It's Official!!!

Ok, so I know probably most of you have not heard anything about what I'm going to announce right now but that is because we have been waiting until it has been declared official to let people know. I am now the proud owner of my very first home!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't explain how excited we are to be able to move into a townhouse that is OURS. We can do anything we want to our house, make any upgrades, changes, paint, etc...because it's ours!! Some of you will be shocked and think this is fast but it's been weeks in the making. We take possession tomorrow and then we are getting a moving truck on Saturday to move everything in. Things have seemed to work out in so many ways that we feel so blessed to be able to purchase this townhouse. It will get us away from really loud, not so great neighbors and into a place we can permanently live in. Neither of us likes moving all of our stuff so we are planning on staying there for quite a few years! We signed all the paperwork yesterday morning and it sure was fun. The stack of papers was about 1 1/2 inches thick! I had been told that at closing you sign page after page but I wasn't aware it was THAT many pages! I was on a roll though and thought it was kind of fun (but am glad to have the stress over). I can now rest easier now that closing and recording has happened. IT'S OFFICIAL, I OWN A HOME!!! Pictures to come soon (but it will be a while before there are pictures of a decorated, fully moved in home).

Hurricane Ike!

Well, for any of you interested, my parents rode out the Hurricane that hit Houston on Friday/Saturday. My family lives right between Houston and Galveston where the eye of the storm was headed. I called them on Thursday to see if they were being evacuated or not and my mom informed me that they were currently boarding up the windows and were going to stay at home and ride out the storm. They evacuated last year for a hurricane and it wasn't worth it to them to spend 18+ hours on the road to make it up to Dallas (normally a 5 hour drive). Our city did not have a mandatory evacuation notice so they prepared well and were blessed. The city sent out notices that they were not expecting much flooding in the area unless you live by creeks or water fronts. My family has been through quite a few floods and hurricanes and our area has been ok with no serious flooding.

Here are the updates via text from my dad:
Saturday 9:45am - We are ok and survived Ike. Lost power at 12:30am, now on generator for fridge and freezer. No major damage just clean up. Had phone land lines but lost them.
Saturday 11:35am - No water or flooding in our area of the city. We have now lost our phone land lines.
Saturday 6:14pm - It has been a long, hot, wet day but we are doing well without power or phone. We have water and natural gas and I even got a shower and a nap this afternoon after cleanup. We are camping out using the generator, grill, lantern, candles, and even a "hurricane" lamp. We are doing well and it could be worse.
Saturday 6:46pm - No church tomorrow but at 9am we are going to Bishop Ellsworth's and Sister Peterson's to cut trees. The bishop's tree fell onto neighbor's driveway. The church was damaged at front and back ends. Power may take up to 2 weeks to be restored.
Sunday 6:41am - Happy Sunday. It is another beautiful day. We all got a good night sleep. Still no power nor phone line. Water and gas and shower is nice. Generator running well and one fan. We are doing as well as possible.
Sunday 6:47am - We may have our own mtg. The church was damaged too and our small scout trailer blown across the parking lot. We are going over to the bishop's house to help remove a large oak tree from his yard that fell into his neighbor's drive way.
Monday 6:34am - Happy Monday. It is another nice new day. Cool weather came in and it is 69 this morning. We still have the back yard to clean up with down fence and more tree limbs. Still no power nor phone lines but we have 2 friends in town who's power back on late last night so there is good hope. There are 2 stores and 1 gas station open in town now too. Getting better.

Things seem to be going as well as can be expected after such a big hurricane like that. I'm so relieved to know they were protected during this dangerous and damaging storm. The pictures above are ones I found on the internet but it shows you just how big this hurricane was as it approached Galveston late Friday night. The first picture is of the beach in Galveston and all the debris. My heart goes out to all those who were effected by this natural disaster.

Family, Family, & More Family

So at the end of August we had a lot of family around. My little brother Kyle has started at BYU so my dad and he flew up to Utah around the 22nd of August. We got to spend time with them and we also went up to SLC to spend some time with my grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins. It was good to visit with family. It's also been really fun having my brother here at school. He's actually working in the same office as me too. It's pretty fun! During the family dinner we had in SLC, my aunt and uncles dog was basically one of their children. He even sat up to the table when someone vacated their seat. My uncle even fed him with a spoon at one point. It was just too funny not to take a picture.

This is most of the group at dinner.

Then the following week while my dad was still in town, Brian's dad came into town for work meetings. We enjoyed the time we got to spend with him. Then for the weekend we went up to Grandpa Chapmans house to visit. We even got to go to Maddox (a really good steak house) for dinner thanks to Grandpa! The next day we took a long drive. We went through Ogden Canyon, down around Bear Lake, down to Logan, and back home to Ogden. It was kind of a long time to be in the car but I had never been to those areas so it was fun to see. At the Bear Lake look out that we stopped at we saw 2 hummingbirds at some feeders. We were able to get pretty close to them without scaring them off. We got some really cool pictures of them in flight.

Bear Lake Look Out
Hummingbirds

Then in Logan we drove around Utah State, the Tabernacle, the LDS Temple, and then stopped at the Bluebird cafe. The food was really good there. It was a lot of food and fairly cheap prices so definitely worth it! It was a nice little town. On Sunday night the power was lost at Grandpa's house. There was a thunderstorm in the late afternoon that had high winds that apparently knocked the power out. Luckily Grandpa is really prepared so we had lamps and even cooked dinner on a propane stove. It could have been scary but we were in good hands. The power finally came back on the next morning around 10:30.

Tabernacle
Logan Temple

That Monday was Labor Day so I had the day off of work. We left Grandpas that day just after lunch to meet up with my dad and brother again. There were some unexpected things that came up with my grandparents that prevented us from spending much time with my dad that day. I don't want to go into too much detail but basically my Grandpa's health is not that good right now so he has been in a Rehabilitation center this past week and family is looking for a nursing home for him to transfer to this week. Also, Grandma's cancer is back so she is going through Chemo treatments right now so she has been weak lately too. It's really scary to all of a sudden have my grandparents health decline. Things seem to have stablilized lately so we hope for the best.

I feel so blessed to have so much family around us in Utah but we don't get to visit them very often. Hopefully we can try and be better about that! Maybe while I'm at it...I can get more consistent at posting on my blog!!