Rearranging the house

Mark and I have been working hard on the house - at least relatively. Nothing compared to Peter and Becca. Mark came home one day last week to discover that I had rearranged all the furniture by myself. I impressively managed to move both of our heavy couches and two large bookshelves. The house looks so much nicer now. The layout is just a bit more inviting and functional. I should have taken some before pictures, but alas, I forgot. We hung up all of our artwork, so the walls aren't so bare. And I decided to store my books in the glass front cabinets in the dining room since I don't have any fine china to display. Also, I went through our basement and cleaned out all the boxes. Now everything either has a place in the house or is in the crawl space. Mark painted our rusty front railing, and it looks so much nicer. We planted strawberries in our garden, as well as some herbs: chives, oregano, basil and parsley. I also went through and refined our organization in the kitchen to make it much handier. I did the same with the garage, and organized the pegboard with Mark's tools as an early Father's Day present. Tomorrow, I shall even build a custom tiered shelf for my spices with Mark's help. I'm realizing that organization is really the key to have a clean house. The mantra: "A place for everything, and everything in its place." keeps running through my head. 

Memorial Day

I had a very good Memorial Day. Mark went in to school for the day, so Matthew and I were without a car. But even that couldn't stop us. I checked the local classifieds, and the only yard sale listed just happened to be in my neighborhood. So, Matthew and I went hunting and found treasure! To be specific, we found Final Fantasy VII for only $1. Mark has been talking for ages about how he wants it, so I decided to surprise him. I also found a nice copy of The Origin of Species for myself. Then we were off to Ace Hardware to buy sprinkler heads. Then we stopped by at Walmart and bought groceries. As we left Walmart, I couldn't help admiring the petunias, so decided to buy some. Lastly, on the way home, we passed by a house that had a bunch of free stuff (leftovers from a yard sale, I think) and the couple was so nice. They saw Matthew and fished around the garage for any baby things they had. I ended up with a pair of shoes and a Superman costume for Matthew! I was amazed at how much stuff I was able to fit into my stroller basket. To top of our holiday, we went to my grandparents' house for dinner. Grandpa cooked some delicious steaks, and Grandma made an amazing blackberry cobbler. Matthew was the entertainment of the night. He decided that that moment was the perfect time to learn how to spin.

Here, Kitty.

Aaron and Mark

My petunias

Kirby Chambliss

The Air Show

The Hill Air Force Base Air Show was this weekend. Luckily, Mark has some connections through his work. PP& G, the paint company that works with the base, and their distributor AIS are both sponsors for the air show. They hosted an open house on Thursday at the Ogden airport for us to go see some of the planes and meet the pilots. To be honest, their were only 8 planes there so I was a little dissapointed. But it was still fun. We got to sit in one of the bi-plane stunt planes. If it wasn't considered a conflict of interest, Mark would have been able to go up in the two-seater stunt plane. Alas, the government has this thing against bribes.

So we saw one of the Red Eagles' stunt planes. The pilot was so very nice, he's in the third picture with Matthew and me. He was so good with Matthew. We also saw the Red Bull stunt plane flown by Kirby Chambliss. We saw his performance at the air show, and he was amazing. I'll have to post a video later. His plane would literally look like it was falling out of the sky. I think the P-51 Mustang is a really good looking plane. We also go to see two MiGs take off. PP&G also sponsored a dinner at a nice steakhouse at the airport. The steakhouse overlooks the runway, and we got lucky and they parked two Osprey helicopters right in front of us. They parked, sat for half an hour, and then took off again. And then only one came back. Strange, but fascinating to watch. Luckily Matthew was well behaved at dinner because we were at a nice steakhouse, and he was the only child there.

The air show itself was a bit of a dissapointment. We went with my brother Aaron. After entering in through the metal detectors, the crowd is funneled through a C-5 cargo plane. The C-5 is gigantic to say the least. The coolest part is the cockpit area in the front of the plane folds up, so they can load from both the front and the back of the plane. So we walked in through the rear loading ramp and out through the front loading ramp. Crazy. The performances were really neat, though we only saw 3 or 4. Unfortunately, it started to rain and was super windy, so they delayed the air show. Then it really started raining, so we figured they would cancel and decided to go home. We were drenched by the time we got to the car. We got home just in time to here the Thunderbirds flying overhead to kick of the restart of the air show. Oh well. Next time we will pay closer attention to the weather.

The Red Eagles plane

Me and Tom Cruise

Kirby Chambliss' plane

P-51 Mustang

The Osprey



Happy Birthday, Matthew!

Matthew's birthday was on the 9th. Now I have a 1 year old! Crazy. We went to the doctor the other day, and found out that he weighs 21 pounds and is 29.5 inches tall. I decided to keep his birthday low key. We had my grandparents over for dinner. I made Matthew's favorite: pasta primavera and peas. Matthew understood the concept of opening presents better than at Christmas. He got plenty of presents, that's for sure. I went a little overboard and got him some dress shirts, pajamas, a toy piano, and some books. Mark's parents got him some cute clothes and a toy gumball machine, which he loves. My parents got him some darling clothes and a toy chest. And my grandparents got him a movie, and a ball that lights up if you throw it down hard enough. Needless to say, a ball that lights up when you throw it quickly topped Matthew's list of favorite things. On his actual birthday, I decided to make cupcakes so I wouldn't have so much leftovers.Then on Sunday we had Mark's family over: his sister, Anna; his brother, Michael; his cousin, Matt Dunstan; and his cousin's wife, Kate. Anna gave him some more clothes and some dino shoes. Matthew rather enjoyed having everyone dote on him, and loved having more cake.

Playing catch with Great-Grandma Pingel

What's inside?

Mommy and Daddy

Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Pingel

He loved the gumball machine.

In his new pajamas

Dino shoes from Aunt Anna

With Matt Dunstan

With Aunt Anna and Uncle Michael

Is that for me?

The Lawnmower

We finally bought ourselves a lawnmower. Mark wasn't sure about what kind he wanted. He borrowed a reel mower from his boss to try it out. Unfortunately, his boss hasn't used it in years, so it was too dull to cut anything. After thinking it over, Mark decided to get a motorized lawnmower. I think he was worried about the reel mower not being able to handle sticks very well, and our yard is full of sticks. Mark also got a weed whacker, so our yard will hopefully be looking nice this summer. That is, if we can get the sprinklers to work.

Adams Canyon

On Friday, Mark and I took Matthew for a hike in Adams Canyon. Mark and I last did this hike in September 2009 when we were newlyweds. Suffice it to say, that hike did not go well. I have the scar to prove it. This time, we came prepared and it was much more fun. Matthew enjoyed the backpack carrier We forgot to strap him in all the way, so during the first part of the hike he was leaning like crazy. Once we got that fixed, it was smooth sailing. When we got to the end of the hike, we had to cross through stream to actually see the waterfall. Since it's runoff season, there was no way to walk across without getting your shoes all wet. Boy, was that water cold. Next time, I think I'll bring a spare pair of socks.