Random February Pictures

I'm growing to love these posts because they are what real life is made up of.  It's the little things in life that I am enjoying more and more.  The events are always fun, but I'm trying to remember to enjoy every day life and find joy in the journey.

 

Moving has been tough.  There are so many things that I love about Utah and so many things that I appreciate more about California after being here.  It has been so hard to be away from my family and friends, but I've really tried to live each day in the present and dive in to life here.

 

One of the things that has been hard for me is not having as much time with Jason.  Working in Salt Lake, I don't see him during the day for lunch and some days will go most of the day without talking to him while he is in meetings or at appointments.  Most Wednesday nights, we tag team.  He gets home in time to eat dinner and I leave for YW.   We have had to adjust to becoming a "normal" couple, but it has been a good time for growth, communication and valuing the time we do have together.

 

I love this picture for a lot of reasons. For starters, I have always loved Jason in a white shirt and tie!  It was Stake Conference weekend and we made a date of it.  We went out to dinner and then went to the adult session of conference. And of course, It wouldn't be Saturday without a late night trip to the grocery store!  I loved the look on Jason's face when he realized that I was taking a picture of him picking out bananas!  When he asked why I was taking a picture, I told him because he is cute and because I don't have any pictures of him at the grocery store!  Haha!  We regularly go together, just not usually dressed up!

Another random picture Jason text me, was this picture of the Teachers quorum on the way up to go night skiing.  They needed drivers and Jason offered to take the in the bus. He had fun skiing with Austin and his friends.

Another Saurday, we had promised Ashlyn we would take her skiing at a real resort.  It started snowing on our way up and continued to get worse as we unloaded.  It was freezing, but Ashlyn was so excited!  We decided to stay as long as she wanted to.

We took her up the tow rope and down the bunny hill a few times.

 She had a great time and is getting much better.  We were going to take her up the lift, but the visibility was really bad and she was starting to get cold and tired.  We decided it is always better to stop while we are still having fun!

Austin take the ski bus up to Park City every Saturday and is loving every minute of it!  The ski buses meet at the stake center at 7:45am and fill up with kids his age. 

 Austin is the second one from the left in the blue pants.

Ashlyn and have Paige have been so cute together!  Ashlyn told me that Paige is her best friend.  The other day I over heard Ashlyn telling Paige that she is a princess for reals because her Heavenly Father is a King.  Such a sweet thing to hear!

I had a bunch of tissue paper pieces left over from the poms I made for New Beginnings (post to come), so we did a couple tissue paper art projects with the little ones.

I love the way Paige is looking at Ashlyn in this picture!

Ashlyn has always loved clothes and fashion but she has taken on a new direction this last month.  She has been digging through every one's closets and finding new ways to wear clothes that don't belong to her.  She came in wearing one of my swim cover up a few weeks ago and told me how it would be the perfect winter outfits with her black cardigan because the colors were mostly winter colors. ( Blue, black and grey.) She had used hair ties to make the dress fit.  Another day I noticed her in some capris, I hadn't seen before and asked her about them.  She got a funny smile on her face just as I realized that they were Paige's pants!  She told they were perfect capris and were just right with the shirt she had on.  When she came in to the office wearing one of Jessica's shirts, I knew I need a picture.

 If you look closely, you can see the flower pony tail holder she used to make the shirt fit.  She said the white flower was just right with the white shirt.  She just came in to show me because she wasn't sure what shoes would work with the outfit because it was sort of a dressed up outfit, but the jeans made it "sort of regular".   She is so funny!  Lately I have been finding her "making summer outfits" in her room.

 Jessica has been having more friends over lately which has been fun for me.  I love having kids around, but it makes me feel anxious to either move or finish the basement.  We need a second kitchen!

 Jason had a fun "work meeting" with a broker in Park City!  He got to spend the afternoon on a snow mobile!  Needless to say, he is loving his job!

And we sold my old Acadia.

I was sad to see it go.  I'm sentimental that way though.  When we bought my car, Jason had planned to drive the old Acadia and sell the Tahoe.  As we thought more about it (and after protests from the kids), we decided it made more sense to sell my old car and keep the Tahoe.  Austin will have his licence next year and we would much rather have him driving the Tahoe.  So, Jason will drive the Tahoe for another year and buy a new car when Austin starts driving.

Cheddar

For Valentine's Day this year, I totally lived up to one of my nicknames- Cheddar ( for being so cheesy!). 

 

I decided I was going to mail treats with very cheesy sayings to Jason, while he was at work, every day in February until Valentine's Day.  I saw some cute ideas on Pinterest and made up a few of my own.  It was so much fun!  It was a bit of a challenge getting to the post office everyday, since the nearest one is in American Fork, but it was so fun to get his texts during the day when a package would arrive!  Here are a few of them: 

You can't see that one very well, but it says, I like how you ROLL!  Haha!

I didn't think to take any pictures, but Jason took pictures of several of his treats when he would text me.  He sent me this picture one afternoon after one of his packages had arrived:

He was saving his tags and pinned them to his bulletin board at work!  Cute! 

On Valentine's Day, I sent him a book I had made for him with some of our fun dates and pictures together with a note card that said, "I think you are turtle-ly awesome!"  (One of his nicknames is Turtle.)

It was so fun!

Dinosaur Museum

My mom stayed in town the week after our anniversary to watch Janelle's kids, while she and Peter had a last vacation before baby number 7!  We met my mom with Janelle's kids at the Dinosaur Museum one night.

The kids love to see the exhibits.

I love to see Lauren as she takes on herself more responsibility with Paige.  She loves to play with her and make her happy.  I love to see Lauren happy to watch Paige experience new things!  It is so sweet. 

 It was way more crowded than normal. This is my "Yeah! Are we having fun?" face.
We ended up not staying for very long because it was too crazy.  There was a political function in the lobby that night and just too much commotion to enjoy what we hopped would be a low key night at the museum.  I did run into an old friend from my BYU days!  Jake Anderegg!  He and his wife had been good friends and neighbors when I lived in Wyview 15 years ago! 

The kids had their hearts set on getting ice cream next door at Thanksgiving point, so we still stopped by the ice cream parlor before we went home.  Paige loves ice cream cones and was happy as could be until she took a bit out of the bottom of the cone.

Just as she started to take a bite out of the bottom, Jason told her not to because all of her ice cream would spill out.

Paige is really sensitive and cries if anyone ever tells her no or if she thinks she is in trouble.  Her lip starts to quiver and then she has a full blown melt down.   We tried to tell her she wasn't in trouble and it was okay, but she didn't want her ice cream anymore and needed to be held and consoled!

She is so funny.  We are just loving her more and more every day!

Spoiled

Before Jason and I got married, we looked at a lot of different rings.  We found one we liked and even drove an hour one morning to meet a vendor to buy it, only to have the vendor not be able to make it.  After a few misses like that and a few months going by without buying a ring and getting engaged, I guess you could say I was over the ring and just ready to get married.   I started looked at other rings that were more readily available.  :)  What I didn't know, was that Jason had bought the diamond for the setting already.  

He proposed Christmas morning with a diamond solitaire and said we could pick out the setting to put it in.  I loved the simple beauty of the solitaire and I'm super sentimental ( and practical) I was happy with the ring as it was.

A couple of times over the years, Jason has asked if I wanted a new ring.  I have just always felt like there were so many other things to spend the money on and I didn't need anything else.  For Christmas this year, Jason told me he was buying me the setting for my diamond and wanted to make sure I still wanted the same one.  He said he had wanted to for a long time. I loved that he really wanted to, so I didn't argue.  I thought it was sweet, especially since we got engaged on Christmas.  

 

 As we were looking up the old setting online, I saw a few other rings that I liked too.  We found a store that carried the brand, but Jason said I better come see it in real life to make sure it was the one I still wanted.  The store didn't have the setting in stock and we ended up just like before, looking in several jewelery stores.  It was kind of fun!  I felt like a young couple looking at rings before getting engaged!  While shopping, I realized my taste had changed and I kept being drawn to a different style.  We finally picked one out that was very differnt than the setting I had liked before, but it had to be special ordered and re sized to fit my diamond.  We wouldn't have it for several weeks.

 

The ring came in about a week before our 6th anniversary!  He asked me to marry him again and I couldn't have been happier to say yes!

I'm getting used to having a much bigger ring on my finger and feel so loved whenever the sparkle catches my eye.

The next weekend, my mom came to watch our kids so we could enjoy a weekend away.   We went skiing in Park City.

It was a beautiful day!!

Jason took a work call at the top on one of the runs. I thought he was cute, so I took a picture. :)

When we were all tired out, we checked into our hotel at the Zermot in Midway.  We loved it! It was a really cool hotel!

Lobby...

It had a heated indoor/outdoor pool.

You can see the hot tub with the water fall in the back and just before that there is a channel where you can swim to the outdoor pool.

They had a great gym and an awesome steam room and sauna!  I forgot how good it feels to be warm! I didn't realize how much I miss that!  We loved our time there and will definitely go back again. 

 

As we were going to dinner that night, we got a call from my mom saying our basement was flooding, followed by these pictures from the kids and my mom!

They had used every beach towel we own and a shop vac to try to soak the water up.

We turned around and started heading towards home, while we made some calls about the basement.  We talked to a contractor who could be there first thing in the morning to see what had been caused the water to come in.  It looked like it was coming in one of the windows.  It was the first day that temperatures had reached above freezing in several months and we had some snow melt.

 

  Jessica sent me this picture and a text that said, "He mom just letting you know that almost all of the water is dry and I advise that you guys stay there.  Everything is handled and all we've got are some wet towels.".  I love her.

We knew it wouldn't flood any more during the night because it was too cold and after talking to my mom again, we decided there really wasn't anything we could do that night anyway and that we should stay.  Besides, I can't think of anyone more capable of handling the situation than my mom.  

 

The contractor came in morning and fixed the window well.  Luckily the basement is unfinished and nothing was damaged and we got to stay and enjoy the rest of our weekend.  Sorry mom!  

We shopped around Park City and had lunch downtown. 

It was so nice to have uninterrupted time together!  I updated my facebook status the next day with this:

I'm feeling so very blessed to be married to my best friend. He loves me when I'm hard to love and gives me the security I need to put away my pride and be able to honestly look at myself see where I need to be better. He always tells me that he loves me exactly how I am, but it just makes me want to be better for him. I can't imagine a better partner or friend than he is. He is the happily in my ever after and I couldn't imagine a more charming prince! I love you Jason Rickards! Happy Anniversary!

 

I feel so lucky in love and know that it isn't every day that you find a love like ours.  We aren't prefect, but we never stop trying and I think that's what makes us work so well.

 

On our way home, we stopped at a car dealership just to look around. My car had started to have a few problems and Jason decided it was just time to get me a new one. I ended up driving home a new Acadia!  It is the Denali edition and has all of the fun details!  I feel so spoiled!!