Spring Break ROADTRIP 2010!!

Last week Ken and I drove up to Pocatello to haul the rest of our belongings back to Texas and pick Sam and jake up so they could stay with us for spring break! I wanted to share these pictures of our trip!!

This is the sun rising in Texas on our way north!
We drove for 18 hours! Trust me it felt like FOREVER!

Sweet hill/plateau thing in New Mexico!

When we FINALLY made it to Idaho I was soooooo glad to see my SISTERS!

Ken and Jake loading up the truck! They were very creative, and we also had a small Uhaul trailer

My super sweet sister in law Cassie and her kiddos Emmy and Jake (who I absolutely ADORE!) left Ken and I a CandyGram! I love them sooooo much and miss them ALL the time!

On the road again! The return trip took about 22 hours of total driving time! We stopped in Vernal on the way though and took a break to visit Ken's family! It was so nice to see everyone again, but the car ride was brutal, and you can see we got PRETTY bored. We were trying to stretch out our noses........ oh the things you think up when stuck in a car!

Ken got a couple of PATTERSON drilling caps so we were showing PATTERSON some love!

Ken takes good pictures.......So jealous.....

These rock formations are from Moab Ut, what a BEAUTIFUL place!

And these are from New Mexico......SOME of that place is beautiful! :)

Anyway I didn't get many pictures from our trip there due to a failing camera battery, but we left Texas and passed through New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and then into Idaho, and on the way back went through Idaho back to Wyoming, through Utah, snipped the corner of Arizona, then went all the way across New Mexico, and finally back into Texas! A 7 state trip! It was fun, but done in 4 days! So very exhausting! I'm glad to be HOME!

Fridge Fiasco!

So a couple of days ago (on Ken's Birthday to be exact) our refrigerator started acting up. We noticed a SLIGHTLY funky smell coming from the kitchen that morning but couldn't really pinpoint its origin so we dismissed it as funky Texas weather..... It does get pretty stinky here sometimes. SO we went about our business for the day and didn't think much of it, UNTIL we came home from a softball game (my usual weekly ritual of stalking the local high school softball team....I can't help it, I'm ADDICTED!) and the WHOLE house was consumed in the putrid smell of burning plastic! You know, that smell SO STRONG it makes your stomach turn! So we pulled out all the fans in an attempt to air out some of the rooms so we could 1. BREATHE and 2. find the SOURCE of the disgusting smell...... Well low and behold we found the source to be our refrigerator..... Or the outlet it was plugged into. So we initaited 2 tests to find out which it was. Our first test consisted of unplugging the fridge and seeing if the smell would go away, but the smell was so potent that it lingered and we couldn't really tell. So then we called Jake's dad, who just happens to be an electrician by some stroke of luck! He told us to plug in a hair dryer to the outlet and see if it trips the breaker, because the refrigerator had, and a hair dryer uses more electricity..... well the blow dryer did not trip the breaker so we concluded that IT WAS IN FACT the fridge. So we emptied the food we could from the big fridge into Kens mini-fridge (this is the second time I've been incredibly thankful for that dumb little fridge!) and called the landlord (who is totally awesome by the way). He said he couldn't make it until the next morning, but he would be here first thing. Well he kept to his word (sort of, it was 11am :) and brought us a new fridge (well an old fridge, but new to us!) that was bigger than our last one, keeps our food cold, and DOESN'T smell like yucky burning plastic!! (AND he LOVED my paint job!!!!! He said it looked VERY sharp, the best this house has ever looked!! WHOOP WHOOP) SO we were able to move the food back into the new fridge and carry on with our lives! And THAT is my tale of our fridge fiasco....... I hope you enjoyed it :)

P.S. You know when you say a certain word over and over like a hundred times it stops sounding like a word at all...... that happened to me with fridge and refrigerator during this post ha ha try saying refrigerator 20 times as fast as you can!!!!

Ken's Birthday EXTRAVAGANZA!!!

Yesterday, March 23rd, was Ken's Birthday! Sam and Jake are on spring break from school and have been spending it with us here in Texas, so we decided to decorate and make a super special birthday suprise for Ken! As you can see we blew up blue and white balloons (UK style, Kens favorite!) And as you can't see, we also hung blue and white streamers all through the house!

For the extra super special birthday suprise we built a double decker cheesecake (strawberry on bottom and pineapple on top) with a blackberry filling! Cheesecake is Ken's FAVORITE dessert, and he doesn't like cake much, so we decided to go all out for him! However putting the cheesecakes together ended up being a little more difficult then we imagined, and I am NOT a great dessert baker (or any kind of cook or baker for that matter :) so it ended up a little messy, but the cracks in the top crust served as great places to put 24 CANDLES! (WOW he is getting OLD!)

We pretty much just made 2 cheesecakes and flipped on top of the other after spreading the filling in between :) But it was sure YUMMY!!

That is A LOT of candles :)

Ken thought the candle design actually looked like a Christmas tree :) But it just worked out that way on accident, I PROMISE!

It pretty much looks like I'm carrying a massive fireball, haha it was awesome!!

He LOVED his suprise, but didn't have much time to appreciate it, poor guy. Of course his birthday fell on a rig move day, so he was out the door at 4am and didn't get home until 10pm, so it was a quick party, but he loved it and that is all that matters! :)

THUNDER STORM!

So this morning I awoke with quite a start! The entire house was shaking! It was still pitch black outside so I knew it had to be pretty early, but then I remembered that Ken had already left, so it was alteast 5am. Again the whole house rattled and was momentarily lit up with a flash! So I flew out of bed, finally realizing what was going on and that i was missing one of the famous Texas thunderstorms everyone has been telling me about! I got to the window in the front room just in time to see another huge flash of lightning, and find out that it was actually 8am! WOW it was still as dark as midnight with the heavy cloud cover! It was crazy! I must have caught just the tail end of the storm and slept through most of it because it didn't last much longer, but what I did see and FEEL was incredible! I have never experienced thunder like that before! It was POWERFUL! And honestly the slightest bit scary too! One of the rumbles went on and on for almost a full minute! HOW CRAZY IS THAT!? It looks like its going to be a wet and cold day in West Texas!

VICTORY!!

After MANY tedious hours of painting I have finally finished the front room, hallway, and our bedroom! Atleast the walls that is :) Here are a few glorious before and after pictures.... HOWEVER do keep in mind that I am no photographer, so the quality could probably be better, but you're stuck with what I got! ;)

Front door entrance before...

And after....

Hallway, I didn't get a before..... sorry....

Views of the front room before....

And the front room after!!




Here are a couple pictures of the bedroom, once again no befores..... sorry I thought I was going to paint the kitchen next, so I forgot to get the befores for this room! But the walls were the same as the front room, so use your imagination!!

As you can see all the baseboards, windowsills, and doorframes are pretty nasty, so i still have plenty to do...... but I'm pretty proud of what I've done so far so I just thought I would share! OH plus I even patched a hole in our bedroom wall! All by myself!! That was pretty fun! I'm learning all kinds of new stuff! Anyway I've still got 4 rooms to go so its a work in a progress!!

HOME IMPROVEMENT

So I've been working HARD to make our little home feel like its "ours". Ken has been working nights so I have A LOT of time to myself, and lately I have been spending it painting! I didn't realize just how much work goes into painting a room, ESPECIALLY a room that was not given ANY TLC from the previous tenants....

I've been working on the living room and one wall I painted yesterday had, and I'm not exaggerating, OVER 20 nail holes! And let me just tell you, our house is not that big :) There is not one wall in this house that can justifiably have 20 nail holes! WOW! Anyway, I'm becoming a PRO at spackling! haha I felt so good when Ken got up and checked my work only to tell me that I had ACTUALLY done a really nice job, and that it didn't even look like our house! And he REALLY IS a pro at that stuff! Unfortunately i ran out of paint with one wall and a tiny hallway left..... But I can't complain, I found the paint at walmart for 12 BUCKS! It was mis-mixed and marked down 50%!! Thank you to the walmart employee that screwed up or the customer that was not satisfied with this beautiful shade of GREEN that now adorns my living room! :) I guess I'll have to have some mixed, but I still saved and that is whats important!!

Now, while I'm waiting to be able to buy some more paint :) I'll be moving on to the KITCHEN! Ken procured some great yellow paint :) So I'm just trying to decide exactly what I want to do.... Paint the walls or cupboards or a mix of both.... Oh decisions! When everything is finished I will definitely post some pics so you can all see my HARD WORK!!

OH on a side note, our crazy dogs do the darndest things! Maddie is loving our new neighborhood, especially when she digs out of the yard and gets to experience it first hand.....Well we can't have her just roaming all the time, and our landlord promised to bring by some new fence planks so we can fix the problem areas, but he won't be able to get here for a couple days so we have had to block the pups into our little side yard for a few days. Well it didn't take long for them to get bored and start digging holes (punishable by a smacked behind and a heated lecture from Ken). Well I went out to feed them the other day and I found that they had dug a hole, and in order to hide it from us dumped their food into it and covered it with a blanket! Or MAYBE they just wanted to stockpile their food for later.... WHO KNOWS! :) Oh those dogs!

Well thats all for now! Hope everyone has a great day!

rain + two dogs = 1 very dirty kitchen floor.

The last week here in texas has been INCREDIBLE! It was 75+ degrees almost all week! UNTIL today.... It rained all night and its been raining all day, which is very unfortunate for my kitchen floor!! Obviously Maddie and Harley did NOT heed my warning!!

And this was just the beginning! My entire kitchen floor was covered in paw prints! It was cute for a second..... But ONLY 1 second :)

Home!

Ok so obviously this is not a picture of our house, but I had to put it up! This is what ken looks like when he gets home from work!! DIRTY and TIRED! And these are even his clean clothes! The ones he wears to and from the rig but not actually while working!

Our Shed, which Ken loves

The backyard, which the Pups love!

And the front view! Its so nice to have our own place and space! I even planted some flowers and a couple vegetables in our little flower garden yesterday! We'll see how my first foray into gardening goes :)

Pictures FINALLY!

WE LOVE THE SUSHINE! Ken isn't allowed to have his famous beard at work, but it doesn't take long for it to grow back in! :)

Our handsome growing pups! They are getting so good! Well, atleast for the most part :)

This is what Kens rig looks like. He has recently been promoted to Motors, so he stays on the ground for the most part, but the company seems to think he has the perfect physique to be promoted to Derriks, so he has been training a little here and there up on the very top!

On one of my visits we stopped at the most enormous playground I have ever seen, from a distance it looked like a real castle, so we had to check it out. It was great, and of course they had to have a VERY large tribute to the great state of Texas :)

The Lubbock Temple: It is tiny tiny, but very beautiful! I was told that it was only built about 6 years ago, and before that you had to travel all the way to Dallas to go to a temple which is definitely a whole day trip, so I feel blessed to be here now when the temple is so accessible.

This is our lovely church building! For those of you familiar with Borah High School, it is a little smaller then the seminary building there :) We have a branch of about 15-20 members here in Brownfield and I absolutely LOVE it! It is a serious change from the massive wards in Idaho and Utah, but the members here are really amazing! There is actually only 1 other couple that lives in Brownfield and not the surrounding areas, and when Ken got sick and needed a blessing this sweet elderly couple (80+) came to our rescue! It was wonderful!