Lots of Changes

This new year started with a big change and then it seems like it has just been a constant whirlwind of craziness! Kory applied for a big change/promotion within his job back in October. We didn't hear back about it forever and then all of a sudden he got called for interviews in December. This was a pretty hard jump to make within his job and we honestly didn't think he had a shot. Kory says he got asked some really weird questions in the interviews that he had no idea how to answer and then all of a sudden the perfect answer would come to him. We are pretty sure this was meant to be for our family. We were praying that the right decision would be made and we would be okay with whatever it was. He was offered the job in Pocatello, ID right with the new year and they wanted him here in 2 weeks. Crazy!!!!

We have decided to rent and hopefully find some good land to build a house on. It was a PAIN to find a house to rent that we felt like we would be in a good family area and would allow a dog. We found one we don't love nearly as much as our old house, I LOVED that place, but it is working great for us.

Luckily our last home sold after only 2 days on the market! What an answer to our prayers. They are closing on it next week and then we will be able to really plan for the home we hope to build. It has been a wonderful move for Kory. He LOVES his job and I have never seen him so happy at work. It has been a bit harder for me, I hate adjusting to a new town, ward, home, but it is coming along slowly but surely.

Slowly after moving here we noticed that one of Ferbs eyes had turned completely white and glassy. He wasn't acting himself but I had just figured it was because we were in a new place.  I took him into the vet and they did a bunch of tests and the pressure in that eye was off the charts compared to his normal one. We tried 3 weeks of very expensive medicines to see if we could at least get the pressure down even though they were pretty sure he would never see out of it again. 3 weeks later the pressure was still off the charts so we had to schedule a surgery to have it removed. Poor dog! Luckily he is a very hairy shih tzu and you really can't even tell unless you get up close. Since it has been removed he is back to his normal self and loves to explore the hill right by our house. The vet is pretty sure something hit him in the eye and it got infected and just went too far.

Last time with 2 eyes :-(

Right after surgery. It looks much better now.

In the midst of all of this we had a trip planned to Maryland to see my parents. (I stunk it up taking pictures.) I was soo excited to get away from all of the change and have a little normal. It was a wonderful trip! We got to do so many fun things and Kory finally got to see Gettysburg. (Apparently I have been there before even though I have ZERO recollection!) Boston LOVED this trip. I have never seen him attach himself to someone like he did to my dad. He followed him everywhere and preferred him above everything else. He was content as long as he was by him. It was so sad to have to tear them apart.

My only picture from Maryland. But check out those plush carpets!

I got sick of winter dragging on forever and ever and, I don't understand this myself with all of the changes we already had, I wanted a change. The answer was to change my hair color! Ha Ha, I did it while Kory was at work and he was literally speechless when he got home. His mouth kept moving but no sound came out. I went with red because it fades so quickly and really is just a short term change for a month or so of the winter.

Finally, we have been talking about starting the adoption process again for a few months and never wanted to get it going till we knew what was going to happen with Kory's job and where we would be living. Shortly after moving here we felt really strongly we needed to get it started again so it has been a crazy month of background checks, fingerprints, doctors appointments, interviews and home studies. We are really close to being finished and will hopefully be active with our agency by the end of this month. Hopefully there is a baby out there for us! 

Boston turned one!!!! (And a smidgen of other small tellings.)

Yes, we are aware Boston turned 1 a couple months ago, howeverrrrrrr...I am playing catch up after being a slacker. I was so excited for Boston to turn 1, it seemed like such a milestone! His birthday was pretty boring. I tried to clue him in on the importance of the day but he just wouldn't get it. We were saving most stuff for his party a few days later so it ended up being a kind of lame day. We did give him the present we thought he would be most excited about. Excited doesn't begin to describe the little man. He was scrambling to get to it and it luckily did entertain him off and on throughout the day.

Trying it out for the first time.

\

He also got some new pajamas, we were trying to get a picture to send to grandma and he was not being very cooperative.

As far as his party went. NEVER AGAIN! Ha Ha, i'm sure he will be able to convince me down the line but that was stressful! I worry as it is, this was worrying times a trillion! Luckily I think it went okay! Even now as I try to pinpoint what was so stressful I have no idea. All I know is I felt like it took me days to recover.

 :-)

YUM!!!

Is it just me or does he look a little drunk from chocolate/sheer happiness?!

He adores his grandma! I get passed up for her every time.

Cousin picture-Marchant side. 

Unwrapping presents.

He unwrapped the first present and then it was just me for the rest of the time. I tried to find some other pictures of him with his presents and in every one of them I look like a very strange weird-o so just use your imagination! He was definitely spoiled!!!!

HARVEST

We went down for a couple days to give Kory's mom a break from Semi driving in harvest. Okay, Kory did that, I just joined in for the fun of Harvest. 

Have I ever told you how HOT Kory is in Harvest? I'm sure I have because I tell everyone, but if I haven't: Kory is HOT in harvest. :-)

BYU vs Utah State Football game

Not much to say except that BYU WHOOPED on Utah State!!!!! I don't know how it happened but we ended up sitting in the middle of a bunch of BYU fans. Ha Ha Ha. Kory was none too pleased. We had a very fun time though!

Corn Maze Time

It is tradition to go to a corn maze every year. This is the first time we did it in daylight since Boston had a little cold and we didn't want to risk a cold night. We lasted quite awhile wandering and luckily Kory was able to pick out on a map where we were so we could eventually get out. Boston was a trooper and loved people watching. 

My Project

So last November when we went to Maryland I volunteered to do some crafty things for my mom. I was sure I could get them done quickly since Boston was only 3 months at the time. Well 4 deadlines later, and the last week of it I literally worked on it all day, everyday, turned many people down for things, and stayed up til 2:00 3 nights in a row to get it done when my mom was going to be here. Whew! I was so happy to give this thing away!!! It turned out cute though!

And there you have it. There is a quick recap of what we have been up to. Next post: All the Mischief with a capital M that Boston has been up to!

Call Family Vacay!

Remember that wonderfully warm month of August, you know 2 months ago? Well we had some awesome goings on that I never blogged about! I couldn't just let them slip under the radar so now I am going back and blogging about them.
Call Family Reunion/Vacation. This happened at the beginning of August and was a blast. Krystal and Shane (Kory's sister and bro-in-law) were in charge this year and I have to say they should be in charge every year. (Can I hear a Yeah! from the Call family?) They always plan the funnest trips. This year we had a new baby and a very pregnant mother so Boise was the destination of choice. Honestly, I got very few pictures of the fun weekend. I went over to steal a couple from Krystals blog and ended up stealing quite a few more. However, if you would like to see more details and more pictures of the awesome time we had check out Krystal's blog:
http://skskaar.blogspot.com/2013/08/call-family-vacation-2013.html.

Boston loved cruisin' around on this. (Couldn't get the picture to move where I wanted it! :-))

I am so frustrated but I couldn't get this video to move either!!!! Grrr. This is Cooper and Boston having a grand old time. To this day Boston thinks this is the only way to ride.

They found this cool family owned pond that you could reserve. We had this whole pond to ourselves and it had slides, ziplines, diving boards, rafts, paddle boats, and a rope swing. As soon as I saw the paddle boat I told Kory I wanted a romantic picture.

Love Boat at Christensen's Pond

What a cute family! Awaiting crepes!!!!

Boston loved splashing in the water spraying from the slip 'n Slide!

Mommy and Boston

What Stinkin' cute Cousins! I hope they grow up to be really good friends!

Kory sliding down the slip n' slide

Ahhh! What a cute family pic! I love all the feet in the pool.

So one of the evenings we went to play paint ball. This was my first time ever doing this and I was TERRIFIED!!! I got a pretty awesome bruise out of it that I am still pretty proud of. I made sure I wore shorts and knee-length skirts until this thing disappeared. How Sweet!!!

We Look fierce!

My Awesome bruise from Paint Ball!

Just finished rafting the Boise River

We finally look so nicely groomed! After a delicious dinner.

What a fun time we had! Thanks Krystal and Shane! (and Kami and Stephen of course for letting us stay at your house!!!)

Our newest project

I feel like my blogs often start out this way: Kory wanted something for years and begged and begged and we finally did it. Or vice versa. Well this was the case again. For almost as long as we have lived here Kory has been wanting a door in our bedroom. I was always adamant that we would not do this because with no other back door I didn't want our bedroom seen as a main trafficking route. Well, I started really imagining how nice it would be this year. I got sick of always having to herd the dog from the front to the back, and for awhile there every time I went outside to go to the back yard I had some people asking me: Where was I going? What was I doing? Why was I doing it? I started imagining more freedom. So, I started taking polls. I was texting people at random, bringing it up in conversations, asking people if it would be weird to have a door in our bedroom. The general consensus was very for a door. (What can I say? I am influenced by peoples opinions!) I started tentatively bringing it up with Kory and before I knew it we had a date set and a door ordered.

Kory's wonderful dad was very nice and agreed to come help Kory with the project. It took so much longer than Kory and I thought. We were thinking a few hours. How hard can it be to knock out a wall, insert a door. WaLa! Not so much. There happened to be electricity running through the part we knocked down so that had to be rerouted. Our little project took the whole day. Plus another couple days of just me and Kory fixing up the trims and making it look good.

I underestimated how much I would love it. It is sooo nice!! My trafficking concerns were all for naught as well. We have had friends over a couple times and we just lock it up and use the side door. NBD. (no big deal, which I have a funny, totally non-related, story about. Awhile ago, (like a year or two) Kory started saying NBD after everything. I asked him what it was and he told me it was "No Big Deal" and he had made it up and was going to coin it and become famous. (Kory does this a lot) Well a few weeks later we were out somewhere and overheard these college students talking. They used NBD a couple times in their conversation. I looked at Kory and he had his mouth hanging wide open and looked like someone had ripped the rug out from under his feet. It was priceless. (I may or may not have laughed hysterically.) Moving on, people started posting it on facebook, and we heard it in tons of other conversations. Kory still swears he came up with it, I guess we will never know. Ha Ha Ha. I still use it to tease him all the time. His brilliant, original phrase NBD became famous. Hee Hee Hee.)


Back on track people! Where was I? Oh, yes. We LOVE our door! I wish I had done it sooner. It is so nice for our family to have access to our backyard.

Here is our kind of before. It wasn't meant to be a window picture.

He looks confused, but he got it right in the end. :-) I only got a couple during the project. I was on home depot runs for a lot of the day.

And our After Shots. I just ran out and took them because I realized we didn't have any. So please bear with the lighting and dirtiness. :-)

Camping!

What a crazy summer we have had! I feel so behind in the blogging world. Unfortunately, I don't have too many pictures to go with our camping trips but I thought I should document them anyway. Our first one of the summer was with my sister Sarah and her family. Knowing that Kory comes from a camping family she called and asked if we would take them on a real camping trip. However! Kory was not very helpful and I ended up planning the whole thing! I am not from a camping family and this was HARD! I think I prefer the camping trips where I am not in charge.
We got up nice and early and reserved a campsite in Logan Canyon. (I learned how to do that from some friends. :-)) At 6 ish we headed up and got all set up. I had planned delicious pizza pockets in our cool present Kory received last year. (http://www.campchef.com/cast-iron-cookware/round-cooking-iron.html) Of course I forgot the pizza sauce but they were still delicious anyway. We had a pretty cool campsite with a trail to the river.

Kory, Boston, Sarah, Felipe, and Ferb at the river.

 We ate s'mores and played some games and then the real adventure began. Boston had had a little fever all day but nothing we couldn't control with tylenol. At about 11 he woke up pretty hot but we didn't have a thermometer with us. We gave him another dose of Tylenol and he seemed to take care of it so we went to bed. At about 4 in the morning he woke up and was very  hot to the touch. I woke up Kory, we gave him more Tylenol and we rushed home to check his temperature. (Our campsite was only 15 minutes away). His temp was not too high so we headed back to the campsite. We caught an hour or so of sleep, stayed around long enough to eat breakfast and camp up and headed home. It was a rough go but I think it was somewhat successful.

Poor boy in our tent. Not feeling so good.

 This started a weekend of crazy temps for Boston. This was the first time he had ever been sick so it was a little scary for us. I was able to snap this adorable picture though! Turns out Boston gets very cuddly when he is sick.

 Our second camping trip was with our good friends the Lauritzens. The actual planning went better on this one mostly because I asked for instructions and obeyed. We had a fun night eating and socializing and then time for bed came. Boston was TERRIBLE! We had stuffed the pack 'n play in the tent and he was screaming at the top of his lungs. Eventually, after I had visions of angry campers storming our tent with torches and pitchforks (yes, I really imagined this) we pulled him down between us in our sleeping bags. That made for one of the longest nights of my life. Boston is not easy to sleep with and was constantly pulling my hair and poking my face to see if I was still by him. After this night, I told Kory I didn't believe I really actually liked camping. I am so mad I didn't get one picture of this camping trip but we really had a blast camping with our friends.
In case you are worried we did try camping one more time this summer and it was a much better experience, but that is still to come...

Mini Vacay!

We needed a break, a time to get away as a family. There was just one little problem, everything we thought of was too far away for our terrible little traveler. Boston makes it about 2 hours tops in the car. So...we pulled out a map and looked at all of our options within 2 hours. Our best option ended up being Salt Lake City. There is a lot you can do in Salt Lake when you really look!

Our first day was at the Olympic Park in Park City. Kory and I wanted to try the Alpine slide. It was a lot of fun! We spent the rest of the day shopping, eating and trying out the pool in our hotel. We thought Boston would be all about the pool since he LOVES bath time and any splashing he can do in any other water. He HATED it. He screamed bloody murder the whole time. It was so sad!

The second day we thought we could fit in the zoo and the aquarium. We ended up spending the entire day at the zoo. Boston loved it! We thought he might get a little kick out of some things but he was enthralled the entire time. Boston has always been a very alert and observing little boy.
We went to the bird show and were on the very back row, Kory put Boston on his shoulders. Right at the beginning of the show they let all kinds of birds loose. Those birds grazed Boston's head as they flew over! He was a little freaked out! Once we moved him to our laps he loved seeing all those birds fly right past him.

 That night Kory and I dropped Boston off at his Aunt Sarah's and we took a trip to the movie theater to see Star Trek. What can I say? We are Trekkies and proud of it. It was AMAZING!!

The 3rd day we were going to spend half the day at Thanksgiving point. They made the things there sound like things Boston would love. There was a splash pad, and a petting zoo. As mentioned above, Boston loves water. He also loves going to Cal Ranch and pet stores and petting the animals. It was sooo disappointing! We couldn't touch any of the animals, we just walked by cages of birds. The splash pad would have been fun if Boston was a little older. I really wish we had just done the aquarium we didn't get to go to the day before. Bummer!

 We finished the day out and most of Saturday doing the Parade of Homes in Orem and Lehi. It was Amazing! We left really wanting a new house. :-) These were a few of our favorite things (must haves)

These looked just like cupboards until you pressed on them, it was a hidden room pantry!

I don't know why every house doesn't have one of these!  A door from the garage to the pantry! You don't have to  walk your groceries all through the house anymore!

I just loved the stair rail. This house was such an eye-catching  home!

One of the perks of going on vacation to Salt Lake was we got more money for food! I had a blast picking out restaurants. We had a great time and there was a ton more we could have done. Who knows, maybe Salt Lake will become a more regular vacation spot.