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Friday, May 13, 2011

May Updates

Well we have been really busy lately but here a few pictures: 

Roxie checking out our Easter baskets. The smart little stinker knew that toy in there was for her and would NOT leave it alone. It lasted 5 minutes before she had the squeaker broken and ripped out of the monkey. Money NOT well spent!

Justin and I in our new Easter outfits!


Raegan and I on Easter. 


No'el and I on Easter

Grams and I on Easter. 



Kinyon bought himself a new motorcycle and he was so desperate for people to ride with that he took his little sisters!! We just went out to the diversion and it was hilarious! Raegan just got a new motorcycle and so hers is now as big as mine. Surprisingly, our bikes are REALLY heavy and so weight + spazziness + sand = entertainment. Raegan almost hit a skunk and so she crashed pretty good!! So funny! I only got one picture on the way though :(  



And here we have the BEST news we have gotten in a long time..... $8300!! Yeah! It only took 10 months! SHEESH! I really thought we had a horror story with getting the tax credit but it sounds like MOST people had issues. Our accountant said that almost 90% of the people who applied for it were frauds so THANK A LOT dishonest people! Oh well! My energy of being angry is now being put to good use of deciding how to spend it! My options are - getting rid of orange formica and carpet in the kitchen OR buying Justin a new truck. Wonder whose gonna win??




Tuesday, February 1, 2011

New Remodels!

Two posts in one day? It's a miracle I know! On October 16th (I had to check the time stamp of my pictures to remember this date) we decided we could "cheaply" fix up our back room. We couldn't really call it a laundry room because I don't think it counted as a room. There was no heat, floors, or even insulation back there. Originally we were JUST going to tile and put in a heater. There was also one wall that had heat rot and it was going to get replaced as well. (Foreshadowing anyone?)
Pre-pictures:
This is the wall that had the heat rot on it. As you can see, there was ZERO insulation left in the wall... just some saw dust. This is in the laundry room part. And by laundry room part I mean this is the room that the washer was in. I didn't take the best pre-pictures so you might have to use your imagination. 

 Here we have the entry way. It was a REAL heart breaker to get rid of the faux grass. You can kind of see the siding that makes up the inner wall. The previous owners must have just added this room as an afterthought some time later. 

 Here is the entry way again but you can see the door going out. Oh ya and my dryer.... in  a different room than the washer... awesome! Even awesomer? I couldn't reach to turn it on!
 This is just a picture showing the distance from the washer and dryer... and the cement floor.












I missed some in between pictures. Remember when I said we were just going to tile and replace one wall? Well once we discovered that there was NO insulation in the walls, we checked the ceilings? Shoot darn none there either! Then this lovely wood panel covered wall you see above was just begging to get fixed because the rest of the room was getting sheet rocked as well. When the wood panelling came down, we thought it was odd that there wasn't one solid 2 X 4 from floor to ceiling. SAFETY! So that wall came down as well. And then back up again! I got a new window too! Luckily my cousin Payson loves me enough to come help with the wiring so the whole room got rewired, then insulated, and then sheetrocked!




















Notice that there is now snow outside? I am not complaining but I feel the need to explain that we DID have clean clothes throughout this entire process. Justin's Grandma would call and warn us, then come and get ALL of our laundry, wash it, iron it, FOLD it and bring it back. Who does that? Grandma Hinckley does that! What a SAINT!

 Ya for paint! Orange isn't everyone's favorite color but I LOVE it! I do feel the need to explain that this wasn't exactly the plan. I really wanted to do a crackle with the orange on top but I was taking a test when Justin went to get the paint and discovered just how expensive that would have been. So this room just gets an orange wall.  Two important things to note in this room would be 1. the wiring for the dryer! YEAH! and 2. you can't really tell but there is a 12" box that the washer and dryer will now sit on.
 New window!
Max and Justin painting for the first time! The orange window is pretty neat because it still has the original glass and it has flaws and blemishes in it.














And the ALMOST finished product is:

 New window with trim.
 On of my FAVORITE parts! Motion sensor light in the laundry room so when I walk in with my big basket of clothes I don't have to fight the light switch too.
 Washer and dryer REUNITED
 Paint, trim, and tile!
 New tile! It is a stained cement style, I love it!
 Newly painted door.

 Roxie likes the new room!
 This is the door into the house. This is the part that isn't finished yet because we are going to crackle over the top of the orange with another color.... tomorrow morning I hope!

We painted the door and it looks so much better than I as thinking it would. Also Justin made it a swinging door! Its great! There is a build in cuboard that you can barely see in the corner that we are also going to paint so when we get that done I will post more pics!
Here is the cuboard in the corner.
















The end! Almost...

Holidays....

So I am a terrible blogger and have been informed to update... apparently my Halloween post just isn't cutting it anymore :) I survived my first semester of grad school (no tears yet!) BUT even better - - - - - - Justin graduated!! YEAH! So we are now both graduates of Utah State University!! Go Aggies!
So no more school for Justin! He got a job in December as well. He is Snake River's migrant student liason. Pretty impressive title if I do say so myself! Basically he runs a program for students who aren't native English speakers.

We also survived the craziness of the Holidays! Since we still don't have kids we decided to suck it up and make five trips back and forth on Christmas Day. Ya, I said five! We started at my parents, then went and saw his parents, then went to Grandma Sherm's, then back to Justin's parents to see his sister who had just arrived, back out to SR to the Martin clan and we finished up the nigh back in at his parents. We are considering kids after that chaotic day! We spent a few days in Island Park and finished the New Year in Lava! I enjoyed my MUCH needed time off
Happy New Year!!

Sunday, October 31, 2010

My *favorite* time of year!

My FAVORITE holiday is Halloween! I am positive that I got this from my Mother, who had more Halloween decorations as we were growing up then Christmas! It must have just rubbed off. Justin's birthday is the 30th so we usually spend it touring haunted houses and watching scary movies, but this year was a little different. Since we bought our own home, we (I really mean Justin) were excited to have trick or treaters come. We have been decorating our house all month to get ready. We got home around 5 o'clock Saturday evening and the street already had a steady stream of trick or treaters! [Quick sidebar: Shilling doesn't have mailboxes. A mailman literally walks to every door and puts the mail into a little slot that is in our door.] Justin quickly figured out that he could see the trick or treaters coming up our front stairs through the mail slot. He would wait for them to ring the door bell and then yell and scare them. (Poor little tootsie rolls, Harry Potter's, ninjas and princesses) This lasted about an hour and he decided it wasn't good enough. My mother-in-law had bought him some really scary masks so he talked my brother-in-law Brandon to go out and scary the kids with him. We always knew when there were kids at the door because we could the kids screaming/bawling. I was IMPRESSED with the number of trick or treaters that we had! I opened the door once to see about 25 people crowded around our stairs trying to get to the door. A lot of kids watched Justin and Brandon scare the kids before them and decided not to venture to the "Boo" house. Needless to say, Justin had quite the birthday party scaring little children!
Here are some pictures of our outside decorations:
Justin cut out the letters for me to be able to have this on my house! It was a big hit on our street!
This is Justin's scary creation!

Here are some pictures of my trick or treaters!
Ellie (the rock star) is Justin's parents weiner dog. Roxie (the ladybug) is my yorkie!
This is Payson and Linzie's litle boy Maximus. He is Maximus the gladiator!! Linzie made the costume all by herself!! My poor kids won't have anything as fantastic as this!
Here we have Boden Shay the Skeleton. I didn't get a picture of his Superman costume! 
I had my family come in on Sunday for a little Halloween party!  A lot of my cousins  didn't get to go trick or treating because they were watching the girls volleyball team win STATE! So they got to come trick or treating at my house!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Quick run down of our summer!

Since I am such a horrible blogger I will have to give a quick over view of our summer:
May: I graduated from Utah State!! Yes I know that my diploma is upside down :) Jessica and I graduated from the same college so it was fun to be in the same ceremony with her. And our families only had to attend one!













June: We went to Hawaii with Justin's family to celebrate me and Jessica graduating from college.
























I went to Nauvoo to visit my grandparents on their mission.











And on June 30th, Justin and I bought a house!! It took us three weeks to fix everything up but we absolutely love it! I will make a new post and put up all of our before and after pictures.









And in August I started Graduate school at ISU. Sorry I don't have any "1st day of school pix." It has been REALLY busy but I am really enjoying it!

Friday, April 23, 2010

Updates

I am a terrible blogger! A lot of has happened since the last time I posted so I will give a quick run down. 
My family went to Moab for Easter and we had so much fun!

I had quite the humility lesson because my little sister kicked my trash on the motorcycle this year! Sand + Kenzie = CRASH!

My Grandparents left on a 6 month mission to Nauvoo
For those of you who know my grandparents, you should know that my Grandpa is driving tourists around on a team of horses and my Grandma is giving tours of the building and teaching tourists how to make crafts. Could there be a more perfect place for them? I think not!

I got into grad school at ISU & USU.... 
ISU here I come!

I attended the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Missoula, Montana

Justin and I have made an offer on a house!!
(Pictures will come after we have sealed the deal!)


Monday, March 29, 2010

Grad School

I thought I would catch everyone up on where we are with Graduate school. I heard from USU and I am on the waiting list to get in here. There were about 200 applications and 12-15 spots open. Luckily I am at the top of the waiting list so hopefully I will get in after this Thursday when all of the decisions are due for USU. ISU has been a completely different story! For about a week and a half now they have been dragging their feet about sending out the acceptance letters. Luckily I have made a friend in the department and she will e-mail as soon as she sees the list so atleast I don't have to wait for snail mail!