Halloween 2014

This year Paige was a ladybug. She absolutely loved trick or treating, but still didn't quite understand the concept fully. She loved that she was able to go up to someone and they would give her candy, but then was super sad that she had to put it in a bag and couldn't eat it right away. In the end she still ate way to much candy, but now she knows the word candy and chocolate. This should be fun... She was also so excited about wearing her costume that it was hard to keep her still long enough for a picture. We have like 40 that she is a complete blur, but these are the best we got! Happy Halloween!

Our new house!

So I realized I haven't put up pictures of our new house yet. We love it! So here you go, picture overload!

Front Door and Coat Closet

Entrance to house (living room)

Dining Room

Kitchen

Kitchen (angle 2, hallway leads to laundry room on left, garage on right)

Laundry Room

Staircase (by front door)

Upstairs Hallway (From Paiges room looking at spare room and storage room first door on right, bathroom second door on right, stairs on left)

Upstairs Storage Room

Paige's Room

Guest Bathroom

Paige's Closet

Spare Room

Entrance to Master Bedroom (closet on right)

Master Closet

Master Bedroom 

Master Bathroom

Packing up

Moving is miserable. I mean I love that we are going to a new place, but man I forgot how difficult it is to box up everything you own and clean the whole house. Luckily the company that does background checks are a little behind so we have had some more time then expected, they are pushing back Torrys start date. Another thing that came into play to that date is that we have a house to rent now! Since we are working for a military base, they are allowing us to live in some of their housing. It is a great set up because all we do is pay rent and they pay all utilities, water, everything, so we are excited. We were on the wait list a while but they just got back to us and said that we can move in to a 3 bedroom 1700 square foot house on the tenth! Yay!! That way we can have some time to get there and Torry's first day of work will be October 14th. We will be packing up the car on October 4th in between sessions of conference and then he leaves with the Uhaul on Monday at 3:00 AM! I am really worried that he won't be able to drive a huge Uhaul with a car attached to the back for 30 hours, but he is a good driver and I know he will be safe so all I can do is hope! He will be making a stop in Colorado Springs to stay with his dad and then once in Oklahoma City for one night with a high school friend. That's three 11 hour days, but then he will be home! I will stay behind to deep clean the rest of the house and then I will stay with my parents until Friday. I fly out of SLC airport at 10 and then should be getting into Biloxi around 10 that night! (I have a lot of layovers) The airport is about 20 minutes from our house, but then we are there for good! We are so excited to have our plans finalized and I will just be glad to be done packing with a little one who just wants to unpack.

My Birthday!

So for Torry's birthday this year we went to New York, so I decided that for my birthday we should go to Hawaii. It's only fair right? Okay, so maybe it wasn't realistic, but I have been telling Torry this ever sense his birthday in June. On my birthday I knew that I wouldn't be able to really go to Hawaii, but I was hopeful.
The day started out pretty typical, woke up with Paige in the morning, Torry had a group meeting for one of his classes so I made breakfast. When Torry came home from his group meeting he asked if I could go somewhere for a few hours while he set up a surprise. Of course! So I went and hung out with my friend Amy for a few hours. She has a boy about Paige's age that Paige loves to play with, a newborn, and I really like hanging out with her! So I was there for a couple hours until Torry said I could come home. I did, and he said if we couldn't go to Hawaii, he would bring Hawaii to us!
When I walked through the door he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, he gave me a flower leis, there was music in the background and the house was all decorated. We ate pineapple and pina coladas (virgin of course), and Torry had even written me a song on his Ukulele. :-) We relaxed and enjoyed the Hawaiian atmosphere, until we realized we were starving and decided to go get lunch. Now every year I sign up for all of the restaurants online things so I can get free coupons for my birthday, so I went onto the computer to get my free appetizer from Texas Roadhouse (my favorite restaurant) when I saw that Torry had an email (it's our default page).
So Torry checked his email, and it was the Exchange. He had received his official job offer and wanted to know if he accepted it or not. If he did then they would lock in his salary and we had ten days to get to Biloxi. We were in shock. It was actually happening! Now we knew that he had the job, but it wasn't until the salary, benefits, time off, and responsibilities were right in front of us with a ten day time frame that it got truly real! So he replied yes and that was it! We were officially hired! So then I printed off my coupon for cheese fries and we went to Texas Roadhouse to celebrate two things.
The rest of the day was kind of a blur as we were frantically trying to organize stuff, pack, buy plane tickets, rent a Uhaul, plan for hotels, research a new city in Mississippi, but it was the best birthday present ever. Knowing we would have a career and start a new life in ten days was so exciting! Happy Birthday!

Back to Rexburg!

So Torry's little sister and step brother are going back to Rexburg for school and we decided that we would help them go and get settled (since we feel like we are pro's at that area now.) We live about three hours away from Rexburg so we decided to go up on Thursday morning and stay until Saturday afternoon to make sure they got fully settled in and knew their way around. We have been looking forward to the trip so were excited when Jane and Frank came down the 10th so that we could get an early start the next day and an early start we got. We woke up at 5:30 AM, I made pancakes (which may I add no one really ate, who eats that early?) and started the three hour drive. Now that we have driven across the US, anything under 5 hours feels like nothing now, so we had an enjoyable trip. When we got back to the wonderful town of Rexburg it was great to see everything. We have missed it and were glad to see it all again. It has only been like a year and a half since we left, but it feels like so much longer! We helped get boxes inside, unpacked, I-Cards, and even started showing buildings around campus. It was so fun to see every thing. We also ate lunch in Rigby at the old restaurant we worked at: Gator Jacks. That place was so awesome and it was the best feeling ever to go back and see our friends James and Kim. Not only did we see James and Kim, but we were able to see our old friends Nick and Sarah, and an old roommate of mine who is now married. :-)
Torry's mom and step dad were coming up that night to help finish up and so we could all spend Friday together. We went to a hotel in IF that night, but then came back on Friday morning. I forgot how crazy move in day can be in Rexburg, but we joined the thousands of other coming to see their loved ones that day. We started off with unpacking but at around lunch we decided to go to the Crossroads (BYU-I's cafeteria) for lunch. While there Torry decided that he should probably head to the library to finish a job application he was working on.
Now to premise this, Torry has been apply to jobs left and right hoping to get a job for when he graduates. Right now he is only in two classes because it is all that is left in his major so he decided if we could get a job now, he might be able to do the classes remotely and start as soon as possible. That way when he graduates in December we don't have to be worried about being schooless and jobless. He has been applying to a lot of places, but one company that he really wants to work for is called the Exchange (previously known as AAFES). This company handles all of the non-military stores on Army and Air force bases (gas stations, food courts, burger kings, that sort of thing). His dad is retired military so he is very used to this lifestyle and thinks he would fit right in if he got a job there.Not only that, but there was one position in particular that was at an Air Force base in Biloxi, Mississippi that he had two interviews for and was hoping to hear back from some of them soon. They told us they were going to get back to us at the beginning of the week prior so we had sort of lost hope, knowing it was a week late and they hadn't called. Because of this he felt a huge urgency to put in more applications so that we could get a job.
So he went off to the library while we all finished up lunch. After sitting and talking for a while, Torry's parents decided that they would go to Franks apartment to set something up and then head over to Nielsens Frozen Custard for dessert. I said that I would go meet Torry in the Library and then we would meet them at Nielsen's. So I walked across the sky bridge and saw him right where we would always do homework back in the day. Paige and I walked around for another few minutes while he finished up the application. When he was done we started walking towards Nielsens and we started talking about all of the jobs. The Biloxi job was the perfect job. It was a good position, in the company he wanted and the salary he wanted. We realized then that we might have to sacrifice one of those things when applying for a job: Position, Company, Salary, pick two. While discussing which ones were most important to us we got about halfway to Nielsens, right before we were about to cross 3rd street by the Hart, Torry's phone rang. Now with that many applications out, he had to answer every call just to make sure he doesn't miss a potential interview. So he hurried and went as close as he could to the hart building just to make sure he could hear over the busy road while Paige and I stood on the sidewalk. When he answered the phone I could tell that something was up so I slowly made my way over to him.
When I got over there he said, "of course, yes, sorry, I'm just speechless" and then it hit me, this must be Mississippi! So I not so patiently stood there waiting until he got off the phone and said he got the job! They wanted to hire him as their Human Resources Manager! He would be over five bases in the area and would be located at their main base, Keesler! We were so excited. One thing that they did say though was that as soon as the paperwork and background check cleared that we would have ten days notice to get to Mississippi! Oh we were so excited, students were looking at us like we were crazy as we were jumping up and down and crying (well, just me!) They didn't give him a start date or any details of benefits or compensation, but we didn't care. We were so ready for this. So we went to Nielsens and celebrated the fact that we got a new job! But then we felt like we needed to start packing so we got our stuff, wished Jane and Frank well, and headed back home!
You know a lot of people say that they don't like Rexburg, but man, it's sort of magical to me. Every big moment of my life has happened there; from starting college, falling in love, getting engaged, getting married, our first apartment, finding out I was pregnant, having my child, and now even receiving our first job offer. Rexburg will always hold a huge place in my heart.

Paige's first injuy

Warning: this post contains a story about blood.
So I know kids get injured a lot, and mine is no different. Now she does the typical falling constantly or hitting corners of the desk, that sort of thing, but this weekend was the first injury I was actually worried about. Over memorial day weekend we went to Torry's mom's house to celebrate and while we were there Paige was playing with their mini piano bench and trying to climb up it. I didn't think much of it until she tipped the piano bench on her and it landed right on her toe. She started crying and when I went to comfort her I realized that her toe was covered in blood. It was a little terrifying. After hours of it heavily bleeding and not being able to stop we were thinking of taking her to the ER, but we just bandaged her up really well and decided to wait until morning. All night I was worried about her grabbing at the bandage, but she did alright and by morning, sure enough, it had stopped bleeding.I felt a little better until the second we took the gauze off it started again, sad day. So we took her to the doctor and he said that it wasn't bad, the only reason it was bleeding so much was not only did she have a gruesome cut in the middle of her toenail, but the toenail itself had been totally ripped off! He said it might take a couple of months but it will heal completely, she will grow in a whole new toenail, and all will be well, but man it was no fun! I know it was only a toe and that is a very minimal injury, but it is so sad to see your daughter in so much pain and not really know if it is bad or not. I am just glad that her first injury wasn't terrible and I hope there are not many more in the future! (I would say no more in the future, but we know that's not possible!) ;-)

Driving Home

Alright, so I am super behind with writing blog posts, so I will have to add in pictures later once I am caught up on writing. So Torry's internship had to end sometime, so knew the dreaded drive home was approaching. This time we were much more excited because we knew we could take our time and spend time with some family on the way back. We ended up driving home in a weeks time instead of four days, which makes a huge difference when it comes to a 15 month old. Although we were excited to go home, we knew we would have to say our dreaded goodbyes to Torry's aunt and uncle. We had gotten super close to over the summer, and were not looking forward to living life without them. It was great to be able to get to know them better, and now we feel as though we have another set of parents and Paige has more grandparents to love. Although we had to say goodbye, we love them so much now and are grateful for the summer we spent with them!
We started heading out with a more optimistic outlook then last drive. One thing that was the most difficult on the way up was that we had no air conditioning. With humidity and heat, the car was approx. 95 degrees the whole trip. Not only that, but with having all of our stuff in the car, we were super squished in which didn't help the heat.This time we decided to try something to cool it down. We left at 3:00 AM every time so that we could beat the heat.

Not only that, but Torry's uncle and I created a make-shift air conditioner out of a Styrofoam cooler, PVC pipe, a car fan and ice. It sounds weird, but when you are in a 95 degree car for 33 hours, you need something! It worked really well, but on the second day of the trip the fan overheated (I know, right?) But we purchased a new fan, set it up and all worked well.

We spent the first day in Richmond, Indiana. It was the halfway point between Springfield and Kansas City. Since we left so early in the morning we were able to have some time once we got to the hotel to go swimming and get some food. It was nice to be done driving by one thirty in the afternoon. After much needed relaxing we started day two heading to Kansas City to visit Caetie. It was great to have a family stop, and we loved spending the last nights of summer vacation with them before the kids had to go to school. We "played" (or a better way to put it we were creamed!) at video games, went to awesome restaurants, and even went to a huge indoor jungle gym that I think Torry had way too much fun on as an adult. ;-) We loved spending a day with them and are hoping we can do it again soon!
After a fun day and a half with them we started our trek to Colorado Spring, Colorado to spend a few days with Torry's dad and step mom. After looking at houses, a double date with Aubrey and Ruben, and Paige getting quality time with cousins, the trip went by way to fast! We were all of a sudden at the last night of our trip having dinner with the whole family not wanting to leave. Sadly enough, we still had to so packed up our stuff and headed on our last leg which was back to Logan. After a long drive we made it and it seemed so odd when we got back to our apartment. It was as if the whole amazing summer was some sort of dream. We loved it so much and are so grateful for the chance we had to get an internship in DC. Now we just have to finish the last two classes of our master's and by December we will have a new career and ending up somewhere new!