in there, but that’s what baby showers are for, right?
Next up was the pantry.  As I said, our apartment is really small.  Our pantry is only partially a pantry.  Mostly, we use it for storage, and it was getting a bit cramped and looking really unorganized, so while we were at Ikea getting the boxes for the closet, we found these really cool storage bins that can mount to the wall.  We have a blank space between our fridge and our front door, and these bins would fit perfectly, and would take care of the pantry/storage issue.  Here’s the pantry, before and after.

The storage bins were pretty plain at first, but with some wall vinyl we decorated them right up and they look pretty nice now.  Also, they held everything we needed them to from the pantry, and there is still some space in them.  They don’t look that big, but they can hold a lot.  Here are pictures before they were on the wall, and then after.  Turned out cute, and saved SO much space.  I was so happy with this find.
Next, Dan had a birthday!!  He turned 27 on October 19.  He didn’t want to have a party, since we were going to be throwing our annual Halloween party a few days later, so we went out to dinner at Texas Road House.  He didn’t even want a cake, and I felt like the worst wife ever for not making him one.  Instead, he wanted a birthday muffin, so we got muffins and he blew the candle out after we came home from dinner.  He’s really great, and I’m glad we were able to celebrate it together.  It was nice to just have a quiet night alone with each other.  After dinner, we headed over to Kohls cause he wanted to see if they had some dress clothes for work.  Turns out they were having a KILLER sale, and we got 5 really nice shirts for 20 bukaroos.  Love it.
Next up was our annual Halloween party.  This year, we decided to try a Murder Mystery Dinner.  It turned out SO fun, and everyone came in some pretty awesome costumes.  It was hilarious!  Dan plans this party every year, and so he planned a fantastic 3 course fondue dinner.  (Of course I helped him carry it out…but he did do most of the work)  It was so fun to play the game as we were eating.  It was such a different experience from our other parties, and I think we’ll try it again.
2 times a year, my mom busts out the baking skills and makes about 7 dozen sugar cookies.  Then all the kids come over to frost & decorate them.  We do it for Valentines day, and Halloween.  Then every kid takes about 2 dozen cookies home, and we eat them until we are literally sick.  But I love this tradition.  It doesn’t seem like Halloween until we’ve done it.
And last, but not least, I am trying to become crafty.  I’m not great at it, but I’m learning.  I sewed these two quilts for our baby, and I’m not gunna lie, I’m pretty proud of myself for them.  They turned out really cute, and they are so cozy.  She will look so cute all wrapped up in them.  It was fun to make something for her, and made this whole experience feel a little more real.  Any crafters out there, I wanna take lessons!!  I have a few ideas for her room, but I still don’t really have it all thought out yet.  I am struggling in that department. 
And, in between all of this, we took a continuing education class on how to use our camera better.  We took it from UVU and it was so helpful to learn about all the different functions and how to take better pictures.  It was fun to learn more, and to get out of the house and be together.

Also, in one week I will be in the 3rd and final trimester.  I never thought I would make it to Thanksgiving, but it’s almost here, and then there’s Christmas, New Year’s, and one long month, and then she’ll be here!!  I cannot wait to be done being pregnant.  I am not really ready to have the baby yet, but I am SO ready to be done being pregnant.  And that concludes what we’ve been up to lately.  Leave me some comments, peeps.  I like hearing from you!

And the verdict is?…….

And we are SO excited. 

It’s been a while.

Hello friends.  It has once again been a while since I have posted, and I apologize.  I mean, you’d think I’d have all the time in the world what with coming home from work and laying on the couch and puking all night long, but when you do that you don’t really get out of your house so…you don’t really have things to post about.  It’s rather pathetic actually.  Pregnancy is definitely not for the faint hearted.  You gotta be a REAL woman to go through this.

Recap:  We went to Bear Lake back in August for the annual Schofield Family Reunion.  As always, it was full of brothers, kids, chaos, food, beach, boat, jet skis, sand, and fun.  There are about a million photos, but I am feeling a little lazy and didn’t want to sort through them all, so here are just a few.

In other news, perhaps the biggest news, Dan and I celebrated our 5th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!  Can you believe it?  5 years.  That’s a long time, and I can honestly say I am happier now (with the exception of being pregnant) than I was when we got married, and call it cliché, but I’m pretty sure we love each other more too. We kind of counted our Bali trip as our celebration, but we did celebrate a little too. The Schofield reunion was the same weekend of our anniversary at Bear Lake, so we went up there for that and took off a day early to celebrate how great we are in Park City.
Sadly we did not take any super cool photos/hardly any photos.  We spent the first part of the day at Bear Lake riding the jet skis and soaking up the sun.  Then we headed to Park City, ate dinner at Buona Vita, an amazing little Italian place.  It really was good, probably the best Italian we’ve had since we were in Italy.

That’s pretty much it folks.  Pretty pathetic, I know, but next time I post, I will show you a picture of my new hair style.  I cut off my long locks, and you’ll have to wait until next time to see it.   So tune in again soon.  I promise it won’t be as long this time.

You’ll want to read this. Trust me

So you may be wondering what happened to me.  It seems as though I have fallen off the planet, and in many ways, I have.  I have been pretty sick as of late because of this little word on this little stick.And this is our reaction….  

This little baby will be joining our family sometime around February 26th.  I am almost out of the 1st trimester…and hopefully I’ll start feeling better once that happens.  Puking all day every day really isn’t fun.  And I have to eat ALL the time.  Ugh.  I hate eating.  Tips or advice is gladly welcomed.   

Yeah, we used Chloe to tell our parents.  It was so funny when they finally caught on to what was going on.  I loved it. 

Not gunna lie, I think our baby is going to be pretty stinkin cute, I mean, look at the gene pool it’s working with. :)

The 4th of July

This year for the 4th we decided to head to Carson City, Nevada.  You may be wondering why we would choose Carson City over many other cities, and here is the reason:  Dan’s brother & sister in law and 4 kiddos live there, and we have not yet been to see their new house.  Matt (Dan’s brother) just graduated from dental school and bought a practice there.  The other main attraction is Lake Tahoe.  Literally 20 minutes from their door to the beach.  The drive there was pretty boring scenery wise, but obviously, the company was great.  We left on Friday after work and got there around 11.  So, the next morning is really when the festivities began.  We headed to an old western town called Virginia City.  We saw cool things like this:

The next day we headed up to see the Calaveras Big Trees right across the Nevada/California border.  They are not in the Redwood forest, but they are sequoia redwood trees.  It was amazing.  The trees were HUGE.  I couldn’t believe how tall & wide they were.  Pretty amazing stuff.

The next day was July 4th.  We decided to go to the lake with the other thousands of people who come from miles away to see it.  It was simply breath taking.  The water was so cold, but surprisingly refreshing once you took the plunge and immersed your whole body.  But when we got out, it took a minute for us to stop shivering and feel warm again.  If you’ve never been to Lake Tahoe, I would strongly recommend it.  It is so beautiful.  The water is crystal clear and I’ve never seen anything like it.  See for yourself…

And to finish the trip, we watched fireworks from right above the lake.  They put on a pretty good show, they had smiley face fireworks, heart shaped ones, and of course the regulars.  We had a really fun time.  It’s always nice to get away from home and see new places…even if it is in Nevada.

Memorial Day and Moving Day

Well, we are all moved in.  Whew.  We moved on June 4.  It was supposed to be June 11th, but we got a call on Friday the 3rd saying that the place was ready if we wanted to move in, and we did, so we stayed up all night Friday and packed all our stuff.  We had a whole wall full of boxes, I wish I would have taken a picture, but alas, it wasn’t really on my mind.  About 6 of our nephews were there helping us carry boxes in from the truck to the house and that made unloading really pretty quick.  We got all moved in thanks to my crazy “have to get everything unpacked” attitude.  We had EVERYTHING out of boxes by about 12 on Sunday afternoon, and it only took us that long because around 2:30 am on Sunday morning, Dan said that he actually couldn’t see straight anymore and HAD to go to bed right then.  So I, very unwillingly, obliged and we finished up the last couple boxes on Sunday afternoon.  But, we are all moved in and it is so nice to be done.  I hate moving.  It’s a real big pain…glad it’s over.

Moving makes Chloe really tired.  We found her curled up in this laundry basket with our bed spread while we were unpacking.  Too cute.

And then we found her with this.  She snuck it out of one of the boxes and turned it into her new chew toy.

I know it’s kinda late, but for Memorial Day we went on a hike up Bells Canyon to see a waterfall.  It was a pretty intense hike, like straight up the mountain, but it was fun to get out and be with family.  My sister, brother-in-law & nephew joined us.  Chloe was pretty tired, but she loved all the rock climbing she got to do.

Also, Dan is getting ready for his “Survival Camp Out” this weekend.  He is going to go to the Uintah's with only a pistol, pocket knife & 50 feet of rope.  No I am not excited about it, but he’s been planning it for about a year.  He’s going with a friend, and then another friend is coming to film them and is going to put a movie together of the crazy time.  So….keep him in your prayers, cause I’m a little worried that he is actually going to die.

In Loving Memory…

 This last weekend we had the opportunity to go to Oregon for Dan’s grandpa’s funeral.  Not really the reason we wanted to go on a trip, but it was nice to see family.  We made the journey with 6 of Dan’s siblings, so needless to say the car was packed, and we all got real comfortable with each other.  It was a long drive, but I’ll admit, it was pretty fun.  There are some really podunky towns on the way, which made potty breaks really fun.  We set a new record.  We got pulled over 3 times and got off without a ticket every time.  We had some sweet talkers with us.  Here are just a couple pics from the journey.

CD Burger Shoppe:  Peter found this place on trip advisor.com, and we drove around looking for it for about 15 minutes.  When we saw it we were all a little hesitant, but we trusted the site, and it was worth it.  It was REALLY good, plus, it’s mine & Dan’s initials. :)Dan practically sliced his finger off on a Mexican Coke.  He was trying to open the bottle with the seat belt because we obviously didn’t have a bottle opener.  The whole top popped off and seriously gashed the whole top of his finger.  We couldn’t get it to stop bleeding for about 7 hours.  We also didn’t have any bandages in the car so we got real creative and wrapped a pad around it until we got to the wonderful town, or should I say gas station of Denio.  We bought a tiny first aide kit, and the gas station owner gave us what she called “a midget rubber” Needless to say, that was the joke of the trip.  He looks pretty happy but he was in a lot of pain.

And now I am handing the computer over to Dan.
My Grandpa, Rolen William Rosecrans lived in Gold Hill, Oregon on the same street his entire life.  He passed from this life Thursday, May 12, 2011, at his home. He spent the early years of his life helping his mother struggle through the great depression. He attended Gold Hill High School, where he met the love of his life, Edro June Davis. They were married on July 13, 1945, when he was home on leave from World War II.
The morning of his funeral Carlie and I went jogging with my sister. On our way back to the hotel we had to cross a bridge strewn with American flags. I stopped and asked the man putting up the flags why he was putting them up, and he told me that a local veteran had died and they wanted to honor his sacrifice. That veteran was my Grandpa. I have always been proud of him and the sacrifice he made during that time, and the countless others that he has since made on behalf me and my family. The last time I saw him I was struggling with a major decision in my life. I felt lost and worried, and I asked him for a blessing. In that blessing he told me that the Lord had a path for me and that everything would work out as long as I trusted in Him. I have heard that many times before, but when it came from him I really knew that it would happen. He had the ability to connect with people on a personal level. He was able to understand their struggles and trials and really be there for them. I think this attitude stems from his love of family. He first met my Grandma Red when he was in seventh grade.  I recently learned of a school chair that was found in Patrick Elementary school in Gold Hill only a few years ago. Carved into that chair some 70 years ago are the words, “Rolen loves Edro.” He spent his life loving just one person, he took care of her, and in the final years of her life he stayed by her side and nursed her the best that he could. He protected her, served her, and unconditionally loved her. This adoration has helped me to try and do the same for my wife. His example has helped me see why he worked so hard for the ones he loved. He wanted to make sure they understood that he would sacrifice anything for them.  There is so much in my life that I owe to his example. He was strong, brave, humble and honest. His was a life that should be honored and revered for the way he lived. He never complained, he never gave up, and whatever he was asked to do, he did it. He went through life believing that no matter what you do, if you work hard and are honest then you can achieve anything. One summer when I was in high school, I went to Oregon for a few weeks. While there Grandpa told me we needed to go take care of the cemetery because a large tree was beginning to damage some graves there. After we got the tree down he began to chop it  into pieces and we were to load them into the bed of his truck. After an hour of hauling I was exhausted. I had helped with most of the regular sized branches, but there were some that I thought needed two people to carry. When he was done, I was standing waiting to carry them with him and he just quietly grabbed them and carried them over to the bed of the truck. He did not boast in his strength, he just did it. I was amazed that a man his age could carry so much. I did not think it was possible. Even in his old age he was the strongest man I have ever met. He was buried in the spot where that tree once stood. *Dan’s work sent the most beautiful flower arrangment.  It was so sweet. On Thursday May 12, he was finally able to be with Grandma again. He knew that his time had finally come and that he no longer had to fight. He no longer had to worry about the farm, or worry about those around him, he can now rest. His funeral ended with the playing of Taps by the US Navy  and my family was presented with a flag in his honor. For our family his was an ending of an era, we will miss you Grandpa, we love you.