Update.... sort of

Hi. It's Bryce. I don't do this often, but then again, I guess I could say we don't do this often anymore. Life is normal. I'm getting to the end of the semester and then I'll get a break for a month. Christmas break is long at normal schools. Right now I'm at school in my cubicle trying to get a research proposal written. It's a big assignment that we've been working on all semester. Sierra is working like crazy. She get a second job and is making us into millionaires. Well, maybe not. She works with a bunch of mean guys at Office Max and a bunch of girls at the salon. Pretty balanced situation. We are both tired today because we drove home from Dallas last night, slept for about 5 hours and then both went to work this morning at 6. Needless to say, we'll sleep well tonight. Well, that's the update. Pretty boring I know. We're excited to make our big trips at Christmas especially since this is most likely the last Christmas time trip we will make. Plane tickets are just too expensive. We think Christmas should be at our house next year. We would have to squeeze in, but at least we wouldn't get cold. So think about it. Everyone's invited. Please RSVP by this time next year.

I got another job

So...the receptionist at Aria Salon just moved to Houston and she wasn't just the Aria receptionist, she was the head cashier at OFfice Max. Another cool thing is the manager at Office max is Shawn's (a girl I work with at Aria) boyfriend. So....I applied and the next day I took the drug test and background check and then the day after that I was hire on officially! So I start Friday. I'll be working from 7:30 a.m. - 2:00 pm at office max and then I'll be working 2-7 at Aria Salon and Spa. So...hopefully once business picks up at Aria I'll lessen my hours at Office Max....but if it doesn't pick up soon, at least I'm making guaranteed wage at Office Max....so I won't have to worry about overdrafting our account everytime I Get gas! Oh and another cool thing...I'll be getting paid 3x the ammount I'm getting paid at Aria in a week and Chuck Norris shops at the office max I'll be at! Cool huh? Well...I'm nervous cuz I think i'll be exhausted, but we need the money and Bryce has school so that's just up to me! wish me luck!

update

Hey, sorry it's been awhile. things have finally slowed down here. My parents came and visited for my birthday and Bryce made me an eisel!!! Cool huh? So now I'm officially an artist! lol. well work sucks, i have next to nothing at work which means about $50-$100 a week...not exactly enough but lucking bryce is making about $125 every 2 weeks so we have just enough for the bare essentials! So i'm job hunting again. I'm trying to pick up another job and can i just tell you my resume sucks unless i'm applying for a hair job? I've worked at 5 salons in the last 31/2 years and that's it! lame! I love it, but for a resume or application....not so good. I HATE filling our applications! Do most people remember exactly when they start a job and leave? do they really know addresses to all of their refrences and the address to their high schools? Rediculous! haven't these people of the "internet?" I mean come on....if they really care that much about the street address of a persons middle school...LOOK IT UP! Oh well...whatever. Anyways...I hate it and i know that it's going to be bitter sweet if I do get anotehr job...more work, less time with Bryce ( I didn't think that could happen) but we need it and that's that.
School's going good for Bryce...busy but good. He enjoys it and so I'm happy for him, but I never get to see him and he's always saying he wishes I got home later so he wouldn't feel guilty staying at school and getting more work done instead of coming home around when I do (usually 4 or 5). He says I'm a distraction, but I think it's mainly the x box (our new halo 3 donated to us by some friends) and TV. :) I hope all is well for everyone!

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Vintage photos - Vintage pictures

updates

This is what our kittens when we shut the door to our room so we can go to sleep. It's too cute. If we're anywhere near the door they'll try to grab us! Its' so precious!

No this is not upside down...The cats have found a hole in the bottom of our box spring so everynight as we're getting ready for bed they play up there...this is Jasper tumbling out!
Our cats are pretty much ALWAYS together...it's pretty cute...they'll often be found spooning together on the couch or sleeping on the others bum.

Well...not much is new...I'm on the volleyball team for our ward and Bryce played last week because one of the girls wasn't feeling well. It's a coed team and is SO much fun! Tomorrow's the tournament...but we're playing an undefeated team without one of our key players, so we probably won't place, but it's cool that we made it to the tournament! :)
Work is going alright...not busy enough for my liking, but I know it'll take some time to build my clientele up AGAIN! Bryce is crazy busy with school...his midterm was due today so this week has been nuts. He was probably at school at least 13 hours every day. 2 nights he left at 5:00 am and got home at 8:30 pm. It was lame! We don't get much time together because right when he gets home he starts working on the house, but in a few weeks we'll have 90% of the house done so we'll get to hang out more, which will be nice. The place is looking great....we ran out of crown molding AGAIN so we'll have to buy another bundle of that, but for the most part everything but some door frames and crown molding and our bathroom is done! It feels good to be done with the big jobs!
Hmm....what else??? I think that's about it...my birthday is on the 15th and I'll be 22....I still feel 18 so that's kinda weird! My parents are coming for my birthday and I can't wait! I'm so excited to have a few days with them and that we have a guest bedroom and bathroom for them! How cool! Well I think that's about it. Oh and you know that rumor that it's ALWAYS HOT in Texas? Well...it's not true...it has gotten down to 59 degrees this week...Bryce and I have been freezing our butts off becuase all of our winter stuff is in storage and we haven't taken the time to get it out. Man...I thought we were done with cold! I swear it follows us. Everyone here LOVES it becuase it's not normal...but we hate it!
Sorry about all the cat pics. I'm totally in love with our kittens and honestly, we don't have much else to take pictures of! When the place is done I'll post more pics or things other than our cats!

still going...

So we still work on the house pretty much every day after work/school...but luckily we're ALMOST finished with the big stuff, so it's just little things...like making pot racks, hanging up clocks...shopping for little things that I've always wanted. I finished most of the kitchen walls...now we're just left with baseboards/crown molding in the kitchen, and everything in the 2 bahtrooms...since we haven't touched them! We're not going to touch the base boards in the kitchen until we get the floors done, which will probably be like 3-4 months since we won't have the money for them until then. We ran out of our1,500$ budget so we're kinda stuck at the moment. Work is going alright...slow but alright. It'll pick up eventually and I know I will LOVE it when it does. Bryce is constantly reading...it's rediculous how much reading he's assigned...like 500 pages a week or something crazy....and it's not like Dr.Seus or anything...it's Karl Marx and stuff like that! He's amazing and still finds time to support me at my volleyball games (I'm on our wards volleyball team.) Oh...and PS....we're in nursery and are in charge of 10 kids every Sunday for 2 hours straight. It's pretty hectic and chaotic but It'll be good for us to have that kid time together. It makes the thought of having 1 kid look like a piece of cake after all those kids! Anyways...that's about it....hope all is well for everyone!

Jasper chilling (look at his legs) what a dork

Jasper asleep with his hammer..

Jasper, our little tool cat

The pot rack we made

The clock I looked everywhere for! Iwanted one to go right on the wall and finally found one at hobby lobby but the numbers were cheap vinyl and looked lame so I bought wooden numbers spray painted them and roughed them up...we love it, but it's not a very accurate clock to go by!

it's getting there...slowly but surely

The cats are exhausted.....
I can't imagine why?!!! They loved these...I had to yell and remove them BOTH at least 4x before they actually stopped, but I've got to admit...it was hilarious watching them hang from the curtains!

Painting our bedroom...Bryce was frustrated so I wrote him a little love note!

Although we might look happy...we're not...maybe excited (TO BE DONE) , but not happy

It's official....we're home owners...we bought a lawnmower for our dead lawn! :)

Bryce cutting base boards (no shoes, now saftey goggles, no problem)

this is what Bryce did when I said smile...but notice the door frame behind him? doesn't it look good? He's amazing!

Bryce nailing up some crown molding

Bryce's office #1

And again, but sideways...:) oops

office #2 (the cool red door!)

Bryce really wanted a red wall, so he got one! All we need in the office is our crown molding and the other door red and the corner pieces put in and it's done!!!

The guest bedroom (just painted it today) Bryce is putting the baseboards in there right now. I can't wait to set it up so it's not just where we store everything!! It'll be nice!!

Bryce framed 2 of these mirrors that were here...the frame before was just like the crappy crown molding....ugly and cheap!

living room aka: stash crap room as of now

crown molding not done yet (the red doesn't really look orange in real life!)

Our bedroom, new window treatments

one of the 2 nightstands I made (and designed) :) I love them!

our bed, and the newly made headboard/night stands. Oh and double click on this picture and you'll see the holes with light shining through...pretty nifty (and time consuming)

Thus far....

So far we've......
removed strips holding panels together, removed cheap door/window frames and crown moulding (if you can even call what they had that), caulked the seams where the strips were, scraped off old paint,primed, textured, primed again, and painted (2-3 coats) in the living room, bedroom and office. We've also finished the baseboards (including painting them), door frames and window frames in those rooms. We also removed the rest of the strips in the house, painted the door frames white, and hung up our stuff in the living room. On top of all of this, we've also made 2 night stands and most of the head board, both of which I somewhat designed. Bryce caulked the seams in the guest bedroom yesterday and I primed it today and so tomorrow I'll be texturizing that room...fun fun! It's been a busy busy couple weeks.
Bryce started school today so now i'm left on my own until 7 pm every night to do everything. Today I got stuck becuase I coudln't get the drill bit off the drill! Oh man....this whole doing things on my own isn't looking so good so far!! :) Anyways, all is well and looking wonderful...thus far. I'll post pics when we're finished which will hopefully be in the next 3 weeks!

Howdy from Texas!

well we made it. 16 hours on the road with the kittens crawling all over me and no sleep....not exactly the best trip ever, but we made it. It was fun walking into our home for the first time...scary, exciting, but fun. We got there around 5:00 saturday evening and started going....we tore off the wooden strips holding the paneled walls together, tore off the window frames and door frames, tore off the crappy crown molding (cheap wood to cover the 1/2 inch gap between the walls and the cieling) and called it a night. Then we caulked the seams where the strips had been and primed and textured and primed again. Then we painted the office, living room and our bedroom (2-3 coats) each room, and deep cleaned the house since the people who previously owned it left it trashed! So by wednesday we had everything (except the basboards and crown moulding) done in the master bedroom, office and living room so we could move our stuff in. we had the 26' truck for 6 days so we wanted to get all the texturing done so we wouldn't get it on our furniture. we had some frineds from our AWESOME ward help us move it all in and it went quite smoothely other than the fact that it was 103 degrees and humid as heck. Today we're putting up the baseboards and possibly crown moulding and then we'll finally be able to put things where they belong instead of in the middle of the floor! we love it here so far and the people are AWESOME. Until we had our food/juice we went to sonic everyday for our drinks (rout 44 drinks at happy hour are only $1!) and bought 3 frozen pizzas and yogurts for our other meals. Our best friends here (Cameron and Jenn) brought us some spaghetti that was delicious too. they've been so good to us! Well gotta get back to work...hope all is well. I'll keep you posted! Man am I TIRED!!!!!

Oregon Coast family reunion

Kyra me and my Mom about to brave the cold!

Ashton and Tera in the raft!...they caught a big wave...bigger than we meant!

the tillamook cheese factory

The whole family

The Smith Family...Bryce, Matt, Trevor and Sandra couldn't make it :(

Me and Tera...I love this girl!

The girls being silly!

Tera did this pose when we took the camera out!?? who knows....

Ready for some extreme boogie boarding!

My beautiful mom

Chelsey Cossey...one of my best friends!

SO I don't have many pictures of this trip, but this is what I have. It was so much fun. Totally last second, which in my opinion makes it so much more fun. I don't get to be sponataneous much because of working full time. I got to see people in my family that I haven't seen in a long time and it was wonderful. I went boogie boarding lots in the freezing ocean and also rode in or attempted to on a raft....that was pretty crazy. savannah and i got flipped pretty bad 2 times. One day it was even nice....which is weird on teh oregon coast. I fell asleep on the beach and loved it....even though my face got totally fried!! My nieces and nephews are adorable. I had a lot of fun with them. this video is of my niece, Tera dancing, singing and posing for me. So funny. she's a cutie.

Oh and about the hair pics.....I was in a hurry and this is what it looked like. I used to be so against side ponies, but I got a lot of compliments. Kinda funny how that works....the quicker i do my hair the more compliments I get....kinda annoying.

Airport fiasco- So I made my first flight from Denver to Phoenix and then got put on standby becuase I guess they sold too many tickets. So the 2nd flight that went to Portland I didn't make it on and then the 2nd one I did. I was supposed to get to Portland at 10:20 am and get a ride wiht my parents who were getting in at noon, but that didn't work. Luckily my friend, Chelsey, who was going to come visit the beach house Wednesday was able to come Monday instead so she picked me up at 5:30 PM!!!! rediculous! THEN....on the way back.....my parents had a flight at 8 pm on Thur. and I had one at 6:45 a.m Friday. All of my inlaws live in Portland, but NONE of them were there this particular day. talk about bad luck. So instead of sleeping in a warm bed and getting a ride in the morning I hitched a ride to the airport with my parents at 6. I couldn't get a boarding pass until the day OF my flight so they told me to come back at midnight. So i patiently waited and got to the counter at 12 on the dot, but they were closed. So I went to one of the 2 double chairs (which were inconveniently located right by each other) and tried to selep. I slept for about 20 minutes and then some guy slept on the one right by me and started SNORING. what a punk. SO i picked up and tried to find anotehr place....and then another because they were vacuming and then another becuase people were loud. Anyways...finally at 4 a.m. they re-opened and I got my boarding pass. Then thye wouldn't let me through security becuase my maiden name is still on my license. So i went back and it took like 45 minutes to put my married name on my boarding pass! So I went through security and they had to pat me down and all that jazz because my bobbt pins set off the metal detector. Then after I FINALLY got through it was already 5:30 so I ate breakfast and went to my gate and slept for 10 minutes and was boarded on the plane. THEN... I got a middle seat and couldn't sleep for the whole flight! It was the worst airport experience EVER! I got home at 11:00 am. and worked at 12 noon to make things even better. I slept beter last night than I have EVER slept in my entire life. Bryce said I started twitching after like 10 seconds of laying down! Funny. Hopefully I can sleep in real late tomorrow!

funny kittens

So these kittens are the best entertainment ever! It's constant wwf in our apartment between callaway and Jasper. It's hilarious! The other day we saw Jasper drinking out of our decorative fountain, which is funny because they would NOT drink water. They still won't unless it's from the fountain. I guess it makes them feel like royalty or something!? who knows. we have sheets over our couches becasue although they dond't claw them they like to climb them. Well, now a new thing is trying to climb my dress pants....while i'm wearing them. ouch! Oh and one of my favorite things to do with kittens is introduce them to the mirror. It's hilarious. Callaway was pawing at himself all confused and looking around the mirror like it was a window and he'd find himself on the other side. It was pretty cute. Well that's all....3 more weeks and we're out of here. We can't wait. It's going to be a blast!!

Pico De Gallo

Today I told Sierra that I wanted to make some pico de gallo. She looked at me kinda funny, so I told her what it is. She said, "I just know that you don't want to get any in your eye-o. Unless you want to cry-o." It was funny.

our 2 new additions!

callaway in his new home

callaway on his way home

Jasper on his way home


so, we went to get Jasper, the kitty cat and when we got there they were all so cute, so we got two. Now they have a play mate. They're so cute. They're wild and crazy, but we love them. we left our door open last night and they never came in and woke us up. They're 6 weeks old and already potty trained. It was funny....I woke up at 6 cuz I missed them and I just watched them play around. Then Jasper went poo in the litter box, covered it up, but obviously not good enough for callaway because he went back in there and covered it up better! we have a woofle ball hanging from our cieling and they have a blast with that. They meow every once in a while, but it's only been like 13 hours since we got them so they probably miss their mom and other brothers and sisters. We don't know what they are....we're hoping boys, but who knows. I'm glad we got both of them...they play all the time together! I'm so happy, but I have a feeling I won't get much sleep because i get so excited to play with them!