Keys to a new life

Just to bring everyone up to date, since the last week or so has been super chaotic, we are now officially homeowners! We closed on Monday and received the keys to our new place yesterday. We are relieved that everything is finally done! Nathan has his mind set on moving in this weekend, which means that we have to go buy a fridge, clean (both places) and pack. Nathan doesn't think we need to do much cleaning to our new place, but I am seriously scrubbing the place down! It grosses me out not to! So these next few days will be super crazy as well. Nathan and I have been debating paint colors and furniture arrangements and much to my surprise I actually let him pick out the main color that will be in the living room or loft! He picked Orange, I'm very excited about it! It will be a really good color, with our sage green couches we are thinking more of a pumpkin orange. The trick will be for me to make it more contemporary and less traditional (which you can do with some great pillows). We are just both excited to have a home and incorporate our own style!

Other fun news, we will be going to Canada probably over the weekend of October 24th and I have started my docent position at the local art museum. The art museum in St. George is very different from the one in Logan, its a lot less formal which is very different. And yes I can now officially say I have seen an incredible amount of southern utah landscapes. The museum does have a handful of contemporary abstract pieces which I am instantly drawn to, in a sea of red rock landscapes they are refreshingly original.

Cravings and Prego updates

I thought I would post a little blip about how the pregnancy is going and my latest cravings, so far my most intense cravings have been for cheese and eggo waffles, but not together, that would be gross. Cheese is the hard one, being somewhat lactose in tolerant cheese doesn't exactly mix with me, but when its all I want to eat I've been in a world of catch 22 with food. Nathan thinks its pretty funny, when all I want to eat are grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, cheetos, cheese sandwiches, crackers and cheese, apples and cheese, the list goes on and on! Also, for the last week or so I've been wanting to eat frozen waffles, for some reason, they just are amazingly tasty to me. After I toast them I put butter and syrup on them and pop them in the microwave for 30 seconds and I'm in heaven! This pregnancy has been giving us mostly laughs and some scares. I did have a situation about two weeks ago where we thought I had miscarried. I had an emergency appointment with my doctor and while everything looked great on the ultrasound, Lentil was even dancing, we couldn't figure out what happened. So for the two weeks after I had to be really careful because I was a "threatened miscarriage". My next appointment is tomorrow, and I feel really positive about things, and we feel the scare is long past. I also had the chance to go on a maternity shopping spree with my cousin and aunt last weekend, to Motherhood Maternity. I think I bought out the whole store! Its sad when your maternity clothes are cuter and more artsy than your non prego clothes! I love them and I'm excited to wear them throughout my pregnancy, I couldn't believe that I even found pants long enough! MIRACLE!

Ps- Nathan and I have a bet going, he thinks its a boy and I think its a girl... can't wait to see who wins!

We are going to be home owners!!!

Last week our real-estate agent showed us a couple of places that were bank owned properties that just popped up. These bank owned home are nice to look at because if you like one, then you can put an offer and know within a week if our offer is accepted or not and then be able to close in about a month. We like this idea because we want to be able to close on a house by the end of November so we can participate in the federal tax credit for first time home buyers. The problem with a lot of banked owned homes is that the previous owners weren't happy that they were loosing their house and so they would trash it. We want a place that is move-in ready and only need we need to do to it is paint the rooms. So needless to say we have come across some really bad bank owned homes... But not this time!

We found a beautiful townhouse that is located in Washington, UT. This is a three bedroom two and a half bath with a loft that could be either be a family room or a den. Its only 5 minutes from Nathan's work and the shopping district of St George. The neighborhood and area around it is still being developed. We put in an offer that weekend and by Tuesday our offer was accepted. We finally got all the papers for the contract signed by the selling bank so we can take it to our bank to finalize our loan. With any luck we will be able to close in the next couple weeks.

So with out any further delay, here's a couple of pictures that will give you a better idea of what our new home will look like...

The front of our new home

The living room

The kitchen

The dinning room

Looking up to the loft

The loft

Looking down from the loft

Everything else is normal bedrooms, bathrooms, laundry room, storage closets, and a garage. Nothing big to show there.

The master bedroom, laundry, and storage closets are on the main floor, while two bedrooms and a bath is on the second floor.

We are grateful for the job that Nathan is able to have here in St George that makes it possible for us to join the ranks of home owner.

Up and Running!

Yay our high speed internet was connected yesterday and we are sooooo excited! Nathan and I are glad that we can now be on our own laptops surfing the web, oh how I have missed my Mac. Tomorrow is our first doctor's appointment for our baby, and we are both excited to see how things are doing. I hope this pregnancy goes by super slow, I bet not many women say that. I'm not looking forward to labor in any way, so as far as I'm concerned the slower the better. For those that might be wondering we are going to find out the sex of the baby, since we would like to have everything ready for its arrival, and nothing is really gender neutral these days. It will also help us narrow down names, it helps having so many nieces and nephews, we have 25 or so names not to use. The name game has been our most exciting debate, Nathan enjoys classic names found in the Bible. (I've vetoed anything from the Book of Mormon or any church names, I'm just not a fan. If you move out of Utah and you have a name like Nephi, not only are you going to be teased for being Mormon you just made it ten times worse.) SO needless to say with Nathan's classic traditional taste and my not so traditional fondness for things that are original and unique, our kid should have a pretty sweet name! WE can't wait! 

Updates Updates! Read all about em'

It's been awhile since we've been able to update our blog due to our internet situtation. About a month and a half ago we set up internet and cable through a company down here called Elevate. Our cable was installed within a week but we are still waiting for our high speed internet. Everytime we call customer service we get different stories. Finally this past week we decided enough was enough! and we cancelled our internet through them. Our high speed internet will be set up on tuesday, and we are very excited. We currently are using some free internet that we are picking up from someone nearby but the connection is extremely slow and very flaky. After tuesday our blog will be updated much more regularly. 

Things have been going pretty well, Nathan is enjoying his job and he plans on going on a buisness trip to Canada in September. The verdict is still out if I can go too. I think he is starting to get the hang of things. I have been trying to get in contact with a local museum here to see about being a volunteer or a docent. I waited about three weeks before I heard anything back from them and I will be calling them this next week to set up my schedule. 

As most of you have already found out we are expecting! Yup, thats right, our eggo is prego! I am pretty scared and Nathan is super excited. He's been ready to be a dad for a while but was waiting for me to come around to the idea. We were going to wait til we were past our first trimester but honestly its too hard to keep something this exciting under wraps.  This also means my plans for my Masters will be delayed a little, but hopefully not too much. Truth is I would be doing it next year or so if there were decent programs and schools around (Hope I didn't offend any who went to dixie). The morning sickness has set in and although I haven't thrown up ( I'm not a puker) feeling like your car sick all day really slows me down. Rather than that our little "lentil" is growing week by week. "Lentil" is what we call it, since thats how big it was when we found out.

House hunting has been interesting to say the least, we found a home and placed an offer but we ultimately backed out of it. SO the hunt is still on, we have some promising prospects, with some townhouse/condos. The homes we see are either already under review or need too much work because they've been foreclosed. Its been slightly discouraging looking at house after house only to be disappointed. It seems that the market is only full of short sales, and since they are the brink of being forclosed the properties are trashed. 

New do

 Two weeks ago I went to the salon with one of my best friends Britt and added some teal to my current do! Britt had been trying to convince me to get some in for the past month after she put bright pink all over in her hair. They are actually hair extensions made from real hair, so they will not fade or ruin your actual hair by dying it this color. I'm glad Nathan is so supportive of my funkiness! 

Our temporary home in St. George

The bathroom, its kinda small but serves its purpose

The backyard complete with a patio
The master bedroom, I love the his and her closets, we had them our old place
The dining room, down the hall and to the right is the bedroom
The living room, through the doorway is the kitchen
A view of the fabulous kitchen
Another view of the kitchen with all new appliances
The front of our new place, this is our door.