Water, water everywhere

This past weekend was the first time I've been away from Andrew since we've been married! It was kind of weird to make the drive up to Idaho by myself and to not have him with me while I visited with my family. But I'm glad I went up there to get to know my future sister-in-law better.

After camping in Firth Friday night for the Mortensen family reunion, I went shopping in Rexburg and helped my mom with the bridal shower for Megan, my brother's fiancee. It was fun to hang out with family and remember my own bridal shower, which happened about the same time last year.

It was also a rather eventful week because of this:

This is a picture from KSL of a parking lot in our condo's complex that was flooded Friday morning by the Little Cottonwood Creek, which also flooded Murray Park and caused our neighbor's sewer to back up. Every morning when we left the house for work, we were putting all of our belongings up on the table, couch or bed and praying we wouldn't come home to a flooded apartment. It looks like the worst has passed, but we're praying that the water doesn't get any higher! :)

Snow, soccer and something exciting

After our eventful trip to Idaho last weekend, Andrew decided I hadn't had enough birthday -- so he sent me GORGEOUS white lilies at work and set up a birthday dinner for me on Saturday with his parents, his brother Chris and his wife, Amy, and their kids, Franklin and Isabel.

Before that, though, we woke up to THIS on Saturday morning: 5 inches of snow! We couldn't believe it! So much for getting to ride our new bikes this spring. Every weekend, it is either raining or snowing. Oh, well. The snow had completely melted by last night and today was a pretty day.

We drove out to Tooele with Andrew's parents to watch Franklin's soccer game before we went to dinner. I took the nice Nikon I use to take photos at work home for the weekend at my boss' urging (who could say no to a sweet camera?) to practice and took some cute shots of Franklin playing.

 

Andrew played with Isabel at half-time and let her kick the ball into the goal. We also played on the swings for a few minutes.

After the game, we went to Stockton, a tiny little town 10 minutes away from Tooele, to eat dinner in the diner there. We had fun playing with Franklin and Isabel and coloring pictures while we waited for our food to come. They had really yummy burgers and sweet potato fries. :)

Today, we had Andrew's parents and his sister and her family, Rebecca, Jared and Mya. Andrew made a delicious pasta dish and another birthday cake with 24 candles for me to blow out.

It was a fun week, and Andrew made it wonderful. :) He also painted the wall in our second bedroom yellow to match the rest of the walls (it was teal) and reupholstered two of our chairs with fun red-and-white striped fabric we bought at Ikea. He is so good at making our house look wonderful! I am a lucky girl.

For those of you in the area who would like to come, we will be having a housewarming/Just Dance/come say hi party this Friday from 7-10 p.m. It's not formal at all, and you can come anytime. I just want to show off Andrew's mad painting skills and have a few friends come to visit that we haven't seen in awhile. If you want to come, send me an email and I'll give you the address and directions to get here. My email address is lindzlou_love@yahoo.com.

I'll be posting some pictures of the finished apartment as soon as we have the trim done and the pictures hung in the bedroom for those of you who are out of town. I'm so excited to have our little place looking so good!

Royal birthday

Happy birthday to me! I celebrated my royal birthday yesterday -- I turned 24 on the 24th! Andrew and I spent the weekend in Island Park in a cabin my dad rented and just hung out with my family. It was nice to get away from our crazy lives for a little while and celebrate Easter in quiet, beautiful Island Park. 

My mom even brought Easter baskets and Reggie hid them throughout the cabin (Andrew hid his). He is a FUNNY kid! He made us all laugh hysterically with his Family Guy impersonations (even though I've never seen the show) and background singing as Randall wowed us with his songs on the guitar.

We also spent some time with Andrew's sister, Mary, and her family, and I got to spend some time with cousins I hadn't seen in years and hold some new babies -- always a treasure with family.

Since we were traveling for most of the day on my birthday, Andrew surprised me with lunch at work today and a DINOSAUR balloon when I got home. He also made a delicious dinner and a red velvet cake because I was sad I didn't get to eat a birthday cake yesterday. :) Ignore the way my shirt is poofing out in the picture below. I am not sure why I look so big...

We also bought a NEW MATTRESS (long story short -- we bought a new bed frame, sold our old frame and mattress and slept on the couch for two days after an ill-fated trip to Saratoga Springs at 10:00 at night ended in anger over a so-called "gently-used" mattress), spent way too long in Bath and Body Works and got my wedding ring cleaned. I can't believe Andrew bought it a year ago yesterday. It's nuts! If I didn't think it was weird to do this, I would take another picture of it like we did when we got engaged because it is SOOOOO sparkly and beautiful!

Anyway, more pictures to come once we have our bedroom put back together. We finished painting it and just have to hang up the pictures and do the trim. We love our little home. :)

Home is where the heart is

Andrew and I had a GREAT weekend in Idaho! I showed him my favorite bridge (which is where most of these pictures were taken), my favorite park, and my favorite people -- my family and friends, of course! We got to hang out in fabulous St. Anthony for two days, driving my cute little car all around town.

My mom made her famous cinnamon rolls (they aren't really famous, but they should be), pizza and Italian chicken. She even made crepes, my favorite. I felt like I was a little kid again. And on Saturday morning, she came into my room and gave me a hug in my bed, just like she used to do when I lived at home. I have a really nice mom -- and a really nice dad. He went through my owner's manual with a fine-toothed comb and discovered that my anti-lock brakes were not working (and I thought that red light meant they WERE).

And after my brother shot me in the eye with a Nerf gun and my sister and I sang the entire "Poor Unfortunate Souls" song before church, it was time to hit the road again and come back to Salt Lake City.

I realized something when I drove back into town this time, though. I miss Idaho. I'll probably always miss it. For 22 years, it was my home. But Salt Lake is my home, too -- and I love living here, too.

Aren't road trips just fantastic? :)

Let me go home

I'm home for Thanksgiving, which is kind of weird, since I really only have a fifteen-minute drive away from school, but it's still a new experience each time.

Had I stayed at college, for example, I wouldn't have seen my fourteen-year-old brother make a Jamestown fort out of rawhide dog chews or have the pleasure of buying three more bags at the dollar store (we don't even own a dog), where the lady asked if I was making stockings for my pets (gag me).

I wouldn't have been able to step over my sister's piles of clothes on the floor (dreading moving them or picking them up for fear of hobo spiders lurking beneath) and crawling into the bottom bunk, listening to the creaking of my sister tossing and turning above and wondering when I was going to become a wooden slab sandwich when the top bunk came crashing down on top of me.

I would never have gotten the chance to see the high school musical, High School Musical (oh, the irony), and watch an entire population of South Fremont students singing overwrought pop songs about "getting your head in the game" and "sticking to the status quo."

But most of all, I wouldn't have gotten to crowd with my family on my parents' bed and watch a movie at 11:00 on a school night while my dad complained about everyone always taking over his room when he wanted to sleep.

Yes, coming home from college may be demeaning (especially when everyone in your ward wonders why you're 21, single, and not serving a mission), but it is certainly never boring.