The Bachelorette

I will admit that I usually get sucked into watching The Bachelor and Bachelorette, but this season I actually have a reason to. One of Jared's good friends is actually one of the eligible bachelors for Jillian! I haven't had a chance to grill him with all of my pointless questions about how the show works and what goes on behind the scenes because he has had to be secretive since coming back. I don't think he made it far, but it will be fun to at least see him in the first episode. For all of you Bachelor and Bachelorette fans out there, keep your eye on John H. from Boise tomorrow night. He is having some friends over to his parents house for the season premiere, so it will be fun to watch it with a group of people and get the real inside scoop!!!

John H.

Age: 27
Occupation: Branding Consultant
Hometown: Long Beach, CA
Currently Resides in: Boise, ID

Happy Happy Birthday Baby!!!

Look who's 28!!!

Last night Jared was with friends playing video games, so I decided to make his favorite cake. I was so excited to wake up and surprise him with it!

He had to be up early to play in a golf tournament, but there was still time for birthday wishes and cake...YUMMY!

Breakfast of champions...red cake and orange juice!

Happy Birthday Baby!
I can't wait to spend more birthdays together!
I love you!

Out With the Old, In With the New

I have been a bad blogger but my parents have been here since last Friday and I have been busy working and hanging out with them! It is always a lot of fun to have them out here and every time they are here we manage to tackle a big house project. These projects are usually unplanned but somehow always manage to happen. This time the project became our front yard landscape. Ever since we moved in I have hated our landscape, especially the mess on the corner. My mom LOVES to garden and has wanted to help us with this area since we moved in 4 years ago. This morning we planned to work in the yard for a couple of hours in order to pull up some ground cover, weed and lay new bark in the corner. 6-7 hours later we had managed to pull up ground cover, weed, lay new bark, rip out crabgrass, rip out a dead bush, rip out a dead tree, plant a new tree, plant at least 20-25 plants and flowers, pot a plant, lay down grass seed in bare areas, hose off the front area, spray paint a decorative table, make a trip to the dump, make 4 trips to Fred Meyer and spend a lot of money!!! Apparently I got my obsessiveness from my parents (once we start we just have to finish the job)! It looks super nice though and I am so happy with how it turned out.

I've come to realize that I love a good 'before' and 'after' photo montage, so here you go!

I forgot to take some true 'before' pictures before we got started and didn't think of it until about halfway through, but this shows how gross our old bark was

Here's the dead bush that my mom managed to kill a couple of winters ago when she was pruning and cutting back our bushes

My dad getting ready to take out the dead bush

Notice the dead tree in the background

This tree died last year and we never got around to digging it out due to a lack of desire to do yard work. We can always think of better things to do on weekends. Secretly we were hoping to sell the house before the Spring and leave it for the next owners to deal with (how horrible is that?!)

Here is the new corner landscape in all its glory!

It probably doesn't look that different in the pictures but the change is pretty drastic

No more dead tree in the background

We filled the hole left by the tree with grass seed, so hopefully it does well and we have luscious green grass in a month or so

Here is our new tree, a weeping Japanese Maple. It is so cute and I love how it looks!

My mom brought out and planted 3 flower pots for the front of our house, which look fantastic and add a lot of color!

My mom is hoping that this might be the start of my green thumb and desire toward yard work. I don't think I will spend hours every week puttering around in my "garden" but it is fun to actually have a nice looking yard (it only took us 4 years)!

All Up In YURT Face!

Disclaimer: Jared came up with the title because my creative juices were not flowing!

We survived our weekend and I'm happy to report that Yurt Extravaganza 2009 was a big success! Unfortunately though I woke up on Saturday morning with a sore throat and stuffy nose (I have been fighting off sickness for almost 2 months now with lots of vitamin C and Airborne...those darn kids keep trying to get me sick!). Although, I wasn't feeling 100% it didn't stop me from having a great time. The weather was perfect, around 60 degrees and super sunny. The view above is from the yurt, it was so pretty!

Here I am with my backpack, snowshoes and big smile...ready for the adventure!

The initial hike was around 2.7 miles and took us about 2 hours. It was a bit more difficult than I imagined and the backpack was awkward but I pressed on and we made it.

Here's the happy group at the beginning of the hike

Justin and Annie brought Hudson and he loved the hike and snow

The yurt was really cool and super cozy. It had a wood burning stove which kept it nice and warm.

Once we got to the yurt, the boys took off exploring (and doing whatever boys do in the woods). The girls found a comfy cozy spot in the yurt and talked for hours. That's why I think it is so great to do couple trips, boys can do boy things and girls can do girl things!

The Girls (Me, Annie, and Holly)
I know I look horrible, but I didn't feel good and didn't wear any makeup that day...I actually debated not posting this picture, but didn't want to seem vain!!

The Boys (Justin, Jared and Bill)

We cooked chili for dinner and played many hilarious rounds of "Catch Phrase". No one slept particularly well but that is to be expected on camping trips. Sunday morning we packed up and decided to take the shorter route down. We started out on a trail and then managed to forge our own trail, meaning we headed straight down the mountain (literally). It took us about 2o minutes to get to our car! And for those concerned about my ability in the snow (aka Ashley) I had no major accidents and was able to keep up with everyone else!

Here's the group Sunday morning: Jared, Me, Hudson, Justin, Annie, Bill and Holly

Both Jared and I were exhausted by the time we got home. I felt horrible and my whole body ached (from sickness, lack of sleep, and hiking). I took 2 Tylenol PM and was knocked out by 8:45! I woke up yesterday morning feeling good (gotta love that Tylenol PM)!

Despite some doubts I managed to survive my first backpacking and snowshoeing trip and would definitely do it again!

Yurt Extravaganza

Tomorrow morning we are heading to an adventure in the mountains. We are hiking (snow shoeing to be exact) to a yurt and staying the night. We have to pack in our sleeping bags, clothes, food and anything else fun that we might want. I think the total hike is around 2 miles. The yurt has an outhouse, outdoor fire pit, bunkbeds, a woodburning stove and dishes/utensils. We have to boil water and chop down our fire wood.

We are going with two other couples. We have never done anything like this before so it should be fun. Jared and I bought backpacks 3 years ago, because Jared dreamed of hiking and camping in the wilderness. Unfortunately I have never had the same dream or calling, so this is the first time my backpack will be used for what it was intended. I am excited though, it should be a lot of fun. The picture above is the exact yurt that we will be staying in only there should be snow.

I will post pictures of our yurt extravaganza when we make it back Sunday night!

P.S. I did try to convince Jared to let the birds nest in our grill this year, but he had none of that. So, mama bird will have to find a different home for her babies!

Home Sweet Home

Two years ago we had a mama bird come and build a nest in our BBQ. It was actually really funny at the time because Jared opened the grill and asked me why I filled it with sticks and leaves...not sure why he thought I would put dirt and sticks in our BBQ (I hope I could play a better practical joke then that!) Anyway, once we realized it was the beginnings of a bird's nest we cleaned it out, thoroughly disinfected the grill and bought a grill cover which solved the problem. Our grill cover ripped on Sunday and we haven't bought a new one yet. When I opened our window blinds this morning, I noticed a few birds coming and going constantly. I went an opened the grill cover and this is what I found...

Apparently we underestimated a bird's memory (or some other bird thought a BBQ is a great place for a nest). This really happened in only a couple of days because we just used the BBQ at the beginning of the week. I feel bad that we have to destroy it, but we BBQ at least 1-2 times per week. So, once again we will have to go through the pain of cleaning it up and completely disinfecting it. If you have a BBQ make sure you get a cover because you never know what bird might think it would make a great home!!!

Happy Easter Weekend!

The Lord has risen...He has risen indeed!!!

Fridgalicious!

When we decided to stay in this house, we made a "wish list" of things that we would like to update or fix. The list is really extensive and some things will probably never happen; however, we both listed our top 3 items for things we would like to do first. Number 1 on both of our lists was a new refrigerator (new carpet would have been number 1 on my list, but since that was already done, a refrigerator became number 1). This may not sound very exciting, but both of us have wanted a bigger, nicer fridge for a long time. Our refrigerator and freezer was always STUFFED. People came over to the house and comment on how much food we had, but the reality is we didn't have a lot of food, our fridge was just tiny. We could never buy much frozen food or goodies because our freezer was always full (it was sometimes hard to get the door closed). I have wanted to make and freeze meals for awhile now, but that hasn't been an option. Anyway...we now have a new refrigerator and it is REALLY big. We put our old one in the garage, so now we have all the room we could ever want. I honestly can't imagine ever filling both at this point because we have so much room now. Here are some before and afters, with basically the same amount of food (I did go through and throw away some expired salad dressings, but besides that, everything is the same).

Before #1
We had room on both sides of the fridge and room up above that I used for storage.

After #1
As you can see there is absolutely no extra room on either side or above. I think we have about an inch clearance. I know it looks big, but it doesn't really look that out of place, and it doesn't stick out any farther than our old fridge.

Before #2

Here is our fridge and freezer full of food. I tried to organize it but after awhile it looked stuffed no matter what I did.

After #2

Here it is and I love it!

There is actually still a ton of room and everything is easy to reach and see. I love having the refrigerator on top and there is a built in filtered water spout on the side, so we will always have cold water. The freezer is big and holds a lot of big bags of food. I already went to Costco and bought some frozen fruit in bulk (for smoothies) and some meat.

Here is our old fridge, in the garage, all clean and almost empty.

We are excited to continue making our "wish list" a reality! It is so fun to get new things and to make our house nicer to live in!!!