Happy Father's Day

I cannot take credit for this idea...as Holly did it a couple of years ago, but given that I have been playing a lot of Scrabble the last couple of days with my parents, and that one of my dad's Father's day gifts from us was a new Scrabble dictionary, I thought this would be an appropriate way to honor my dad and let him know some of the things I love about him and am grateful for...so here goes :)

fa’ther n 1 a male parent. 2 a person who begins, invents, or first makes something. 3 one who is an example. 4 one who supports: financially, emotionally, spiritually. 5 one who coaches countless soccer teams. 6 one who truly has the best interest of his children at heart . 7 one who loves unconditionally. 8 one who tells juvenile delinquent stories. 9 one who is determined to be physically fit, even when it means late nights at the gym after a long day. 10 one who still turns his Blackberry OFF after each use, making it impossible to reach him :) 11 one who let me drive to seminary every morning, calming my fears when we would get stuck at a red light on an incline while I was still learning to drive stick 12 one who loves my mom and is a great husband and father 13 one who teaches (both me and thousands of students). 14 one who loves In-N-Out and can share my pain of biting into an animal style cheeseburger with a huge canker. 15 one who I inherited getting cankers from :(. 16 one who knows his way around the kitchen and grill. 17 one who makes a mean chocolate chip cookie and has "cookie nights" several times a week. 18 one who is frugal in his own life but so generous and willing to help me and others. 19 one who supports me in educational decisions. 19 one who I would ask his advice on most anything. 20 one who likes to joke around and as a wonderful sense of humor. 21. one who inspires me to be better in all aspects of my life. 22. one who says “I love you.”

Synonyms: patriarch, dad, example, teacher, friend
I am so blessed to have an incredible father who is truly a friend, inspiration and amazing parent.
I was fortunate this year to get to spend Father's Day with my dad! Our day was not eventful, fairly calm and relaxing, just the way it should be spent. My dad is still recovering from a mitral valve repair, and having had open heart surgery a mere 3 weeks ago, we are still in the relaxing stage...which is kind of nice. It's like a vacation at home.

To celebrate, I gave him this dark chocolate with sea salt candy bar with a personalized candy bar wrapper...he is big into biking and this just fit perfectly :)

We enjoyed talking as a family with Holly and Karleigh on Skype from Utah, and my dad opened some presents and we sang "I'm so glad when daddy comes home" for him like when we were little ;)

Dad and his daughters (lucky man to be surrounded by so many girls :)

Then we enjoyed a delicious dinner of steak, fruit salad, roasted garlic potatoes, salad and lime zest corn on the cob (a recipe from the new MS Living magazine-and a new favorite recipe of mine!)

(and one can't forget the "You are Special" plate on an occasion such as this!)We finally rounded out the evening chatting and reading in the backyard, at which time I brought this out to him...
Happy Father's Day!!!...to my dad...and also to my wonderful father-in-law whom I am also fortunate to have in my life! I am also grateful to have so many friends who make terrific dads and I look forward to the day when we can celebrate Grant being a father (I can only imagine the fun dad he will be).

Our houses that have been HOME

With the sale of our home, and my recent trip to Utah, I have been thinking a lot about what makes a home and all of the places that Grant and I have lived since we have been married. Here is a little walk down memory lane of our residences in the last 7 years!

When looking for housing as an engaged couple, we decided that a furnished apartment would be the best option, since neither of us owned any furniture. We found a place that supplied everything we needed, with the option of them taking it out when we no longer wanted it. This worked perfectly for us, as it gave us a year to accumulated the needed furniture to move to an unfurnished place. And this is where we decided upon...Branbury Apartments. It was combo married housing and student housing, which might not have been ideal, but we really enjoyed it. We had awesome neighbors and met a lot of great friends that year.
The door on the 2nd floor was ours...we enjoyed the second floor as it was insulated requiring less utilities, isn't too many stairs, but you still get a balcony. This is the only place we have lived where we had a land line phone...it was included in the apartment, so we used it...but haven't had one since! While in Utah last month, my sisters and I were reminiscing about the time they came to visit before EFY and 8 people stayed with us in our 1 bdrm apartment! There were people sleeping everywhere (including in the closet)!
After a year of living there, we decided to move to a newer, unfurnished place. We bought our first couch (which we still have and I love) and moved into this cute, but small, 1 bedroom, at Parkside Apartments. Again, we lived on the second floor (middle balcony pictured below). We absolutely loved this apartment. Our good (great!) friends Jenny and Sean lived right above us (the landlord asked if it would be awkward for them to live above us...haha), which made life so fun. And, when Grant's brother Tim got married that summer, him and Tricia moved into the building in front of us. Surrounded by people we loved!
We had a park view, underground parking, a washer/dryer and a nice cute place. The kitchen was a big upgrade from a very old Branbury and I finally was able to start enjoy cooking. It is crazy how many good memories you can have in 600 sq. feet :)
We loved our apartment and loved our ward...but happened upon another place, only 2 blocks away, which was still in our ward and next door to some friends, the Romneys. It was 2 bedrooms, covered parking, near the park, and utilities included. It was almost the same amount we paid for our small 1 bedroom...so after only a year at Parkside, we moved again, to this 4-plex, where we lived the remainder of our time in Provo (2 years). It was in this condo that our creative juices started flowing. We painted the entire apartment tan, did an orange venetian backsplash in the kitchen, a faux finish in the bathroom, and a green wall in the bedroom. It was also here that we spent hours watching HGTV, getting ideas of what we wanted to do to our future house when we moved to Kentucky. We spent 2 years here...and again, I loved it. Having 2 bedrooms, we felt like we had a real home where people could come visit, etc. There were a lot of stairs from where we parked up to our condo, but it kept us fit :) (Our apt was top left pictured below)
And then...in April 2008, we bought our first house...and moved to Kentucky! I have written plenty about that experience, but it was definitely fun to have our first house, and learn so much about the buying process, what it means to be a homeowner (good and bad), and remodeling. Although in Lexington for 4 years (1 more to go), we only lived in the house for 3 (obviously since we just sold!) I guess we can't stay put for too long...don't want to get too comfortable with several years of Navy service ahead.
And for those of you who were feeling bad for us that we left this beautiful home to go back to a life of renting...feel bad no longer. We are lucky to be renting a beautiful home from our friends and have graduated to our first house with a 2 car garage (which Grant continues to love and talk about on a nearly daily basis). We got a new grill (after 7 yrs the other one had seen better days) and have been enjoying the patio, and I'm excited for the built in space heater in the giant master bathroom this winter.

And hopefully in about 6 months we will know where our adventures will take us next and can start looking for our next HOME :)

For Sale...SOLD!!!

Over spring break, Grant and I had a lot of time in the car and we usually enjoy that time dreaming about our future, playing "would you rather" or "what if" type scenarios out, etc. We were realizing that we had only 1 short year until we both graduate and leave Lexington...and that made me, start to stress about selling our house. I have been thinking about selling the home since before we even bought it...that was always the biggest "stress" to me, especially knowing that we would definitely be moving after graduation. So, on the drive, we thought "what if" we put our house on the market now, see if it sells...if it does, we rent for a year, if not, we try again next spring. The obvious downsides to this plan were that we would have to move (which is a pain) and we wouldn't get to live in the house that we put so much sweat and love into.
However, when we got home, we talked with our realtor, did a few last minute touch up projects...and put the sign in the yard a week later! We liked the idea of getting to be pickier with offers, not stressed about selling right away, etc. since we really had an entire year to sell. But...we were so blessed and two and a half weeks later got an offer on the house! We did some negotiating and finally settled on a number, and the reality of the sale of our home was getting nearer.
And here is the big reveal...the first time I have posted pics of the outside of the house on our blog (for "safety" reasons, I refrained from doing so while we lived there since it is definitely easily identifiable and unique). I left for my trip, knowing that the day I returned home, we would have to begin moving. I was sad about the thought of moving, yet excited for the fact that it was really happening. So, Monday evening when I returned home from Hickory (still sick and tired from the drive) we started to move.

Here are some pics we took right before going to closing....our last time to be in the house :( I have to admit that I was a bit nervous that the house wasn't going to look as nice once we moved all of our stuff out of it...but in some ways I liked it more, as we got to appreciate all the work we had done (like the bamboo floors, venetian walls, etc).

The loft we added (one of the greatest parts of that house).My kitchen! I really will miss this kitchen. There was SO much storage, tons of counter space, great lighting, and I had always wanted a white kitchen :)

All locked up and ready to hand over the keys...

We unfortunately never got to go to the closing of our home when we bought it (because we closed before we actually moved out to Kentucky), so didn't get to participate in the ceremonial passing of keys, etc. It was fun to get to be a part of that this time. I was definitely sad about moving, but the couple that bought it was so cute and called it their "dream home." They were very complimentary about all that we had done to the house and were very excited for their life in that home to begin. Because of their enthusiasm and love for the home, it eased my sadness of leaving. And because when we bought the house, we never got the picture of us holding the keys (and the buyers took one when we were closing), we thought we'd take a picture with our realtor and our checks...the benefit to selling the home :) Ideally, you get keys as a buyer and a check as a seller, and this reality came true for us. I really feel so blessed about that.
And as a remembrance of all the sweat, time, money, and love we put into this house...here are some of my project blog posts from the last couple of years!