the Backyard

I have been wanting to post pictures of our finished yard for a long time!  I think it's been done for a good month or so and we have been enjoying spending time in it.  Just last night we had neighbors over for some s'mores in our firepit and we'll be doing more s'mores this weekend with family.

Now for some pictures!  First, the before and after.  I forgot to take a photo before we started, so the before shot was actually taken while trenches were being dug for our sprinklers.  As you can see it was pretty much just dirt and a rock wall.  Now there's lots of grass, rocks, plants & trees!

I wish I could say our grass is always this green,
unfortunately it's not quite this beautiful now.

Now a few photos to give you a closer look...

Our patio.  We love playing games and eating dinner out here.

I mostly took this photo to show our orange tree!  It's growing in the brown pot.
I sure hope we get some oranges!

Our garden boxes!  Dan is a great gardener (he must have learned from his Dad).
He diligently waters our garden daily and our plants are much bigger now.
We have planted tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, pumpkin, watermelon, cantaloupe and honey dew.

Our fire pit!  One of my most favorite spots in the yard.
We look forward to many family and friend gatherings in this spot.

Our stairs made of stone.  Eventually we are going to put a gate at the bottom.

Lastly, my lilies!  These are my favorite flowers that grow here.  They love the heat!

And that concludes our backyard tour :).

I want.

The other day we were at the Bosch Store (i love this store, mostly for the delicious cafe inside) and i was browsing through the kitchen gadgets when i came across this....

Color coded cutting boards!  There is a separate chopping board for fruit/veggies, meat, fish & cooked food (which seems to be way more sanitary) all in this cute little case.  Plus the set I saw comes w/ knives that correspond w/ each color as well.  Amazing!  Cute and functional.  I want this.  I'm not sure i've ever wanted a kitchen gadget this much before.  Now i just have to decide if cutting boards are worth $65.... :) 

condo for rent

So... remember how we're moving? Well, that means we need to find someone to rent our condo. We looked into selling it, but now is a bad time to sell, so we've decided to rent it out. If you know anyone looking for a great place to live in Utah County, please pass on our info. I'd prefer to rent to someone we know or a friend of a friend, rather than a complete stranger.

I made a blog with info and pictures (I'll be posting more pics, as soon as I clean my kitchen...). Please feel free to let anyone know about it :). Thanks!

Condo Blog

new furniture!

Remember that one post when I talked about all the money we won at Dan's work party? Well now I am here to report what we bought with the money... :)

First thing we got was a love seat. We already had the couch, but now we have the set. Our old apartment wasn't big enough for both, but our new condo is.

Here is what it looked like before we decorated....

And this is after! Ta da...
It's funny because the love seat is much puffier than the couch. haha. We're trying to sit on it lots so they will match :)

And the second thing we got was a new kitchen table! We've been wanting something larger for a while.

This is what we had before... (now sold on craig's list for $50)

And this is our new table:
It's one of those extra tall tables- perfect for Dan. I love it, my feet don't even touch the ground when I'm sitting at it. It also has a leaf in the middle that folds out to make the table into a large square. I love the square table, but we keep it folded in when it's just the two of us. And I love the dark wood!

I swear I should be on HGTV :)

My Birthday Present!

Ever since we moved into our condo I've been telling Dan that I want to paint a green accent wall in our living room. I was kind of getting frustrated, because it seemed like it was never going to happen. Well... yesterday I went to lunch with a good friend of mine who is moving to Virginia. After lunch we went shopping. When I came home, guess what was waiting for me???

My birthday present! Dan and his friend, Scot, worked on it the whole time I was gone. I think it looks a little more lime green in this pic than it really is, but we like it! Now I just need to figure out exactly what I want to put above the couch on the wall.

Here's the before shot, if you're wondering...
Quite a drastic change, right?

In other news, we just found out that there is a pumpkin patch only 1 block from our condo! I'm so excited to go there. Uh... i love springville!

We Closed!!!!

On our condo!!! Hooray! It's ours! Now I can start decorating :)

And I love it... pics soon... i promise...

One other thing- we have an extra washer and dryer we will be selling... anyone need one, or know of someone that needs one? If not, we'll post it on craig's list.

Also, we went to Carabbas last night for dinner (italian place in Orem) and it was soooo good! If you've never been, you should go. Delicious!

We also went to Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband last night- they are so fun to watch! Plus we went with our awesome friends- Laura & Brandon, and our awesome family- Ethan & Tiana. It was at the Scera in Orem. It was so fun to sit outside & watch the show. I decided next summer I want to attend more events there.

What a great weekend! And Stake Conference tomorrow, gotta love that!

And plans for next weekend? Utah State Fair, of course!

The end.

Our condo

I am finally getting around to putting up pics of our new condo! I was going to wait until it was all clean and organized, but then i realized that would probably never happen, so here they are... please excuse the imperfections :)


This is the living room, it's what you'd see first if you walked in the door.
This is the balcony, it also has a storage closet out there, which has been very helpful!

This the kitchen, obviously, I really love the knotty alder cabinets and the black granite countertops. I also like the matching black appliances... which you can't really see.

Here is the dining area, with the floating shelves that my awesome husband put up for me. And behind those doors are the washer/dryer. There is also a pantry, it just didn't make it in the pic.

Guest bathroom. If you stay with us, you can use it!

Bedroom #1 (Dan's study)

Bedroom #2 (my craft room) and there's that huge stuffed animal!

Master bath, this is my side...

and this is Dan's side. We LOVE having 2 sinks!

This is our walk in closet. It's hard to tell, but you really can walk in! And we love it!

And here is the end of our tour, the master bedroom. It's a lot bigger than our last room, this picture doesn't really show how big it is though. I think Dan wants to get a king size bed, now that we have the room for it! Our last apt. barely fit this queen! I'm also trying to decide if i want to paint a green accent wall behind the bed... suggestions, anyone?

Hope you all enjoyed it! We are really loving it! Now come visit us so you can see the real thing. Did i mention we have a pool? :)

New Condo!

So I'm pretty sure we are now owners of a new condo! I'm so excited about it! It is absolutely gorgeous and exactly what we were looking for. Actually no, it's better than what we were looking for!

It's kind of a crazy story, we really weren't planning on moving anytime soon. But for some reason we started looking more for fun and ended up becoming serious about it. It just felt like the right thing for us to do. Dan's job has been going great, and we have decided to stay here a little longer than we had originally planned. Seriously, from the first time I met Dan, he could hardly wait to get out of Utah. He likes it here, except for the snow! He hates cold and hates snow. But sometimes you meet the girl of your dreams and end up staying in places you never would have :) Once we got married Dan's plan was to get out of Utah as soon as I graduated. Well I'm graduating in December and it looks likes we will be staying in Utah much longer. Thus... we're buying a condo! We're sick of throwing away money month after month to rent and we are excited to actually own something and truly feel at home.

The condo is located in Pleasant Grove, which is about 10 min. north of Provo. It's a good location because I found out I will be student teaching in Alpine School district, which is just north of Provo. So that works out great. It's a little further commute for Dan, but we figured it would be fine.

It's 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and brand new. My favorite things about this condo are the granite countertops, the matching black appliances, the huge master bedroom, the huge walk-in closet in the master bedroom, and the his and her sinks in the master bath. It also has a really fun balcony that I can hardly wait to BBQ on. It is something I never thought we could afford. But I know that we have been blessed to find the perfect place for us that is within our budget! The minute I walked into the living room/kitchen of this condo, I knew I wanted it. I even said "ok, let's buy it! I don't even need to see the rest!" However, I'm glad we did, because it just kept on getting better!
For those in the area, we will definitely have to have you over once we are all settled in. We don't plan on moving in until August, but by that time I will for sure post photos!

Guess what???

We got plants! I'm so excited about it too... which is why i'm blogging about it. The warm weather has just really made me want flowers for our yard, so we went to Lowes to check it out. The reason we went to Lowes is because we keep on seeing their commercial with those walking flowers like a million times a day, so we figured since they were really advertising their flowers we should get them there. Even though I find the commerical way annoying.

Anyway, we went there and they really did have a good selection. Since we don't know if we are allowed to plant flowers in our front yard, we just got this:

These cute pansies that are already planted for you! I think they look pretty great on our front porch and so far they haven't died yet. Which is good! I'm trying to remember to water them every day.

Then as we were walking through the indoor greenhouse we kept on seeing all these way cool plants. I convinced Dan we needed to get a plant for our house. I wanted the orchids, but they were kinda pricey. So we ended up getting this:

It's a palm tree thing with a crazy name. We really liked it though! That's about it for our plant excursion. I can't wait for the day when we have our own house and can actually plant a garden!