What We've Been Up To

Since Jason has been home we have been b-u-s-y! This will be kind of long post, but I wanted to update my blog with all the things we've been up to since Jason returned home from his deployment. He will return back to his civilian job next week, and boy have we packed our days full during this time he's had off.

NEW DECK

Besides playing lots of Wii with Ian and watching plenty of movies and TV shows through Netflix with me, about the first thing we did is tear down our old rotting deck and re-build a new one. Here's a couple of pictures of how the old deck looked:Luckily, we had a neighbor who has all the right tools and know-how to build things. He offered to help us build a new deck. Jason's Dad helped out quite a bit also. I'll tell ya, having all the right tools and knowing what you're doing makes what could be a long job go quickly. We had the new deck up in about a day and a half, including pouring a new cement pad at the landing of the stairs. Wow! Our stairs are actually straight now! We still have not put on a railing as that is something we are contracting out. Shopping around for the right type of railing and price is turning out to be a little bit more lengthy than we thought, but for now, we're glad to have a good start on a better back yard. I'll post better before and after pictures once the whole deck is complete.
DINNER OUT

Our dear friends Lee and Jenny Opperman (Jason's high school friend and my college roommate) were in town in May from West Virginia. Lee is getting ready for a deployment to Iraq soon. We met and went out to dinner at Rodizio Grill in Salt Lake. It was so fun to go out without the kids and have a fun night with our friends. Thanks for calling us Jenny and Lee! It was a great night.

TRAMPOLINE

I guess I can add to my list of "things I will never buy, but now that I have kids I changed my mind." Yep, I said I would never drive a mini-van. Now I drive one and LOVE it. I also said I wouldn't buy a trampoline, but then I was the one that convinced Jason we needed one. Ian has become increasingly obsessed with the Wii. I was afraid that he would spend the whole summer wanting to play video games unless we did something that would really be worth his while. I figured a trampoline might be just the thing to keep them in our back yard for more than five minutes. So, reluctantly, Jason let me buy a trampoline. The kids have been having a great time on it. A few more days later and I caught him outside on the trampoline with them. Ok kids, now play outside on this thing a lot this summer and don't make me look bad. (We also bought a safety net for it, but we haven't had a chance to put it up.)
CARPET

The carpet in our bedroom and upstairs living room were beginning to form some big bumps in them. We didn't want our carpet to wear out so we had our carpet re-stretched. In order to do this we had to completely empty our bedroom and living room of all furniture. It was like moving. There we were dragging our mattress out to the deck. Moving the couch, dresser, nightstands, piano and all the other little things off the carpet. All of this we did by about ten in the morning. Then it took the whole rest of the day to move it back. I don't know how Jason felt, but I was exhausted.

MODEL AIRPLANES

While Jason was deployed Ian discovered that he loves model airplanes. Jason enjoyed this hobby a lot as a child, so he has made Ian a happy kid by building a couple of small model airplanes with him.BBQ

Saturday night we had a BBQ with a bunch of Jason's old teammates from his running days at Weber State. We have remained good friends with them over the years and enjoy getting together with them. We used his parents back yard which makes having a summer get-together so easy since they already have a bunch of tables and chairs set up. There's also a great playground at the back of the yard for the kids to play on. It was fun to visit with everybody.
CABIN

We went up to my grandmother's cabin for the night a couple of nights ago. We originally had planned a small weekend getaway to Moab, but the timing of it just didn't work out. We didn't want this opportunity with Jason having some time off to go by without having a chance to get away from home with all of us together. We had a really nice, quiet time together. We roasted hot dogs and then marshmallows to make smores. We watched the Karate Kid, told the kids ghost stories, slept in far too late, played Uno, and went for a walk. It was really nice.BABY FOOD

Andrew had his first baby food today. Like most babies, he wasn't sure about it and probably didn't actually swallow much of it, but it was a milestone anyway.


So now we will finish off his last week before he begins work by celebrating our anniversary and Alyssa's birthday. I also received a new calling at church this past week. I have been asked to teach Relief Society, so I am also beginning to plan my first lesson as they have asked me to begin teaching this week. Phew. It's been crazy.

Finally, I have to just say that Jason paid me one huge compliment a few days ago, I'm not sure he realized just how much I appreciated what he said. As we were walking Ian down the hall at church to drop him off at Primary Jason turned to me and said, "I don't know how you did this with these kids all by yourself. You deserve a medal."

At the time it wasn't easy and I knew it wasn't. However, I also didn't realize how hard it was until he was home and I was now completely relying on someone else like I hadn't done in a very long time.