Thanksgiving in Arizona

Ok, so I'm very behind on my blogging. But Greg and I got to go down to Arizona for Thanksgiving. We had a lot of fun being with family, going to Chantelle's basketball game, playing on the farm, and target shooting with my dad and Heather(she had a bull elk hunt coming up, she got one). Here are some pictures of our fun trip!

Ok, I have to take advantage of my bragging rights now. I will now announce that I had the tightest group of shots on the target out of everyone who shot. Which included Heather and Greg. : )

My favorite picture.

After Thanksgiving diner Greg and I went outside, where we became targets for a moment.

  

 

       

Our house, in the middle of our street.

Alright, we finally have something to show for all this talk of house! HOORAY! Here is what's been going on.

Stake out of our home.

Ground breaking! The digger's backhoe was in the shop so he had to dig our basement with this little guy.

                       Framing for the concrete.

Concrete in the framing.

And finally some walls! You can't really see it in the picture, but we have kitty prints all over the bottom of our floor. He left his mark on some of our walls too. Luckily for that cat all this stuff is going to be unseen.

Birthday Fun

Thank you everyone who helped make my birthday a fun one.  I was able to take the day off, and it was so nice. I could not sleep in, so I got up and lounged around for a while. I got to have a nice visit with my parents, during which Greg brought out my presents (one wrapped in a blanket). Greg was perfect with the gifts. I love my new bread maker. Hooray for no more horrible loaves of bread! Also, I confess to still playing sims from time to time, so he really surprised me with Sims3. My favorite from Greg though was the gift card for a massage. HEAVEN! I also got a super cute watch from Nonnie(my grandma). Later in the day we went to lunch at the Lion House Pantry. That evening we went to Greg's family's for a yummy dinner and delicious apple cake, where I got some nice cards and birthday money from his family. It was so fun to spend a day off with Greg and do fun birthday things!

Snow snow go away, come again another day (in January)

Unfortunately today, I hate to say, we had our first snow. There had been rumors of snow in days past, but Greg and I had yet to see any ourselves. Because of the forcasted snow I've spent the last few mornings peaking out the blinds to see if it really happened. We were lucky up until today. I peaked out, gasped, and quickly dove back into bed. It couldn't be true. It was much worse than expected. There was already at least an inch on the ground and it was STILL snowing! The flakes got even bigger as the morning went on.  It snowed until almost 1 PM. Thankfully it didn't stick to the roads, or the sidewalks. And I'm happy to say that as I sit here and blog tonight there is no more snow on the ground, it has all melted. On a good note it was kind of fun to bundle up in my scarf, beanie, and gloves. And the snow does sort of have a peaceful, stillness about it; as long as it's not a blizzard. I also really wouldn't even mind this weather if it weren't OCTOBER, December would be much more preferable. Our 10 day has a bleak outlook of only 3 days in the 50's, the rest being in the 40's for our highs. So, I'm beginning to doubt this is just a fluke like we were all hoping. This is weird even for Idaho. We are 25 degrees below our average temperatures for this time of year. I'd like to invite Al Gore to stay with us this week, then ask him if he'd like to reconsider his position on global 'warming'. Anyway, so I guess it's going to be a cold one. I have nightmarish images in my head of snow blocking the windows, slipping on the ice, and scraping my car windshield. However it does open up new fashion items, like super cute wool coats. I've really learned that I love scarves, even though I really wish I just didn't need them. So despite being an Arizona girl, I've decided if I can cover everything but my eyes, I can make it through this winter....I guess. ; )

Reception

The Best Day of My Life

Greg kept trying to pinch my bum in these pictures. It was even all the photographers idea.  Our smiles must have started to look stiff, but can you blame us?  He told Greg to keep pinching and he would keep shooting.  All just to get us laughing.  I think it worked. 

 In this picture I used the clone tool to get rid of a hair that was going across my forehead.  I was most impressed with myself.

 Ok, so here are some of our wedding pics.  We have over 1,000 of them so we are slowly going through them.  Editing is a big job.  Greg usually does it.  He is an amazing photographer and works magic with the Photoshop program.  But I've been wanting to learn the program, so yesterday Greg taught me some basics. There's the healing brush, or bandaid, that gets rid of moles, blemishes, weird spots.  One click and they are gone, I wish we had that in real life.  Then there is the dodge tool that whitens your teeth and eyes.  There's the burn tool that I used to enhance my make up and touch up my roots in some photos, it darkens things.  Then there's the clone tool that you can click a certain spot, and then everywhere you brush after that turns the color that you first clicked.  Also when you do black and whites there is a graph that you can go to to make the whites brighter and the darks darker.  It's tricky, because you can't just point and click.  It's sort of all attatched.  Anyway, I'm not very good at the black and white thing yet.  And you'll see in my bridals the mastery Greg has.  It took me all afternoon and some of yesterday to do these 8 pictures, and I can't wait to make them look as good as Greg does.

Clearing the Lot

This is the after picture. It may not look great, but keep looking, you'll find, it really is great.
This is the before, note how tall those weeds are, there was a solid .22 acres of that.

Matthew, using the prehistoric tool that you will learn about further down.
Greg, looking high class. Hehe, this picture haunts him. Let's be honest, he probably doesn't use machines like this too often. The safety glasses really were necessary though, stuff flying like crazy.


Underneath this pile of wood is a literal trench. What's it doing on our lot, we have no clue. Our guess is one of the neighbors had really rotten kids.

Ok, on Saturday morning we rented a weed whacker and joined Greg's dad and little brother with the lawn mower and a prehistoric tool, a weed hacker. Different than a weed whacker. This tool is like ones you may have heard of in the Book of Mormon, or the Bible. To use this tool you swing with full force at a weed. It may cut the weed down if used correctly, but if used incorrectly it may just beat the weeds down, bending them so that when you are finished swinging the same weed is in the same condition as before the swing. This proves to be a very slow and frustrating process. Thank goodness for modern inventions like the gas weed whacker and lawn mower. Oh and the rake, which I mostly used, as well as the prehistoric tool, the weed hacker. Though, as you can see I used the weed whacker as well. It took the 4 of us 2 hours to complete this job. Oh yeah, and there was a breeding farm of grasshoppers in there. Thanks dad, for teaching me how to work, otherwise I would have expired on August 22nd 2009.