Here We Are!!

So I know it's crazy but we live in Smithfield, North Carolina as of January 1, 2011!!  We needed to set up a blog because all of our family who is near and far needs to have a way to keep up with what we're up to and how life is here in NC.  A LOT of stuff is going on for us right now!!  We're fixing up the house that we're renting, we just got a brand new puppy from Grandma Kim last week named Gretchen Lea Morden, and our lives are full of different events, adventures, and obstacles every single day!  Too many things are constantly going on for us, there is no way we could ever possibly call all of our loved ones to keep them updated on everything that's going on so I think it would be nice for me to keep everyone updated on here!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, it was so great to spend time with my mom's side of the family and have them all FINALLY meet Blake!  We laughed, cried, and had a great time with our loved ones.  Here are a few pictures and explanations of some of the great things that happened over Christmas...

Just taking a few things out of my stocking for Christmas!

Blake made his own customized gift basket filled with bath and smell good stuff for me as one of my Christmas presents!  I'd have to say that he did a prrretttyyy good job with it!

Gift from my dad and Cheryl for Blake.  It's a personalized/customized Louisville Slugger baseball bat with Blake's name and the Detroit Tigers team logo engraved on it.  Probably one of the best Christmas gifts I've seen in a LONG time!  (or ever.)

Blake and I on Christmas Day up at my Aunt Jenna's house in Logan, Utah.  I love how matchy we are :) This might be my favorite picture of the two of us, we just look so content and happy with each other and with the holidays!

Blake and I with Grammy!  I just love this picture and I can't wait to put it into a frame.  It was so fun for me to listen to Grammy and Blake get to know each other and talk to each other all day.  I think they got along pretty well!

The two of us with my mom :) We just love every second that we get to spend with her....Blake gave us what might be the most amazing Christmas present either of us have ever received.  He surprised us with tickets to the U2 concert in Denver in May.  Another half of the present is that he's going to work extra hours to save up enough money to fly me out there for the weekend of the concert so I can spend some time with my mom around Mother's Day!!!!!  Everyone cried and just thought it was the greatest thing ever...I would have to agree with them!!  It's a PERFECT Christmas gift!

(This is a little bit out of order) Here are all the presents under our tree at home in Orem.  I'd say we did pretty well for our first Christmas together as a family :)

Two of my favorite women on this earth.  I love getting together with them, spending time, and creating memories.  My Grandmother is one of the most amazing women I know, I look up to her so much and hope that I can be like her one day.

Speaking of how amazing she is....she put together these framed cards that my Grandma Howard has painted and sent to her throughout the years.  That gift is such a great treasure to Blake and I.  We have it hanging on the wall in our new house and will always cherish it.  Blake and I love my grandmas so much and it's wonderful to have something combined for us to be able to remember them always.

Gunner couldn't WAIT to open up his stocking and see all the fun treats inside for him!

Blake is showing off all the cool things he got in his stocking this year from Santa!

Blake was so impressed by my gift wrapping skills haha.  I think I have a LONG way to go for my gifts to be impressive!

Getting ready to open the box that has his baseball bat inside!!  Obviously the suspense is killing him!

Aaaaaaaaaaaand......HE LOVED IT!  Way to go Dad and Cheryl!  He kept posing like he is in this picture for at LEAST 15 or 20 minutes.  He's trying to hurry and put together his "man cave" in our new house so he can put it on display.

 So there's a short viewing of our Christmas festivities!  Like I said before, we had a ton of fun and made a lot of great memories thanks to each other and our loved ones.

The next two days after Christmas we spent throwing everything together into boxes and then into a moving truck to move across the country from Orem, UT -----> Smithfield, NC.

 As you can see.....that's quite a drive.  I ended up being a really crappy wife about two days into the trip and got EXTREMELY sick with a cold or flu or something.  I literally have not been that sick since I got food poisoning about 2 and a half years ago.  Poor Blake had to drive the entire way pretty much by himself because it took all of my energy just to get up and walk out to the truck with Gunner every morning for the last half of the trip and then I slept the entire rest of the way.  I know...I know....I'm awful and I feel incredibly bad for it...  Blake is such a trooper and handled the trip so well though, I'm so grateful for him being able to do that himself and get us to our new home safe and sound.

This is Gunner on his first night staying in a hotel.  It was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen when I took him on the elevator up to our room.  He did NOT know what to do with himself!  I'm pretty sure it took about 3 tries to get the doors to shut because he kept trying to run out of the elevator right when the doors were shutting.

I'm pretty sure he's begging me to let him out of our hotel room right about now.

Driving away from our last Utah mountain sunset....they really were beautiful there.

Gunner's seat in between us in the truck!  He did so well!  He didn't eat the seats or the steering wheel or the pedals or anything!  Just his food and his toys :) oh - and the bed we got for him to sleep on....

The only thing we saw in New Mexico for about 4 hours was a random casino in the middle of NOWHERE!  I really had to go to the bathroom and there was nothing else in sight so we decided to pull in and use theirs.  We played penny slots for a few minutes and I actually ended up winning 75 cents!!  Blake was so proud of me!

Here I am after the attack of the worst cold/flu I've ever had!  Gunner still thinks he's tiny so he crawled up onto my lap a lot the last few days on the road.  Even though he's super heavy it was kind of nice to have a warm pillow right in front of me :)

So that was our trip out here!  After the 5th day of driving Blake decided he was just going to finish the trip completely and drive until we got to our new house.  We ended up getting to our new home at about 5:00 AM on New Year's Day.  To our surprise all the doors were locked and there was no key to be found!  We had a big miscommunication with his parents about them having the doors unlocked, etc.  But Blake's dad, Mike, came out to let us in and bring us some blankets and pillows, bless his heart.  So we camped out for a couple of days until a bunch of guys from our ward came over and helped us unload the truck.  It took Blake and I about 6 hours to load the truck by ourselves in Utah, and it took all the guys about 20 minutes total to unload everything and put it in the house.  I was speechless!  It was so incredible and so great to have their help - we wouldn't have been able to do it without them!  

So here are a few pictures just showing what the house looked like when we moved in, and some of the progress we've made so far on the rooms!

Living Room when we got here and put everything in there.

Dining Room when we first got here.

Kitchen! Isn't that wall paper the most beautiful thing you've ever seen????  ;-)

Cabinets in the kitchen.

The bathroom floor was disgusting when we first got here.  But Blake took a couple of nights to spruce it up a bit and here's what he ended up with!!

The floors look great don't they?!

Starting to tear down some of that wall paper in the Dining Room!

Gretchen and I right after Kim gave her to us.

Last week (I think it was Thursday or Friday) I was just leaving Lonestar after my job interview (where I found out I got the job by the way!) when Blake called and told me to hurry back to his mom's office because there was a surprise there that she had got for us.  Turns out when I showed up this cute little puppy was there waiting for me!!  Her name is Gretchen Lea Morden and she is fitting into our family perfectly!  She and Gunner love to play and steal toys from each other and chase each other all over the house.  They hate being away from each other, it's the most depressing thing ever to them.  I'm so glad they get along because Gunner needed a little sister and we are so thankful for Kim getting her for us.  We all love her SO much!

Gunner and Gretchen just hanging out on the couch.  This is definitely the best picture we have of the two of them together!

Gretchen right after she woke up from a nap.  She's still an itty bitty puppy and Gunner wears her out after making her play constantly with him all day.

Starting the painting project on the living room!

We blocked off the living room from the dogs when we were painting it because we knew they would be all over the place trying to find out what was going on.  But Gunner perched himself up on the banister from the kitchen the entire night to make sure we let him know what was going on.

Gretchen decided that while we were working on the Living Room it would be the perfect time for her to take a little nap in her kennel.

Blake told me that when we moved here it would be warm.  He lied.  We had an ice storm for a couple of days at the beginning of the week and this is what I saw when I let the dogs out first thing Tuesday morning.

This is what our car looks like covered with 1/4" of pure ice.