March

Well March has certainly been the most unexpected month of my life!  But other than the craziness, here are some normal, nice things that have happened.

I am DETERMINED to find a way to teach my students how to throw on the wheel, but I have some major challenges in the way (4 week terms, 45 minute classes, is it even possible??). Also I don't actually know how to teach someone to throw on the wheel so I am grateful for friends who will be my guinea pigs as I learn to teach!

Not pictured: Spencer

It's funny how people think teachers must know everything about their content, because I most certainly don't.  I'm always learning from others (especially from my students!) and my colleagues.  I'm grateful for my amazing friend and advocate Brennan who helps me in my classroom every day!  He taught me the ways of henna so that we could teach my drawing class.

The first part of the month was especially busy as we got all of our finances in order and talked to a million people over the phone to get everything straightened out for our new place.  We visited our house so many times and stress ate lots of food!

Of course it was also a very exciting time.  While places were open we were able to go and buy fun things for our house like PLANTS!

I love being able to invite visitors over to our very own place!!  Warden liked our house before it was even ours, so he was one of our first visitors.  He also wore various hats of ours the whole time.

Another one of my favorite things about having a house is having my very own kitchen!!  I have had an absolute blast cooking new recipes!

I've also been trying to regularly do yoga because I have a whole room for it.  But when I don't, it is because I am working out with the ladies!  Kylie and Mara made us a fun routine, which features highly valuable canned goods as the weights.

So despite all the craziness, it has been a pretty good month!

Welcome Home, Us!

My friends, a big day has come!

A couple of months ago we decided that 2020 is the year that we need to seriously start thinking about buying a house. We've looked at a couple houses over the years, mostly because we have driven by cute old houses and were curious about the insides. Luckily we know a couple of realtors, but by the time we had gotten in to see most of them, they were already under contract. We weren't really seriously looking anyway, and figured it would eventually work out when it was meant to.

We also didn't know exactly what we wanted. My dream was an old red brick house to fix up, but the closer we got to really wanting a house, the less work we realized we wanted to actually do haha. We love shows where they flip houses and eventually think that would be a fun project. But at this busy stage in our lives, we don't really have time for something like that.

We decided to open up the option of new houses. This was a big decision for us, because the new houses in the city where we grew up were way out of our budget. We decided to just look at a few in Eagle Mountain (which really isn't far from home, we are just dramatic). And of course, once I saw the closets and bathtubs it was all over!

Our good friend/brother-in-law Jason helped us through the fun process of looking at different houses and eventually putting an offer in! If you need a realtor, Jason Hawkes is your guy!! We didn't have high hopes of getting the first house we put an offer on, but things tend to work out the way they should, and here we are now!

We moved in just a couple of days ago and it's already started to feel like home. Ever since we got serious about buying a house, we started buying furniture and other household things and making them fit in my mom and dad's basement where we lived. We thought we were being silly, but now that everything is shut down from the pandemic, we are so grateful to actually have some things for our house! Except for food haha. We weren't prepared for the no groceries in stores thing.

Up until this point in our marriage, we have lived with my brother, then with Bailey's brother, then in my parents basement. And of course, our little apartment in China! We have been so blessed by the kindness of our families to let us stay with them for so cheap while we saved up for school, travels, and a house! We are so excited to have our own place though!

I thought that buying a new house would mean that there would be less house projects, but now I see this place as a blank canvas for for all sorts of customization! Here are just a few pictures as it is now. It's definitely not complete yet, so stay tuned for all the fun things we have planned! 

There's also a "powder room" off of the kitchen - so nice!

This is the "kids bathroom" upstairs.  There's also two bedrooms other than ours that will serve as work from home offices for the next few months!

Our bedroom!

Master bathroom.  Not pictured: amazing walk in closet!