Catch Up for 2014...

Wedding Bells:

With Kristi and Blade's wedding approaching on October 17th, we treated the bride to a special day out with the salts. Words can't express the love I have for these beautiful women in my life. They are my closest friends, support system, and those I can laugh with until I cry or pee my pants. How I love them. 

The big day for Mr. & Mrs. Hargiss turned out to be beautiful weather. And of course the sealing was twice as beautiful. Congrats to these two love birds! I'm so happy for my little salt. She was radiating with happiness and salty beauty! And I'm glad she is in good hands; welcome to the family Blade!! 

Harvest:

Heath and I were really excited about how well our garden did this year. The only things that didn't grow well were the green beans and peas. We had more tomatoes than we knew what to do with, beets coming out our ears, plenty of carrots, a good crop of corn, zucchini, squash, pumpkins, cantelope, and peppers! Can't wait to plant this spring!!!

Halloween: 

Long gone are the days where I can dictate how Jack dresses up. I thought I could get away with it for one more year, but was proven wrong. I had a cute idea that would all dress up as a s’more. Heath and I being the graham cracker, our tan Jackie the chocolate, and our little toe head Brock as the marshmallow.

Jack did not approve of his Hersey’s chocolate bar cardboard costume. I didn’t have any back ups either. So I asked him what he wanted to be. Bad idea. He changed his mind about 18 times. From a prince, to a loader, a cowboy, a football player, a tiger monster truck, and so on… For our family party with the Bleazards we forced him to wear his chocolate costume for a picture (that I can’t even find now.) For his preschool Halloween party he was a soccer player and Brock was a cowboy. And for Halloween night Jack insisted he and Brock dress up as football players.

Trick or treating was a hit. Brock wanted to eat his candy as before it even got in his bucket. And Jack loved saying “Boo!” and “Trick or Treat!”

I sure love these rough and tough boys! Happy Halloween!

Heath's birthday! : 

My attempts to make Heath's birthday exciting is loosing momentum. This year the boys and took balloons the school with a secret note in them and something he loves, like a favorite treat, fruit, drink, chap stick. We had them delivered to him throughout the day. Jack thought it was so cool. Heath requested homemade oreos for his birthday cake. Delish. Happy Birthday to my best friend, handsome hunk, and best bud and dad of Jack and Brock. Dang. We are lucky!

Cement: 

Since the weather was still nice in mid-November, we decided to pour a cement driveway on the side of our house. Heath, his dad, and a coworker from the high school worked from 3 until dark. We estimated short, so Heath had to run to Home Depot to get a couple bags to hand mix the rest to finish! The boys were excellent supervisors and I really enjoyed helping with the finish work along the edges. 

Fitness Coaching: 

At the end of October I decided to start fitness coaching through the company Beachbody. It was a decision definitely guided by the spirit. It has been a blessing emotionally, physically, and financially for me and our family. Helping others learn to take care of themselves better and love it has been more rewarding than I thought it would. As I've done so, I've been happier and able to manage depressions much more easily! 

Christmas: 

Christmas was magical for us this year. Jack has started to understand the excitement of Santa, giving and receiving presents, and the importance of baby Jesus. We watched the Nativity video on LDS.org for FHE the week of Christmas. The rest of the week and even now in January, Jack asks to watch baby Jesus. One day I counted and he watched it 6 times. I'm so grateful to have the privilege to be a mother, to teach these two precious boys about their Savior, and about loving others. 

Simple Moments : The Things that Matter

The last few weeks I've felt really anxious and stressed. Heath has been needing to spend several nights a week over in Grantsville working at the barn on their fodder project. Our dishwasher stopped working and my lap top had a virus and the optical disc drive is completely done for. Jack's preschool group was scheduled at our house and I had been facing a few hiccups in some projects I was workng on. And most importantly, we were trying to schedule a day we could go to the temple. Definitely ordinary things, not the end of the world, but I was struggling dealing with it all. 

Hind sight, I realize Satan was doing his best to stress me out and hoped that I would use it as an excuse for not making the trip into the city. I think he knows I have a hard time leaving my boys when I'm stressed and anxious.  

It was a blessing he didn't win that battle because I got to spend a lovely afternoon in my favorite place, with my favorite person. It gave me a glimpse of and reminded me why I want to win the war against that evil one. The material things, like a lap top, dishwasher, or having a cute craft for a preschool group, really don't matter. I shouldn't let myself get worked up over them.

However this place, this guy, and our handsome boys are everything that matter.

Four Down. Eternity to Go.

Number 4 has come and gone and I feel like I just blogged about our 3rd anniversary. I remember my Young Women leaders always telling me the older you get the faster times goes by. Each year I understand a bit better what they meant. Which is why I'm still blogging about May and its August...

We both admitted this last year of our marriage has been our favorite. Not that we have many years to choose from, but I think we're finally starting to figure out what marriage is all about. We still have innumerable more things to learn and thankfully an eternity to do so. John Lennon says it best in one of his songs, "Grow old along with me. The best is yet to be. When our time has come, we will be as one..." It takes hard work, forgiveness, humility, charity, and in our case, graham crackers and milk to become one. Maybe one day I'll be able to share my milk with Heath...I'm still working on that. I'm so grateful I am married to a man who is determined to have a celestial marriage. I love you Guap.

To celebrate our love for each other, Heath and I took on a ropes course 50 ft above the ground at Utah Olympic Park. We loved it! Thanks to my parents for watching our little munchkins.

Happy 4th To Us!

Grass Is Always Greener Than Dirt

Its everywhere. I thought it would be gone by now, but its still here leaving its mark all over our shoes, clothes, and my kitchen floor. I look at all my neighbors' yards (enviously I'll admit) with luscious grass, blossoming flowers, and shady trees and see that it really is greener on the other side. But I realize there is a time and season for all things. Right now its our time for dirt. I can't complain too much because although the yard installer works slow, he does it right. "Measure twice, cut once" he always tells me. Sometimes I think he measures three or four times, but at least I know he is doing it right and that we are going to have a beautiful yard to enjoy...one day.

It has been, and continues to be, a long process to meet our end goal of green grass. It has made me grateful for a husband who is not only willing to work, but gets passionate about it- especially given my physical state and inability to work too much right now. Heath has saved us thousands of dollars by going the do-it-yourself route. I may be biased but I think his work has the same quality as the professionals. We've also had help from family and neighbors so far. I truly appreciate being surrounded by such wonderful people.

Project Green Grass began back in May. Given the concrete, clay-like dirt we are surrounded by, we rented a tiller attachment for the bobcat we borrowed from Heath's dad. Heath and Jack went at it, tilling up our entire yard. Jack LOVES riding in the skid-steer with his dad. He spent hours in it with him. One windy day, after helping dad drive the "ta-chor"for nearly an hour, he came out of it caked in dust and dirt with a huge grin on his face. What a boy.

Next came the landscaping and leveling. Because our front yard has a big slope we made two levels and added some big landscape rocks Heath's Uncle John gave us. Thanks John! Many of our wonderful neighbors helped Heath place the rocks. Even with my father-in-law's bobcat, it took a lot of hands! Thanks Mace, Jake, and Richard!!!

It was clear leveling was Heath's favorite task and the one he was a perfectionist about. He told me several times, "We need a flat lawn to practice grounders on Wife!" Pulling a baseball field grate behind the four wheeler did the trick. It brought most of the rocks to the surface and gave us the flattest dirt yard in all of Stansbury. Heath, Jack, and our nephew Landon (who's really more like a brother to Heath) cleared out, what seemed like, endless piles of rocks.

The last few weeks have been devoted to the sprinkling system. Using an online program, I designed the basics of it.  It felt great to contribute somehow to the Project Green Grass.. After some minor tweaks to the plan, we were ready. Trenching, pipe laying, gluing, valve installing, sprinkler head attaching, pipe burying, etc etc... has filled every spare second. Jack catches on to the work thats going on pretty quick and is eager to help. He often followed Heath around the yard with his shovel, pieces of PVC pipe, or a sprinkler head and he quickly became an expert at filling in trenches.  We can almost smell the green grass! After spreading out the huge pile of top soil we have sitting in front of our house the sod laying will begin. Hopefully I'll get to post pictures of the final results by the end of the summer...

Celebrating 3 Years of Marriage in a Natural Wonder

I was in charge of planning our anniversary this year. I wanted to keep our anniversary simple, but memorable without spending a fortune. I was excited to have a relaxing date with my best friend and eternal companion. As with most things in life, the beginning of our date did not go as expected. As hard as I tried to make an effective plan, things- in this case a motorcycle- just got in the way. Its not what I want to remember about our 3rd Anniversary, but because of Heath's giddiness over the machine I need to share a few details...

I picked Heath up from work. After which he informed me we needed to make a short detour to pick up the Enduro bike (Suzuki DR-Z400 E with Proaction suspension, skid plate, brush beaters, Renthal handle bars, and street legal kit to be exact) that he was buying from someone on KSL. Heath's concept of time isn't always accurate and despite my efforts to make him understand we had an appointment we needed to be on time for, the bike was purchased and we were 30 minutes behind schedule. Luckily we recovered from the stressful situation and were still able to enjoy our anniversary date. We quickly dropped the Captain off at my parents' house and we were on our way.

Heath had no idea what I had planned for us until we reached the Midway area. After seeing our swim suits in the back of the car, he guessed it. Snorkeling in the Crater! The Crater is a geothermal spring located in a 55 ft tall lime stone rock in the shaped like a beehive. The water is always between 90-96 degrees and its about 65 feet deep. Its a unique phenomenon!

(I'm not really sure what Heath's face is doing in this pic, but I think he was excited...)

There is a hole at the top of the rock that lets in light and fresh air. To reach the pool we walked through a short tunnel where they provide changing stalls and lockers. 

We had such relaxing experience. The water was clear and a beautiful blue-green color. I was a bit disappointed they required life jackets, but Heath was definitely relieved. My prego body loved feeling close to weightless! We had fun watching the scuba divers below and swimming through the endless bubbles they made. We snorkeled and soaked in the peaceful natural wonder. 

Happy Anniversary Guap! 

I love and appreciate you more today than I did three years ago. Your strengths have blessed our home, allowed us to become more united, helped us overcome some tough trials, and kept us close to our Savior.  

I'm one lucky lady to have you forever. I love you.