So my family is coming tomorrow and I'm soooo excited I can't even sleep.  I can't vacuum because Erik is asleep, so I'm blogging instead.
Chris and Beez's wedding was wonderful.  Beez looked stunningly beautiful.  So gorgeous I would probably hate her if she wasn't one of my best friends.  And being maid of honor was so much fun. 

The rest of my time in Idaho was awesome as well.  Nina, my mom and me got feathers, I ate at Panda Express twice, I went shopping with my bff Heather, and I caught up on what all those kids from high school who I don't care enough about to be facebook friends with are up to.  All in all, a perfect visit.

The day after I got back from Idaho was Erik's birthday.  Debbie (his mom) and I took him birthday cake at work, and the next day his family came over for a little party.  Erik chose sweet and sour meatballs, Cesare salad, fruit kabobs, and confetti cake for  his birthday meal.

Birthday ride in his brother's cool car

Erik and I recently celebrated our 1 year anniversary.  It feels like I've been married to Erik forever, but it doesn't feel like our wedding was a year ago.  Does that even make sense?  Anyways, I love that boy to death and I'm so glad we're sealed together.  He's a good catch, all you single girls should be jealous.

Come visit us.  But not this week or over labor day, because my brother is coming then. Any other time though.  Sound like a plan?

Baby

So I have my trip to Idaho, Chris and Beez's wedding, Erik's birthday, and our anniversary to blog about.  But instead I think I'll share this gem with you.  I plugged a picture of me and a picture of Erik into a baby generator to see what our future kids might look like.

I think we might wait a little while.  What mother wouldn't want to wake up to that little face?

Quick Update

So nothing too exciting going on around here, I just thought I'd do a quick update before I head to Idaho for Chris and Beez's wedding this Thursday (so excited!).

Erik:  Erik continues to kick butt as a manager at the business.  He's working long hours and coming home pretty worn out, but he's been making an effort to exercise a lot lately, much to the appreciation of his wife. His birthday is coming up next week.  I'm way excited, he sometimes forgets.  He's serving as assistant scout master at church and enjoying getting to know the young men. 

Shanna:  I'm still working as a camp counselor at the country club (because I went in to social work because of my deep passion for taking rich kids to do outdoor activities) and overall I'm enjoying it. Cheerleading starts on August 1st, and I'm trying to figure out what else I am going to do to fill up my time in the fall.  I was hoping to take a ton of credits, but it doesn't look like my program has many credits available for Fall 2012.  I'm a little stressed about grad school, because the slower I'm forced to do it, the more expensive it will be, so I'm still trying to figure all that out. I've been into crafting and DIY lately, and I'm still working at learning how to coupon and trying to figure out ways to save money, because I do work fewer hours than I expected.  I'm loving teaching the 3 year olds church, and I can't wait for a few days in Idaho.  I get in on Thursday, let's play.

Erik and Shanna:  We had a fun couple weeks of visitors.  At the end of June our friend Kyle came to attend a wedding and stayed for a few days.  Kyle is the easiest house guest ever.  Next time he comes I'm not even gonna clean up the house because he'll just do it when he gets here.  A few days later Zach and Emily and Toby came for the 4th of July.  I was working a lot while they were here, so I didn't see as much of them as I would have liked, but it was still really fun to have them.  We love having visitors, so come see us!
We're also enjoying watching season 3 of Chuck, though we're not too happy  about the Netflix price increase coming up.  We're still going to the lake about once a week, and we're looking forward to our first anniversary, coming up on the 31st. 

That's about it.  I'd put some pictures up, but they're still on my camera and I'm too lazy to go get them, so just reread this post, imagining an appropriate picture with each section.

Grrrrrr

I like living in the Northwest.  I really do.  The people are friendly, the area is beautiful, and we're getting settled in.  I just have one complaint, and for me, it's kind of a big one.  People let their gigantic dogs run wild and don't think anything of it.
Just some background info:  I am unreasonably terrified of dogs.  Like, full on phobia scared.  I attribute this characteristic to two things, the big dog that used to jump on me and knock me down at my mom's friend's house when I was really little, and the fact that two dogs essentially ate my cat when I was 7.
Earlier tonight Erik and I decided to go on a walk.  I had singlehandedly eaten half a batch of peanut butter cookies, and was looking to soothe my conscious with a little pre-bed time walk.  I was also looking forward to having a good talk with Erik where I updated him on America's Got Talent and other important topics.  Our romantic walk was interrupted by this:

Okay, that might not be exactly what he looked like.  But close.

This guy came barreling up to us from across the field.  This isn't the first time something like this has happened, so Erik and I kind of have a system.  Erik distracts the dog while I run or hide.  This time I originally hid behind a port-a-potty, and then when I was felt it was safe I came out and started walking the opposite direction.  CrazyEyes saw me and came running towards me.  I've always wondered how I would react in a crisis.  Now I know I will cover my eyes, pull my body tight, and yell for Erik.  Erik finally got CrazyEye's attention, and I hurried home.
As I watched Erik slowly make his way home, CrazyEyes right on his tail (no pun intended) I saw the only thing that could make the situation worse, DeathJaws, CrazyEye's friend.

 They really liked Erik, so they followed him all the way home, and then began to wrestle on our lawn.  This was the final straw for me, so I opened the window to yell at them to shoo, and they reacted by running onto the front porch and putting their paws on my window.  THEY WERE ON MY FRONT PORCH.  BOTH OF THEM!
I was fuming, and the dogs weren't leaving, so Erik suggested we take a drive to get away, and to hopefully lure the dogs away from our house.  We hopped in the jeep and began driving around the neighborhood.  The dogs followed us for a long time.  Erik led them through a dirt road connecting our neighborhood to another, and that's when DeathJaws gave up.  CrazyEyes hung in there a little longer, which was probably unwise because I was urging Erik to "hit it! hit it!" kind of like I do when I see a spider.
CrazyEyes finally gave up when we got to a main road and booked it, and we drove around a little bit longer to make up for the walk we missed (well, it doesn't make up for the cookie part, but I did get to tell Erik all about the Justin Bieber impersonator) and then we drove home.
When we got home, this was waiting for us on our driveway.

His owners call him Jake.  I call him Lucifer.

I can't get away from them.  Animal Control is well on its way to becoming my next speed dial.

Lake Time

We've had a few weeks of rainy and overcast weather, so when Erik saw that the weather this weekend was supposed to be nice, we made plans to go to his parents' lake house for the weekend.  Little known fact:  When it's sunny Erik has this compulsive need to be outside.  Like he'll walk me to my car when I get off work just for an excuse to be in the sun for 3 minutes, and when he has days off we make two sets of plans, one for if it's sunny and one for if it's cold.
Anyways, I'm really glad we did go to the lakehouse, because the weather was beautiful and it was so nice to lay out on the boat and hang out with Erik.  I even had a boat driving lesson.

This is Erik on our last warm day.  Instead of going to Cost-co we went to the park.

This is the Lake.  It's super gorgeous.

It was a good time.  It's okay to be a  little jealous. 
I've started working just a little bit at the business with Erik.   My trainer told me to smile when you answer the phone because the customer can hear it through the phone.  I'm not so sure that they can.
Come visit us.  If you're lucky we'll take you on the boat.

Post-Move

We've been in the Northwest for almost two weeks now.  I can tell because my hawaii tan has faded back to my normal perma-pale.  So far, things are going well.  We had our first friend-date, which is good because it's definitely time for me to meet people.  Meeting new couples since we've been married feels kind of like first dates all over again.  I try on three different outfits, answer all the same questions, and hope they'll call again. We have another friend-date tomorrow night (that's right, we're players), that I'm looking forward to.
Ever since we got back, Erik has had to go to work and it's been my job to get our house all settled. It's been so much fun. Our house is an interesting combination of things we bought new, hand-me-downs, and thrift store/craigslist finds.  It's my hope that one day I'll be able to combine these things into something semi-cohesive, but I've still got a ways to go. I've been reading a lot of home decorating and craft blogs, but mostly all it does is depress me because I can't upcycle an old door into a Cracker Barrel knock-off headboard, or make Christmas presents for my whole family out of a burlap sack I got at Salvation Army.  I've been trying though, and it's been neat to pick and choose and change every little thing in our home.  Even if it's not what I would have chosen if we had infinite amounts of money, I end up loving our new finds because I dug through junk, haggled, bought/returned/bought again and tweaked all the things in our house.
Being in a house is completely different than being in an apartment.  I thought because we were still renting it wouldn't be that big of a change, but having a yard, a garage, and so much more space to fill makes it a whole new experience.  I'm pretty sure my parents are going to start screening their calls because I call them with questions so awesome.
We're finally settled in enough that we're ready for visitors.  Come see us, we've got a guest bed (minus the bed frame, it's on my list) and everything. 

PS-- I'd like to start couponing, but don't really know how.  So if that's something you're good at, please teach me and I'll buy you a diet coke with all the money we save.

What We've Been Up To

I haven't blogged in while.  I've been a little busy with these:

Brief Update:

1) Moving/Graduating
The last week in April was probably the most stressful week of my life.  I was trying to graduate, move a piano from my parents' house to Layton, pack up our apartment, say goodbye to people, finish scuba certification, and arrange everything for our move.  Honestly it sucked.  The positive side was that I got through everything and it only lasted a week.  We had a ton of support from our friends and family and ward (especially Zach and Emily, Bob Zipf, and my brother Alex)  and the move went as well as possible.  We packed up Saturday morning and drove all afternoon and night, arriving in Whitefish at about 12:30 pm.  After a long stressful week and an 11 hour drive, I was neither looking my best or having my best attitude.  I am so lucky Erik puts up with me.
2)Hawaii
It's funny that two back-to-back weeks can be so opposite.  Hawaii was so fun and so relaxing.  It was great to spend that much time together after Erik and I had been apart for a few weeks, and it was fun to hang out with Erik's brothers and parents.  As evidenced by my blogging, I didn't die scuba diving, in fact, I really liked it.  We went out to eat, laid out at the pool and the beach, and did a little exploring.  All in all, a raging success.  
3)  Our New Home
We are settling into our new home really well.  We love our new house.  I liked it a lot when we first saw it, but I love it now that we have all of our stuff here and we're pretty much moved in.  We had so much help unloading our moving van, it was awesome.  I've been really impressed with how friendly everyone here seems to be.  Our ward is great, store clerks have all been really nice, and people in cars that I don't know are always waving at me.  Erik is doing well at his new job, and I'm looking forward to starting my summer gig in a few weeks.

Alrighty!  That's all for now, folks!  Come visit us.