Rick and I just got back from a fun Utah trip. We were there over my birthday. We spent the day at the lake with his family and mine. It was so nice to be in good weather! I forgot how pretty Utah really is. I think I took it for granted when I lived there, but I really miss all it has to offer. I don't like the snow, but maybe I would if I had a garage and took up skiing or boarding. Sasha loves the snow. Rick bought me sapphire earrings for my birthday, and Debbie bought me a yellow purse that is really cute! I've never loved a purse more. my mom got me shoes to match. I was really spoiled this year! I am so grateful for my blessings and family. I am so glad I married into the family I did. They love and support Rick and I. Its such a great feeling. Now we're back in Arizona and it is still hot. This could possibly be our last fall/winter here. I will try to enjoy it as much as possible! :)

Rick and I have lived in Arizona for two years now. We have had some challenges and some good times. I realize that moving to Arizona and being here alone has brought us closer together. I feel closer to his family as well. It is kinda fun being in a new city at times and finding things that we like here. It is also sad when we miss family and wish we could play games with them at Sunday dinner. We teach primary together and then Rick plays the piano for senior primary. We joke about the Primary president having a crush on him because she will randomly wink at him. Then we have opera lady who conducts singing time and always does wrong sign language for the songs. Its like she is competing with the kids to see who can sing louder and longer. We have a great class in primary though. We have a new Sunday tradition (most weeks.) We will play scrabble, old school style. Its fun cause I always win.. jk.

This is Daisy our foreign exchange student. She goes home tomorrow. She has only been with us for one month. We've loved having her here! Its nice to make new friends! Sasha loves her and I think she likes Sasha.

Update since last year haha

So we did get a house. We've been living in our cute townhouse for almost 8 months now!
It was so much fun decorating and putting furniture in place. Now we're at the point where we wanna re decorate and switch things up a bit.
Rick is still moving forward with Grad school and doing very well
We have a cute dog that we got at the end of last year. As silly as it is... she is my baby.
Maybe not Ricks, but she happens to be very fond of him!
We also have started a pet sitting business. Church is nice down here and we're making friends.
The weather is also getting hot and we've been spending a lot of time in our pool.
We still miss our family, but life is much better now that we've established a home :)

House update!

It seems that we may actually get a house! We've got a closing date set for September 30th. All of the loan documents are in, and we're just waiting for the final "yes" so that we can move out of this apartment and into our new house! Woohoo!

Now that being said, I just want to encourage one and all to KEEP TRYING. Settina and I failed on getting 4 different houses...all of which accepted our offers before this one finally went through. It could still fail for all we know. In this housing market one just needs to keep going and trying! We're happy and nervous and excited all at once.

just testing something

Church!

So today was our first Sunday here that wasn't stake conference. We both really liked the ward and made some friends already. The bishop told us, a direct quote,
-bishop "so did you have callings in your other ward?"
-us "nope"
-him "we'll definitely change that."
-1st counselor "we've been waiting for you....we just didn't know it was you we were waiting for!"

It's nice to feel wanted...lol. We also wrote down some addresses of possible houses and went on a drive. I think we might have actually crossed into Mexico by accident. It was a little scary, but we were able to quickly eliminate several houses from our shopping list.

Tomorrow I continue training, and Settina continues working. We'll also keep looking for houses I'm sure. Very exciting!