Lucky Girl

I have lots of things to update: my birthday, our new apartment, Buzz's new job, and Disneyland...I promise that I'll get to them soon, hopefully before March ;). I just wanted to share a little snippet of joy from my wonderful man. I can't express how grateful I am for Buzz and how lucky I am to be chosen by such an incredible person. Plus, he makes me laugh. :) What a goof!

To Infinity and Beyond! The start of 2014!

I have a feeling that my blog postings will become a once a month sort of thing...but that's ok, at least I'm writing. I do have an excuse for not writing sooner though. Life in the Carlson household has been somewhat crazy! I will update.

First of all, Buzz graduated! His last semester was surprisingly not too hard and he seemed a little skeptical that perhaps he was forgetting to do something; after all, your last semester in college is usually one of your hardest right? However, he graduated with flying colors and I am so proud of the hard work that he has put into getting his Bachelor's. Next stop for him, big boy school!

What a beautiful man I have!

Next came Christmas! I THOUGHT that we had both decided that we weren't going to get each other any gifts this year, due to our lack of funds. But of course, my awesome Buzz (who is, might I add, washing the dishes in the sink at this very moment) got me some beautiful boots that I have had my eye on for a while. I am one lucky girl!

Spencer added to the Christmas festivities by coming home from his mission the day after Christmas! It was a really neat experience to go to the Pocatello airport and watch him get off the plane. He is still the same old Spence, but he has also changed a lot (for the better), and sometimes I catch myself thinking, "who are you and what have you done with my brother?".  I'm super proud of him though and am so happy that he had a positive experience. It was his first time meeting Buzz too, so that was kind of funny. I was worried it was going to be awkward, but luckily I was very wrong.

Next big thing was our move. Only a week after Christmas ended we were packing up our little apartment in Rexburg and moving to the huge city of Idaho Falls. It took me a while, but I was finally able to find a complex that had a 6 month lease. We like our new place a lot and I really feel blessed and that our Heavenly Father is looking our for us. We have unpacked the essentials, but for the most part, most of our stuff is still in boxes, seeing as we are going to be moving AGAIN in July to Oregon-land.

As a side note, our fish (Timothy and Squish) barely survived the move. Their fish tank broke and it was all I could do to scoop the little rascals into a Nalgene until we could find them a new home. Needless to say, they were pretty happy when we got them into a tank that wasn't quite so squished.

So that's where we are right now. The new year has started. I went back to work. Buzz is trying to find a job right now before he bashes his head against a wall in boredom. And we joined a gym. Say what?!? Yep. I've never been a member of a gym before and I feel kinda cool...we'll see how cool I feel about it after a week of waking up early. But Buzz and I are trying to be kinder to our bodies, and I for one am excited to feel good looking at myself in the mirror again. Sure, the gym is a little bit more money than we wanted to pay each month, but we're committed and I hope that we go enough to make it worth it.


So here's to 2014! May it be full of fun, completed goals, and more love.

Living in the Iceburg!

Here are updates of what happened since last I wrote.

1. Thanksgiving happened. It was so nice to go to mom and dad's house and spend some good time there in Inkom. I'm going to miss that place when we move to Oregon, so many memories. Buzz spent some time taking various pictures of different kinds of birds for his ornithology class that he is taking. I'm super surprised that not only does he enjoy the class, but he's a rock-star at naming birds now! We might do a Big Year someday!

2. We took some friends from the ward and went up to Victor for a fun getaway weekend! The townhouse is one of my more favorite places to go and little baby boy just LOVED the carpeted stairs. He spent most of his time sliding down them and laughing. We went snowshoeing up Teton Canyon, ate lots of goodies and played games by the fire. If you haven't played Farkle, I highly recommend it.

This is Grayson, he's adorable. The end.

Oh my heart!

3. A freakish cold snap rammed its ugly head into Rexburg and now the city is truly Iceburg. I'm a cheapie and so I have a hard time turning on the heat in the house because I don't want to pay for extra heat. I'm kinda worried about our fish (Timothy and Squish) freezing though. Buzz and I mostly just huddle around the space heater in the living room but we finally decided to turn our bedroom heat all the way up to 50 degrees. Compared to rest of the house, it's nice and toasty! The bathroom is also a nice spot to hide out because it heats up so fast...so needless to say I spend more time brushing my teeth in the morning with the door shut than usual.

4. Buzz and I got our first Christmas tree! Last year we were at mom and dad's for the holidays so we didn't bother with getting one, but we wanted some holiday cheer in our apartment so we caved. We both really wanted to cut one down, but we just couldn't find the right time to do it because I get home so late so we went to Brohlims and bought one. Not nearly as fun, but it's a nice looking tree and makes the freezing house smell good.

Notice, that we wear our hats inside the house. :)

Happy Christmas!

Ahhh Cute! Our little family!

While visiting mom and dad's house, I thought that it might be good idea to take some family pictures, but mostly I just wanted to capture the amazing fall colors that were around. Dad was kind enough to take our pictures for us, and he was the epitome of patience as we ran around like little kids and goofed around. I love my husband. It's nice to know that I can act like a 4 year old with someone else and feel good about it.

So here is what we look like in October 2013. Not much has changed, just a few pounds added here and there. I'm still learning how to edit pictures on Lightroom, so this is the best I came up with.

I'm blessed to have this man as my bestie and eternal companion. Never a dull moment.

City of Rocks Trip 2013

I'm trying to remember some of the fun things that we did this last summer. I'm still in the process of going through pictures and remembering things we did, but I happened upon some awesome memories from when Buzz and I made a little weekend trip to the City of Rocks.

We planned out the trip a couple of weeks in advance to make sure that we secured a good camping spot in the park. The weekend was gorgeous! City of Rocks is a perfect name for this incredible place. Boulders the size of small skyscrapers are everywhere and hippies from all over the world gather to hang out, climb, and have a good time.

Unfortunately for us, I forgot that most of the routes require traditional rock climbing gear (trad), which we didn't bring with us because we assumed that there would be more bolted routes. It was a bummer because we didn't do much climbing, but the trip was still really fun because Buzz and I were able to hike around all day and explore the Park. Now we know where to go next time!

Alaska 2013

Buzz and I had the opportunity to travel back to his home state of Alaska. I have always wanted to go, especially since we've been married, but we decided that this was the time to do it.

I can't really describe how wonderful it was. The scenery was incredible, the mountains huge and the colors were vibrant. It was really a blessing to see where Buzz grew up and I fell in love with it immediately.

For a brief synopsis of our trip: we arrived in Anchorage and visited Buzz's sister Kammi's new twin babies. We then drove the incredible drive down to Kenai where we stopped along the way at Whittier.  We spent most of our days around Kenai, visiting family, going on hikes, and just playing around; but we also traveled to Captain Cook State Park and played on rocks and the mud, to Seward to go sea kayaking, and to Halibut Cove Lagoon to spend some alone time with nature and a cute cabin. Those are just a few of the million things that we tried to cram into our trip to Alaska. I'm really excited to go back and am grateful for the family that made the trip such a memorable one.

Now for the pictures...trust me, this trip was a blast!

We look extraordinarily attractive on our tandem bike.

Whittier Tunnel

I decided that I wanted to dip my head in glacier water.

So I did....and it was cold. Really cold.

Our water taxi out to Halibut Cove Lagoon.

Our humble abode! This little cabin had a hobbit sized door and inside there was a wood burning stove, a set of bunk beds, and some shelves where people would leave items that they thought would be useful for upcoming travelers. We left some toilet paper...just in case. Plus, this cabin served as a welcome haven for those trying to escape the bugs!

Apparently this is a famous place...I wouldn't really know.

When it was all said and done, this trip was well worth the money and time that we put into preparing it. So much happened that it's hard to describe it all but I'm so excited to go back!