11.16.2010

UPDATE!!!

So nothing terribly exciting has been happening over here besides some new house additions. I figured I should blog about something since I haven't blogged in forever!

The only remaining three plants in our front yard have decided its fall in all of like 5 days.... look how red they are! On a related note, landscaping is coming along. We are hoping for a completion of early next year.
But other places it looks like spring. For those of you who don't live here in northern california, winter brings green green green! The only season that is brown here is fall.
So before the time change this is what it looked like coming home. That is one of the entrances to our neighborhood. The clouds were always so pretty! But now I come home in the dark, its awful! :(
So as some of you know, we don't really like our front entry way. You come in the front door and you either have to go down to the garage or come up to the rest of the house. We changed the door shortly after moving in and added wall sconces. We are now to the point were we added an entry table and some paintings. I am liking the entry more and more every day! Bryan even picked out that lovely rug in the entry way.


9.22.2010

Landscaping!

As some of you know, we have started the landscaping of our yard. Here is the overall plan we have for our yard. The front yard is on the right with our driveway in gray. The house is more or less in the middle and is that large blank area.

We are in the process of making a few modifications. Work has already started on site. Yesterday I worked from home and a bunch of trees came down! It was so cool to see how quickly they worked :)





9.10.2010

this is my 101 post!

So in the last two weeks we have had some major changes around the house. We ordered some family room furniture at the beginning of July. Well we finally got it last weekend. The new pieces are the three seater couch, matching arm chair and ottoman and a sofa table. The family room is still in need of a coffee table, but we are making due in the mean time with our 1.5 seater ottoman. We aren't going to be leaving the 1.5 seater couch and ottoman in there forever, they actually go in the master bedroom but they are additional seating until we can find what to put over there by the piano. Here are some photos:


The other giant thing that happened was us getting window treatments. Its really fun to see all the new and interesting things we have been doing with the house. We decided on getting these dual cellular shades for most of the main living areas. They are really cool in the sense that they have a shear material on the top part and a dark chocolate on the bottom. You can choose to have the whole window shear or the whole window chocolate or halfway like we have here or anything in between, or you could have the whole shade up. We are loving the decision since I still really like being able to see out during the day but still wanted privacy. Its the best of both worlds! Here are some photos:
Bryan opted for some wood blinds in his office which turned out spectacular! They really make the room nice. They really do block out the light when you have them closed. I just really like them because it makes the room formal and a little masculine :)
We put these up in the bedroom months ago but I figured I would show them anyways. I was so proud of myself for picking the colors and putting them up. The only problem was I wasn't strong enough to screw the bolts all the way into the wall. So I showed Keven and Bryan and they told them if they liked them they have to finished screwing the bolts in. They wouldn't go in, I have no idea how Kev and Bry did it!
This is our dining room. We got a table a while back but still haven't managed to get chairs, good thing we have that breakfast nook area in the kitchen!
This is our upstairs family room. We have the couch facing in towards the house at the moment but we are eventually going to turn it around do its facing outside. We just haven't done it yet since this couch is huge and heavy and a sectional... its a beast to move!
This is our main guest room. So if you come to stay you are most likely going to be staying here. We really like this room since its our furniture from Salt Lake. We adding a comforter we got from Terry (my Mom's friend) and Bryan put up these lovely curtains!
another shot of our sectional, we love it. We can't wait to get a tv up here so we use this room more. This is going to be our main tv watching room once we get satellite and another TV that is :)

9.07.2010

Yappy hour


So last Wednesday Tanya invited me to go to Yappy Hour with her. It's like Happy hour but with dogs. It was so much fun. It was at this bar in Roseville with an outside patio area where everyone just let their dogs run. The bar had country line dancing inside and a couple of the dogs snuck in a couple of times including Kumo and Tanyas dog Duke. We met up with one of Tanya's neighbors husband who also has a dog. The car ride home was hilarious because all three dogs wanted to be in the back seat and they were all fighting over Aarons lap. As you can see Kumo basically won with all his growling and funny noises he makes. It so nice to have Tanya living close to me again, I forgot how good of a friend she is :)






9.01.2010

Extremely Exciting News!

We are getting our long awaited family room furniture this Saturday and our window converings next Friday. I cannot tell you how excited we are! We have been waiting 10 weekd for our furniture and 4 for our window treatments.... I hope we still like what we picked out! I will definately post pictures of before and after!

8.31.2010

Last few weeks

So these last week few weeks have been pretty exciting!

Front Door

We finally got out front door converted by Door Conversions . We had a solid wood door before and it was really nice, but our front entryway is pretty dark. So we decided to hire this company that comes out and fits your door for glass and wrought iron. It turned out wonderful and Bryan and I are so thrilled. It really does make it feel more airy in our entry way. We love it. Our front door is really tall, that is why it looks so skinny. It is actually a pretty wide door.



Bryans work

Bryan is officially done with training. He got his desk yesterday. He really is enjoying his job, especially since he gets to work with some pretty cool people. I should make him blog about this… because I do a horrible job. But long story short he is enjoying work, he will be getting assigned to a region starting November 1st. He has some accounts now but won’t be getting assigned any big fish until Novemeber.


Woofstock
Tanya and I went to this thing called WoffStock . It was way fun. There were vendors and tons of people. I met some people with Huskies and of course everyone was like “ oh what kind of dog is that”. I don’t really mind because I like telling people about Kumo, but the questions they ask are always the same, how old is he, is he full grows, can he pull a mini sled, do they run away like Siberians….blahblahblah. Anyhow Tanya and I had a blast. Kumo and Duke did too. Kumo was so tired when he got home, here are pictures of his exhaustion. Tanya in the spirit of WoffStock got Duke a tattoo!


Duke

Landscaping

Bryan and I decided to get out front and backyard landscaped. The front yard was already landscaped but it needs a lot of love. We decided to take out the grass and put in a fountain. As for the backyard we are having a large grass area and an outdoor living space with a water feature and fire place. We finalized plans with our landscaper on Friday. We should have work starting at our house in a couple of weeks. I can’t wait for it to be done since we have no landscaping in the backyard as of now.


Other random stuff

My friend Cara got me an orchid and this is what it looked like a couple of weeks ago. It is having a hard time and so I asked out landscaping guy and he said to spritz it with water in the mornings and it will get better. We will see. So far three flowers have fallen off L I made some potstickers the other night and they were yummy so I took a picture of them and sent it to Bryans brother Trevor who had been living in Japan the last two years.


8.23.2010

Decompression at Work

So last week I got an email about decompression the cubicles in my building. I didn’t think much of it since I am new. I figured there is no way the new hires are going to get bigger cubes. My cube right now it fairly big. It’s about 6X9. I currently have my computer set up in the elbow to allow two separate work areas for me. The setup has worked great. My floor is kind of bare, and I don’t sit next to the rest of my team since they are all on floor 2. Floor 3 is mainly a couple of other teams and a bunch of new hires. Well I guess it’s my lucky day because since we have the room Intel is decompressing our cubes. Here is what is going to happen. See the photo below (grey is floor space, blue is desk space and the entrance is the opening on the top left). So I will have two options of where to set up my computer. Everyone I have talked to is going to put their computer up by the entrance to their cube for privacy. I am way excited. I guess this is going to happen within the next couple of weeks!

8.17.2010

Trip to Utah and past few weeks

So this last weekend we went out to visit Bryans family. His younger brother Trevor had just come home from a two year mission in Japan. It was so awesome to see him! I didn’t realize how much I missed him until this weekend. He has come back to the States a man with such confidence, its awesome! He has some awesome stories and insight to the Japanese culture. I love sushi and so I was loving everything he could tell me about Japan and the food and the culture. Bryans Aunt and Uncle from Texas came as well and brought their three kids. I haven’t seen them since the wedding so it was nice to spend time with them. Bryans Dad’s side of the family came into town on Sunday for Trevor’s talk in church and for lunch afterwards. Trevor’s talk was awesome; it was so nice to see him so happy and smiling. I wish the weekend was longer, but Bryan and I headed back to Sac late Sunday night.


Bryans Mom's Brothers family: Cooper, Abby, Kimbal, Avery, Shannon and Grant
Bryan and I with Trev!!!!!!!!!!

On a side note, my phone crapped out of me yesterday. I was already sleepy from traveling until late in the night and on top of that my phone dies. I did a system update and it wouldn’t turn back on. Well since I have the droid they didn’t have any in stock, and they later found they didn’t have any in the warehouse either. So long story short I will not be getting another phone until Wednesday or Thursday after work L I didn’t realize how much I use my phone and not for phone calls or texts. I use it for directions and the big ticket item is the alarm clock. I take naps in my car during lunch when I am sleepy and I couldn’t yesterday because I had no alarm clock. Silly me didn’t realize this until I was parked under a shaded tree with the seat back and the windows rolled…. So I didn’t get a nap L

8.12.2010

fog in august......?

So the weather has been a bit strange for the Sacramento area. Normally August is the hottest month with high 90s and 100s. Lately it has been high 80s with it getting into the 50s at night. It has been wonderful. I ran with Kumo this morning and it was nice and cool and sunny. When I left for work it was warming up and the sun was really shinning.... Well by the time I got to Folsom, which is about 30 minutes from our house it was this....

and on top of it 52 degrees. I hurried into work and put on my sweater I have at my desk...

8.11.2010

friends/work/weekend/house/jobs so many new things going on with us!!!!

Friends

So I have been re-connecting with a bunch of High School friends. It has been great! I have lived away from the Sacramento area for 7 years and coming home to all my friends has been amazing. Some of them I haven’t seen since graduation while others I have seen over Christmases and school breaks. It really is nice to have girls nights again and have people to shoot the breeze with. It’s also nice to catch up and see where everyone is at in their lives. We are all starting to feel like adults!

This weekend

This weekend we are going out to visit Bryan’s family. I am so excited. I haven’t seen his family since we moved into our house in July. Bryan’s brother Trevor is finally home! He served a two year mission in Sapporo Japan and came home last Friday. We are traveling out to Roosevelt Utah on Friday and staying until Sunday. I wish we could stay longer! We are going to their place for Christmas this year and I am excited, this will be my first Christmas with the Todds!!! Here is a picture from the last time I saw Trevor! We went to an amusement park in August 2008.


Bryans Job

So Bryan started at HP last week and he is loving it! He gets to work with people close to his age. He is going to be going inside Sales at HP and I am so proud of him! He really is enjoying work and will be in training for a while. He will get an account, meaning start real work on Nov 1st. He is hoping for an eastern account so that he can start work at 6am and get off at 3pm! I am just so happy that both of us have jobs that we love!

My Work

So work has been going really good. I think my body is slowly adjusting to being at work 9 hours a day. I am definitely not having a hard time sleeping anymore. Have I told you how much I love Intel. Let me see, the benefits, the 401k matching, the working from home option, the free drinks, the free fruit, the casual dress, and the fun stuff I get to do at work every day. I am learning a ton. I wish I could learn quicker so I could be more of a help to my team, but there is so much to learn… In a nutshell I love it. Here is a picture of my desk....

House

The house has been amazing. We have been doing lots of things and all our projects seem to be going well. Our next major project is the landscaping. We basically have a lack of landscaping all over our property. We can’t wait to finalize plans and get started. It will take about 12 weeks to finish and I can’t wait to start enjoying our yard! One of the other things we got installed is a whole house fan, I know I blogged about it before but it is amazing. I mean it has been getting so cool at night here that we are running it every night and we haven’t turned our air conditioner on for days. I mean this morning I woke up and it was 64 degrees in the house! Bryan rolled over this morning and told me he was cold so I gave him a blanket! Can you believe that, summer and we are cold. Awesome! Here are some photos of the house, our new bed and new fans!!!


Nails

I know all of you love my nail posts, but I have to share this amazing color with all of you. It’s called OPI ink and it is amazing. It is basically blue in sunlight and purple indoors. Here are two pictures: Ps- these are not my nails, I just steal pictures from google!

indoors:

outdoors

Scrapbooking

So I have majorly fallen down on picture taking. I don’t even know where my little camera is at the moment. Moving has kind of turned things upside down. I scrapbooked Bryan and I’s first year of marriage and stopped there. I need to start up again and it makes me sad I really feel down on the job the last year and half. When you see me next ask me how my scrapbooking is going so I feel bad and pick it up again, okay? I really need to transfer the program along with all the clipart from the computer I used in Salt Lake. We had it in our office at the apartment and both Bryan and I used it. Well now that we both have our own offices at home, Bryan set it up in his office. I figure I got a computer from work and I could just use that for my office. Well I totally forgot about the scrapbook thing and now I am kind of confused at what I should do….


7.19.2010

update

So things have been hectic! I started my job on the 30th of June. I am going to be working on the Display side of Intel 3D graphics. So the position usually takes about 2-3 months to get trained. Well they are short handed with people being on sabbatical and vacation that they are going to be training me in 3-4 weeks. I am very excited. I always have something to do and I am really enjoying work. My training buddy and mentor are very nice. They are both very helpful. I have set up my cube with pictures and stuff. They gave me a laptop and docking station with a GIANT monitor and keyboard. I have my own phone so call me during work hours 8am-5pm on it if you want to get a hold of me.

So Bryan finally arrived Sunday evening. He and Keven made the long haul from Salt Lake to here with a Uhaul, trailer and our other car. I couldn’t wait for them to show up. I have been doing stuff with the house for weeks. We have officially had keys since July 7th. I have gotten a lot of things done since then, but there was only so much I could do without the furniture and Bryan! So now that he is home, the official moving in has begun. Last night the Todd’s and my parents, Keven, Bryan and I unloaded the Uhaul. It went really fast with 8 people carting things in the house. We got everything in the garage and moved a few things into the house. There is tons more to do, but we at least have everything in one state now. I am so thankful for the Todds and my parents for helping us. It got done so fast, I was amazed!

So here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.



kumo napping in the empty family room

new washer and dryer

kumo helping with the trash

kitchen with plants I just put up

new chair/ottoman that is going in our bedroom for a reading area

6.21.2010

My dear friend Nikki's Birhtday is today!

So I don't normally post anything about my friends birthdays on my blog. I usually just send them a card, text or facebook post. Some friends get a phone call. But since I really miss one friend of mine, she is going to get a blog post. This friend is Nikki. I met her while living in Salt Lake. We meet because of our dogs and I am so happy that chance exchange of information led to such a fun friendship. I have known her for almost a year, and she has turned into a very good friend of mine. She is honest and blunt when it comes to telling you how things are and she doesn't hold back her true feelings. She is funny and witty, and carefree. We share a lot of the same ideas and we can talk for hours, which we have done in the past. She listens to whatever you are saying, and always has some point of view to add to any situation. We have grown to be good friends and I miss her dearly. She was always up for a girls night of dinner and a movie with the dogs, or just simply taking the dogs for a walk around tanner or hiking in the canyon. I just wish that she and her husband John and thier dogs would just move here! Or like she mentioned if I could only just clone her the world would be perfect. I hope she is having a wonderful birthday today, and I wish I was there to tell her in person and give her a big hug! I really do miss her.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIKKI

6.20.2010

Some FUN news!

So a few blog posts back I mentioned that Bryan came out for an interview with HP. Well he came out on very short notice. He called me at noonish on a Wednesday and told me to book him a flight out that very night. I booked it and he left work and hoped on a plane here. He interviewed with HP on Thursday June 3rd. It has been three weeks, and Bryan and I were getting worried. Well on Friday I got a call from Bryan telling me he got the job! I was so excited! He will be starting Aug 2nd. He loved the people at HP and feels that he will really fit in and actually have fun at work! I am so proud of him!

Another bit of news that happened this week was about a house. When Bryan came out for his interview on June 3rd, we decided to start putting in an offer on a home. It has also been three weeks of back and forth negotiating on the price. Well we finally settled on a purchase price on Thursday! Bryan and I were so happy the process was over and were thrilled we got it for a good price. We were still apprehensive since Bryan hadn't been extended an offer, but figured we would have 17 days from Thursday to get him one. Well to our surprise he got one the very next day!!!!!!! The 17 days is the closing period when we need to get all the home/roof/landscape/pest inspections done. So if all goes well we will have the keys on July 7th!
So after all this excitement and three weeks of our lives being up in the air, things have seemed to settle down. Now for all the planning and preparing for the move/move-in. Now I start work on Monday, and so all these inspections are going to fall during this first week which means I am going to have one full week! Wish me luck at the job, I am so nervous!!

6.15.2010

6.10.2010

Some new photos

So I mentioned adding more pictures from graduation, so here they are:


I also kind of re-decorated my room at my parents house and put up some pictures from the wedding:



And of course I couldn't post pictures without adding one of kumo. Here he is baking himself on the deck in the 80 degree heat. He is so strange.