Where were you TAG

Kristi had another TAG that has been really fun to do.

20 Years Ago
1. I had just turned 13 and was in 7th grade at Millcreek Jr. High. I was learning how to do my big permed hair without looking like a "little girl" any more. I learned what brand name clothing was. The big brands were, Guess and Esprit, both of which I never owned, and you had to "peg" your jeans at the bottom.
2. My best friend was Leslie Ostler. She lived way up on the hill in Bountiful where the "rich" people lived. She was blonde and wore cool clear mascara instead of the usual black. Makeup was a new exciting thing that I was learning how to do also.
3. I first heard the term, "going out" or "going with" a boy. When a boy first asked me to "go with him" I told him that I couldn't date until I was 16. It took me a long time and a lot of questions later to realize that he wasn't asking me out on a date, but to go steady with him. Which in Jr. High lingo just meant that he was my boyfriend for the time and we would write notes at school. That about summed it up.


11 Years Ago (it was supposed to be 10 years ago, but I added wrong and already typed this section before I figured it out, so you get to hear about what happened 11 years ago instead!)
1. I was 22 years old and I was half-way through my full-time mission in the Illinois Peoria Mission. I was serving in Springfield, Illinois in a companionship with two other sisters. Sister Goodrich and Sister Johnson, both were nurses and would go to sleep at night quizzing each other on the names of different prescription drugs. I spent my entire mission growing out my hair, by the time I got home it was actually long again!
2. During this time I got the flu really bad. Because there were three of us, the other sisters would just call a sister from the ward to either come over to the apartment to be with me, or they would take me and dump me on an old lady's couch in the ward while they went to appointments. I was miserable and pretty much out-of-it for a week.
3. This was the first area that I actually saw some success on my mission (I had been in 2 other areas before this one). We had 4 baptisms and taught many more people while in Springfield, others that we taught were baptized after I left the area. For service each week we would give tours of Lincoln's Tomb. I had an even greater respect for that wonderful President after I left the area where he was born, raised and buried.

10 Years Ago - I was a Newly, Newlywed looking for a job - FYI.

5 Years Ago
1. I was 28 years old and we had just moved from Vermont to Breckenridge, Colorado and were having terrible headaches and trouble breathing because of the altitude change. We went from a house at sea level to a condo that was about 11,000 feet above sea level. Our house was seriously just feet away from the tree line.
2. We were opening a new Fly Fishing School at the Village at Breckenridge Resort. It was a tough process to get things opened and going, but a great learning experience. We were happy to be back out west and felt like we were so close to home being only 8 hours away from Bountiful.
3. We had a guy, Tim, living with us that moved from Vermont to work for Bump. While we were getting things set up he decided that he would rather be skiing or snowboarding. So, every day he would head out skiing and we would never see him, and then he decided that he didn't want to be in Colorado and headed back to Vermont before we even opened the store. It ended up being a nice vacation for him, but we were left with a $1500 a month rent that he was supposed to help pay for - Ouch! We felt that one for a long time!

1 Year Ago
1. I had just turned 32 and I was 5 months pregnant with Quincy. We had just found out that she was a girl and I was really excited about getting to dress a little girl again!
2. We had just settled into a duplex in Bountiful by Viewmont High School and we were planning on staying there for a long time! Gabby was 2 1/2 and Corban was 1 and they each had their own rooms. I loved the house because there was plenty of room for them to play and run around in the basement so my living room could stay clean.
3. My sister, Tera, had just moved to Centerville from Kansas City, MO and I was so excited to have her close by again and to let our kids get to play and really get to know each other. It's so fun living close to family!

This Year
1. I just turned 33 years old. I am not a fan of odd numbers and keep forgetting that I am 33 and I tell people that I am 32. I don't do it on purpose, I just liked being 32 - it's a good age to be. Thus, the reason that I messed up on the 10 years ago section above, I subtracted 10 years from 32 and knew that I was on my mission when I was 22 years old. Oops!
2. We just closed on our awesome new house yesterday! I stay awake at night imagining all of the wonderful things that I can do with the house just as soon as I have the money to do them! Someday it will be amazing!
3. I am trying to get in better habits. I am trying to watch what I eat and am making sure that my kids are eating healthier. I am doing water aerobics and plan on starting to run as the weather gets better. No more kids means no more excuses for my jiggly body! I need to stay more focused!

Yesterday
1. At 3:15 pm I signed my life away at Security Title Company in Grantsville, UT when we signed all the paperwork on our new house. It's quite a commitment, but I am thrilled to have it!
2. I spent the day trying to keep Corban's fever down by rotating between Tylenol and Motrin. I am sick of having sick kids this winter!!
3. I spent 2 hours in a chat with a DELL computer tech in India trying to fix my niece's computer. I had already figured out that the hard drive was bad, but had to do everything he said so that he could come up with the same diagnosis and send me a new hard drive. Good thing it's under warranty.

Tomorrow
1. Hopefully the new hard drive will be delivered and I will fix Sage's computer - yeah for technology!
2. If the weather stays nice I will take the kids for a walk around the neighborhood, or let them play out in the back yard.
3. I will do my dishes, play with my kids and be thrilled that it is Friday and I get Bump home for the next 2 days! I love weekends!

I now TAG anyone reading this! It was fun to think back on what I was doing. Time really flies! 10 years has flown by and 20 years really doesn't seem that long ago, does it? Take the challenge!

What's in Your Purse

I thought Kristi's challenge of showing the contents of your purse was a cute idea and I needed to clean it out, so I dumped it out and this is what I got:

1. Basic, functional brown purse. Bought at WalMart about 2 years ago when I got sick of using Gabby's diaper bag as my purse. I didn't dump out the separate wallet part, that is full of just the usual cards, etc.

2. Old cell phone (should actually be in the little cell phone pouch on the purse - one of the reasons I bought this purse, it fit my phone nicely)

3. Quincy's immunization card. She has her 9 month well-baby on Monday and I always forget to bring her card to get it updated, so I stuck it in yesterday when I remembered.

4. Deseret Book Gift Certificate that I got for my birthday and I haven't used yet. It's in there in case I get a chance to stop in someday.

5. A hotel bottle of lotion that is handy during these dry winter months. I got it over our 10th anniversary weekend get-away earlier this month.

6. Gum, of course.

7. An extra rubber band for my hair, just in case.

8. My ticket stub from the Sissel Concert at Symphony Hall on Feb. 9th - AWESOME CONCERT!!!!

9. Lip Gloss

10. Advil - always need that on hand

11. A Tootsie Roll from the bank drive up teller

12. Baby nail clippers, you never know when you are going to have a second to do some baby clipping - am I right??

13. My hand-me-down Ipod Mini. Bump got a new Video Ipod for Christmas and I got his old one, but it's great!

14. 3 pens collected from who know's where?? The latest was from signing on our house yesterday.

15. 2 pink things - a panty liner and a little Benedryl pill both for emergencies

See, I told you I needed to clean out my purse!! Now what do I get rid of?? Thanks Kristi!

The porch idea

I have talked to a few of you about what I am thinking about doing with the porch and I promised to post the drawing that I did of it for you to look at. Please disregard the color of the house! Bump and I had a coloring night where we were trying different colors on the house, this was a green color that neither of us liked, but I used it when doodling the porch, so just ignore the color and look at the porch design.

To open up the bay window on the side of the house I decided it would look better to add another set of steps. It makes sense for the house and I think it looks pretty good. Remember this is just a quick doodle drawing, but I promised to post it.

We Are Homeowners!!!

After lots and lots of signing today we are officially homeowners in Grantsville, Utah! I will send an e-mail with all of our new information. We won't be moving in for a few weeks, we need to do a few things on the house before we get in. Overall it has been a great experience and I can't wait to make this home our own!

More later...

Porch Idea Pictures

You know, it's funny, when I imagined the type of house I would buy someday and live in I hoped that it would be a cool old house. I like old homes of all different styles, but as closing day approaches I have found out that I am becoming absolutely obsessed with Victorian Architecture.

Oh, did I mention that we are closing on the house on Wednesday???!!! YEAH!!! We are thrilled about the house and I have been dreaming about how to make it even better!

Anyway, as I have been researching the style of this particular house I have figured that it is considered Folk Victorian, or Queen Anne Folk Victorian. Basically a smaller version of the grand Queen Anne style homes that we could never afford to own! You wanted to know all of this right?

In deciding what to do with the porch - because it is obvious that something needs done with the porch - I have surprised myself with the fact that I think it needs to follow the lines of the great Queen Anne Victorian homes and have a bit more detail in the porch than I would normally lean toward. I don't like the whole gingerbread houses with scroll work covering every inch of the house, but I do like a bit of detail work. So, I am giving a few examples of what I am thinking in the following pictures and you tell me if you agree with what I am thinking. Isn't this fun?

This is our house as it is today from the side showing most of the porch with the very skimpy looking iron work. I am thinking that once we update the porch you won't notice all the other ugly stuff until we can replace things bit by bit. Hopefully, you'll just notice the COOL porch!

When I first thought of fixing up the porch I just thought we would add thick columns like those above and put a simple railing between each column, but now I think it looks a bit too plain.

Obviously on this one there is a full floor more than our house, but just imagine it without the second story and look at the porch. The details are just nice.


This is just a drawing, but it looked similar to our house, with the gable and roof line. I like the little corners on the posts. I don't think that these are over-the-top, they just dress things up. This is exactly what I am leaning toward doing on our house minus the gable over the door.


Without the addition on the left this house looks like ours also. We don't have the peak over the doorway, but again, I like the corner brackets on the post. The bottom is a bit too decorative for me.

Somebody over the past 100 years had the stupid idea to paint the brick on our house, or else it could look something like this one, but I think the brick is yellow. I have been looking into products to strip off paint from brick, but it might be a bit of a long-shot. Again, the porch is just dressed up a bit and a small amount of detail goes a long way.

There is also a website that Bump and I found that is so cool! We ordered a catalog and it is wonderful for getting ideas of things that would be perfect for our house. One of the things that would just finish off the front nicely would be a cool screen door. Check the site out when you get the chance, it's great. www.vintagewoodworks.com

Next comes paint color - if you leave white on the bottom, because it's already painted brick, can you accent the gables in a different color and maybe window trims, etc. without it looking stupid? I have no idea what to do there, but it's just so white with the stark contrast of black trim right now! Suggestions???