Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Snail Mail

With school soon finished and spring in the air,

Degree in hand and no money to spare.

To our utmost surprise we're buying a house

That's big enough to hold a mouse.

Not just a mouse but a family of two,

To which we'll add a little baby too.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Spring Break 2011

We decided (way before we had the inkling to buy a house) to get away for an evening for spring break. We headed 1.5 hours north to Sun Valley and stayed at the Spruce Inn: a fun, casual B&B that was to die for. They had such fresh, crisp decor and the rooms were SO comfortable. We had our own entrance to come and go as we pleased, an awesome lounge room with several large tv's throughout, a pool table, hot tub and fire pit in the backyard. So cute! Our breakfast was so fancy with a delicious fresh fruit mix with yogurt, carmel sauce, and grape nuts. And then awesome thingys - fancy sort of bread with an egg on top with some kind of cheese, herbs, and avocado...or maybe it was guacamole? I don't know, it was a little too fancy for me and I was so stuffed with the delish fruit mix that I took my bread/egg/cheese thingy to go. Miss Kimberly is such a sweet host she even sent us home bearing gifts of a fancy chocolate covered apple from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, and a fancy bottle of wine that she herself was dying to try. Thanks Kimberly! We'll definitely be staying with you again!

On the down side, my cold continued to get worse and I am infinitely bed ridden even as I type. But that still didn't stop me from enjoying our spring break get away, although it certainly wasn't spring. By the time we got there we ran into about 3-4 feet of snow and woke up to 6 more inches.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

One More Thing...

I forgot to mention one other thing about buying a house: mortgage insurance? Are you crazy??? What a joke, as if all the fees and closing costs aren't enough, go ahead and throw the utmost dreaded "I" word in there. I can understand homeowners insurance, that's a little different. Really though, mortgage insurance?! Geez!!

Escrow?

As a child and even as an adult I fantasised about what my first house might look like. Mine was a cute cottage with a white picket fence and beautiful, bright tulips and daisies surrounding everything. I had a little mailbox just down the side walk to the fence and the most lovely neighbors I had ever met. Inside was a quaint little kitchen that was so cute with a large pantry that smelled like fresh cookies. I had hardwood floors and a white fluffy area rug in the little living room by the fireplace. Just big enough for me but small enough it was cozy and it was home.

Now that we are finished with school, the thought of a house has been on our minds. We toyed with it a little bit, looked at a few houses here and there and decided we'd wait a year so we could save up money. But what I wasn't expecting was putting an offer on a house just 2 weeks after starting to look at houses. It's all happening so fast!

The whole process is scary: choosing a realtor, deciding what we want in a house, what amount are we pre-qualified for, getting an appraisal, getting an inspection, what are closing costs, what is a title and does escrow mean a female crow in spanish? Can someone please dumb-down all these mortgage terms? These are things grown ups deal with. But now that we are in the process I feel more grown up and it's a little scary. Ok maybe a lot scary.

I'm quite nervous.

We put an offer on a house last night. It took 3 hours because it's bank owned and the bank had it's own novel of an addendum in addition to the paperwork our realtor had. Scary. I started getting dyslexic with my initials half way through. We shall see what happens.

But this week is SPRING BREAK and we are headed to Sun Valley!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Pros & Cons

I didn't expect this to happen so fast ....................... we found a house we love! Unfortunately it isn't in 9th ward boundaries which is quite disappointing. Quite. Disappointing. But we love the house......

......but it isn't in 9th ward......

......but we love the house......

Friday, March 18, 2011

Bungalow Anyone?

For some reason ever since we've been married I feel stuck at age 19, the age I was married. (A baby I know). Now I'm 25 and still feel 19 and it doesn't help that I look 12 and blend right in with the beehive girls. This week I've actually felt my age for the first time in a long time. Lance and I took a leap and have started looking at houses. Scary! I can't believe how scary and nervous it makes me but at the same time, completely EXHILARATING!!


We're "somewhat" serious about buying a house, Lance hasn't started his new position yet so we obviously have to wait until May. Ideally we'd like to wait a year and then sign away our lives, that way we'll have a substantial down payment saved up. We have no idea what we're doing, we're lost in the real estate jargon, and have no clue what we're looking for. We know what we don't want and that's where we are starting. For some reason it throws maturity and responsibility right in front of us and that is exciting. The whole thing is exciting but we're trying not to get too ahead of ourselves. More to come soon!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Krystal's Dirty 30

"Come and celebrate Krystal getting old. We are glad to be home but we kinda miss the Dirty South, so we have decided to bring it here. Join us for a night of Redneck shananagins, dressed in your best white trash outfit. There will be a sweet spread of fried chicken, corndogs, and maybe a pizza pocket or two along with some awesome redneck games like, oops I slept with my sister! See ya'll there."



Williams, Tippings, and us were actually having a serious conversation at this point. But how can we? I know I was distracted.
Hansen sisters.

This picture cuts off the big butt that I had to offset the big boobs. Such great costumes and even better friends.

SO GOOD TO SEE EVERYONE!!!!!

Craft Day

While the aunts come to have a little girl time as Trish and I hosted craft day, these are the faces of the kids and dad. Quentin wanted to take a picture and didn't like that he was left out of craft day. Pretty sure Joseph wasn't quite that happy, but maybe he was. After all, his wife made a delicious lunch of taco soup, fresh fruit, rolls, and yummy apple crisp with ice cream. I'm sure he was looking forward to the left overs.


This was our small crowd. All the others were sick, out of town, pregnant and sick, taking care of sick kids and sick husbands, etc. It was so nice to see the aunts, we missed everyone else though!

The almost finished paper wreaths: Anne made hers like a valentine.
Debra made her out of a map and the center she's going to use a mirror and some glittery paper to resemble waves. So creative, I never would have thought to use a map.
This is Kathy's vintage sheet music.
And Linda's vintage sheet music.
Linda finished hers too fast, I didn't get a picture of her working on it.


Monday, March 14, 2011

“No woman ever has enough time, enough energy, and enough strength to do all the good things that are in her mind to do. We have to have the help of the Holy Ghost to take care of what is most essential.”

Sister Julie B. Beck

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Sweet Baby Brittany

Sisters meeting for the first time. Aubrey kept saying, "She have eyes like me."
Precious mom and baby



You can kind of see she has reddish brown curly hair
So far the majority say that she's a good mix of Brad and Heather. She definitely looks like a Pettingill to me. But regardless, she's beautiful!
I can't get over how tiny she is
Getting the thorough check from Dr. Jones. Even though she's 4 weeks premature with the delivery complications, she's completely healthy. What a blessing!
Little itty bitty feet
She's going to be a drooler liker her Aunt Becky.

Introducing

Brittany Pettingill weighing 5 pounds 9 ounces. Thank goodness Heather and baby are doing well, I haven't heard if there were any other complications or how the c-section went. We're just so thankful everything went well, definitely a huge blessing!!

Monday, March 7, 2011

Moving?

I think I forgot to post about the latest update with Lance's schooling. Since the beginning of the year we've been letting the cat out of the bag: Lance has a job offer after school is done! We have known since September but haven't told anybody because we knew so far in advanced that we didn't want to get our hopes up if things didn't work out. We will be staying right here in the good old state of Idaho, working for White's and Reynolds where he currently works. He will be the Advanced Planning Specialist (and a funeral director) mainly setting up pre arranged funerals. We have no idea what he'll be making or any other details. That's all we know, that he has a job. When he told me I was so excited I started to cry because back in September we were so financially strapped and stressed, this news was like fresh rainfall after a forest fire.

I've been so anxious to move. The house we're in now is the longest we've ever stayed in one place, two years and 5 months, and it's killing me. I love to move and I love change but this is such a huge blessing to have a job that I'm not going to be picky. So all the young women and others in the ward that have asked, we're staying right where we are at.

The frustrating thing is that our "licensed date" keeps getting pushed back. Last year we were supposed to be done at the end of August and found out Lance had to do another year of school. Since then the date has always been May 31 of this year. We recently found out that the state only offers the board exams twice a year, so we have to wait until July. Lance has been trying to contact the board for verification of all this but to no avail. We are waiting to see on that for sure. So frustrating.

But we're almost done, right?!?!

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Pot O' Gold


Made these little ditties for my fellow young women leaders. They do so much for the girls and are always giving them little goodies, I thought they needed some lovin too. I got the idea from Crafting Chicks.

American Accent

Sister Huckfeldt does a great American accent/impression. It makes us Americans sound like hillbillies.

Missionary Moments

Sister Huckfeldt and Thomas are totally awesome! Sadly, Sister Thomas is going home from the mission tomorrow. :( But sister Huckfeldt, who's from Brisbane, Australia will be staying here for at least one more transfer. These two are crazy nuts! They're so funny and a blast to be with and are a great pair of missionaries. Lance was showing them how to set up a profile on the new mormon.org thingy. Sister Huckfeldt had heart burn and asked if we had any medicine, of course who doesn't have a bottle of the pink stuff? She'd never heard of peptobismol and being that was the only medicine to give immediate relief, she chose to try it.

And one clarification if I may, while we were talking about rain boots Sister Huckfeldt referred to mine as gummie boots. I said, excuse me, what did you call them? "What? The gum boots?" I was so ecstatic, Lance thought my family made up the word but we didn't and there's the Aussie truth of it. Thanks for proving me right. :)

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Gum Boots

I have been saving my pennies for a pair of these awesome galoshes. I grew up calling them gum boots because we always wore them on the farm, aka black irrigation boots. Lance and I went to dinner last night and as we were walking to the cafe I was happily skipping through the snow and mud.
I LOVE these beauties!!!