What We've Been Up To:

We had a family dinner the weekend Robbie and I cleaned out our home in Centerville for the last time (it's still up for rent....let us know if you know anyone!). The grandparents decided to group everyone together for a grandkid picture, and here are the results: We especially like the exchange between sweet Mills and Dax. HA!

Audrey, Eric, Tessa, PaPa, Dax, PaMa, Millie, Bryton, Shae, Tyler, Keagan, Eliza, and Rylee makes ELEVEN!

Dax loved to play in the sand at Sand Dune Arch in Arches. He showed PaMa and PaPa what tractors do!

Sometimes "daddy" likes to spin his little man around like he's throwing a discus. This is what Dax's face looks like at the end of the spin.
My dad and mom, me, Dax, and Robbie at Balanced Rock in Arches. This is where we sat to eat our subs.
He kills me.
Riding on PaPa's back to find the dinosaur tracks.
PaPa watching Dax play with his new toys (more to come on that later).
Ok, so I'm a bad mom. The other day, I was working on the house, and Dax climbed underneath me as I stepped, and I stepped right on his little finger with the heel of my shoe. I felt like such a bad mom! Luckily he's healing just fine, and a bottle of chocolate milk, a bit of snuggle time, and a bandaid later, and he was off to play again!
The pinched finger. It's quite the blood blister!
So sad.
PaMa and PaPa gave Dax this fun little frog puppet with googley eyes. He has a fun tongue that sticks way out. Our sweet, teething son thought it would be just the thing to soothe his poor gums. We didn't have the heart to stop him from making out with the frog.
Again. He. Kills. Me.

more to come....our house is almost done, and I'll post some pics!

By Popular Demand

The front of our home. We are #1A4. :)

Info

The moving company will come pack on August 13, load the truck on August 14, and our stuff will be here sometime by August 20.

The New Place

What a babe!

What happens when you miss your daddy


He was so happy to see him!
Dax's new bathroom
Dax's new bedroom
The "office"
The hallway to his room...he's leading the way.
How cute is he???
The view from our master bathroom to our bedroom
The view from the far corner of our new bedroom
What we get to wake up to...it's ok to be jealous.

Down the stairs
Up the stairs.
Out our front window. Our building looks just like the one you see here, just slightly less orange and slightly more pink. We're one of the two interior units.
Sitting at the bar
The front room


From the garage door.
Half bath.
Laundry.

Crazy Madness

After our super awesome time in Lake Powell (more to come on that later), Robbie and I headed directly to Moab to house-hunt. We found a place, but can't get the keys for another two hours and have been kicked out of our hotel room, so Dax and I are stealing internet from the neighboring hotel (there's shade here).

Dax has been a champ. Until today. Poor kid has lived in a car seat with few exceptions for the past few weeks, and I can't wait until we are officially moved in so that the insanity will stop!

I'll post more later....promise!

Off to Moab!

(this is Robbie writing)

Over the last 14 months I have been looking for a good job in the Safety and Health field. When I graduated from Utah State the president of the university warned us all that our job search was going to be much more difficult than in years past. He was right.

I recently interviewed for two very promising jobs. One job was with Lowe's Home Improvement store in Vernal, and the other with Energy Solutions in Moab. I visited both jobs this last week for second interviews, and felt very positive about both of them. The Moab job seemed more in line with my career goals, however, the Lowe's job was a management position, which would have been a great experience in Loss Prevention as well as in Safety.

As background information, I have honestly applied for close to 200 jobs in the last year. I have had close to 50 interviews for various positions. Despite my efforts, I never was offered a job that paid more than I am currently making (not much). I have been working a job that was completely unrelated to by career goals so as to earn at least SOME income while I continued my search. However, I still was not seeing much success.

Tonight has been a crazy night. Energy Solutions sent an offer letter and new-hire packet in the mail which was received at about 3:00 this afternoon. The position is exactly what I have been hoping for. It allows me to utilize current skills, knowledge acquired from my graduate program, and will provide me with much needed Environmental Health experience. (Not to mention pays substantially more than what I was expecting.)

On the drive home from California Pizza Kitchen to celebrate the job offer, I received a call from the Area Loss Prevention Manager with Lowe's letting me know that I was offered the job. Although I would have enjoyed this job quite a bit, upon learning the salary information I had to turn it down. Had she called just four hours earlier however, we would have been running up and down the streets celebrating the job.

This job search has been so stressful that I had even begun to question my career choice in Occupational Safety. I just can't believe that after over a year of searching, rejection, and stress that we were offered two great jobs within four hours of each other. The decision would have been much more difficult had the compensation been more similar. However, all things considered (pros and cons of each job, location, and career paths) it came down to compensation. And the clear choice is Energy Solutions. We will be moving to Moab.

I have to admit, I have not completely figured out the lesson that Carly and I were meant to learn. Maybe it was just patience, budgeting, humility, and perseverance. But more than anything, I have to say that I am grateful that we have been paying our tithing. We have made every effort to pay a full tithe, even when we couldn't even afford to pay our basic expenses. We are so grateful for the blessings we have received today, and feel that obeying the Law of Tithing has been a huge part of these blessings.

So that's the story, the job starts on July 27th. We are not sure when we will be making the move. But we are excited for this new chapter in life. This chapter of our lives is called..."Not living below the poverty line." Goodbye rock bottom (I hope).

I Wore Shorts Today

I thoroughly enjoy not living in Logan.

I'll post more in a while, but seriously! I LOVE not living in Logan.

Recap:

Things that have happened since February 4, when everything went crazy!

My 25th birthday (Feb. 5)
I got a food processor to make baby food, and a Quikcutz Silhouette (a digital craft cutter....), and Robbie got a new job for my birthday!

Daxson got his first haircut.We moved in with Robbie's parents in Kaysville.

Robbie quit work at Icon. YIPPEE!!! (This photo is on his last day of work).Robbie started work at Loomis, as an armored security guard.

We made a purchase as official grown-ups and bought a new washer and dryer. Hooray!

Robbie got a handgun. He's excited.

Friday night, Robbie's sister, Amy, talked me into running a 10k the next morning with her. It was my first race ever, and I really had a great time! I thought it was funny that I literally decided to run it 13 hours before it happened. Goes to show that I've come a long way in my training, since I could barely run a mile a few weeks ago. It got me really excited to run the half, I just hope I am ready for it, it's coming up quickly!Saturday night was girl's game night at the Robbie's parents. We had a great time playing Farkle, and probably even more fun making up farkle jokes! I haven't laughed that hard in a really long time. It was REALLY funny.

We had a yummy family dinner with my siblings at Clay and Jen's house on Sunday. It was a fun night, and we need to do it more often! Thanks for putting it together, Lindsay.

We found a place to live, and are slowly moving things over. I spent all day today painting accent walls, and I am SO much more happy with it! Hopefully we can get the rest in on Wednesday night, so that we have a real place to live. We went to church there on Sunday, and are really impressed with the ward. It was tough for us to leave our Logan ward and all our friends there, but next to them, this ward is coming in a close second! ...It doesn't hurt that Ally and Chris Sorensen (my best friend from forever) live in the ward. We feel so blessed to be where we are at.