Time Flies

I can't believe how fast the last month has gone! Not much has happened. I started my job on March 1st and I absolutely love it. In the past I have claimed to like my jobs, it was always just a job to me and making money is always a good thing. But, for once in my life I truly LOVE my job! I'm still learning and will be for awhile but it's great! Here is my official card.

At the end of March I went to my very first Jazz game to watch my niece perform for with her dance group. It sounds crazy, and I have attempted to go to a few games in the past but the weather and sold out games always got in the way. After the game we went to dinner and ate way too much. It was fun to be there with family, as my niece was exiting to their dressing she ran into President Monson and her group got their picture taken with him. Super jealous!

 

Me and Nicole

Chris and I have also been working on our house like crazy. The upstairs has a lot less work than the basement and is moving along so much faster. We are ready to paint, our hardwood flooring came last Thursday, and the rock for our fireplace will be here in two weeks. I think with a little help from our dad's we could have everything but the kitchen and bathroom finished by the start of the summer. Here is a sneak peak of our new floors. They are Hickory and it is called Gobi.

And here is a funny picture of Chris getting the entry ways ready to paint :)

We had a wonderful Easter. We spent it with both families this year. We had our traditional Easter breakfast at my parents, watched conference; had our traditional conference lunch and watched more conference. Then we headed down to the Bybee's to have dinner. We were fed in more ways than one! I love listening to the prophets and the spirit that is felt over general conference weekend.

Hopefully I won't wait so long to update again.  We are leaving a week from Wednesday for Las Vegas for our two year anniversary.  With the luck we have had the last two years on April 15 it could possibly snow is Vegas, ha ha that would not be funny!   

The Story Of Our First Home

This day has finally come.......The basement is finished and ready to rent out! It took A LOT longer than expected but we are extremely pleased with the results. I thought I would post the before and after.

Starting with the master bedroom; which actually use to be the smaller bedroom. The original master bedroom was a really odd L-shape and had the fire place in it. We decided to knock the wall out that separated the living room and bedroom and create a smaller bedroom which also made the living room larger. The master bedroom was the easiest room to fix.

Before

Don't you love the old school floors, they remind me of an elementary school's lunch room.

After

We just finished putting the last window in and still have to put up the blind.

This is the old master bedroom which we made smaller as explained before.  After knocking out that wall we had to build up another wall and add a closet. 

Before

 Sorry these pictures are not the best quality.  That door is actally to a closet that we painted and put shelves and a closet rod in.

After

I can't decide whether my favorite is the living room or the kitchen.  I just love how much space is in the living room and that it has the fireplace.  We still need to replace the fireplace screen which is old and gold.

Before

 

Looking toward the storage room, bathroom, and furnace room.

Looking at what will be the kitchen off to the left and the landing which will have a door entrance.

It's hard to tell because it all blends together but the door on this wall leads to the laundry/storage room.

This is the view from the bottom of the stairs looking at the wall we knocked out.

After

View from the bottom of the stairs.

You can see the new door we put on the furnace room on the far left.  I love the exposed brick!

This is a slightly different angle of the picture that has the storage room and bathroom, which is on the right of the picture that you can't see as well as the furnace room.

The bathroom and kitchen had the most work. We had to gut the whole bathroom. It was disgusting and I should be really embarrassed to post pictures but I am going to anyway so you can see the differences.

Before

The shower was tin.  I can't believe anyone used this!

The pipes for the shower were exposed running down the side of it.

After

Chris did such a great job on the tile!

The plumbing had a lot of issues so we ripped everything out and had to build the tub up on this sub floor.  It was a pain but I feel like it turned out really nice.

And we decided to add these shelves off to the side for linens.

I saved what I think is the best for last.  We built this kitchen in and I absolutely love how it turned out.  We had to fix the cupboards and Chris did the counter tops with travertine tile.  We still have to buy a fridge but we are excited it is finally ready to rent.

Before

There is only one before picture becuase this was all the kitchen use to be.

I was  a little nervous when Chris came home with these....but we re did the outside and clean up the inside as well as lined them all with contact paper.  They turned out better than I could have imagined.

After

That small door leads to a small pantry.

We still have to put the covers on the outlets but I love love this kitchen. 

So that is what we have been doing for the last year.  As I mentioned before it took longer than we thought but was worth the wait.  It was hard doing all the work ourselves but we have learned so much through the process and will never forget being first married and fixing up our first home.  We also carpeted the stairway and re did the landing at the top of the stairs but we still have to paint.  Now on to the upstairs, which won't take as long but I am really excited to get my floors in!

If you know anyone needing a place to rent tell them to contact us!  We are listing it to friends and family first and will probably go on ksl next week (as long as the virus issues are fixed).

New Job...New Year...New Job

I've been terrible about blogging lately and have a lot of updating to do.  And yes, I purposely put new job in the title TWICE.  Before I start into our update for this year I want to recap last year.

2009:
Moved into our house
Started my first semester of my last year of school
Got a job at the Registrar's Solution Center at WSU
Celebrated our 1 year anniversary!
Chris turned 27
Chris switch jobs, from Verizon to T Mobile as assistant manager
I visited New York for the first time
We opened Waffle D'jour
I turned 26
We went camping/hunting
Chris got a deer his first day hunting
I graduated from Weber State in Accounting
Started my internship with Carver, Floreck & James CPA's
Celebrated our first Christmas in our home
Took Waffle D'jour out of the mall

.....along with celebrating many other holidays and birthdays.  2009 was a great year and we are excited to see what 2010 has in store for us. 

So far I have enjoyed my internship and love the continuous learning.  It's been hard to transition into working 8-5.  Not only was I use to switching classes throughout the day and going to work, I was so use to switching my schedule every 15 weeks!  My favorite thing is NO homework!  I have enjoyed spending as much time as I can with friends and family. 

Although it was a bummer to take the business out of the mall Chris is enjoying just being able to go to work and not stress!  Our waffles were a hit with those willing to try them, but the majority of people did not understand what an authentic Belgian waffle is.  So for now everything is in storage until we decide what our next step is.  For now we are enjoying more free time.  Chris is currently in the process of deciding whether he wants to get his MBA or his PhD, and what school he wants to attend. 

We both have enjoyed spending time with each other as well as family and are so glad to have the basement finished.  We will be taking pictures soon and getting it ready to rent out.

Other exciting news is that Chris's sister announced at the end of January that she is pregnant with TWINS, due September 2nd.  They are identical and we are just praying that they make it here and are healthy.  Twin pregnancies are high risk and one of the babies is measuring a few days behind the other, which is a cause for concerns. 

Just this last week I was able to go up to my parents to hang out with my sister in law and three nephews.  We played, went sledding, and ate my mom's yummy homemade pizza!

For Valentine's Chris and I celebrated on Friday because he had to work Saturday and Sunday.  We went to dinner at Maddox and then watched a chick flick.  On Saturday we babysat our niece and nephew while my sister in law Nicole and her husband Marty went out for Valentines.  It was way fun, the kids and I went to pick Chris up from work and then we headed to McDonald's for some delicious sundaes and food.  The kids loved playing in the play place.

Now for the big news.  I had been feeling like I was in a rut lately not knowing what the next step was after my internship, and wasn't sure what I wanted to do for a career path.  One day I decided I just needed to be positive no matter what and know that even if I didn't know what the next step was that things would still work out.....that next week I got a phone call from a job I applied for early fall of last year and even interviewed there 5 times with different managers.  They were calling because there was a position they had been interviewing for!  The company is separated into teams and each team is over a certain number of accounts and I had not interviewed with this managing director in the fall but he had heard about me and wanted to meet with me, the next day!  It was all happening so fast and I really didn't know what to think so I just set it aside in my head, the weekend was approaching and Monday was a holiday.  They made it sound like the competition was tough so I really didn't think I would get the offer.  HR called me on Tuesday to offer me the job!!!!!!  I couldn't believe it!  I start March 1st and will be a fund accountant for JD Clark and Company!  I am very excited and to be honest a little nervous, but I feel so blessed for this opportunity and look forward to another new learning experience.  My current job was really cool about it and they are excited for me to have this new opportunity.  Chris is so supportive and we are really excited for the better pay so we can finish our upstairs!

Also, I really am going private with our blog.  I have everyone's email addresses it's just a matter of sitting down and doing it!

ChRiStMaS 2009

I absolutely love Christmas! We were so excited this year because it was the first time celebrating in our house, we moved in the week after Christmas last year! Our upstairs is still in the works but I put our tree up and loved my decorations even more this time around. We are extremely lucky and have both sides of our family close, which means we get to celebrate with each of them. On the Bybee side it is tradition to get together Christmas eve, have a dinner and open our Christmas pajamas. This year we had prime rib and it was delicious! Casey and Heidi announced that night that they are having a girl by wrapping up cute little pj's for Alan and Kathy to open. We are so excited to meet baby Madelyn in May! Christmas morning Chris and I woke up, opened presents and then headed back to the Bybee home for their traditional breakfast. After eating way too much food and being spoiled with presents we headed to my parents. It was so fun to celebrate all over again. We got spoiled again... After dinner Chris ended up getting sick with the flu, poor guy. That weekend we had another family party at my grandparent’s house from my mom's side. It was way fun to see all my cousins and be with family again. Here are a bunch of pictures.

Every year we take our own little family pictures:

All of us

Taylor ~ Alan ~ Kathy ~ Braden

Cameron ~ Nicole ~ Marty ~ Katelyn

Me ~ Chris

Casey ~ Heidi ~ and Baby Madelyn

This kid melts my heart.  He did NOT want to get pictures taken and fought it the whole time.  But...when Chris and I were getting our pictures he wanted his taken with Aunt Weswee.  He has been on this I love Aunt Weswee kick lately and I am eating it up for all it's worth!

And this little princess gets cuter every year!

I know these next pictures are not from Christmas but I have three little nephews that live out of state that also melt my heart.  We didn't get to see them this Christmas and I had to throw some pictures of their family in here.  My brother will be done with dental school in May.  We will be so excited for them to move closer to home.  We love and miss you guys!!!

Greg ~ Nolan

Shalet

(I hope she doesn't kill me as this was the most recent picture from her blog I could steal)

Halloween 2009

Lucas ~ Daxton ~ Nolan

Dax

Lucas Bug

and sweet Nolan

Playin in the snow

This picture speaks for itself!

Randomness:

Katelyn and Braden Christmas day

Santa Bybee

(This guy loves loves Christmas and makes it all the more fun to celebrate)

Chris gives funny gifts every year to his little brothers to tease them.  This year Braden sprained his thumb and has had to wear a support for it, so Chris got him a wrist shield to equal things out!

Don't we look like we are having fun?

My cute hubby, oh how I just love him!

I don't know what was going on here but it looks like it must have been super exciting!

This was the start of the gift opening and Cameron was having a hard time waiting.  If you look closely you can see him biting the present :)

Chris was really excited about his new wallet, "the big skinny"

This is a picture of popcorn stuff we gave Alan.  We got him one of those 4 foot popcorn machines for his new theatre room! The popcorn machine had to be ordered and was not here yet, other wise I would have taken a picure.  It's pretty sweet, and he was really excited.  It got here right before new years but we haven't all had a chance to try it yet. 

I had to post this because I just love my tree, I told you we still had lots of work to do on the house! I can't wait for floors to be put in and walls to be painted.  You can't tell from the picture but when we ripped up the carpet one of the previous owners had nailed every plank down, so there are nails every foot and an inch apart from each other down each plank :(

And last but not least another picture of Chris.  This was at my grandparent's party, he was reading the bible story of our Savior and the little great grandkids did the skit to go with. 

I promise I love my family too I just forgot the camera when we went to their house!

Thank you friends and family for a wonderful Christmas and a chance for us all to remind each other of the true meaning behind it all.

What a great year, so excited for 2010!