Married with Jack

Since I have no kids, I can't help but take tons of pictures of my sweet baby Jack.  He is getting so big and awesome.. I just love him!

Jack has interesting ways of getting comfortable..

Jack discovered swimming and finally got in... with a little push from Karsten.

He has learned he can usually get what he wants by looking up at me with those big brown eyes.

And finally.. Jack has learned that digging is a no-no.

Married with disappointments

WARNING:  This story doesn't have a happy ending.  Not for the faint of heart.  

Okay, Okay.. This whole time I have been telling stories about how fun marriage is.  We've been doing fun things, we love just being with each other, and life is made of rainbows and smiles.  In all honesty, this really has been how our marriage has been... until now.

Karsten and I faced our first bump in the road.  We have been looking to buy a house for nearly 16 months now.  We have put in offer after offer with no success.  If you are in the process of looking for a house now and think you have bad luck, you don't.  Karsten and I get swooped on with cash offers from investors EVEN WHEN WE ARE IN ESCROW (which is illegal, by the way).  We lose out on houses we love because of greedy banks and awful realtors of the seller.  All at no fault to our amazing realtor (my sister).  We have just had bad luck.

Karsten is better at this than I am.  I tend to get attached fall in love.  And as a result, my heart has been broken tens of times in the last year or so.  Very recently, I thought we found it.  I thought we found the house we were meant to had.  I thought our prayers were answered and we missed out on all of those houses because we were meant to have this one.  I got strong feelings and made plans for our future family.  I was practically picking out paint colors.  I really felt like this was the one.

It wasn't.  The bank got greedy and as of a few hours ago, I found out they raised the price and it is out of our reach.  I'm currently in tears.  Blogging usually isn't the first thing I do when I'm upset but I feel I need to.  Since this is a blog about our marriage, I need to mention our bumps.  Everything won't be exactly as we imagine it.  This is especially difficult for me since I plan everything and freak out when things go wrong.  Things have gone very wrong.

At the end of the day, however, life goes on.  Karsten will wipe my tears and we'll pick up right where we left off.  Karsten and I have a lot of things going for us.  No, we don't have a house of our own.  No, we don't have a backyard of our own.  But I would trade all of that for what I've got now.  

Married in the Spring- March

Weather warming, spurts of showers, plants start budding, and pollen ruins everything.  Karsten and I began our spring but we were sick together.  So, we decided to celebrate anyway.

Of course we celebrated Oreo's 100th birthday.  Who do you think we are?

 Granted, we aren't very Irish.  Maybe just a tad for both of us.  But I love holidays so we did it right.

Corned Beef and cabbage, baked potatoes, scones, and watched "Darby O'Gil and the Little People".  Gotta love the Irish.

Married with Chickens

I have never had chickens before.  Karsten has never had chickens before.  This was an experiment.  We learned everything we know now through friends, the internet, and "Raising Chickens for Dummies".  So when a problem came up, we panicked just a bit.

This is what Karsten woke up to one morning.  Looks like she's dead, right.  Wrong.  Her neck is completely twisted around and in between her legs, but she is still alive.  Even after Karsten gave up and said she wasn't going to last much longer.  We quarantined her then I did my research.  At first, we were scared it was New Castles (which is fatal and contagious) but then we found it was more similar to crook neck.  The cure was a vitamin B supplement so I booked it to the pharmacy and slowly nursing my little chick back to health.

I'm going to make a great nurse. :-)

We have also began our plans for a chicken coop.  This is the one I like.

It's from a chicken blog I found on pinterest.  The couple who built it said they spent over $1000.  Karsten and I are planning on doing it for a couple 100.  Stay tuned for more on chickens...

Married in the Winter- Misc.

It would be hard to get through these long winter months and this semester if you didn't have a few projects.  

Of course I had to start with my new embroidery machine.  My first project was personalizing Jack's bed.  Even though he can't read it, I'm sure he enjoys it.

Next I tried to combine my sewing skills and my embroidery skills.  So I decided to make this apron to match my new recipe box.

Next, I found a flag similar to this one hanging in a house of a tv show Karsten and I were watching.  I decided our house needs to be patriotic like that.  So I went to Michael's, bought 13 strips of wood about 1 inch wide and I painted each one.  My star stencil didn't work so I had to paint the stars by hand and try and get them to match as best as I could.  Then I hot glued the strips to vertical strips with small gaps in between.  Then I stapled the wire to the back to hang.

Of course, Karsten had some projects of his own.  He is working on creating his own army.

Married in the Winter-Birthday

21.  How does someone who doesn't drink or gamble celebrate their 21st birthday??  Well, alcohol and slot machines aren't the only new legal thing I have acquired as of February 9th, 2012.  I am now legally able to own and carry my very own hand gun.  We spent the day shopping online and in gun stores, however, we couldn't decide on one.  SoOo, until I decide which one, I will just have to play with my other birhday presents.

This was a recipe box my mom got me from william-sonoma.  I desperately needed one since all of my recipe cards were scattered EVERYWHERE.

My sweet husband got me this.  It was a steal on Amazon.  I will now have to read the textbook-manual to figure out how to use it.

Among these, I was given home decorations, a sweater knitting machine (also complicated), books, and the least of which, I got..........

 Meet my chickens. :-)

They'll stay inside with us until they are 8 weeks.  Then we'll put them in a coop.  They will give us eggs and hopefully, a little love.

Married in the Winter- New Years

We are stuck.  We are stuck in our married hermit life.. and we LOVE it!  We have hardly done anything exciting.  No vacations.  No special events.  Nothing really worth writing about if it weren't for holidays.

NEW YEARS
We spent New Years as part of the second of a new tradition: games with Karsten's family and friends, and fireworks on a random staircase off valley view.

As it was, we had bad luck and hit every red light on the way to Valley View and for some reason the radio didn't do a countdown so.. we missed New Years.  We at least pulled over and got our kiss and drank a little Martinellis before hitting up the fireworks.

I was also able to make my resolution:

-Less TV, more reading

-Work on year supply of food

-1 service project a month

-1 conference talk a week

-1 hour of indexing a week

-1 temple session a month

-Get CCW

-Learn how to quilt, knit sweaters, sew clothes

-Begin nursing program