Two Months to go!

I can't believe it's already the middle of June! That came out of nowhere! I am happy that I only have two months to go before our baby gets here. I'll be 32 weeks (out of 40) on this coming Tuesday. It's kinda weird being at the point where people feel comfortable just asking when I'm due. I feel like my growth has leveled out somewhat in the last few weeks, so I haven't gotten much bigger. But I know my time is coming to get huge!
    (Apparently I don't have any good baby bump photos in my photo stream - I'll work on that and post one next week!)

Along with working to get stuff put away after the move, I've also had some fun putting together some of my new baby furniture! The pack-n-play was a baby shower gift from my aunts in Logan and the baby bouncer is from Grandma Hatch. Thank you guys so much! So far, that's all I have for furniture, but I do have a crib lined up. It's all so exciting!

Moving right along

We have several big changes in our lives recently. First, Chase finished up with his mechanical engineering degree and is now working full time at Arseal technologies. He's loving the freedom from homework, but not yet used to the 8 hours / 5 days a week schedule of working.

We also moved out of our first apartment. This is something that's been consuming my time and focus lately, trying to find somewhere to live. We'd been hoping for something bigger (not at all hard, since our first apartment was one bedroom and 750 sq ft) and more private - not an apartment complex. I spent a lot of time on Zillow, but it seemed like any time we found somewhere that looked decent and was in our budget, it had already been rented. Finally, one week before our move-out date, we met with someone from Smith's ward. She and her husband were moving out of her parents' finished basement apartment and they wanted someone to take their place.

There's a nice big kitchen with granite countertops along one wall. It's a lot roomier than my old kitchen, but less cupboard space.

The living room is nice and big, with glass doors leading onto the deck. They even left us their couches and entertainment center!

The bathroom is nice. But not as much storage space.

Bedroom A is accessed off the living room. It's really big, but doesn't have very good closet space. I'm still figuring out clothes storage.  

A nice hallway for pacing and putting up our computer desk....

And bedroom B (probably will be the nursery). Really big, small closet.

The redeeming feature is the HUGE storage room off the kitchen. It's almost 25 feet deep and 8 feet across with shelves down both sides. So I may not be able to store as many things in the kitchen and bathroom, but they will be nicely stored in boxes in the storage room.

Plus, we'll never need an extension cord. This is my hand after going around our house counting electrical outlets. (Each outlet is counted separately, not in pairs).

So far we're loving our new home. It's so much roomier than we're used to, and the basement has great insulation, so I can run the air conditioning more! We're also in a new neighborhood (a very, very nice neighborhood!) and a new ward.

Moving is such a fun adventure!

Virginia Trip

I've been wanting to take a trip to Virginia for a while now, mostly just to see my friends from my internship summer. Since Chase likes history and free things, it wasn't too hard to talk him into it. We were able to stay with the Jenkins, eat with friends, drive instead of fly, and free monuments and museums. A wonderful trip for newlyweds. Or recently married, anyway.  

First stop on Thursday, we went to The Care of Trees where I did my internship four years ago. I got to chat with some old coworkers, which was fun. 

Jeremy Baker was an awesome boss!

 By lucky coincidence, we visited DC and the monuments on June 6th. It was really cool to be there on the anniversary of D-Day. There was a ceremony at the WWII memorial, a park ranger giving a lecture about D-Day, and lots of veterans wandering around the memorials. It was fascinating and gave an extra gravity to the historical monuments. 

Chase loves hearing about history, so this was an awesome day for us. 

Washington Memorial

You can't tell from this picture, but we're at the WWII Memorial watching a ceremony honoring the veterans. 

Tidal Basin by Jefferson Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

 We went to the Smithsonian castle, and stopped by the Natural History Museum. There were SOOO many people, especially school groups. We had been walking all day and and we only managed about thirty minutes of museum time before we cried uncle and drove home. 

Survival Hint: Don't get eaten! 

This is his "Oh look, I was right and you were all wrong. I did get eaten by a shark" face.
And that's a megalodon jaw, not a shark (prehistoric ancestor of the great white shark).

 We had dinner with the Anderson family on Friday night. It was so fun to be "home" and I loved having Chase meet them. Chase was thrilled to be gifted with an old punching bag that had been hanging outside for years. Gail was equally thrilled to be rid of it. 

Saturday morning we went to the DC temple. I've been wanting to go through a session ever since Kalie was married there. It was so busy, and big, but it was beautiful. I'm very glad for that opportunity. 

 After the temple, we went to Arlington National Cemetery. We even walked up to the Iwo Jima memorial.

 Chase found Audie Murphy's grave. Audie Murphy is one of Chase's biggest war heroes. So I guess it was a pretty big deal. 

 On Sunday, we went to Church with the Jenkins and spent the day hanging out with them. I love my Jenkins so much! 

It was a great opportunity to see all my friends (or family, really. I like adopting family, and being adopted.) 

Hopefully, we'll be back up to Virginia before too long. 

Summer is Probably NOT my Favorite

As a kid, you grow up thinking that summer is the most wonderful time of year. Or at least, I did. No school, lots of time to read and hike and play and sleep and do chores and mow lawns and read some more. It was nice and hot which meant that playing in sprinklers and going to the pool were awesome activities.
Now that I'm grown up and work in landscaping in Atlanta, GA...not so much. In fact, I feel a lot more busy and tired out during the summer than any other time of year. It's true that we have some more free time because Chase isn't in school, but we're also trying to pack in all of our activities and social life that we couldn't do while he was busy with his crazy engineering classes (which he passed all of, yay!). Also, summer is the busy season in landscaping (I had thought that winter/early spring was busy, but now I know better!). I'm working 9-11.5 hour days, four days a week, and have to cram in laundry, grocery shopping, house cleaning, doctor's appointments, and hopefully some cooking for the week on my one day off (which is usually Friday, but might not be if it rains during the week and we have to change our schedule). I usually get home too tired and worn out to even cook dinner.
However, we do get to cram a lot of fun stuff into our weekends. Such as:
Chase's best friend's sister's wedding! Rachel Baesler got married on May 24, so Chase's friend Lucas got military leave to come home for a week. Chase spent almost every evening hanging out with him. Being especial friends of the family, we got to attend such events as Family Party two days before the wedding! Rehearsal dinner! Setting up for the wedding! Ceremony and reception! It was really pretty fun. I like their crazy family. It's also the most elaborate "traditional" (non-Mormon) wedding I've been to, which was fascinating. And we even got some pictures! Of the boys, at least.

Memorial Day with the Asay family! Hanging out with Kevin and his family reminds me of our Briscoe family parties. He has several older siblings who are married and have little kids running around. Made me happy to see the chaotic family fun, and sad to miss the Briscoe clan.

Hiking! (Well, occasionally). I even had Kevin take a picture of us.

Watching all those movies that we didn't have time for during the school year! Seriously: Star Trek 2, Thor 2, Captain America 2, Frozen...

We also took a trip up to Washington DC, but that's a whole other post.

Christmas Decor

I was pretty excited to decorate for Christmas this year. I guess it's because it's my first year to decorate my own space. I've always been in an apartment (or at Kara's) and headed home for Christmas. So this year was exciting. Here's some of what I did for decorating:

My first real Christmas tree!

Paper star from a Pinterest DIY.

Gold pinecone (and I collected all the pinecones!)

Cinnamon ornament (Pinterest, of course)

I have a mantle this year!

Wreath - with bows and pinecones!
First attempt at making a wreath, it turned out well, I thought. 

Balcony garland - I had no idea what I was doing, but it looks ok.

Camping Weekend

This last weekend we had a fun, adventurous camping trip with Mindy and Jeran to the North Carolina highlands. Friday night we arrived at a nice little campground called Blue Bear Mountain Camp. Mindy and Jeran were nice enough to arrive earlier and get a fire going.

It's an exciting life.

On Saturday morning, we headed over to Grandfather Mountain. On the way up to the top, we stopped by the nature museum and the wildlife habitats. We had a lot of fun watching the bears and otters. There were eagles and deer as well, but those were slightly less exciting. The cougars weren’t visible at all.  The black bears were funny. One really liked yawning and sticking her very long tongue out. The biggest one liked to sit and clean his paws, walk through the pond, sit back down in his exact spot, and clean all his paws again. Over and over.

We drove up to the parking lot for hikers and got ready for our crazy hike up to the “Mile-high swinging bridge”. The hike was pretty steep with lots of switchbacks, and the path was mostly big rocks like steps. The bridge was AWESOME! Its total elevation was 5,280 feet, but it’s suspended only 80 feet above the gorge. It was pretty swingy though. The bridge takes you out to a rock outcropping, where you can look over the valleys below. Except that one side of the valley was completely covered with some low clouds. My phone lost power pretty quick, but luckily Mindy and Jeran were being good photographers.

We then decided to hike back on a different path, but then decided to keep going to Macrae Peak. There was some pretty crazy hiking, with ladders tethered onto stone walls and cables to help people up steep areas. Also, once we hit the ridge of the mountain, it got kind of windy and pretty chilly. We kept going to the peak. And it was stunning. Awe inspiring. And quite cold.

When we finally made it back to the car, my FitBit said we’d gone 5 miles and 129 floors!

We spent most of the evening hanging out around the campfire and chatting. Mostly because we were really tired and it was downright chilly. Like, 35 degrees with 20 mph winds. Chase even conceded to sleep in the tent that night, instead of in hammocks like we did the first night. (FYI – I find sleeping in the hammock very comfortable, and Chase knows the secrets to making it not so cold).

Our camp with hammocks. 

Sunday morning we packed up and headed our separate ways. We headed towards Asheville via the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a bit crowded, being a nice sunny Sunday with beautiful fall colors, but it was definitely worth the extra time. We paused in Asheville to visit Grove Park Inn (amazing!) and eat lunch and headed home. It was such a fun trip filled with gorgeous sights and some crazy adventures. Let’s do it again!

Fall colors on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Apple Picking

Do you know what I love about fall? Just about everything!!! In fact, I've yet to decide there's something I don't like about fall. Even though the leaves falling means a lot of extra blowing at work, it's totally worth it to have the cool weather, changing leaves, fall foods and flavors, wearing jackets, etc etc etc. I've been making pumpkin stuff for a month or two now (pumpkin muffins, mostly. They're so good, and you can eat them for breakfast!), but I hadn't done much with apples. Until this last week. I made apple crisp for Chase's birthday and it made me remember how much I LOVE apples and apple recipes. So I made a resolution that Chase and I must go apple picking!

We went up to the little town of Blue Ridge, GA, to the Mercier Orchards. It was rather packed, and there was a long line to pay, and another one for the tractors taking people up to the picking site. Totally worth it. It was a nice day, a bit on the warm side, but it had that smell of autumn in the air. It smells like falling leaves and chilly mornings and a bit of cinnamon. We had lots of fun climbing between rows of trees trying to find the perfect apples to pick. Cameo, fuji, sun crisp (my favorite!), mutzu... Just a few of the nice varieties we found. It was also very amusing to people watch. There were old couples, hippies, families with young kids, groups of teenage friends, all sorts of people. The best moment was when we were waiting in line for the tractor back to the barn and we were watching a little boy ahead of us.
 He was probably a year and a half old. He would take a bite of an apple, and then spit most of it out. Then he spotted an orange cone next to the line, and that seemed like the perfect spot of the bit of apple that had just come out of his mouth. Upon discovering that it was perfect, he took another bite and this time he leaned over and put his mouth to the cone and spit the bite in (I couldn't hold in my laugh at this). This was repeated two more times before he discovered another cone which soon received the same treatment. But where did it go? So he had to tip the cone over and inspect the bottom. His mother intercepted him as he tried to stuff what was left of his apple all the way in the cone. Little kids are just hilarious and I love watching them.

Here's some pictures of me and Chase at the orchard.

And yes, I'm wearing Oriental Trading sunglasses, because
they're all I had in the car and it was BRIGHT.