Blessings and Progress

Well, we are officially into one month of building our new home.  I can't believe how fast time has flown!  I have learned so much from my new 'construction job.'  First off, I look at houses completely differently.  Wow, that is A LOT of work to do.  Secondly, I am SO SO SO grateful for powertools, particularly the nail gun and saw.  They make my job so much easier and quicker.  However, the biggest lesson that I have learned is that I can do hard things with the help of God.  Life has been so crazy busy and yet, we still have time to do everything, not to mention the energy to actually get out there and do it.  We generally leave at 6:30 AM and get home between 9 and 10 pm.  Even though I have never been so busy in my life before, everything needed is still getting done.  Somedays I really don't know how it will be possible to accomplish all that we need to, and somehow God makes it all work.  I know one of the biggest blessings in this time of my life is my husband.  He puts in so much effort to make everything run smoothly.  He is truly amazing!!  I am so grateful for the many blessings in my life at this time.

Here are some pictures of our progress.

This is our foundation footings!!!

This is one of the other 10 homes.  This is the one that is probably farthest along.

School and Power Tools

School has started for both Jonny and I now.  Jonny is loving teaching.  He is always trying his best to keep physics fun and enjoyable for all of his students.  I am only 3 and a half weeks in but it seems like a semester due to already having 7 tests accompanied by 3 practicals in the lab.  But life is always busy so what is actually new?  

Jonny and I have officially started building houses as of yesterday.  We were in some pretty hard rain (at least for Utah) but we were still able to work for about 2 hours.  I am excited and nervous at the same time.  It was actually really fun to use the power tools but I am nervous because I feel like I have no idea what I am doing.  Jonny and I are extremely lucky though because nearly every guy in the group has some sort of experience with a part of the building process.  We are all hoping to get in, do a good job, and get 'er done!  We just pray for good weather this winter.  Yesterday Jonny and I also got to pick out the details of our house.  Such as cupboards, siding color, flooring, carpet, countertops, light fixtures, etc.  It was stressful!  My word, I kind of freak out because it is permanent/extremely expensive to change.  But, we are happy with how everything turned, lets just hope we think the same when we actually get the house done :)

The Big News

Well, Jonny and I have some great news.  A highlight of this past spring was Jonny's new job in Heber, UT.  We are so ecstatic about this 'dream job' for him.  Well, on one of his conference trips, he met another teacher who explained the Self Help Homes program.  I then spent the next week learning EVERYTHING I could about this program.  It is through the USDA (yes the agriculture department), that allows for families that are below a certain salary to receive a loan.  Then, your family is required to spend 35 hours a week helping to build your home and the home of those within your group.  These families do everything except lay the foundation, plumbing, and electricity.  However, that is what is considered the down payment.  Once all the houses for the group are completed, you can move into your home and it is in your complete ownership.  Homes in Heber can be pricey, especially from a teacher's salary.  So we decided to send in our application for this program.  It took seven weeks to get it cleared from the government, but we found out this week that we have been accepted.  We were able to decide our lot and floor plan.  We are so excited to begin building our own house.  It is all within the confines of the program but there are still some leeway.

Here is our lot and a picture of our floor plan.  We are not sure exactly how the house will sit on the lot.

Our lot is off of the culde-sac right in the center.  It is the little culde-sac that seems to be just right off the road.  We are on the lot that is not developed in the corner.

This is our floor plan.  This is our best picture of the plan.  If you want more information look at selfhelhomes.org

We are hoping to start building in the middle of September but it will most likely be October.

The Rest of Summer in One Great Package

Wow, where to begin.  My Mom, Dad, and sister had the opportunity to come visit us the week after Independence Day.  Oh, I had so much fun with them visiting.  I am so glad they could come.  I had started summer classes but thankfully they didn't keep me too busy.  While they were here we visited seven different temples.  My favorite was Manti, that is such a majestic temple.  It was great to have Krista come with us this time too.

Next, Jonny had his GOLDEN birthday!  I gave him a golden ticket birthday.  Many of his gifts were tied up in this golden (really orange) balloons.  But we had a wonderful day together.

Oh, and we also decorated our own cupcakes instead of cake.  We had a lot of fun playing with different tips.

We have kept the rest of summer busy with various random other activities.  

We went on a 12 mile bike ride from our current house all the way to the Riverwoods.  That was a lot of fun and we enjoyed walking around the shops

Free movie in the park!  Not to mention there was free ice cream.  We had a lot of fun watching a movie we haven't seen in a really long time.

This week Jonny officially starts school.  I on the other hand have a two week break with nothing to do.  So, I decided to volunteer at education week, and I now have a pass to the rest of the week.  I am so excited for the classes that are offered.

It has been a great summer.

Trip #3 ... Iowa

Well, it has been a really long time, once again.  So let me try to catch up a bit.  Jonathan and I took our little PT Cruiser and traveled once again.  This time to Iowa!  We figured that we spent over 100 hours in that little car by the end of this trip alone.  That is only counting commutes that are longer than one hour as well.  That's the sign of a wonderful summer together!  We really have grown close to each other as we spent those 100 hours talking or listening to books on tape.  This trip to Iowa was a great way to wrap up our list of vacations.

Jonny and I were able to spend two weeks in Iowa.  Even though we were able to stay so long it was still really hard to leave.  The first week we got to travel to temples with my family and enjoy being at home.  The second week, my whole family came to Iowa to go to a cabin.  Oh! We had so much fun.  It was great to see my whole family.  Then to wrap up the week, Krista got her mission call!!  It was fun to have most of the family there to witness that.  Couldn't be happier for her.

Alright, well, I am a sucker for pictures.  So, let my pictures explain the vacation.

Of course we had to make a trip out to High Trussle Bridge.  That is always fun for my family.  We tend to make it a competition and carry a bag full of rocks to the center of the bridge to throw off the side.

I took Jonny to the Omaha Zoo.  That is always a favorite of mine.  We sure had a blast together and spent about 6 hours there.

We loved feeding the birds there.  We were about to buy the sticks with seeds on it when I decided it wasn't worth the money.  I am really glad about that because we found about 10 sticks inside anyways!

We also took a trip down to Kansas City to visit the temple and mall. 

We made it to the cabin!  I also went on a whim and died my hair.  That was a lot of fun and thanks to Kim it actually turned out alright.  I have actually really enjoyed the new color.

 My nephew Braydon was an absolute joy!  Love his smile.

Grandpa getting some love from his grandchildren.

Another favorite pastime while we were there was badminton.  Do I know the rules of the game? Clearly no.  But man we had so much fun cheating and slamming that little birdie.  We laughed so much because of that game.

One day we went to a fish hatchery so that the girls could go fishing.  Jonny had fun catching fish with his hands and actually managed to get one.

Sunday walk with the family.  We were sad that Aaron had to leave but we were glad that we had most of the family there for most of the trip.

Abby discovered that she loved throwing rocks into the pond.  I think she only hit Scott once or twice ... It was a blast to watch her.

On one of the last days at the cabin we traveled down to the field of dreams to play some baseball.  That was a blast.  Baseball is actually one of my favorite pastimes and we had fun chasing the ball.

Molly was such a good sister and cousin.  She was always helping out.

Krista trying out her arm at the shooting range.  This is always fun for my family as well.

A classic midwest rainstorm.  Man I really miss those.  You know, the kind where you get drenched in less than a minute.  We ha fun sliding down the hill next to our cabin on garbage bags.

Overall, it was a wonderful vacation.  Nobody got hurt and everything really seemed to go smoothly.  I really love my family and anytime that we get to spend together is treasured.

Oh! and Krista opened her mission call on the last day.  She is going to Santiago, Chile!  My family is so excited.  Jonny went to a different part of Santiago on his misison and my mom also went to Chile.  We couldn't be happier for her.

Trip #2 ... Yellowstone

So we will be having quite a few vacations this summer due to having extra before classes start in less than a month.  It has been wonderful having so much time with Jonny.  On a spur moment, we decided to go to Yellowstone.  We camped there for 2 nights and were visiting the sites for about 2 1/2 days.  We managed to fit just about everything in to those 2 days.  It was a blast!  It was Jonny's first time and he was really impressed.  It was a great little get-away.

This is beehive geyser above.  Oh, it was SO cool!  We just happened to be walking by it when it went off.  We overhead some people sitting by it that it only goes off every 12-15 hours and they had already been waiting for a couple hours just to watch it go off.  It was so awesome!  It was a super tall one and the boardwalk was close enough that the water landed right on it!  There were a couple people walking through the falling water of the geyser.  This was definitely a lucky highlight from the trip.

We tried making homemade little peach pies.  They turned out alright, but it was a lot of fun to make.

The buffalo were EVERYWHERE.  Well, that is a little exaggeration, but they were always near our campsite.  We had only to walk 5 minutes and we could always find some.  There was never a day where they didn't blocked the road while we were driving.  When we passed, we drove within arms distance of them.  That was more than a little scary.  Those horns are MASSIVE and so are they!

This is a sweet coyote that we also were lucky enough to see every night.  I think that was really unusual.  We only ever saw him for a minute or two before he disappeared again.  The first night he was running on the road right next to our car!  That was pretty sweet.

We actually loved all the driving that we did around the park.  It was such a diverse and beautiful park. This particular road had snow all along it.  There were places where there was a 10 foot wall along the side of the road!  It felt like a winter wonderland.

Yeah, I didn't do so well with the stinky hot pots.  The smell of rotten eggs makes me sick!

Yellowstone Lake was massive!  It was crazy to see so much of it was frozen too!  Our campsite was on a little bit warmer side of the park so it only got down to the mid-30's at night.  During the day it was around 70-80ish.  It was kind of mind-blowing to see such a massive lake frozen.

Lots of pancake attempts and cool whip to cover up the burnt-ness.  We couldn't get our awesome little coleman stove to do anything but FLAMIN HOT because the propane tanks were full.  It was a fun attempt though!

Just starting to rain.  Thankfully it passed.  Our campsite had some awful winds though and two trees fell down.  They nearly smashed a couple tents.  Really grateful that they weren't ours!

Elk!  Right by the road!

This is the area right by our campsite.  Jonny and I went down to the river to sit and put our feet in to the water.  We got up to leave and I heard some crunching behind us.  I figured it was a another camper since it was a popular spot for people to walk around.  I turned to say hi and it was a massive buffalo!  Not 15 feet from us!  Scared the living daylights out of me.