I'm Back!

I am ashamed of myself. I haven't written in OVER A YEAR! I missed Charlie's first and second birthdays, I never talked about our new house, I never even mentioned my job at Granger. So much has changed in this year and a half I can hardly believe it. To be fair, I didn't have a computer for about two months, but I don't think it's the best excuse. There's no way I am going to be able to write about all of it. I will, though, go over the biggest things. I will also renew my efforts to keep a journal of my family's lives.

Charlie

Most of what I write about Charlie will be on his blog. But, seeing that I have also not written in his blog for a long amount of time, I can give everyone Charlie's story here.

I am very disapointed that I did not write about Charlie's first birthday. He's grown so much since last summer. 

For his first birthday, my family met at Taylorsville Park and we threw him a big party. He was super, super spoiled, as usual. Since then, he's grown and developed like the crazy toddler he is. He's even had his 2nd birthday. That party was at our own home (more about the new house later).

Charlie talks in complete sentences most of the time. About 95% of what he says can be understood by nearly everyone. Sometimes he'll say something that I have to work out, but for the most part I understand him perfectly. It's just amazing to me how language develops. Kids just work it out, it's incredible.

I think Charlie is one of the most polite two year olds around. He is very good about saying please, thank you, and sorry. There are times that he decides to be a brat, but when he's being his happy normal self he is very good about being polite.

Here's some awesome pictures of Charlie:

New Home

In my last post I talked about being house-hungry. Well, funny enough, that week we started working on getting that house we were going to "save" for. Also funny, I mentioned a house in West Jordan I was interested in, well, that's the house we got. In fact, the house nearly fell into our hands. At first, this house was marked as sold, so we gave up. Then, when our real estate agent took us to look at houses he brought us to this house. I told him that it had been marked as sold before, and he called to check write there. The owner told him that the buyers just suddenly decided to drop out and he was kind of desperate to sell. So, we got an awesome deal. (By the way, if anyone needs a GREAT real estate agent in Salt Lake, check our Phillip Mostow)We pretty much decided to go for it, and it was the 2nd house we looked at. We did go look at one more, but really everything else in the price range were huge fixer upers, and this one was not. Sure, there's stuff to be done, but nothing was required to happen before we could actually lived in the house, so we were happy. We moved in the day before Halloween 2012.

This house is awesome! It has a huge backyard with a huge garden, a huge fountain, a hot tub (not yet working sadly), a shed, and a cute little playhouse with electricity and a little loft. So awesome. The frontyard is beautiful, tons of trees, it just screams my name.

Inside, there are 6 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a large kitchen and dining area, and 2 large living rooms. It had new carpets and had just been freshly painted.

That said, there have been a cou
ple of things that were really crazy. The first week or so we couldn't figure out why it was so dang cold. I'd set the thermostat, but we were freezing all night long. Grandma came and figured it out for us, the battery in the thermostat was dying. D'oh!

I was walking downstairs at some point and noticed that there were mushrooms growing in the carpet. Mushrooms! In the carpet! I was flabbergasted. Well, we called a family friend, Mark, and he found the leak in about 3 minutes and did a quick fix. My sister's boyfriend's (at the time) father gave us what we needed to get the carpet dried out and it's been fine since, but my goodness that was weird. 

One day I opened one of the front doors (it's a double door) and it would not close, it was stuck! Well, Grandma to the rescue again. We got the door shaved down a bit.

There's been a few more leaks and some semi-crazy stuff, but hey, I guess that's home-ownership.

We've loved having our own home. I planted a garden this summer, it was a weird garden... we had 31 pumpkins! Also, the Browns moved in (my sister married that boyfriend) and that's been another weird experience, an ongoing one. ;) Love you guys.

Whitney

I got a new dog. In summary of everything, she was the worst decision I ever made, but I still love her. She was a 7 month old black and tan coonhound. I found the dog on KSL, she sure is pretty, so I wanted her. She was living with the owner's friend and it was a pain in the butt to actually get her. Still, the owner said she was potty trained and that she was being trained as a police search dog, so I was excited. 

Potty trained, ha! She peed all over the place for the 1st 5 days. Then, I finally figured out that she was peeing way too often, so I took her to the vet. She had a urinary tract infection. Blug, 2 $70 bags of dogwood later and about 8 useless vet trips, and she's good as new. Not many accidents anymore, except when she gets excited. The dog has a lot of other hang ups, too, but she tries really really hard. Plus, Gabby loves her. We've got her crate trained, though, and that's our fallback when we don't want the entire house to be chewed to pieces while we're gone.

My New Job

I got my dream job! I am teaching biology at Granger High School! It's been great, but extremely absorbing. This and the new house has probably been why blogging hasn't even crossed my mind for the longest time. My first year had an interesting, and I'd say rocky start. But, I was well prepared for most everything and I got through it. I got through it. I do remember questioning my career choice quite a few times. But, it's very rewarding and I LOVE IT!

So, far, about 1/4, into my 2nd year, I think I've got it down. My classes are much, much, much better. They've added a lot of crap that I have to do as a teacher, but at least the classes are going better. I still love it, even though it is still exhausting.

We moved into a new school this year, and boy that was another experience that I NEVER want to go through again. My room is beautiful, though.

Canada

Our summer vacation was to Canada this year. Banff National Park. I wish I could describe it, and I wish I had the time to tell you everything about it. Canada is beautiful. I want to retire to Canada, sadly I don't think countries like it when you retire into them...

We stopped at Yellowstone on the way home, which was as amazing as always. I want to go back there again very soon.

Well, that is all I can think of right now... sad, I know. This 1 1/2 years have probably been the most defining for my family. So much has changed, and I have so little documented. Well, like I said, I will try and do better. Talk to you soon, gosh darn it!