Christmas Time

We got to go to Utah to visit Alisha's parents for Christmas. On Christmas Eve we went to temple square to go see the Christmas lights and I got the opportunity to use my camera at night for the first time. These are some of my favorite pics but I am still learning how to get the best pictures at night. Hope you all like them.



Alisha took this last one. This is how Zoey spend most of the trip to Utah, with her head on the back of the seat looking out the front of the truck.

DONE!!!

Daniel is officially graduated! I am so proud of him. He was able to shuffle a full load of classes, a full time job, and his calling of executive secretary during tithing settlement season and still pull off good grades. He is DONE! Now we just need a good job. =) Love you sweetie!

More Pics

Just thought I would post some more pics that I have taken in the last little while. Hope you all like them. Any feedback would be great even if it is negative, I would like to get better.

My Baby Sister

My baby sister is all grown up! This past weekend she graduated from USU. Rachel graduated with honors and is now on to bigger and greater things.

Come the beginning of February, Rachel will be heading to Halifax, Canada to serve a full time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She will be there for a year and a half.

I had the opportunity to fly up to Utah this past weekend to be there for her graduation and her first visit to the Temple! I am so proud of you Rachel! LOVE YOU!

It's a Boy!!!

We have a happy, healthy baby boy who is right on schedule.
We are just so excited!
Time to start shopping.

U2 Concert

On Tuesday night Alisha and I got to go to the U2 concert in Glendale at the Cardinals new stadium. We started the night with a lovely 2 1/2 hour car ride to the stadium due to heavy traffic followed by a 30 min wait in a huge line of cars to park and no signs telling us that it costs $20 to park until we got to where we could park. Thankfully we found a spot to park that was free and made it just in time to see U2.
The concert was really good. They plays lots of song from there new album as well as some of there older songs. The stage they have was huge and fun to watch. They always put on a good show. For those of you who have not seen them live I would recommend seeing them at least once.

Can't Wait

We get to find out what gender little Baby Strong is next Friday, October 23. I thought it would be fun to let all our friends have a guess. I am adding a poll to my page so please vote!

March 24th = Baby Strong

We are proud to announce that we are expecting our first baby. My mom was able to fly down to go to my first doctors appointment. Poor Daniel had to work. They first kept us waiting in the waiting room for over an hour while other patients who had gotten their after us were taken in. I was not happy about this. When they finally took us back, they checked to see if they could find a heart beat. They couldn't find one so the doctor was nice enough to order us an ultrasound right then. Daniel was able to make it just in time to see the ultrasound. And boy was Baby Strong dancing, kicking, punching and we even got to see him/her roll over. The baby was so active that the technician decided to record the ultrasound and give us a disk! It was defiantly worth the wait.

On other news, it has been a crazy week. Monday, on my way to work, I was rear-ended on the freeway in rush hour traffic. There was not to much damage and everyone was okay, but we still have the joy of dealing with insurance and getting it fixed. We just LOVED (sarcasm) how our insurance handled it that we decided that once we are done with getting the car fixed, that we would be looking into a new car insurance company. Any suggestions?

Well tonight, after Daniel left the the ASU football game we had a little visitor. Well, maybe not so little. I heard a huge bang outside. It sounded like someone drove through our garage. I run out and found that a motorcycle hit the side of our house. It turns out the guy was going at least 80 on an uninsured and non plated bike. The kid broke his collar bone and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. We don't have any holes in the house but there is a good chuck out of the siding of the house. We ended up having an ambulance, firetruck, 6 cop cars and a crime scene bus show up. All I have to say, is that we are majorly blessed that it wasn't any worse. =)

Grandpa Strong

Yesterday morning i received a call from my father informing me that my grandpa Strong passed away. This has given me some time to think about the great memories i have had of that great man. I really love this picture that many others in the family have posted to their blogs. This picture reminds me of the love my grandpa had for music. I always enjoyed listening to him play the piano. He would play using the black keys and his music had a very distinct sounds that will always remind me of him. I also remember how kind and loving he was to all those around him. He would always give me a big hug before i would leave and tell me he loved me. I also will remember the love he had for his wife. I will always remember him calling my grandma his sweetheart and never once did I see them argue. My grandpa also was able to give my my patriarchal blessing and seal me and Alisha in the Salt Lake Temple for time and all eternity. For these and many other reasons I will miss my grandpa dearly. I look forward to the day when I can see him again in the next life.Families are forever

Summer Projects

All I have to say is that my husband is AMAZING!!! While I was away at girls camp, Daniel decided to tile our ugly laundry room. He did awesome! When I got home from girls camp he had all the time cut, laid, grouted, and sealed. We just wanted the room done and I wanted to wash my smelly clothes so we painted the room that same day!

I gotta say.... I love it!

I love my handy husband!

I also have to give a huge shout out to my awesome brother, MARCUS for helping us pick out our tile and making sure we have everything we need! He is majoring in Interior Design and is Amazing! You can check out his work at Marcus Hamblin Design .


Thanks to my willing father-in-law for being willing to come and help Daniel with the tile.

Thanks to my parents for being willing to drive our tile down from Utah! It was great seeing you guys!

This past week Daniel has been busy again! He decided to tile our master bath and closet. He got all the floor ripped up and ready to go by Friday and then Saturday he got all the tile in. Again he did an awesome job.


*P.S. Sorry the pics are kinda blurry. Don't know how to work Daniel's Camera yet! =)
We had these crazy nobs on our master bathroom cabinets. I HATED them! So we finally replaced them tonight!

Preview

I think they look so much better. Our next big project will be to sand down our ugly cabinets and stain them a nice cherry color.


This was my big project this summer. I did rag quilt. I just love how it turned out.

LOVE IT!!!

Flashback Friday

Green Thumb

Well we made our first attempt at gardening. Daniel is amazing and decided that he wanted to build an above ground garden box. He did it all by himself without any plans or anything!


We decided to plant strawberries, tomatoes, green beans, and corn.


We ended up putting a soaker hose under the top layer of soil.







About a month later this was our result. Once it started growing, it kept growing.....







And GROWING!



This is about 2 weeks after the last picture.

We ended up having to put a little fence around the garden since Zoey decided she liked the taste of our strawberries.

We had come outside one day with all the strawberry blossoms missing. And over the next week we never saw another blossom. I guess Zoey would carefully bite off the blossom leaving the bush unaffected. Silly puppy. Lets just say Daniel wasn't to happy that he would have to wait a little longer for our home grown strawberries. We are excited to harvest the fruits of our labor.

Visitor Fun!

Over the past month we had a few visitors at our house. The Medford family came for spring break and Easter. They come to our house for a little while to see our new house and visit our zoo.

The Kids loved the ferrets!

This is our favorite picture. You can see that Corinne is halfway in the picture, and she has a good hold on Lilly. Is she trying to rip her apart or take a bite? =)

Zoey is getting bigger and had a fun visitor last week.

Justin and Tanya took a short vacation to California so we had Reece come spend the weekend! She was a good puppy and getting big as well. The dogs played all day and wore each other out so much that by the end of the day they would just lay there.

What a good dog!

Cute little puppies! But not for long!