Rillz and Mindy

Signs I am turning into a full blown adult...

2012-01-14T11:59:00.000-08:00

I just turned 26 and I think I lost my adult virginity. This is why...
* I wore knee high tights for the first time (I only think of old church going ladies wearing those, no offence).
*I enjoy listening to NPR (national public radio). NPR screams nerd and business people to me.
*Went pants shopping in the junior department and they only covered half my ass. (Unfortunetely I am no longer into feeling the breeze from behind) :)
*I made myself a dentist appointment with a dentist I chose.
*I actually feel excited to go to school to expand my knowledge in my career. (A career has not been in my thoughts before)
*The worst, this morning I ran out into the driveway with my robe on as Rillz was leaving for work just to give him a Multi vitamin. Yep, just for a freaking multi vitamin.

I, Melinda Jean Rivera, am becoming an adult.

year 2011

2012-01-11T15:22:00.000-08:00

I started writing another post and my computer crashed on me. It has been over 4 weeks since I have had my laptop working correctly. It is fixed, thanks dad, but I wont get it back until Saturday. So, therefore, I am doing another kindle post (which is much harder than a laptop to type on). I decided to write on events and prices of 2011. So in the future I will have it for my kids to look at and compare (that is if the world continues after 2012). Haha.
Prices (based on national averages)
Gas: $3.89
House rent: $955.00
New house to buy: $202,100
Bread: $1.98
Gallon of milk: $3.39
Dozen eggs: $1.25
Wages: $40,925
Unemployment: 9.2 %
Movie ticket: $8.20
First class stamp: 44 ¢
College tuition: $7,605

Also, I have already 1/2 way completed one of my new years resolutions. The dentist. As fate has it, 2 days ago a bottom tooth chipped. So it helped kick my butt in gear and find a dentist. My appointment is next Thursday (the 19th). I may pee my pants a little that day out of nervousness! Wish me luck!

1st Birthdays

2012-01-04T11:05:00.000-08:00

Rillz and I had 2 nieces and 1 nephew who had their first birthdays in 2011.
Brecken Miller turned one. Happy Birthday! We celebrated it on the 4th of July. Hence the awesome firworks cake! This little dude popped out having a strong personality. He loves making people laugh. Brecken is the toughest and most prone accident baby I have known. He went through a phase of hitting his head against people/walls/floor. Gunnar better watch out because this kid is a brick! But on the other spectrum... Brecken is also a HUGE cuddle bug! I love that when Rillz and I see him he wants hugs and kisses and just to snuggle. We love this sweet boy!

Before fireworks. The mosquitos attacked us all that night.

These two are so cute together.

Gracey Noone - The week before our wedding our niece turned 1. In the hawaiian culture the 1st birthday is the biggest! Gracey had a party in hawaii with 300 people! Wow. Can't wait for my baby to turn 1. Yikes. For whatever reason I didn't get any pictures. They live in Florida so we don't get to see her often. She is a very loved little girl!

Camden Tracy - In her first year this little girl has racked up the frequent flyer miles! This girl just melts our hearts. She really transformed into a little character. She was a difficult little thing with not much emotions for a while. But then one day Camden just became this little bundle of joy. She had so much personality just sprout over night! There is just something about her that has the sweetest little spirit that is so calming when your with her. We just can't get enough of her. Rillz named her Lani Girl! We love little Camden!

Can you tell from the pictures someones mommy loves Zebra pattern!?!

Camden ate her cupcake with a spoon. Didn't want to get her hands dirty. Silly girl.

When the party started... she wasn't to happy

Love her cake!

We also added a new little baby in 2011!

Brent and Noelle had new addition...

Iris Kathryn Hollingsworth Born October 19.

Welcome to the world sweet Iris!

We first met her on Thanksgiving

Her first holiday... Halloween
Sideways picture (oops) on Thanksgiving

Happy birthday to all the babies in our family!

Dog Toys

2012-01-04T10:37:00.000-08:00

Our dogs got toys for christmas.

Fun for dogs...

Not fun for humans...

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-02T10:33:00.000-08:00

I have really been wanting to catch up on this years blot posts but working 15 hour days for the last couple weeks has really left me no time for anything. So I will post this for now from my kindle.
I was looking at my new years resolutions from last year and was pretty proud that all but one had been accomplished. We got engaged, married, worked out more and Rillz moved up in his job. It was a very successful year. Of course the highlight being the wedding. For this year Rillz's goal is to do his absolute best at work and eventually get promoted again. My goals are to continue my education (this is what I didn't accomplish in 2011), establish a family doctor and dentist (I am freaked out by the dentist so this is a big one for me), continue to save with couponing, take care of my little garden, and the biggest one for Rillz and me is to have no credit card or motorcycle debt, and have a baby (obviously we cant totaly control this one, but still a goal). We are excited to see what 2012 has in store for us.

Christmas gifting

2011-12-22T11:59:00.001-08:00

At least 4 weeks before christmas...

me "What should we get your parents for christmas?"
Rillz "I don't know"
me "What about Idaho coffee or something?"
Rillz "No, they have the best coffee in the world. Don't worry about it. We don't need to get them anything."
me "Ok then..."

The morning 4 days before christmas

Rillz "I need to get my parents something"
me "You said we weren't getting them anything"
Rillz "Yeah, but we should... What about a bag of coffee or something?"
me.... no comment.....

Lesson learned.

Breakfast Cranberry-Walnut Quinoa Cookie and x-mas gift

2011-12-18T12:27:00.000-08:00

I was reading Bon Appetit magazine yesterday and saw a recipe for Breakfast Cranberry-almond Quinoa cookie and said I must try that! So I did.

I had to make alterations to what I had on hand. Used white flour instead of white whole wheat flour, used coconut extract instead of almond extract and used walnuts instead of almonds.

These turned out so yummy! Definitely a good breakfast cookie. Not very sweet and kind of bready. I was just so curious because Quinoa in a cookie?!? But, yes, it really is tasty and a nice consistency.

This is a christmas gift I made for my 2 best girlfriends. I found the mason jar with a handle at goodwill for $ .25 a piece. Etched the beehive in the glass with etching cream. Kristi found the honey dippers for $2 a piece at a craft fair that she was selling jewelry at. A normal mason jar lid wouldn't fit so I started raiding the lids in the fridge to find something that would fit. The one in the picture came off of a salsa jar and the other one I made came off a mustard jar. I just spray painted the tops black. The salsa lid already had that cool yellow design on the side so I left it. So for a couple bucks and some change... I have a nice x-mas gift to give.

The most wonderful time of the year...

2011-12-18T11:36:00.001-08:00

I love christmas!! We have so many traditions as a family.

*The Caldwell night light parade. We always eat taco soup before the parade and apple cobbler after. So Much Fun! It only gets better with all the babies!

*Christmas Eve is when we get together with my family. A movie and then a breakfast dinner together. And, also, opening the sibling and parent gifts that night.

*Christmas day in the afternoon we always go to my Great Aunt Nancy's house with the Hollingsworth relatives. We play an awesome roll the dice gift game and just really enjoy the company of everybody!

Waiting for the Caldwell parade to start... Brecken didn't have gloves so Heidi loaned him some. They fit just right ;)

Me and my daddy!

Mom, Heidi, and Cami Girl

Me in front of the huge lit up tree in Caldwell

Mom and Dad in front of a bunch of lit up lights along the water.

Christmas decorations are always fantastic to look at and I am strict about the day after Thanksgiving my decorations are out of the shop and ready to put up! They need to be up for the max amount of time!

My christmas tree looks a little sad in this picture. But at night... I love it. I decided to use the old fashion c9 bulbs on it and put less ornaments. (Mainly because I got lazy hanging ornaments). I didn't even try to put the star on top this year because our fake tree is just to tall and goes right to the ceiling.

My stockings

A random shelf I decorated. I just used stuff I had laying around the house or extras of stuff in the x-mas boxes and kinda came up with this look.

Love my bear advent calendar. Just like the one I had growing up! It is ugly but full of memories!

Two days ago my boss saw these light up reindeer that they never use and asked if I wanted to take them home.. Ummm, YES!! Rillz, I, and the dogs went out in the cold this morning to assemble them. I love them!

Aren't these great! We put them closer to the front door because we don't live in the best neighborhood and I don't want them to get stolen.

Rillz staking the reindeer down so they don't blow over. These things were SO easy to assemble!

Miss Malu helping in the front yard. Yes, she has a coat. She gets so cold so quickly and just starts shaking. So Malu gets a coat.

Little Simon boy.

Jersey... she was let out in the front yard with no leash for the first time and did GREAT! She stuck around the whole time. She has been a great addition.

Also, Pandora on my phone has been AMAZING! I put it on the She and Him Christmas channel and just love the tunes! Oh I love christmas music but the radio x-mas channel gets a little boring. Pandora is truly fantastic!

Christmas is in exactly one week! Crazy. Still no snow in Boise, Idaho (which is a little weird for this time of year). But snow or no snow... Merry Christmas everybody!

Locks of Love and Deep frying a turkey

2011-12-01T12:07:00.000-08:00

Two things on my bucket list that I did this last week. Donate my hair to locks of love and deep fry a turkey.

Yep! I always wanted to donate my hair to locks of love. I grew it out for 3 years. This week I decided it was long enough and time to donate it! My hair was just long and unmanageable.

Long hair (obviously)

I will miss it. This has been a long time in the making!

I got it cut today. At first, while in the salon, I didn't like it. I LOVE my hair stylist! He asked how I liked it and I told him I wasn't sure. Looked boring. He became kinda sad. I felt really bad. When I left the salon and looked at it at home, I started liking it more. I think it was just such a big difference to me I didn't know what to think. Now, I am loving it!

The back! It feels so healthy and soft! Loving it.

I hope some child loves their new wig made out of my hair!

Bucket list #2: Deep fry a turkey. Ren and I have been wanting to do this for 2 years now! It finally got done! I don't even like turkey but I really wanted to try it deep fryed.

Finished product

Tasted the same to me. But still fun and bucket list item checked off!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

New addition to our Rivera family

2011-11-28T09:19:00.000-08:00

So shortly after returning from Hawaii we were informed that our tenant in Rillz's house was planning on taking a new career path and moving out. Luckily, he is not moving his stuff out until his lease is up at the end of January. His new job is going to be keeping him on the road a lot. Why I am telling you this story... because he had a dog. A boxer. Unfortunetely, to his sadness, he had to get rid of his boxer. He knew that we had a boxer and are dog lovers. So, he asked us first if we wanted her. Rillz and I talked about it and it took us a whole 2 seconds to both agree that, yes, we wanted her! And that is how crazy Jersey joined our family.

Jersey is 1 1/2 years old. It was nice when Malu finally matured 6 months but now we are back to having a nutty puppy.

The first day we had her she got out of her crate and caused A LOT of mess. Pulled all of Rillz's shoes out from under the bed. None of mine but luckily she didn't ruin any of them! She ate 2 bags of corn and cabbage. She pooped in our extra bedroom. She tore my coupons and binder. Re-arranged our living room furniture. And the kicker was she peed on our bed! Uh. We needed to get her a new crate ASAP! So we did. Everything has been better.

Goofy picture of her and her crazy tongue.

Malu teaching her how to sit and stay

They play under the coffee table.

We call Jersey MJ (Malu Junior) because she does all the exact same things Malu did at that age. We are starting to just love her.

They lay with each other every morning while I get ready for work.

Welcome to the family Jersey.

Spaghetti squash and other stuff

2011-11-16T08:41:00.000-08:00

Now that I have 1/2 my wedding finally posted, before I start on the other 1/2 (just like the first half, it will probably take me month to get that post done) I decided to write about some random things first.
Spaghetti squash! Heidi had told me how awesome spaghetti squash is and I have seen it on others blogs frequently. I always thought "I hate the taste of squash. And all squash is the same... nasty". Well, at the store last week I decided to pick one up. Not even sure why. I guess curiosity got the best of me. Rillz made it last night and we made spaghetti sauce and meatballs to put on top. LET ME TELL YOU!!! I basically ended up just eating the spaghetti squash by itself. So good! Has a nice nutty flavor and what a good substitute for noodles. Definitely a keeper. Rillz said he used spaghetti squash for all sorts of things in school. He even sprinkled sugar on it and then deep fried it. REALLY?!? That is on my to-do list now. Deep frying is the best way to make something completely healthy into something deliciously unhealthy. Anyways I highly recommend Spaghetti squash!

I am a little embarrassed to say this but... Rillz and I are actually pretty dang excited for the new Twilight movie to come out. We didn't read the books but have watched the other movies and come on, you have to complete what you started right?!? So watching that movie will be a must for us.

Can you believe November is half way over? The Delilah radio station has already started playing Christmas music 24/7. I have tried to listen to it but it doesn't feel quite right yet. What happened to the tradition of starting the 24/7 Christmas music on Thanksgiving? I think that date is way more appropriate. So, therefore, I will be holding off on the all the time Christmas station. Which is big for me because I LOVE Christmas music!!! Which, Thanksgiving is only a week away. Crazy! That's all for now.

Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam

2011-10-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

We heard this version on Sister Wives and LOVED it! Thought I would share.

Wedding Day Part 1

2011-10-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

Wedding preperation/ceremony...

The day began at 4:00 A.M. Arlene and Marlou were arriving to start on hair and make-up. Both moms, Girlie, Kristi and I were getting hair and make-up done. Kristi and I didn't start our sessions until 6:00. So we just sat back for a couple hours laughing and talking with everyone. Arlene and Marlou are so good at what they do! They made us all look and feel so beautiful! The day before Marlou asked if me and Kristi wanted fake eyelashes. And Kristi said "Yeah, if it doesn't make me look like Bambi". Living in Hawaii, Marlou doesn't see deer like we do in Idaho and responded "What you don't want to look like a stripper". Haha! So the next morning we joked about having eyelashes like Bambi... the stripper, not a deer.

My shoes and earings were found online after intense searching. The shoes came from somewhere international and smelled so funny when I got them. I loved both of them! The garter... such a weird thing to me. Rillz wanted to do the whole garter toss thing so the day before the wedding I went and got one. Odd concept to me. Oh well.

Our rings in the awesome pokey flower!

My wedding dress in the hotel lobby. The photographer had the hotel staff hang it for her.

Girlie getting her face put on by Marlou

Doesn't this picture look like Kristi... The first time I looked at it I had to re-look. It is me, not Kristi.

But here is Kristi with Arlene getting her prettied up

Girlie all done and waiting. She was crackin me up!

My mom looking like death at this moment. She was a 4 a.m. appointment. Barely awake

Getting the dress on...

My mom already to go! Doesn't she look beautiful!

For some reason I like this one...

The guys were getting ready and I heard from my photographer that they were pretty funny! As you can see, they were busy putting each others shirts on and on backwards. Davy happened to have those goofy glasses in our wedding colors for each one of them to wear.

I happen to think Rillz is handsome :)

Why do boys have it so easy to get ready. It's light out and they get to just chill for a while. The girls started getting ready when some of the boys just got back from the bars.

Davy getting ready...

Elmer getting ready...

Rillz spending time on his hair. I wonder how nervous he was ?!?

The hotel is about 5 minutes away (in car), in a normal city, from Kaka'ako waterfront park (the ceremony place). But, when there is a huge floral parade that morning and a farmers market at Kaka'ako, that we found out about the night before, it could take a good 45 minutes. Yep, took about 35 minutes to get there. And luckily the farmers market was nothing to worry about.

Thanks to Davy, we had a live guy playing the songs we chose during the ceremony on acustic guitar. That was SO beautiful!

While guests waited he played: A Simple Love Song by Anuhea

While the bridal party walked down he played: Better Together by Jack Johnson

While I walked down he played: E Ku'u Morning Dew

When the ceremony was over he played: I honestly can't remember right now. Haha.

The ceremony was nice. Reverand Michael Nelson married us. He had kind of a weird vibe. When he started saying his speal he said "Thanks for all being here for Aurelio and Cindy on their special day". Yep, Cindy. He didn't think it was very funny when I looked around and said "Am I at the wrong wedding? Anyone here named Cindy getting married today?" I thought it was HILARIOUS! It's his fault he didn't know who he was marrying at his 9 a.m. appointment and deserved to be embarresed. That sounds mean on my part... but it was still funny!

Exchanging rings

Elmer and Kristi

Davy and Girlie

Brent walked my mom down

So happy!

Just Married!

It's the reverend marrying Aurelio and Cindy... haha

Me and my dad walking down. (Obviously these pictures aren't in the order that everyone actually walked down).

Gracie, the flower girl, walking down with mom and dad Rivera

Brecken, the flower boy, walked down with Jeff.

Nana and Nan walked down together

The aisle decoration

Hooray for being married now! We then took pictures... and more pictures! It was a lot of fun. Our photographer was found on Hawaii craigslist. At an awesome deal I must admit. Of course coming from craigslist I was quite skeptical. We met with her, Lora, a week before and after meeting we were way excited. Lucky us, she really turned out great! Our reception started at 12:30 so we figured we had lots of time between to do all sorts of pictures. Well, time ran out FAST. At 11:30 we were getting phone calls saying "get your butts headed back to the hotel". The parade was in full swing and the exact route we needed to take back. We didn't hire a driver or anything so we actually rode back with the photographer. Haha. It took an hour to get back! Yep remember the "should be 5 minute drive in a normal city" thing. Driving in Hawaii 85% of the time sucks!

So we got back to the hotel and then the reception started...
I wanted to post a bunch of other pictures but loading pictures on here sucks and takes forever lately. Everytime I try I get a whole 4 pictures in an hours time. This will never get posted if I keep trying. Now to start the endless hours on the reception details. Enjoy! :)

Day before the wedding

2011-10-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

The day before the wedding (Friday) Rillz had his little "bachelor" party with some friends and family. They all went golfing. The guys were gone for 6 hours! Don't worry guys, I can finish all the last wedding details myself. :) I made the ring bearer pillow and flower girl wristlet the day before. I honestly had no idea for either. I stopped at an awesome craft store and just walked around lots of times until I got ideas. My problem was both of them just turned one years old. A typical ring bearer pillow is about as big as Brecken and a flower girl basket would just get thrown or dropped. This is what I came up with...

Both just went on the babies wrists. I honestly don't even know how long they lasted on them. They aren't the cutest things but when time is running out you just do what you gotta do.

After making those I went and had a manicure/pedicure with my mom, Kristi, and Nan. That was nice and relaxing. Then we went and ate. It was about 4:30 by now and I still didn't have my bridesmaids shoes and I had to be at the hotel by 6:30 to deliver the wedding favors. I was stressing a little. Luckily, Payless shoes was right next door and Kristi and I found a pair that was pretty cute! So off we raced to the house to grab everything for the wedding and quickly drive 45 min. to the hotel. We made it there about 6:35.

We met up with Rillz at the hotel because he had just gotten done golfing and was already in Honolulu (where the hotel is).

This is a picture of Pacific Beach Hotel where our reception was and where we stayed night before wedding and wedding night.

That night Rillz, Kristi, and I met up with Beang (a cousin) to help with seating charts and then the 3 of us went to McDonalds for some food.
Kristi and I stayed in a hotel room together that night. It was fun just talking until we both fell asleep around 11:00. The only thing that I missed was Heidi being there too. I just love my sisters so much. They are my best friends!
Next post... wedding day!

Surfing and Catameran

2011-09-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

Brent, Kristi, and Jeff wanted to give surfing a try while in Hawaii. We asked our friend (basically Rillz's brother) Davy to teach them how to surf and take them out. I had a lot of fun watching everyone. Mali, Davy's 4 year old likes to go out and surf so she taught everyone how to get up on the board. She is just adorable. It was entertaining watching Brent, Kristi, and Jeff attempt fake surfing on grass.
Kristi getting lessons...

Jeff getting lessons...

Mali and her dolly

Me and Mali teaching Brecken and Dolly how to surf.

Brecken... natural surfer!

Rillz and I chose not to attempt the surfing just in case we broke our faces or something before our wedding day.

After surf lessons on the grass we went to Waikiki to take lessons out in the real world. We got to the beach and Davy asked us if we wanted to ride a catameran. Every one wanted to so we docked the surf boards and jumped on. It lasted about 1 1/2 hours. I enjoyed it. So relaxing out in the water. Mali got boat sick and Kristi did a little too. But other then that it was nice.

By the way... There is no Gunnar in pictures because that day he went with Grandma and papa to Polynesian Cultural Center.

After the catameran Jeff, Kristi, Brent, and Davy took the surf boards out. Davys mom and dad, Rillz and I took care of Brecken and Mali. Not sure why I didn't take pictures but it was a lot of fun. Rillz and I were playing with the little ones on the beach and a lady said "you guys have such cute kids". I had to tell her... neither of them are ours. But they do look like they could have been.

Kristi, Jeff, and Brent were sore the next day and arms were tired but all of them had a great time and all got up on their boards.

We went back to Davys house and Davy tried to convince us to stay for dinner. We had family flying in from Alaska. Davy and Rillz convinced me to call mom Rivera and ask if we could stay for dinner. They knew mom would tell them no but tell me yes. It worked. So we stayed. They made grilled oysters and steak and bought some poke! What a great night with family.

What a good day!

Hawaii update

2011-09-20T23:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Monday, my mom, dad, and Nan got in. My mom and dad came in first in the morning. Rillz and I met them at the airport. Rillz felt really sick. He had a fever and was shaking all night, sore throat... the whole bit. So he just dropped me off with my parents and went back to the house, took meds and slept ALL day. In the meantime I hung out with my parents. We went to try on my dress and find my mom a dress to wear for the wedding. I took them to Zippys to eat. And then we went to where my mom and dad are staying in Waianae. My dad and I went walking on the beach together for a while. It was nice. That night we had to pick up Nan at the airport so went back into town and stopped at the Navy Commisary before to pick up groceries. That was my Monday. I got to spend it with my parents.

Today, Tuesday, Brent came into town. Kristi, Jeff, the boys, Rillz, mom, dad, Nan, Brent and I all went to Pearl Harbor. It was nice to revisit now that I am actually old enough to care and understand. I actually took pictures today.

After Pearl Harbor, Rillz and I took off back to the house. We had a 3 hour job ahead of us. We cleaned and filled 180 bottles of soy sauce for our wedding favors. Girlie helped quite a bit too. Thanks :) Now I just have 100 more for the Idaho reception.

On a side note: Girlie and I went to Longs grocery store and someone crapped in the middle of the shampoo aisle. So GROSS! A huge pile of doodoo just sitting there.

Tomorrow will be busy. Swap meet in the morning, pick up dress and bridal party outfits, pay final bill for reception (yikes!), find mens shoes, stay at our friends Davy and Darcy.... the list goes on. Better get my sleep! Goodnight.

Hawaii so far...

2011-09-17T12:23:00.000-07:00

My (oops I mean our) wedding is in a week! Crazy!!! I (I mean we) got into Hawaii on Monday. We started meeting with vendors Tuesday and getting everything in order. My soon to be mother in law said she knew a really good seamstress that could do my dress. I wasn't worried because I just wanted a simple dress in aloha print material. How could you screw that up? On Tuesday that was the first place we went. OH MY GOSH!!! It was worse than the worst image I had in my head. The lady told me, "The picture you gave me just looked so plain so I added this.. and this... and this". Oh hell no. How do I get out of this one? So we kindly told her this is NOT what we were looking for but we would pay for the material that it cost her. The dress basically looked like this except for strapless so no sleeves and just went straight across. But the material and all that crappy doiley looking stuff and lace... yep. That was on there.

It's like that dress came straight out of 1990. Needless to say, I had no dress. I will admit I had a break down. The only time I have cried (so far) over any wedding stuff. I just felt hopeless. How was I going to find a new one in a place a didn't know without my sisters or mom. Rillz took me around places that day. We got stressed and finally said screw it... lets go to the beach. So we spent a couple hours on the beach. How nice!

Wednesday we woke up and went for a long walk. Then went searching for a dress. I got my bridesmaids dresses made at a place called T & L muumuu factory and shipped them to Hawaii. So I had a brilliant idea to look them up and see if they were on Oahu. They were! So we went. Everything on the floor that was already made was way to short. Of course. I mean, I do tower over everybody. So we told them our situation. Just so happens that while we were there, the dress designer was there too and totally willing to make my dress how I want it in a week! FOR REAL! The stress just melted. Better yet, they said they would just make Rillz's shirt and the groomsmens shirts. Those ladies in that shop are AMAZING! I have already gone in for a dress fitting. I LOVE it so far!

Wednesday night we met with the florist Christine. She has been great too! Helping with so much. And then went to meet Bing at the Pacific Beach Hotel where our reception is going to be. Everything went so smooth and easy.

Thursday we met with Reverand Mike Nelson. We were a little sad that a close family friend wasn't able to marry us to make it more special. But Reverand Nelson was nice enough. We also met the photographer. She is so funny. I can't wait to work with her on photos! Her company is Just once photography. I found her on craigslist so was a little worried. But all is good. Thursday Rillz's sister, husband and baby came into town. We were all excited to see them. That night we had a lot of family over for the baby's birthday and a cousin, Nathan, birthday.

Friday Rillz and I just hung out with family in the morning and then went to Davy and Darceys house to relax. And Rillz wanted to watch the BSU game (Davy used to play for BSU so loves watching the games).

Today is Saturday and we are getting ready for Graceys (our niece) first birthday. Let me tell you, first birthdays hawaiian style are NUTS! Spend thousands of dollars on them and we are expecting 250-300 people. Yep... NUTS! So we have been putting together goody bags and preparing food.... the list goes on. Kristi and Jeff and the boys come into today in about an hour to be there for the party too. They are staying until the 27th (when we leave back to Idaho). I am excited. They are staying at Rillz's parents house with us. Don't worry. The house has PLENTY room! So that's how things are going so far. Time to go help again...

P.S. I haven't even taken one picture yet with my camera. So terrible.

Wedding Plans

2011-08-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

Time is FLYING! I have 3 weeks until leaving for Hawaii. I am so excited to go! Ready or not here it comes! Actually, I am very ready for the day to come. I don't want to think about wedding planning anymore. I am extremely excited to finally be married to Rillz in a month. I am wanting to blog some things about the wedding.

Here are our colors...
Obviously pictures don't do them justice. But it's green and orange.

Our Save the Date card....

Our wedding invites...

I have the flowers, bridesmaid dresses, hair picked, ceremony set up, food picked, blah blah but I want to wait for the actual wedding to happen and share pictures from that instead, just in case it turns out different from the pictures.

One thing I do love... Getting the RSVP cards back in the mail. They are so fun to get and open up! Haha.
Alright, that's all I have time for now. Need to go make dinner.

Yard Sales!!

2011-07-16T16:58:00.000-07:00

I went to some yard sales today. Got some awesome deals!

Bought all these clothes for $8. Three of them are from Ann Taylor. The dress, which fits me perfect and looks SO cute, was over $100 at Dillards (I looked it up). The Green wool coat is adorable! Ok, enough from me.

Rillz really wanted this sushi stuff. He loves going to yard sales with me! When he finds something he wants he will just hand it to me and say "Mindy, I want this" Ha! Makes me laugh. But, my purchasing technique at a yard sale is amazing if I do say so myself! So here is everything I bought for $15. All those yellow/blue things are chopsticks with a napkin and placemats (can you say... SUSHI PARTY!!). We now have a ton of bamboo sushi rolls and paddles. We also got those brita filters that are SPENDY (still a price tag on it that says $25)! And that yellow bottle thing is a dog water bottle. There is also a really nice sushi platter (not pictured) that is currently in my dishwasher . Oh and the best is the dog collar I picked up for Malu. I brought it home and looked at it to see if it fit and the collar is a COACH collar. Haha. My dog owns something coach and I don't. So funny.

Ok, so my yard sale technique...

Rule #1: Always ignore the price tag (if there is one)

Rule #2: Don't ask "how much is this" or "what is the lowest you will take" or "will you go lower"

Rule #3: You say the price first and ALWAYS low ball! May seem like a crazy offer, but you never know! Once you offer a price you can't go lower so start low.

Rule #4: Pile up all your great finds and approach a barter for the price of it ALL. Not individual items. For instance the clothes I bought today... I gathered them all in one pile and asked the lady, "Would you take $5 for these". She hesitated big time and said "I will take $8". Sounded great to me. I am not dumb, I know how much those clothes are REALLY worth. If I would have approached with individual items or asked ahead of time she would have wanted more for the dress and coat. Piles fluster people so they typically just say yes to the price and therefore you are more likely to get a better bargain.

Rule #5: Never bring your purse with you to a yard sale. Leave it in the car. Stash your money in your pockets.

Rule #6: Before approaching the person running the sale, split out your bills. Put in your hand your starting offer price and put the rest of your money away. When bartering hold the money out for the person to take. More likely to say ok!

Rule #7: Always be ok with walking away from an item. A small select of people won't budge. Unless it is something you really wanted and willing to pay asking price, just put it down and say thanks and walk away.

These approaches are very intimidating and take time to get used to. But you will most likely get better bargains out of people. And sometimes, the price tag on the item is already SUPER low and there is no reason to negotiate. Like, if there is a VitaMix for $35. Right, Kristi?!? Haha.

I think bartering is a lot of fun and now I do it for everything, not just yard sales. Good luck!

Camping!

2011-07-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

I went camping with the Miller clan. Rillz wanted to go as well but I guess someone has to work. Our time line to leave was 10:30. With a few hiccups in getting the truck packed we finally left about 1:00. We were headed to Sagehen Reservoir. About 2 1/2 hours away. Kristi and I thought we were going to die off a cliff on the way there. Poor Jeff had to deal with us freakin out. We got to the campgrounds and there was hardly anything available. We finally found a spot to set up camp.

We set up the tent... phew, all the parts were there. The tent was big enough for all of us.
Me and Breckie boy. He was happy happy!
Gunnar was a fun little boy to camp with! When he wasn't WAY overly tired he was great and helped with everything!
This kid would NOT stop eating rocks! He would pack his mouth full if we weren't watching. Such a stinker.
Peak-a-boo

Watch out... a deer! Haha. Ok, it's lame but Gunnar thought I was funny!

We had to go find wood for our camp fire. We road our bikes up a trail and found some. Jeff had to saw a log up, and he did some of it with a baby on his back. Oh and Jeff road his bike with Brecken in the backpack! Ha! Brecken fell asleep and we thought he was dead because how could he possibly fall asleep with all that jerking around? Don't worry, no babies were harmed.

After we collected the wood we put it in the kids bike trailer. Hence why Brecken wasn't riding in that and as you will see nor was Gunnar.

Gunnar road up the trail in the bike trailer but it being filled with wood on the way back Gunnar clearely wouldn't fit. So... this is how he road back. With Kristi on her bike! No Gunnar's harmed in this attempt.

We took Rillz's truck up and brought him back a souvenir. The souvenir kinda found us!
The next day (saturday a.m.) we all went on a 4 mile hike. It took us 4 hours! but was great and relaxing. Besides Gunnar and Jeff (and by no choice, Brecken) almost falling down the side of the mountain into the lake, everything went pretty smooth.

The Miller family 2011! You like Gunnar's pants? He didn't pack any pants. The morning was still kind of cold so Gunnar just wore his jammie bottoms. He was embarrassed at first. He asked me and Kristi if he looked like a girl. We then realized he thought the jammies under the shorts looked like leggings like the little girls wear right now. Oh, and how about Breckens socks? Someone forgot to pack Brecken some socks so he has Jeff's socks on.

We also went canoeing and bike riding again. It was a fun camping trip! We plan on going again next month. :)

How the pool came about...

2011-07-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

Two summers ago Gunnar came over to our house to have a campout in the backyard. I was still at work so Rillz had to hang with Gunnar for the afternoon. When I got off work I came home to Rillz and Gunnar filling up a pool. Wow. Cool. I wonder why we are now owners of a $100 pool. The story goes like this...
Rillz- I bought Gunnar a pool
Mindy- Wow that's a big pool for Gunnar
Rillz- I had to buy this one. I took Gunnar to Walmart for a kiddie pool and showed him the little pools. We walked down the pool aisle and he saw this one and wanted it.
Mindy- You let a 3 year old pick out the pool?
Rillz- I had to... he was about to cry. I couldn't have him throw a tantrum in Walmart. I didn't know what else to do. If he threw a fit, I might have hit him.
Mindy- Hahahaha! You panicked and gave into a 3 year old. How funny!

So, that is how Gunnar got the Rivera household a new big "kiddie" pool. The best... that first year Gunnar was afraid to go in it and didn't even use it at all.
Last year we didn't set it up. Just didn't have time. This year our backyard is a little more organized and we set it up. It would fit 4 adults hot tub style. Rillz was determined... this year Gunnar WILL get into his pool!
We had a bbq last week with Heidi and Kristi's family over. It was nice and sunny and Gunnar GOT IN his pool! He loved it and so did Brecken. Cami... not so much. I also bought a hammock on the 4 of July. So comfy. Love it!
We bought a cover this year that makes the pool water warmer. It's nice.

My new hammock! Love it.

My new 3 home remedies that WORK

2011-06-19T21:10:00.001-07:00

The last couple weeks I have discovered 3 home remedies that REALLY work!

First issue: The little boy I nanny had a band-aid on and when it came off the adhesive left that terrible crappy sticky stuff. I tried scrubbing with soap and water, alcohol.... to no avail. I googled how in the heck do I get this off of skin?

The answer... baby oil! There was some around the house and I decided to give it a shot. Holy cow! It worked. The band-aid adhesive came off SO easily with baby oil. Didn't even have to scrub!

+ =
Takes off bandaid adhesive easily!

Second issue: Last week at work my boss bought new little plastic cups for Jack. She had soaked the cups in soapy water to loosen the price tag adhesive. Didn't work. Uhhh... I hate those dumb price stickers. The baby oil worked so well on skin that I thought Ah Ha! It should work on adhesive on plastic right?!? WRONG. Got none of the adhesive off. I didn't want to scrub anymore so again, google it. When in doubt... google it! Had several ideas. WD40... um no not on something a child will drink out of. Olive oil... sounds to greasy and just like baby oil so no thanks. And then, peanut butter. Haha. Yeah right. Tried it anyways and OH MY GOSH! Miracles happened. Spread a little peanut butter on the plastic where the price tag sticker is and shabam off the price tag went easily. Peanut butter... really!?! Whatever works. I even had to use the chunky peanut butter because that is all there was. Haha.
+

=

Easy price tag removal

Third issue: Last Sunday Rillz and I went on a 30 mile bike ride. It felt so great! I put sunblock on my back, shoulders, face... but oops forgot my arms and legs. For 5 hours my white, pastey skin was exposed to nice warm sun. Which equals SUNBURN. Talk about OUCH! So naturally I was a beautiful, painful shade of red. The first burning day I smothered myself in special Maui aftersun care and aloe vera. Wasn't doing the trick. Google didn't disappoint the other two times so why not give it a whirl again. Suggestions... wet the arm, pour baking soda on area, and then a rag soaked in vinegar on the baking soda. This is to help with the pain. Sounded like sizzling bacon. Kinda fun to listen to. Cooled my arms a bit. Oh yeah, I decided to experiment too. Only do the new ideas on my arms and leave my legs with just putting lotion on them. Just to see if there was any difference. Anyways, I came across an idea to put black tea on the burn. So I did. Wow! Love the results. The next day didn't hurt AT ALL and the redness went down so much. I will be using black tea the minute I see a sunburn on my skin. My legs a week later are still a nice bright red color and hurt a few more days after the arms stopped. AMAZING!

Aloe Vera, common sunburn reliever. I found it to be the worst option OVERAL! The gel tightened my skin making it more painful for me to move my arms. Spraying vinegar worked better! This got a big thumbs down.

Avon aloe vera spray was soothing for a whole 30 seconds time and the maui island sun lotion softened my skin but was not affective long term.

pain free and less redness much quicker!

Of course, the best suggestion is DON'T fricken get burned in the first place!

Nice picture of my lovely leg burn. Not smart... I know. My legs are still red and my arms are kinda tan thanks to black tea.

I would like to thank google for everything I know... Haha! But these remedies truly do work! It's amazing. When needed, give 'em a try.

Dear May 2011...

2011-05-21T18:19:00.000-07:00

Dear May 2011,

Where did you go? May 2011 came into my life so fast and now is soon leaving my life for good. I have felt busy, busy, busy this month. Rillz and I are still using dinner menu planning. Which is awesome! Just makes things so easy! We have been doing A LOT of yard cleanup. Rillz put some sod in our backyard dirt patch. A week later, Diesel came over for a week while Jeff and Kristi went to Bend, Or. and Malu and Diesel thought it would be fun to pull up sod. So now we have little clods missing. Oh well, that's ok. The sod was free. And Malu LOVED having her cousin, Diesel, over to play for the week. Those to play, and play, and play. It is insane!

We also finally got the tree branches and tree crap off our property! The branches were sitting on the side of the house for a month. We live across from a NAPA auto part store and their dumpster faces our house. The other day I was working in my yard and the manager went to throw something away and got mad, yelled, and gave me a very mean look. I thought "What the heck?" Five minutes later he comes back out with a camera and takes pictures of the dumpster and then turns around and faces the camera to my house. I stopped him and said "excuse me, why are you taking pictures of my house"? He said "We found the same tree branches in our dumpster that were on the side of your house just yesterday." I said "you mean the ones that are STILL on the side of my house." Oh I was so mad. He continues "Well, I am not accusing anyone..." I said "Excuse me sure, but that is EXACTLY what you are doing. We DID NOT throw anything in your dumpster. I can understand how you feel annoyed but it was NOT us." He said some other things blah blah blah and then left. I told Rillz and he was so annoyed. Mainly because the manager dude gave me a bad look. We went over to the dumpster and it wasn't even the same type of tree. So that following Monday Rillz and I went to NAPA auto parts to talk to the guy again and let him know that his behavior was inappropriate. We told him that it is ok if they have an issue with us but need to talk to us about it. The manager dude had a big ego and it's good that their was a more level headed worker there to make him realize he was in the wrong.

The dumpster. Maybe they should lock it up or something. Not my problem.

Our tree branches... yep, looks like the branches are still on my driveway.

The branches and pine cones from NAPA auto part dumpster

My branches... no pine cones

Um... what else this month? Oh... wedding crap. I have been spending hours on making the invitations. They are just detailed and have a lot of parts. I am loving my flower lady in Hawaii. She has been very pleasant! I don't know how they will actually turn out but she has made me not worry about it. I found my florist and photographer the ghetto way. Hawaii craigslist. Haha. It was the cheap way and I think will be great. The Idaho reception... I have the place and flowers planned. Thats all.

Last week for mothers day we all cleaned up my moms yard. Unfortunetely Rillz and I had to leave early. But it was fun for the time we were helping. Kristi and Heidi and watching the little ones are always a lot of fun to be around.

We were weeding and Keilia decided to make herself cozy right in the middle of where we were working.

I have also wasted my May 2011 with a lot of Netflix. Been watching a lot of tv series like Hoarders, Obsessed, 10 things I hate about you (did you know that was a tv series)?, Take home chef. And been watching movies too.

Now I am getting my home ready for a family BBQ today. I love company coming to my house!

Oh yeah, I also already got my first sunburn this summer. Awesome.

Peace out! Here comes summer.

Rillz's knife mishap

2011-04-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

I got a call from Rillz today that said "How far away are you? I just had an accident". I thought a car accident. Well, he had a kitchen knife accident. The knife cut all the way down to the bone. We thought fingers are worth going to the doctor for. He kind of needs them for his job. We went to a primary health. We don't have an established family doctor yet. They got Rillz right in. Rillz needed 4 stitches in his finger. They put adrenalen in his finger to stop the bleeding and a numbing shot.

The start...

The doc told Rillz to look away

Gross, I hate needles

Ha, look at that lonely finger

Rillz watching ESPN while getting stitches

Look, they are posing. They were both pretty funny and I think excited to see something besides the sniffles and coughing.

All stitched up

Getting the gauze on

Masterpiece! All done

In 10 days Rillz has to go back and get the stitches out. For now, plenty of pain killers is in Rillz's future. Good night and watch out for flying knives.

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter! What do two adults with no kids and 2 dogs do on easter? Well, usually nothing. But this year I decided to have a small easter treat hunt. I put the dogs in the house and hid dog treats in the backyard. I had no idea what they would do. I thought Simon and Malu would go outside and just stare at me. But that was not the case with Malu. She immediately smelled the treats and started sniffing them out. She found the first one and Simon followed Malu and ate the treat before she actually got it. I hid 7 treats. Simon got 2 and Malu 5. Simon could not smell them worth crap. But Malu had a VERY busy nose. She would eat one and then sniff, sniff, sniff walk to the next treat. Her smeller is amazing. Simon was standing right next to a treat and didn't even notice it. Malu came from across the yard to that same treat and ate it. The doggie easter treat hunt was pretty entertaining for me and Rillz.

A treat I hid before the dogs came outside

Malu found it!

Hidden treat. This is the treat Simon was standing right next to. He was under that bench. Malu sniffed it out and ate it though.

Malu ate it and Simon ran off.

After the treat hunt Rillz and I went for a bike ride. Yesterday we went to a police auction and bought him a bike for $50. We are both excited to ride more this summer.

My bike. Rillz is changing my seat out.
Now I am off to the parents soon for some family time. Happy 2011 Easter everyone

Spring cleaning

2011-04-11T21:07:00.001-07:00

F.Y.I... This post was written a week ago but couldn't load the pictures until today. I love the first daffodils that pop up in my yard. It's motivation to work in my yard. Unfortunetely, those pretty daffodils are now squished. Rillz and I started the dawnting task yesterday of cutting down a hideous, no good, very bad so called bush. This thing is huge! Talk about overgrown. It's a piece of crappo. There isn't just a trunk to cut and then bam-o the tree falls and woohoo all is done. It's more like... chop, chop, chop oh and chop over here and over here some more. Not to mention the branches are entangled in the fence. Awesome. We rented a chainsaw... dull, completely empty with no gas/bar oil. Oh how we were so unhappy. We went back to the rental place and traded it out for one that was a little sharper. Still, not $30 worth to rent for 3 hours. Thank goodness our neighbor across the street came over with his own chainsaw that worked SO much better. The task is still not done but Rillz wasn't feeling well and we had an 80th birthday to go to... so we saved it for another day to come... soon. This was the ridiculous bush that was home for raccoons, squirrals, birds, bees, beer bottles, everything else imaginable, pretty sure an elephant was hiding in there for a couple weeks. And so the cutting begins... Our neighbor. I think his name is Dave. Nice guy.

This is what I found in the tree. Over the last 2 years I have been pulling random things out of this dumb bush. And we found 2 big sinder blocks.

What we got it down to so far.

Now we have a beautiful tree on the side of our house.

On a good note, Rillz and I are doing really good with our dinner menu plans. I can heat up a yummy fish stick! Haha. But on Rillz's cooking nights I am in heaven. Tonight we had furikake tuna rice with japanese sausage. Yummy!! I know the majority of you have no idea what furikake even is but if you could taste this through the computer... oh boy! Saturday I was with Kristi and really wanted to eat out but Kristi and I held strong! It's so nice to look at the meal and think... I only spent $2 to make all of this food. Love it!

Shooting with the boys

2011-04-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago Rillz, Ren, Jeff, Brent, Gunnar and I went shooting. We met at Heidi and Rens at 9 a.m. and drove to the shooting range about 15 min. away. We had a lot of fun. It was nice to get re-acquainted with my gun. What is the use of having a gun if you don't remember how to use it.. right?!? Anyways, it was a lot of fun and all the boys were very patient with me in teaching me how to use all the different guns. Of course I am in none of the pictures but oh-well. Just better get used to it now because it won't change.

We didn't bring targets so just found random trash that has been left. Then we stuck clay pigeons on/around the trash. This was my favorite target. It's like a little creature with ears.

Gunnar was so good and just enjoyed picking up shotgun shells and filling them with dirt.

Going shooting is fun, cheap family entertainment.

Celebration of Life party

2011-04-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

March 26 my family and extended family got together for a celebration of life party for my Uncle Stan. He is my grandma Jeans brother. Really I thought of him as my Grandpa. He lived with my family for a while when I was younger, probably when I was around 14 or 15 he moved in after a really bad car accident. Thats when I got to know who he even was. After he recovered from his car accident, I would go into his room and say "Hey Uncle Stan, what you doing?" Of course he knew what that ment and would always ask "Want to go to a movie?" So we would. Just me and him. Drive in his Camaro to McDonalds and then to whatever movie I would drag him to. From then, I became very close to Uncle Stan. Rillz knew him too for a long time. They would play the eukulele together at the hawaiian parties. This last year Rillz and I tried to visit him and Margene a couple Sundays a month. He would always have the BEST stories to tell. Rillz and I loved sitting in their living room for hours just talking. He spent christmas eves with us too. He definitely brought joy to a room! Love you and miss you Uncle Stan! Thats my gruffy mountain man Uncle Stan and Margene Aunt Nancy. Uncle Stan's (and my grandma Jean) sister. I just LOVE my aunt Nancy too! Beth, Uncle Stans daughter. Nice eyes Beth... haha My mom at the party.

We danced hula and played music. This is my favorite Keiki outfit. They are so darn cute!

Work and wedding...

2011-04-07T11:44:00.002-07:00

Crap-ola... It has been over a month since writing on my blog. It's not that things aren't happening in my life to write about... just that to much has gone on that I am never home long enough to relax and write. What have I been up to? Work and wedding. That about sums it up. The last couple weeks I was working 12-14 hrs a day. Doesn't leave much time for anything else. Thank goodness Rillz is amazing and such a BIG help around the house, like doing the laundry so I have clean clothes. And wedding planning is in full force. My living room has boxes full of wedding favors. I swear everyone who lives in Hawaii also think they are on vacation. Grr.... oh well. Rillz and I started following a dinner menu plan. Rillz made up a month menu plan. Our goal is to not eat out at all for any meals this month. We are really loving this. Granted, it has only been a week but I feel really good about it! Meat is already thawed, no guessing whats for dinner, so great. Speaking of cooking, Jeff (Kristi's husband) asked Rillz if he would do a young mens activity on cooking. So last night Rillz did his young mens activity and enjoyed doing it. He had the boys flip eggs and then make a grilled ham and cheese and taught them how to doctor up canned tomato soup. Everyone enjoyed it! Random: Kristi made me a pillow for my birthday (yes three months ago and I am now just posting about it). The pillow is so cute and looks great in my living room! I have plenty more to write but don't feel like it right now. Hopefully it won't be a month from now when I post again. :)

Date Lunch

2011-02-25T13:12:00.000-08:00

This week Rillz and I were out and about doing errands and I told him I wanted to take him to lunch. Somewhere we had never tried yet. The Creperie. We entered the place and found ourselves excited about the menu. The menu had pictures for all their crepes. Great for a visual person like me. I had coupons for buy a savory crepe and get a sweet one for free. Great! I ordered the Faux vegan and Rillz got the Soleil sunrise. We definitely were not disappointed. One is plenty big to fill you up. The sweet dessert ones were just as great! We had a difficult time picking which ones we were going to get. After both of us changing our minds a couple times I settled for the Thai banana coconut nutella. Oh my! They used coconut milk, not just shredded coconut. And Rillz got a peanut butter, banana ice cream one in a cone! What an awesome and delicious concept! We talked to the owner for a bit who was VERY nice! The Creperie was a really enjoyable experience and I love supporting great local business' so I will definitely be back!

Unfortunetely I was so excited to start eating my savory crepe that I forgot to take pictures of them. :)

But here are the sweet crepes.

Stop drooling and go to the Creperie if you live in or near Boise, Idaho!

Girls day

2011-02-25T12:24:00.000-08:00

Back in January I had won tickets to a Bridal show extravaganza thingy. I wasn't engaged yet but, hey, they were free tickets. I called up Heidi and asked what she was doing that day. We decided to make a day out of it together. We packed up Camden and headed to Boise. The bridal show was typical. Nothing exciting especially because most were vendors and I don't need to really hire anyone from Boise for a wedding in Hawaii. Heidi and I still had fun though. Camden LOVED the runway show. She would watch all the ladies go up and down in those gowns. It was really cute! We then went to Cafe Ole for lunch and Camden was asleep the whole time. Heidi and I did some shopping and went back to my house at the perfect time because Camden decided to have a HUGE blowout! After cleaning her up we headed out to a family gathering. It was really fun hanging out all day with Heidi and Camden! Thanks for coming along!

Camden ready to go.

Sleeping during lunch

I am....

2011-02-17T19:55:00.000-08:00

ENGAGED!!

Rillz proposed to me in Hawaii on Sunday February 13. He took me to watch the sunrise and have a picnic breakfast. I did NOT think he was going to propose. I knew he picked out a ring and thought it was still on layaway. We woke up and grabbed Zippy's breakfast. We went to this ridge called the blow hole. We hiked down to this private beach and had our picnic and watched the sun. After we ate I wanted to hike around and when I was admiring this cove area I turned around and Rillz was holding the ring. The only thing that came out of my mouth was "you're not supposed to have that." Really romantic huh. And Rillz said... "So....what?" And then he got down on one knee and asked me for real. And then I cried... Happy tears! Our wedding is going to be September 24 of this year in Oahu... and a reception in Idaho. Better get started.
This is my engagement/wedding ring.
After he proposed

I am wearing a very ghetto outfit but I didn't know I was getting engaged. And it was 6 a.m. when we left the house.

The sunrise with the waves crashing against the rocks.

Our Zippy's breakfast.

Hawaii wedding

2011-02-17T19:00:00.000-08:00

Rillz and I went to Hawaii on Feb. 9 until Feb 14. It was sadly a short trip but we needed to get back to work. Rillz's really good friend Davey was getting married Feb. 11. We got their and immediately went to get Rillz fitted for his tux and shopping for the wedding day food and bachelor party (yes, I went to Waikiki for the bachelor party too so all the boys would have a dd). We stayed in a HUGE rental house the first 2 days. All day thursday was wedding stuff too and rehearsal dinner. Friday was the wedding. Rillz helped cook and I helped decorate. The wedding was nice and I definitely got my dance on that night!

The wedding party

At the wedding

Isn't the flower girls so cute! The middle girl is the bride and grooms daughter.

Me and Natalie. She is from Idaho too and 5 months pregnant!

Natalie and Tommy from Idaho.

All the grooms men. There were 12. Holy cow!

The view from our master bedroom at the Makaha house. So nice to wake up to the ocean and birds.

The sunset.

Rehearsal dinner.

Rillz b-day

2011-02-17T18:45:00.000-08:00

Rillz and I were going to Hawaii on his birthday so we celebrated it with my family the Saturday before. I made lasagna, salad, and breadsticks for everyone. We had a great time. Brent had just got a new hunting wii game so Brent, Rillz, Ren and I played it for a long time. Happy 32nd birthday Rillz!

Gunnar loves doing the heavy heavy hangover game on anyones birthday

Rillz got this duffel bag and Gunnar got a ride in it.
Can you tell the candles are shaped into a 3 and 2 for his age?

The hunting game
Family dinner.
Rillz and cuddly Brecken
Camden giving grandma loves!

Christmas

2011-01-22T17:22:00.000-08:00

Our family tradition is to celebrate as a family on Christmas Eve. We always go to a movie and then have breakfast for dinner. The movie was tangled. So cute! Then we went to lunch at Red Robin and Noelle was our waitress. That night at about 5 Heidi said... what time are we eating? None of us girls knew so we asked dad. He then informed us that people were coming at around 6. Um... people? What people? Yeah, we had not been told that uncles and aunts were joining us. So Heidi, Kristi, and I start cooking. It all turned out and I always love working side by side with my sisters. Dinner was yummy and everyone left. We then opened sibling presents and it was fun!

Rillz and I decided to stay the night at my parents christmas eve. On Christmas morning we opened the rest of the presents with Brent, Noelle, and my mom and dad. Rillz had to work at noon and I went to my Auntie Nancy's house which is always so much fun! This year was a nice quieter christmas.

Family photos... minus the parents :)

2011-01-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

Now that christmas was almost a whole month ago I guess I can write about it. For my mom and dads christmas present us kids gave them a family kid picture. All of us somehow managed to get together on really short notice and take pictures. A miracle. Kristi had a friend from her ward that was willing to take them for us! Such a nice lady and AWESOME photography! The weather was frickin FREEZING! But we managed and it was fun!
Here is the ALL kids and families.
Sibling picture. Brent is so much taller. Crazy.

Rillz and I. Nice normal pose.

Funny girl picture.

My favorite picture! The photographer said "just be yourself" and this is what came of it!

I caved in and got...

2011-01-21T10:26:00.000-08:00

netflix.

We stream netflix from our Wii. We signed up for the free one month trial but I have a feeling Netflix is not leaving our house anytime soon. I told Rillz Netflix is the FIRST thing to GO if we start neglected the house and other responsibilities because of the tv. But this week it seems like our house is cleaner and more gets done than in the last month.
Rillz and I are just LOVING the easy streaming of netflix though. Just browse and click and BAM in seconds your watching what you just selected. There are so many great options. We are really into the documentaries about anything. The only thing negative is that there aren't that many options for NEW movies. We don't care. Netflix still has a great selection of movies, tv shows, special documentaries. It's going to totally be worth the $8 a month! I figured thats about how much we started spending on Redbox movies anyway to pass the time. I am still way to cheap for cable so I guess this is the next best thing!

My secret indulgence

2011-01-09T20:15:00.000-08:00

So the type of movies I love to watch are typically indie films that are only seen in little theaters. I just LOVE those type!
But my secret indulgence... the Step Up movies. Yes, a little embarresing to admit. When Rillz moved in his movie collection was combined with mine. His were MUCH different than mine. His were chick flicks/older movies/just more well known. Well for whatever reason I watched the first Step Up. Kinda laughing about the fact that I was really going to watch some lame movie. Just so happens I didn't even want to blink just in case I missed something. I loved it. And I now love the 2 and 3 ones too. I have watched the 1st and 2nd one I don't know how many times. Friday night Rillz and I rented the 3rd one and enjoyed it as well. Very unlike me to even watch a movie like this but unexpected things happen every day! Now you know my secret!

Happy 25th Birthday to me!

2011-01-09T19:19:00.000-08:00

My birthday was Thursday, January 6th. I had to work a 12 hour day and talk to someone about refinancing my house. When I got home at 8 pm from work Rillz had bought me and set out beautiful flowers. He also asked me "you ready to go?" I asked, Go where? He surprised me and took me to dinner. It was really sweet!

Saturday night my boss' took Rillz and I out for a very fancy dinner. Rillz and I got all dressed up. I wish I took pictures but forgot. They took us to Chandlers. They were great company and we really enjoyed and appreciated the whole experiance!

Sunday the family came over for pizza and dessert for my birthday. I love having people at my house. It makes me clean my house. Rillz and I spent 4 hours cleaning the house which felt SO good to get it done! My mom, Kristi, Jeff, Heidi, Ren came over, and the 3 little ones of course. Gunnar helped Rillz put the candles in the cake and Gunnar then told me "Woh Mindy, your old!" I guess I am at that age where little kids are starting to think I am WAY old. Haha. I love being with my family! We also Skyped my dad for a while.

Feed me!

Happy birthday to me... until next year!

R U 4 real?

2011-01-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

Today I had T.G.I. Fridays buffalo mozzarella sticks. They were on sale for cheap so I thought I would try them. I was reading the conventional oven directions and couldn't believe it...

I tried to get a better picture but couldn't. Anyways, the instructions are normal until the last thing. It reads verbatim: "Allow cheese sticks to stand for a couple of minutes b4 digging in!"
YES, it has b4 instead of "before". I was shocked. I knew this texting lingo would someday show up on products but so soon? Seems very unprofessional and ridiculous. I hate when people text those kind of things to others but to put it in instructions on a food box. Oh boy. My kids aren't going to know how to spell properly.

If you listen it may = fun

2010-12-31T22:29:00.000-08:00

Have you heard this song on the radio? Just so happens I LOVE when it comes on! Makes me move. Enjoy.

The new year is coming

2010-12-31T10:23:00.000-08:00

2010 was definitely a year of new opportunities and adventures.
Things that happened:
*First off, we didn't know where Rillz was going as far as work. He decided to leave Kanack Attack the first week in January. The catering company he had helped build the last 10 years and that he loved. We felt comfortable with the decision of leaving. He didn't have another job yet so we weren't sure where we were going to get the money for all the bills and 2 mortgages. But we knew he needed to leave to have happiness and sanity. Now Rillz is working for a retirement community in their kitchen and there is great opportunity there for him!
*Rillz got a motorcycle. It saved us money on gas and Rillz just LOVES his bike! Ren and Rillz were able to bond a lot this summer going on bike rides.
*We rented out Rillz's house! What a blessing to find a GREAT renter so quickly. We were coming close with struggling on the mortgages. We prayed that an answer would come and the next day we had people wanting to rent the house. We are so pleased with the guy renting the house too! Just feel really blessed with that one!
*Remodeled the kitchen. Wow! Talk about a lot of work and learning new skills!
*Made a bed frame. Fun!
*Had my first garden. Actually got fruits/veggies from it. Pretty proud of myself.
*My work is going great and steady.
*Had 3 new nieces/nephew born this year
*Went to Florida to visit Girlie and David (Rillz's sister and brother-in-law)
*Came back from Florida to a Parvo dog that costed thousands and a leaking main water pipe that skyrocketed the water bill.
Overall, not a bad year. We are healthy and happy. I know great things will happen for 2011. I'm thinking more exercise, a couple trips to Hawaii, an engagement ring (hopefully wedding in 2011 too), jobs getting better, me making time for classes towards my degree. Yes, all this will be happening!
P.S. Do you like my blog background? It's my birthday next week so why not!
Happy New Year!

baking day

2010-12-12T15:02:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I spent time baking Christmas goodies with my sisters, sister-in-law, and mom. I had fun spending time with them.

Haha! Ren was eating the treats and this is the picture I got of him.
I uploaded the pictures on my computer and found that my camera had been borrowed for pictures of Camden. But don't worry, I don't mind
Here is Brecken helping us bake on the counter. He was unhappy because both of his binkies were eatin by dogs so he had to borrow one from Camden and was NOT happy.

Gunnar helped Noelle with her goodies and they floured a little more than the countertop!

No big deal that the baby has a pill bottle. Haha (don't get your panties in a knot... the bottles empty)

Martha Stewart at her best!

Thanks girls for all the help! I had a lot of fun.

Bath Time

2010-12-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

I was going to be in Caldwell most of the day yesterday so I called Kristi and asked if my dogs could play with Diesel at her house all day. So, Saturday I dropped them off at Kristis. Of course all three dogs were so excited. They played, and played, and played!! It was rainy out so they all got REALLY dirty. Last night I brought them home and put them right to bed. This morning they got baths. Both dogs are great in the bath. They make me laugh. Malu always stands over Simon. The dirt falling off them was crazy!! I could have made mud pies.

Waiting for their bath

It's harder to wash Simon when there is a big dog on top of him.

Waiting to get dried off.

Malu looks real happy. haha

Right when they get out of the bath they both go to find any sort of material to rub all over.

Squeaky clean. They have been sleeping ever since. Yesterday just wore them out.

caldwell holiday parade

2010-12-10T15:44:00.001-08:00

A couple years ago we started a tradition to go to Kristi's and eat yummy tortilla soup (or whatever Kristi calls it), go to the Caldwell night light parade, and then back to Kristi's for apple crisp. It is always a lot of fun and will only get more fun when the little kids start getting older.

Brecken is SO chubby and cute!

Kristi and I both looked at this picture and said... "oh yeah, this ones a keeper look how cute I look". Of course we were only looking at ourselves. Haha. Brecken was really tired. He would close his eyes until a float would go by. He loved the lights.

Oh my, you can see WAY into the back of his mouth. Gunnar had so much fun! He was really great and silly.

All the guys.

There were a lot of toy story themed floats.

This guy was pretty funny. He was buzz lightyear hanging from a crane

This had me cracking up. They put christmas lights on the cows back.

Thanks Kristi and Jeff for doing this every year! We had a blast.

Thanksgiving.

2010-12-10T15:23:00.000-08:00

This year thanksgiving was pretty low key. Everyone was going to their in-laws this year so Rillz, my mom and I were just going to go out and eat. Heidi and Ren ended up not going to Ren's parents so we decided to have Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's with the 5 1/2 of us. (The 1/2 is baby Camden! Haha) We all pitched in on bringing food. I made super nasty green bean salad. The recipe was terrible and Rillz made pumpkin pies, the pies were good of course. I got to my moms early and made creme brulee french toast. Then Heidi and I went shopping at Walgreens for some AWESOME deals! Dinner wasn't until 5 because Rillz got off work at 3:30. In the meantime Ren and I went searching for Hurley and Malu. The two dogs decided to take themselves on a LONG walk. We couldn't find them for 3 hours. Malu ended up coming back 3 hours later without Hurley. We have no idea where they went. When Heidi and I were on our way back from Walgreens Heidi spotted Hurley walking leisurely down someones driveway. Crazy dogs. So by 5 we had both dogs back and were ready for dinner. Thanksgiving was nice and relaxing. I got a lot of Camden time! I was a DEFINITE baby hog!!

Look at that happy little family!

This is my mom's dog sitting at the Thanksgiving table. Gross.

Naughty Malu. She was in trouble

Feed me!

Happy Holidays!

Snow

2010-11-24T21:34:00.000-08:00

This week has been freezing in Boise! We got 2 inches of snow on Sunday and now probably another inch since then. I played in the snow yesterday but it is just so FREAKIN cold outside I hardly want to venture out there longer then 10 seconds. Snow is so pretty and nice to look at from inside a warm cozy house but is cold and slippery and the ice it creates causes a lot of accidents on the road.

Here is a snow picture while I was at work

This was a tree branch with layers of snow. It was really pretty but kinda hard to tell in this picture

This tree looked cooler in person too. But I think it's pretty

Everyone have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!! Gobble Gobble

Yellow tomato soup?!?

2010-11-24T21:29:00.000-08:00

This week the little boy I nanny has been out of school so I have been working 12 hour days. Yesterday I wanted tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. I was looking in the pantry everywhere for tomato soup. I came upon a can that was yellow tomato soup. WHAT?!? Does that even exist. I was really excited about it after discovering the can so of course I had to make it. It tasted just the same, the yellow color kinda threw me off a bit but I was just surprised that Campbells made yellow tomato soup. Pretty neat.

recent loving and hatings...

2010-11-17T11:24:00.000-08:00

Loves:

* my crock-pot and the fix it and forget it crock-pot bible!!
* Malu and Simon... they are crazy dogs
* The Office (Neither Rillz or I work in an office, so I am talkin about the t.v.show)
* Parenthood (again, not parents so I am talkin 'bout the t.v. show) LOVE this show!!!!
* Breathe Right strips. Ever tried them? You should. They help me sleep and breath so much better at night. I was very skeptical at first. But now I am hooked.
* Couponing. Oh the money I save!
* Automatic car starter. Makes my car nice and warm for me in winter and cool in summer!
* Heidi and Kristi's babies! Helps a little to prolong my bad desire for one.
* Rillz's cooking skills. Yum!
* when Rillz speaks in a different language (speaking of different language, in the mail lately, Rillz has been getting offers and advertisements in spanish. Neither I or Rillz know spanish!! Just because his last name is Rivera doesn't mean he is mexican. But I love that too. It's good comedy)
* Family Feud. I suspect I would be good on that show.

Hates:

* Simon not letting me cut his really long nails. I don't want to go spend $10 on a nail trim either
* Our t.v. reception. The t.v. will cut out if a car drives by or if we sit in the wrong position.
* sorting coupons in my binder. It sucks. It is hard to convince myself to do it.
* Doing laundry. I hate it. I typically forget about the clothes in the washer and then have to wash them again.
* brushing my teeth. I always brush and I know it is good health but I hate it! Always have.
* Bills... but who doesn't

Thats all for now. Peace and Love

My addiction to radio contests

2010-11-09T20:30:00.000-08:00

Since I last won those tickets to a comdy show I have grown addicted to calling into the radio programs to try and win things. At certain times of the day I have caught on to which radio station is looking for caller 6,7,8 or whatever caller number. Typically I call, busy, call, busy, call, rings rings rings until goes busy. I keep trying until they announce a winner or until I have to get out of my car because I reached my destination. I only listen to radio stations and call in when I am driving. Lucky for me, Idaho doesn't have a cell phone law. Anyways. Like I said call, busy, call, busy, call, ring ring ring then busy. That is 90% of the time. Today I was driving somewhere and a radio station, mix 106 says win sara bareilles tickets. Rillz and I are planning to go to this concert. But we really don't have the $40 to spend on entertainment. So of course I tried. I got through! Woohoo. The catch... they played sounds of shooting a certain gun and I had to guess the gun it came from. Are you freakin kidding me. Whatever I will give it a shot (no pun intended). It rings and then the radio guy picks up and puts me on hold to see if someone else guesses right! Cool. I hear the shots and sounds like this... bpew. bpew. bpew. Really? Doesn't every gun sound like that. I get it wrong of course. Rillz was with me and I said "Rillz here is my phone, you try". It rings rings rings and then busy. Try again same thing. So I call again and the guy, again, says hey hold on the line. I yelled "Rillz come here your on hold!" Rillz didn't even hear the gun shot yet and said "I am going to guess Glock 9" He said it and WON! I was SO happy! Now we get to go to Sara Bareilles for FREE! I love radio station contests.
Here is a video of Sara Bareilles. You may recognize her songs!

Happy Halloween

2010-10-31T12:57:00.000-07:00

Rillz and I dressed up for halloween and decided to go trick or treating with the Millers. Gunnar was an awesome pirate, Brecken was the cutest, chubbiest elephant, Jeff was a last minute pirate, Kristi was a mom of two boys, Rillz was the tin man, and I was Glinda the good witch. Oh and Malu was Dorothy and Simon was Toto. (pictures of the dogs to come).

I had bought a hideous wedding dress for $3 at a thrift store for Glindas dress. I told my boss that I was going to be Glinda for halloween. She immediately said... oh my gosh I have the perfect Glinda dress you should wear. So I say, ok yeah. I dyed the thrift store dress pink anyways and got everything ready just in case my boss couldn't find the dress. Well, her and I went to storage yesterday and she found the dress. This is a dress she had worn years and years ago at a ball dance on a cruise ship. I tried it on and it fit perfect! The sweater was her grandmas when her grandma was younger and it was real fox hair dyed pink. It was a really pretty dress! My crown and wand, not so beautiful. haha.

All of us ready to go trick-or-treating. Yes, Gunnar had a whole entourage with him. It reminded me of the show Parenthood. Last weeks episode was a halloween one. If you haven't seen that show... you should!! Really great!

Rillz was a great sport to wear what I made. He was an awesome tin man. I laughed every time I looked at him. Everytime we got in the car we had to take his whole box off.

Malu's Dorothy costume has a wig. We naturally thought it would be so funny to put it on Brecken. And it was really funny! Poor Brecken already has all these goofy pictures of what we do to him.

Happy halloween everyone!

Baby Camden Kalani

2010-10-31T12:32:00.000-07:00

Camden Kalani Tracy was born on Thursday October 28, 2010 at 6:28 A.M. Rillz and I have now had 3 new nieces/nephew born in the last 4 months. We just love all of them! But after Rillz saw Cami, he finally admitted out loud and said, "I want one of these". So hopefully we get married soon so we can have "one of those". Anyways, Rillz and I went over to the hospital at 11 A.M. She was a whopping 5 lbs. 13 oz. and 19 in. long. What a little thing. When I held her she was completely asleep. She felt like a feather. Oh so sweet! Rillz was unwilling to hold her that morning because she was too little for him. But he sure oogled over her. Rillz and I had to return back to work. We returned at 8:30 that night to try and skype my dad so he could see Camden. We couldn't get a hold of my dad for a while so in the mean time I convinced Rillz that Camden was not as fragile as he thinks. So he sat down and Camden was handed over to him. Again, he just stared at her with googly eyes and all smiles! By Rillz holding 3 brand new babys this year, I think he's got it down now! We finally got a hold of my dad so he could see his first granddaughter. Heidi, Ren, and Camden went home Friday night happy and healthy! Congratulations Tracy family.

Heidi before having Camden. She was so calm and relaxed and hardly felt any pain.
Baby Camden. She hated me taking pictures. So she always scrunched her face and tucked in her lip at me.

Under that hat is beautiful black hair.

Me and Camden

Camden and her daddy, Ren

Camden and new mommy, Heidi. Isn't Heidi's hair pretty even after having a baby.

Heidi and Ren were trying to wake Camden up to eat. She just did not want to!

Uncle Rillz holding little Camden

baseball baby shower

2010-10-31T12:11:00.000-07:00

For Heidi's baby shower we did a baseball theme. Yes, a girl baseball baby shower. Kristi and I had thought the theme would work well because Heidi was naming her first born after a baseball stadium, Camden stadium. I looked on line for girl baseball baby showers only to see pretty much nothing existed. So, Kristi and I just changed the blue type things to pink. Easy enough. We thought for food to do things you would eat while watching a baseball game at a stadium. Hot dogs screams baseball but neither Kristi or I wanted to cook hot dogs for all the guests when they are there. So we thought crockpot things. I thought of little weiners instead of hot dogs and Kristi came up with a nacho bar. Awesome! Noelle did a gourmet popcorn for party favors. The food was fun and went well with a baseball theme. The Hollingsworths aren't to much into games at baby showers and bridal showers. So, we did the simple quick games of guess how big around Heid is and guess how many eyeballs in a jar.

I made banners. One saying baby shower and another saying its a girl. The letters are pink on round baseballs.
I saw this scoreboard on the internet and just had to make one. I thought it was so cute. Only, Camden came way before the 23 days until her due date. She decided to come 5 days after her baby shower.

The food set up.

The popcorn party favors.

Heidi eating her food.

Her belly was really cute. Heidi and I both say that whatever she looked like through-out the pregnancy is what I am going to look like when I am pregnant. Besides the swollen feet, I won't mind at all looking like her. She looked good through the whole pregnancy.

Congratulations Heidi. We love you and your new little Camden

Our grass...

2010-10-31T11:46:00.000-07:00

Sorry, not talking about the marijuana kind of grass... just talking about my, well, grass. At the beginning of the warm season, month of May, my grass was a disaster. I felt like that white trash neighbor that has all the weeds and dead grass in the yard. Rillz and I were determined to do something about it. The only problem, we knew NOTHING about recovering a sad looking lawn. Rillz's suggestion was to take it all out and lay down new lawn... um no, too spendy. So, from talking to several people, we decided to first kill the weeds with weed be gone and then sign up for the zamzows lawn program. Wow! Our lawn is much thicker and healthier. Still far from perfect but a big difference.

Our front yard in May 2010.
Another front yard pic.

Back yard picture in May 2010. Our dogs did some nice pee spots don't you think.

Gross.

Poor lawn.

Our lawn at the end of September 2010. Those "yellow" looking spots are from the sun coming through the trees. Not yellow doggie pee burn spots. Those are ALL gone!
Another backyard picture. I wish the sun wasn't so bright so the picture would show no yellow. Oh well. I love mowing my lawn and then just looking at it. Looks so pretty after being mowed. I can't believe our grass stays so nice with 2 dogs running all over it all day.
Our front yard September 2010. It isn't as thick and beautiful as the back but it looks much better. And now from our main water line having that leak, we have a funny grass/dirt spot in our lawn.

I am so glad our lawn is small. This much grass is enough work for me.

Happy Anniversary Tracy's

2010-10-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

To thank Ren for all his help with our house Rillz wanted to do a really special anniversary dinner for Ren and Heidi. Rillz and I were both pretty excited to do this dinner for them too. Rillz loves being able to be creative on his food. He got all his special gourmet books out for asian themed dish ideas. Through-out the week I picked things up to decorate with. Rillz and I were both happy and pleased with the way it turned out. We definitely didn't put the blood, sweat, and tears into it like Ren did for our kitchen. Ren wasn't even expecting anything in return when he volunteered to help with our kitchen. What great brother-in-laws I have! That said here is Heidi and Ren's thoughts about the whole experience:

Ren helped out Mindy and Rillz a lot the last few months with remodeling their kitchen and some plumbing issues and Rillz wanted to make a special anniversary dinner for us as a thank you. We weren't about to pass up a chance to be fed by the best chef out there!
When Ren first mentioned it I thought we were just going over to their house to have dinner with them. Then Mindy calls and says they are coming to our house, that we need to be out of the house for about 3 hrs and asks if there is anything in my living room that is off limits to move around. Turns out they had bigger plans for our evening!
They came over at 3PM and told us not to return until 6:30PM. It was nice to just go out and get some errands done and be anticipating the deliciousness that awaited us. We returned to a fancy table set for two in our living room, candle light and nice music playing. The whole night was Asian themed.
Pictures don't do it justice. All of the lanterns had lights in them and then they had set up a screen in between the living room and kitchen area so that we couldn't see the chef at work. I seriously felt like I was in a fancy restaurant in my own house, it was great.

Then came the food, oh my was it over the top. We had 5 courses.

Appetizer Sampler: Chicken saute with Thai peanut sauce, Shrimp saute with citrus chili and King crab salad on shrimp boat chip

Palate Cleanser:Ginger infused mango sherbet

Salad: Crisp mixed greens with Asian vinaigrette topped with a bacon wrapped scallop and papaya glazed cucumbers

Entree: Miso sockeye salmon with furikake and lemon rice with garlic hoisin sauce accompanied with kimchee green beans

Dessert: Apple banana lumpia with vanilla ice cream topped with toasted macadamia caramel sauce

Beverage: Fuji apple cranberry cider

Once again, pictures do not do it justice. Each place was like it's own little work of art and it tasted so D.I.V.I.N.E!!! There wasn't one part that we didn't like or even kind of didn't like. It totally ruined our ability to go out to eat and actually pay to eat any other food :) All we talk about now is how delicious that dinner was. It was truly the fanciest thing I have ever eaten in my life...and it was in my own house, so cool.

I know a ton of work and prepping went into our special night. Thanks Mindy and Rillz!

Rillz and I are happy to know they really enjoyed it. Our goal was to make them feel special and have an experience that typically doesn't happen. Since doing this dinner, we have had more than one offer to come help us with the next house project... lucky for them, my house is older and will always need a little TLC here and there.

P.S. Watch out Jeff and Kristi, your next!

damaged goods

2010-10-23T16:47:00.001-07:00

So today Rillz and I were talking to my dad on the phone. We started talking about Europe because that is where Rillz and I plan to go on our honeymoon. Then my dad and Rillz had this conversation that had me laughing
dad: what are you waiting for... when are you getting married
Rillz: well I need to ask for you and Robins blessing and get all my ducks in a row
dad: you don't need to ask. She has already been married and now she is just damaged goods. In fact, she is a blue light special.

I thought I was going to pee my pants. It sounded so funny! I needed a good laugh. Don't worry, after that my dad had nice things to say like "of course you have my blessing, I wouldn't give her to a loser again."

Haha. Just had to write all this for memories.

What a pleasure!

2010-10-22T14:42:00.000-07:00

Disclosure- this was typed up yesterday but for some reason didn't post.
The last 2 days I have had to work 12 hour days. The little boy I nanny is usually in full day preschool but yesterday and today there was parent teacher conferences so I have been with him ALL day from 8-8. Before you start thinking "Oh my thats a long hard day" let me just tell you how FUN and fast work has been. The little boy I nanny has just been absolutely WONDERFUL! Lots of laughing and playing together. We made waffles together, ate Ben and Jerry's ice cream downtown, had a picnic in the park, built an awesome train track and read lots of library books. Sometimes a 3 1/2 year old makes you want to rip your hair out and tie them to a chair and other times you just can't get enough hugs and kisses and time together in a day. Either way, days like today make me REALLY excited for when I have my own little ones. I feel grateful in this economy to have a job and it's even better to love my job and be good at what I do.
The weekend will be just as exciting. Heidi's baby shower is tomorrow and Sunday we are having my Aunt Nancy's thanksgiving day dinner. A little early I know but her grandson will be in town and he wants her thanksgiving dinner. I am in charge of pumpkin pie and banana cream pie. Yum!
Oh yeah, and the weather today is BEAUTIFUL! And the fall tree colors make me smile all over!
I hope everyone is enjoying their Fridays and have a great weekend!

Florida Vacation

2010-10-14T11:47:00.001-07:00

Last month (September) Rillz and I went on vacation to Florida. Rillz's sister was having a baby. The first niece/nephew on his side of the family. We were SO excited to meet the new baby and see all the family! Girlie (Rillz's sister) didn't want to find out what the baby was. I had guessed it's a girl the whole time. A lot of others thought boy. She was born Wednesday September 15, 2010 at 11: something p.m. We left Thursday morning September 16. So the night before we left Rillz and I found out Girlie had a GIRL! Baby Gracey was born and we just love her and miss her.

We just adore her. Look at that hair!

This is Gracey and David (David is Girlies husband, Graceys dad)

Girlie and Gracey

Davids mom and Girlies mom with Gracey

Girlie and Rillz's parents

Gracey's first day home

Sleepy girl

Our last day in Florida. Sleeping with uncle Rillz

While in Florida Rillz and I went Disney World for 2 days. We were able to go to all 4 parks. We also went to Ripleys Believe it or not and M&M world. We had a blast!

At Disney World they had Magic Kingdom all decorated for Halloween
Me on some little park ride.

Getting warm by the fire place at Minnies house

Even on vacation Rillz is working in the shop... Mickeys shop!

The castle!

At Hollywood studios park they had a playground area with the Honey I Shrunk the Kids theme. It was so fun! Rillz by a Tinker toy block!
What a BIG ant and ice cream cookie!

I thought this sign was really cute!

Everything in those parks were SO expensive. (Of course I knew it would be). So we took food and water into the parks for the day. We decided to spoil ourselves for one meal. We chose this 50's diner that was super cute. Yummy (expensive) homecooking type meal. They had tvs at the booths playing Leave it to Beaver and other old shows.

Oh man this coke crate is HEAVY. Almost like it's cemented down!

Rillz's mom and dad came with us to the Epcot center the first day. After about 4 hours of being there they got worn out (it's a TON of walking) and so Rillz and I took them back to Girlies house. (She only lives about 20 min. away from Disney World). It was fun walking around with them for a while!

Rillz and I at Epcot

The famous Epcot ball/ dome thingy

Just his size!

The Animal kingdom park. Here is the tree of life.
3D glasses. I think they look good on me.

These are bats and there was no glass between us. Gross

We took a safari jeep ride. There are no barriers between us and some of the animals. Lots of the animals had babies. They were adorable.

Rillz looks like a natural!

The night before Disney World Rillz and I took a drive around the touristy area (disney world, sea world, you know that stuff). We randomly drove by Ripleys and decided to go. Rillz had never been to one.
This chair is too big! Those ones are too small.... where is the one thats just right??

The tallest man. He is just a little taller than Rillz

A section of the actual Berlin wall

Rillz and I went to IKEA (which is AMAZING!!!) and as we were driving back home I saw M&M world. I just had to go! It was fun looking at a lot of spendy M&M's!

Green is the new love color... Right!?!
Florida was amazing! We are very grateful for everyone who helped us out. We spent a lot of time with family and ate Fantastic food prepared by the family!

Like the saying goes "When it rains... it pours"

2010-10-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

I feel like since we got back from vacation last Saturday we have been flooded with unexpected problems. Really, it has only been 2 problems but still it's been a long and stressful week.

Rillz and I got back into town on Saturday and went to pick up our dogs from Kristis. Kristi and Jeff were kind enough to doggie sit while we were gone. We knew Kristi and Jeff were going out of town Thursday afternoon until Sunday. We were totally fine with our dogs being there with Diesel and no humans. They all get along really well. And Ren was going Friday to check on them anyways and give them food/water. Rillz got a text Friday saying Malu had lost 5 lbs. and looked really depressed. Not a huge shock to us because Malu is a very sensitive dog and always gets depressed so maybe she wasn't eating. Kristi said she was eating fine and hadn't noticed her losing any weight. Anyways, we go and check on them Saturday afternoon. Rillz and I walk in their backyard and are greeted to the excitement of Diesel and Simon. No Malu. We called for her and then thought she must have escaped some how. Soon after Malu came slowely out of the bushes and looked like just skin and bones.

She barely had any emotions and something was definitely wrong. Rillz and I took her to my parents and tried to feed her. She would not eat. We sat around for a couple hours to see if she would spring up a little. Eventually she started vomiting water and Rillz and I realized she needed to go to the vet. We took her right away and was told she has Parvo. She had lost 16 lbs. in 1 1/2 days. She was taken back into the hospital area and we were sent home. Malu stayed in there for 4 days. The whole time she barely ate one meatball. The Dr.s were worried to let her come home but thought she may do better at home because she is so sensitive. Plus, our bill was really starting to get expensive already. Rillz and I picked her up on Wednesday afternoon. She was feeling much better because her personality was back. She has eatin everything I have given her which has to be VERY bland foods. I have to give her pills every 8 hours and we even had to inject water into her... that part freaked me out a bit. Still looks like we haven't fed her in weeks but oh-well. I learned my lesson the expensive way. DOGGIE VACCINES ARE VERY IMPORTANT!!! This parvo virus is found EVERYWHERE! It can be tracked in your yard from anything and stay for years. So if you don't want to spend thousands on your dog make sure they are up to date on shots and get their boosters too.

Next thing, something is flooding parts of our front yard. It has been a slow flood though. On Monday I thought we had just over watered our lawn. Rillz turned the sprinkler system off on Tuesday and our lawn still had major puddles. Oh great. At our request our water is completely shut off. We think the sprinkler valve is broken. But, really we don't know. Ren has generously offered his time to come look at it today. In the mean time I have to use the bathroom but have to hold it until I go back to work in 1 1/2 hours. We really didn't need this issue after Malu's issues this week. At least I will work out tonight because we are planning on taking showers at the gym. Great idea huh!

This picture doesn't look that bad. Some water has been pumped out from the top and the sun has dryed it up too.

Luckely, Rillz and I are in good health and have food and a roof over our heads. I hope everyone else's week has gone better than ours :)

Thank goodness it's Friday!!

The kitchen

2010-09-28T19:57:00.001-07:00

So the kitchen is pretty much finished. At least all the really hard and big stuff. So, finally, here are before and after pictures of whats completed.

Here is the before and after of the kitchen/living room wall. We opened up the doorway and made the fridge cave.

Before...

Before... but room cleared out.

The before picture of the outside of the fridge area...
The before doorway...

Finished product...

Before picture of where the fridge and microwave had to go. Took up a lot of room.

The fridge/microwave stand moved out...
After...

Looks and feels much more open.

The before fridge cave... no cave there
After picture... Look at that sexy fridge cave. Oh... and notice the cabinet paint change. We also put wood molding in instead of that hideous rubber stuff.
The floor before... It was lenoleum. It wasn't the worst thing in the kitchen but looks so much nicer with the tile

After... the new floor. We slaved over this dumb floor and it was the hardest and longest part of the kitchen. This picture isn't the best. But o-well... deal.
Our old oven... it was apartment size and very tiny and the oven temp was wrong so I always burned EVERYTHING.

Our new oven! We got it off craigslist for a great deal. Ignore the silver patch behind the oven. That is a work in progress. We eventually will put stainless steal sheets behind the oven and the backsplash. I spray painted a spot to see what it would look like.

For whatever reason I can't find a before picture of this shot. But I painted the cabinets and Rillz and Ren cut out that dishwasher space. The green cabinets are much calmer than the red. The red was just to in your face.

Old dishwasher... again, apartment size. I sold this little one for more than I paid for our new one.

The dishwasher... we got it off craigslist too.

The dishwasher was white with black trim and paneling. All our other appliances were completely black. So I spray painted the white parts with black appliance paint. Turned out great!

We bought this tool bench from Costco before we even started any renovation. We new it would be a perfect fit against this wall. The tool bench has a big butcher block on top too... perfect for prepping dinners on. It gives us more counter space and storage. All our utensils, pots, pans, bowls, knives, measuring spoons/cups, spices, foil and plastic wraps are stored in this tool bench.
People always ask if its a tool bench or if it really was made to go in a kitchen! Either way, we LOVE it in our kitchen. It's perfect.

This is the "backsplash" behind the countertops. We have not bought and put up the stainless steal yet. That is pretty much all we have left to do though. Oh, we bought kitchen things from Ikea that I can't wait to put up too!

Finally my kitchen is pretty much complete and my house isn't one big dust ball. Since our kitchen has been put back together we have NOT wanted to eat out. We were so sick of fast food and take out and restaurants. Rillz and I just get so excited to cook now. It doesn't feel as stressful as it used to in the old cramped kitchen. I know my kitchen is small but now it feels more efficiant and easier to move around in.

A new addition

2010-09-17T16:36:00.000-07:00

We have a new baby in our family! Rillz's sister had a sweet little girl on Wednesday September 15. Her name is Gracey Milan Kealani Noone. Girlie and David didn't want to find out what it was. I immediately guessed a girl. I guess the majority of people said boy. Well, it's a girl and she is so adorable! Her hair is black, thick, and curly. We just love her already. She had a fever coming out but baby and mom are doing really well! Rillz's sister and brother-in-law live in Florida and Rillz and I were lucky to see her when she was less then a day old. Girlie came home tonight (Friday) and Gracey gets to come home tomorrow morning. I was told that Girlie was laughing and texting on her phone during labor. Crazy girl!

Gracey is 7 lbs. 10 oz. and 20 in. long.

We are all so happy for David and Girlie. It is the first baby on Rillz's side of the family. I will have to take pictures this week of David and Girlie with their baby. We just adore her and love her so much!

Welcome to the family sweet Gracey!

I made stuff for the baby. Not knowing what the gender was made it diffuct too. Here is a blanket I sewed. Let me tell you... such a pain! I had to learn a lot about my sewing machine and how to use different foots for it just to do this quilt. Took hours and lots of frustration to do! But, it's pretty cute.

Kristi also helped me make an awesome Baby ABC scrapbook. We both worked on it 7 hours straight. Kristi is SO creative and talented when it comes to crafty stuff. We couldn't make it boyish or girlish. Oops, pictures are sideways. Sorry.

Alright, got a lot of eating to do now. Peace out!

Hot air balloons

2010-09-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

Growing up Boise always had an event called Boise River Festival. It was awesome! Always the highlight of summer in my youth. In 2003 the city ended it due to funding. Part of the festival was always hot air balloons. My dad would always wake up at 6 a.m. and wake up whoever wanted to go to. The balloons typically take off every morning for 3 days. And on the last day they did a night light balloon show. Well, like I said that all ended 7 years ago. This year Boise decided to do the hot air balloon part again. I was SO excited! I asked Rillz if we could invite my siblings over for a bbq then all go down together since my house is only 5 minutes away from the park. Rillz of course was on board. I called Kristi, Heidi, and Brent and come to find out they were all planning to go too. My mom and dad were both out of town so they missed the get together. I was excited to show off my kitchen (which I will post about soon). Last week Rillz and I worked our butts off to get the house ready for everyone. Lots of dusting! Anyways, we had a great meal and great company. We even skyped my dad (who is in Germany right now) so every one could say hi to him.

What is Brent doing? A little meditation doesn't hurt I guess.

After eating we headed to Ann Morrison Park for the Night Light hot air balloons. We all enjoyed it but everyone was saying it wasn't as magnificant as we remembered. Not as much balloon participation. But we hope if they continue to do this every year more balloons will get involved and the event will only get bigger. The balloons that were there were pretty when lit up.

I was able to take a picture of every couple/family:
Heidi, Ren and Camden (the lump of course)

Kristi, Jeff, Gunnar, and Brecken. Gunnar was trying to make a funny face but I took the picture sooner than he thought. That is why he looks SUPER happy in this picture

Brent, Noelle, and Hazel

Me and Rillz. Man, I look so white next to him. (ok I know I am white but you know, this is REALLY white looking)

There were so many people!

After the balloons we went back to my house and had rootbeer floats and celebrated Brents 26th birthday.

Thanks family for making this get together great!

Couponing deal

2010-08-31T11:11:00.000-07:00

So I haven't blogged about a coupon deal for a while. I am still getting PLENTY of items for super cheap with coupons/deals. But I have been so busy with the kitchen to want to write about any of them. Here is my purchase from last night at Albertsons...

9- boxes of Pringles Stix

2- bags chocolate chex mix (yummy chocolate mix but the preztles kinda ruin it)

6- 4 packs of sparkling juicy juice (surprisingly still 70% juice. The apple flavor kinda tastes like red bull)

1- dozen eggs (the only thing I really needed from the store)

5- kids colgate toothpaste (I donate it to the homeless shelter)

3- 3 packs of ivory soap

4- container pringles

All this for $6.23. Plus I got a $2 survey to use on my next shopping trip.

These are things I normally wouldn't get or need but since they were pretty much free they are great things to have around or donate.

5 weeks in

2010-08-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

So it has now been 5 weeks. We are VERY close to being done. I am not going to show pictures until the Kitchen is complete. But, it is coming along. Lets just say our fridge is officially in the cave. The baseboards are in and painted. Thanks to craigslist we upgraded our apartment sized appliances with a normal sized stove and dishwasher. Oh I LOVE craigslist! I buy so many things off there now and sell plenty too. There are still things to do in the kitchen but the thing to do now is go to bed.
Peace and love everyone

Feeling itchy

2010-08-20T21:38:00.000-07:00

Exactly a week ago Simon and Malu went to play at Kristi's house with Diesel. When Rillz and I went to pick them up Malu had raised hair bumps all over her back and a couple on her head. My instinct was immediatly to take her to the 24 hour vet on our way home. It was midnight and we new it would be spendier than if it were with her normal vet. We decided to forgo the vet and go home. Malu still seemed her normal self and wasn't itching or anything. We put both of them to bed and hoped for the best (which would be Malu still alive and well in the morning). The next morning they were gone. We figured she rolled in a bee farm or something goofy like that. Well tonight I left the dogs outside for maybe 2 hours and once again Malu has those bumps on her back. I started researching the internet for answers. "Boxer has raised bumps on her back". Plenty forums popped up. It is most likely hives or allergies. I am thinking maybe mosquitos because it seems to be darker at night when she gets these bumps. I don't know but I guess its not uncommon for boxer dogs to get these problems. Crazy dog.

Notice the bumps on her back? Tonights isn't as bad as last week.

Harder to notice in this picture. You can see the patch of 4 bumps down by her booty.

Those just look gross. Makes me itchy just looking at her.

Of course Simon wanted his picture taken too. He is getting quite hairy and needs to visit the doggie barber. Not sure if he can even see through his bangs anymore.
I love my dogs but choose not to freak out about things like this.

Wipe on, wipe off

2010-08-16T20:54:00.000-07:00

Today is Monday and Rillz, me, Jeff, and Ren happen to have work off all together. Well, Ren is currently not working but Jeff and I never had Mondays off previous to today. So they all offered their time and labor to grout the kitchen. It was quite a learning experience. I had a good time and with all the help it took about 3 hours. Kristi came along too with the boys. Everyone was just laughing and smiling! The grout is complete and looks AMAZING! I am just so happy with it. Rillz and I still have to put tile around the kitchen for the baseboard area. Then we will seal the floor and put our appliances in. Woohoo.

The master grouter...

The "I am so bad at this" grouter

The "cool, this smoothes itself out" grouter

The "God didn't build me strong enough to do hard labor" grouter. Haha.

All four of us working in our areas

oooohhhh. I love the tile!

I can't wait until the kitchen is complete
Everyone worked so hard today and of course Rillz and I are very appreciative.

Wowza

2010-08-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

So I didn't write a new post all week. Last week I had to go to Oregon for work. While I was gone Rillz worked and worked and worked really hard on laying the tile on the floor. Ren had helped too. I got back from Oregon and it looked great. The only thing left to lay were the triangle pieces around the perimeter. So Sunday morning I woke up and had planned to measure and cut all those triangle pieces. I had cut 4 pieces and than... oh crap... the blade on the saw wasn't spinning and the motor smelled of smoke. So I didn't touch it. Rillz got home and tried to see what was wrong with it. No luck. So we call the owner of the saw (Jeff of course) and he said to take it back to his house so he can look at it. Come to find out... I broke it. Jeff said the motor was bound to go and could have broken on anyone. Ok but dang it... why did it brake on me and make me look like the bad guy. I told Jeff he probably put me on his "do not let borrow" list. Haha. He let us borrow "big bertha". It's an old tile saw that weighs a million pounds and built much better than the one I broke. Rillz stayed up until 5 a.m. to finish laying ALL the floor tiles! He is so great! I am NOT built that way. I was so tired by 1 a.m. and retired shortly after.

Rillz and Ren working on the floor

This is the tile saw that quit on me... aka the saw I broke

This is "Big Bertha". I would NOT even touch this one. I made Rillz do the rest of the cutting

"Big Bertha" is noisy too.

3 weeks and counting

2010-08-08T07:15:00.000-07:00

The remodel has officially been in progress for 3 weeks. Work is still going on but just a little slower. We basically only have the floor left and some touch up on paint.

Here is the cabinets all painted and the top ones hung back up. Goodbye forever red... I won't miss you.

The living room/kitchen wall and modeling painted by Rillz. He did an awesome job and looks so great!

The cave painted except for the cubby holes.

Yes, those are the only cabinets I have in my kithen. But, it's never been a problem because I have a HUGE pantry space down the hall. I haven't put the bottom cabinets on yet because they are in the way when dealing with the floor.

Jeff came over yesterday morning to teach me how to lay and cut tile. Rillz and I are planning to work hard on the floor tonight and tomorrow. The kitchen is really coming along and I am excited!

Our first laid tiles!

Holy cow tile is a lot of work. I won't be quitted my day job for tiling any time soon.

Jeff cutting tile.

The tile saw. I have to admit that I was FREAKED out to have to learn how to cut tile... but after cutting the first couple pieces I started to enjoy it.

I moved the fridge the other day (which is in our living room) and left scratch marks in our hard wood floors... oops.

God is really testing us today

2010-08-05T21:02:00.000-07:00

So, Rillz and I both happen to have REALLY bad days. Rillz couldn't fix his sprinkler system at the rental house nor find any parts to fix it and it was SUPER hot outside and there was the renters dog jumping on his back/head every time he bent down to try and figure out the sprinkler head problem. My day was just terrible at work too, I don't even want to go into further detail but I felt so stressed at one point that I almost just started crying. Then we planned on leveling our kitchen floor tonight and calmed ourselves down enough to get started. We planned on a really long night to just get it done. I started trying to figure out where the level spots were and ran into problems. Our previous quicklevel spots are cracking. FRUSTRATING. We call Jeff and he advised us not to do anything else with the floor tonight. So now I am back into having a bad day. And to top it off they are now jackhammering Overland road (which is two houses down) from 9 p.m. until 5 A.M. It is now 10 p.m. and the construction crew is hard at work making a crap load of noise right before I settle down for bed. God is really punishing me or testing me today. I haven't figured out which one yet. Oh when is this day going to end...

Eating out

2010-08-01T20:39:00.000-07:00

Since our kitchen is torn apart we really can't prepare meals besides cereal, sandwiches, and cup a noodles, we have eaten out A LOT! To much of a good thing is no longer a good thing. Last night had to be the worst. Rillz wanted Hawaiian food. We were getting bored of burger, fries, and shake type things. We went to CK BBQ in Boise. IT WAS TERRIBLE. The costumer service was NOT there. The guy was rude and made us feel like we were inconveniencing him. And the food was just gross. I got the Loco Moco and the hamburger patty was way over done and the egg wasn't even over easy. The macaroni salad was unedible. The only good thing was the rice. I will NEVER give them service again. Not just because the food was terrible but because the service and that guy was SO RUDE.

Even the box was nicer then the guy. It told us to have a nice day!
CK BBQ food. It actually looks better than it was.

On a good note, Rillz and I were really wanting a home cooked meal. We decided to BBQ! Rillz grilled bbq chicken and squash from the garden. We had a nice spinach salad (thanks Kristi) and watermelon (thanks mom). It was a much needed dinner. The dogs enjoyed us outside and got to eat some watermelon... and maybe a marshmellow accidentally fell on the ground :)

Home cooked dinner!!

Yummy! I love colorful food.

Then, we made smores on the rest of the hot flames.

Puppy treats. Malu is a picky eater.

Simon eats anything and everything!

Day 14 of remodel

2010-08-01T20:11:00.000-07:00

It has been 2 weeks now since we started our remodel. Today I got to paint! I started by priming everything. The trim, the fridge "cave", and the cabinet drawers. When that was complete I painted the cabinets the color I picked out for them. It is called Lyndhurst Castle sand. Kind of a greenish gray. It will be interesting to see what the color looks like when the tile gets installed.

Good bye cabinets. The red never looked as good as I had wanted it. So I am glad to see it go.
All primed and waiting to be painted.
This is the new paint color. The pictures don't show the true color.

Ignore what is inside all the cabinets. Totally messy cupboards.

Definitely hard to tell what the real color is.

Next, paint the trim and the cave and all other touch up areas!

Day 12 and 13 of remodel

2010-07-31T20:35:00.001-07:00

A lot got done on Friday and today. Ren came over and finished the sanding and put up the molding. It looks AWESOME! It is ready for me to prime and paint!

Looks great. Lucky us, Ren used to do molding, painting professionally. So he really knew what he was doing!

Working hard...

Look at the finishing detail on this end piece. So nice!

Later that night Jeff and the whole family came over. Gunnar was a great little helper and Brecken was a great cryer and Kristi was a great paint picker helper. I always love seeing either of my sisters though so that was fun. Anyways, Jeff came over to help with the floor. We realized our floor was REALLY uneven. Jeff decided to go down in the crawl space to make sure our kitchen floor was sound enough and the beams were going to support the weight over time. I was nervous that we were going to hear bad news and that we would have to replace something under the house. But, nope. Safe and sound! We didn't get the floor evened out Friday night and the Miller family left at almost midnight. Thanks for staying so late and helping!

Gunnar loved weiring those eye goggles. What a good little helper!

Our own man hole at our house. This is our crawl space. Kinda weird and different than a newer houses.

At least the crawl sapce is lined with plastic and somewhat clean. This is under my kitchen/house.

Ahhh... cute.

Brecken... always eating

Saturday morning remodel started early. I had to go to Home Depot to get levelquik to fix the floor. Jeff and Gunnar came to help at 8. We ended up having to cut a hole in the floor because there was a bump too big to sand or level out. At the end of a long remodel day, we almost got the floor leveled, we have a plan for laying the tile and had a successful day of nobody getting hurt! Tomorrow I am going to get painting done on the "cave" and the paint color Kristi and I picked out for the cabinets!

The leveling stuff. This is what our floor looks like now

Day 10 and 11

2010-07-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

Day ten of remodel was a nothing night. Rillz and I were both feeling sick. Bad headaches, stomach aches. Maybe something we ate the day before? I don't know. So therefore all we did was lay in bed and watch t.v. with the dogs.

Day 11 Rillz was busy finishing the taping and thinset of the wonderboard. Ren is coming over today to finish sanding and putting molding up and Jeff is coming tonight to help level the floor to prepare for tiling tomorrow! We are pretty close to having a kitchen back!

I feel like a hoarder

2010-07-28T07:30:00.001-07:00

Since our kitchen remodel, we have things EVERYWHERE. Dining table, curtains, chairs, microwave in bedrooms. Silverware, fridge, oven in the living room. Everything is covered in saw dust. Our house is small so when something is misplaced it's very obvious. This last week in a half I feel like I belong on the hoarder show or clean house show. Oh yeah the best misplaced thing is yesterday I was given a crib for free and I want to wrap it in plastic before I put it in the shop so it doesn't get dirty. Well there is NO room in the house and we put it in Rillz's Honda Civic hatchback that isn't working for safe keeping until I get to wrapping it up in plastic. How bad is that. (And no I am not pregnant. Haha). Now I have a glimpse of what it would feel like to live in a hoarders/ non cleaners house.

Beautiful isn't it...

My poor living room. There is even a door blocking my front door so we can't open it.

Those red drawers are my kitchen towel, silverware, and utensil drawers. I went to eat my cereal this morning and couldn't even get to the spoons.

So this is what we are living in! Hopefully not for much longer. I just keep telling myself... it will be so worth it and look great when the remodel is done!

Day nine

2010-07-28T07:28:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was day 9. Rillz and Ren worked really hard on sanding and applying mud on the cave and doorway. They also cut out the dishwasher space, which I am told was difficult because those walls were nailed and liquid nailed and really thick. Also, the doorway got some wood on it to cover the exposed interior wall. The project is really coming along. And the wonderboard is all permanently down.
It's starting to look like a nice finished doorway

Dishwasher space.

Rillz finishing the scewing of the wonderboard

We got to bed early at 10:30 last night! Today I have had a terrible headache all day and a screaming 3 year old hasn't helped.

kitchen day 8

2010-07-26T23:08:00.000-07:00

Good thing we took Sunday off because after I got off work today we really worked hard. Rillz had sanded the fridge cave and put up another layer of mud. We continued to mix thinset and apply it to the floor to adhere the wonderboard to the floor. It's the only time I am happy our kitchen is on the smaller side. It will be well worth it but just putting the wonderboard down so we can put the tile down is a lot of work. My knees are really angry with me right now and I am pretty sure in the morning I will discover muscles I didn't even know I had. Tonight was still a successful night and now that its 12:15 I am ready to retire to bed until morning.

Jeff was so kind and patient to show us how to do the tile process. Well after you lay down the thinset and wonderboard you have to step all over it. When Jeff was doing the process it looked like a dance and had Rillz and I laughing to ourselves. Tonight, Rillz and I decided to record the "Jeff Miller dance" for all to know and enjoy.

Sweeping, sweeping all day long...

screwing in all the screws for the wonderboard are a killer.

We took off a strip of wonderboard to prepare the floor for the thinset and it looked like an airport runaway. Up, up and away!

The sanding and mud work. All Rillz and Ren. I had very little to do with that.

Day 9 will consist of Rillz and Ren working together to get the doorway trimmed up and the dishwasher space cut out. Ok goodnight yall

Remodel day7

2010-07-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was day 7 of remodel. We got nothing done and took a nice Sunday rest. I floated the river with some friends and Rillz had to work. We both got home around 3 and headed to my parents to pick up some stuff needed for the kitchen. We didn't intend to stay long. We arrived at 5 and my mom had just got done making bread so we sat and ate. Heidi and Ren came over and wanted to make peach crisp. Then we invited Kristi and Jeff over to eat it too. We ended up staying until 9:30. Oh-well. It was a nice Sunday break.

Kitchen day 6 and garden

2010-07-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

Ren came over for remodel day 6. They put up the rest of corners for the fridge cave and continued the mud work. They also moved the last outlet that needed moved. Thanks Ren for the help today.

My garden is doing ok. The squash are starting to go crazy. The tomatoes have stayed green for a while now but one plant is getting a ton of little ones on it. My pepper plants only have 1 green pepper. My sugar snap peas grew really well and I got a lot from them. My cantaloupe and cucumbers are struggling because the squash plants are overpowering them. And my jalapeno plant is doing well. The little jalapeno peppers are so cute. For my first garden, I am just happy some plants are producing fruit/veggies. It's my first year of a garden and it can only get better from here.

My sugar snap peas... they are on the end of their life

Look at those squash plants. They just took over the box.

The little jalapenos are so cute

Kitchen remodel day 5

2010-07-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

Rillz and Jeff started working on the floor at around 4:30 yesterday. Of course they had their trusty side kick Gunnar. Gunnar was afraid to go into the backyard because he didn't want Simon to get out again. Rillz and Jeff got all the wonderboard cut and laid on the floor. Jeff showed us how to adhere the wonderboard so Rillz and I can finish doing it all this weekend. Then Jeff will come back over sometime next week to show us the tile part. Jeff and Gunnar left at 9:30 and we were ALL so tired. Rillz and I still needed to get the mud up on the fridge area. Poor Rillz had to put up with me because I was exhausted (of course he was too) and just whiney. We got done with it, Rillz did more than me, and went to bed at midnight. The week of late nights and early mornings is getting to us. Rillz woke up this morning so sore! He said he felt like he worked out at the gym all day yesterday. Today Ren is planning on coming over to help with the "doorway" I think. I am not totally sure but I will find out! Now I am off to go get my nails done.

Can you believe Jeff is helping us with all this when he is 7 months pregnant? Crazy. He better take it easy.

Laying the stuff that wonderboard sticks to. (Forgot what its called) Thinset maybe?

Working on the fridge cave

The wonderboard all laid and cut on the floor

Kitchen remodel day 4

2010-07-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

Rillz and I got off to a late start. I didn't even get off work til 8. When I got off work Rillz and I went straight to Home Depot before it closed to get wonderboard and screws for the floor. Jeff and Ren are coming over tomorrow. We wanted to make sure we had everything for the flooring so we didn't have to waist their time and Jeff can start showing us how to lay down the wonderboard and then the tile. We got back from Home Depot about 9:15 and immediately started on finishing the "cubby hole" where the fridge is going to be. We did finish the drywall for the cubby hole and we wanted to start taping the sides but didn't quite happen tonight.

Instead, we ripped out the linoleum and ugly rubber molding. Luckily, it was easy and really not even stuck to the floor. We then swept and vacuumed it. So now the tar on the kitchen floor is sadly the cleanest thing in the house right now.

It is now 12:30 a.m. and Rillz has to work at 6 and I work at 9 so off we go to bed.

Kitchen remodel day 3

2010-07-21T22:28:00.000-07:00

Today was day 3 of the remodel. Rillz and I both had to work. I got off work at 6 and we decided to get most of the fridge area dry wall done. I was excited because it would be the first day I could really help. The project went much better than it did yesterday. I got to screw the dry wall up and measure everything. Rillz cut the dry wall. We were a great team and had fun tonight. We will finish the last few inside fridge drywall pieces tomorrow when I get off work.

Me, hard at work measuring our first drywall piece

Who wears short shorts...
Rillz screwing in the last drywall piece for the night. Thats our new little planter shelf.

This is our new fridge space. I will have extra cupboard space with doors above too.

This is a view from the far wall of our kitchen into our living room. Still really dirty. Oh well, what do you expect during construction.

I am really liking the process of this. I think it is fun to be doing it ourselves. We are really learning a lot from Jeff and Ren and could NEVER have done it without their help.

Kitchen remodel day 2

2010-07-21T22:02:00.000-07:00

Day 2 of the kitchen remodel was July 20, 2010. I was at work until 8 p.m. so couldn't help much. Before work Rillz and I checked out places for tile. We heard from Jeff this place called Daltile that had a "yard sale" section. Pretty much tile that was left over from projects and discontinued tile. There are stacks of tile and you have to buy the whole matching set. We lucked out and found a stack that we could live with and was at a great price. There were enough pieces to do the entire kitchen and some. It is porceline tile and was .75 cents for a 13x13 piece. And .10 cents for 6x6. Original prices for the 13x13 is $6.50 for one piece and the 6x6 pieces were originally $7.50. We paid $200 for approximately 200 square feet of tile and all the extra little pieces. If we paid full price it would have easily been over $1,500. Talk about savings.

Our stack of tile for the floors, possibly countertops/backsplash
Malu wanted to show off the tile too.

The rest of the day did NOT go so well. Ren came over to help with electrical. The electrical was old and I guess very difficult. They successfully got it done though.

Kristi, Jeff, and the boys stopped by because they were in Boise anyways. Well, Gunnar started acting kinda strange and telling Rillz the side door HAD to stay shut. Then Gunnar would lock the door. Rillz thought he was acting strange. Come to find out, Gunnar had let out Simon and didn't tell anyone. Let me tell you, when Simon (our little black dog) gets out it takes a while to get him back in. Since Gunnar didn't tell anyone that he had been out, Simon had been roaming for a while. Everyone searched the neighborhood for hours. Nobody could find him. I got off work and searched. Nothing. I posted a lost dog ad on craigslist. I was crying and could not sleep last night. I said a little prayer at 10:40 pm. to help Rillz and I sleep and pray that Simon was ok and had water. At 10:42 my phone started ringing. It was some lady who had found Simon and picked him up. She happened to find my craigslist posting! Oh and Simon didn't even have his collar on. It was such a blessing or else I would have gotten no sleep. Yesterday was a long day and I was glad when it was over!

Welcome home Simon.

The beginning of a remodel

2010-07-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

Rillz and I had decided to do a kitchen remodel. Our kitchen is small and the layout was terribly thought out. There is no space for our fridge and we have an apartment sized oven and dishwasher. There is just no counterspace and no comfortable place for our table to be without feeling squished. We decided to finally just make a plan and get it done. We are making a little cove for our fridge. The extra space for the fridge is coming from the living room. And we are tearing down most of a wall to open up the kitchen. Jeff, Gunnar and Diesel (yes the dog came over too) came over at 7 a.m. to get started. Rillz and I were ready and waiting! We were excited to start on this project. I had to be to work at 9 so couldn't help to much. Ren also came over around 1 p.m. to help for a bit. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family! When I got home from work at 6 p.m. the kitchen was looking awesome, really dirty but much brighter and I couldn't believe they got so much accomplished. We still have a long way to go. We are tileing the floor, putting the dishwasher under the counter, making a new backsplash and putting granite on the counters. Oh how I am so excited! My house is going to feel very dirty for a while though. Very much worth it in the end. I am estimating all this will cost us around $400 + some BIG thank yous to Jeff and Ren (and Kristi and Heidi too for letting us borrow their husbands for a bit). Anyways, this is only day 1 and look how much they accomplished. In my walls I have sheetrock, chicken wire, and plaster which made knocking down the wall twice as time consuming. Oh how I love it already! More to come...

Drive-in theatre

2010-07-18T14:02:00.001-07:00

Last week Kristi and Jeff invited us to go with them to the drive-in movies in Caldwell. It sounded like fun and Rillz was up to it too so we decided to join them. I got off work at 8 that night and hurried home to get my dogs and clothes for the next couple days. We decided to stay the night at my parents. (My dad also surprised all of us by coming home for 3 days this weekend). I got to my parents, dropped off my dogs and took off to the theatre. Kristi and Jeff brought their truck and had an air mattress in the back. The movies were Shrek 4 and Prince of Persia. Shrek 4 was pretty good. We all loved it. By the time Prince of Persia was on it was midnight and I was getting a little sleepy. I got to be a baby hog for the night. We all had a great time! Thanks Millers for inviting us along.

Gunnar stayed up for both movies... until 2 a.m.!
I can never get a nice smiley picture out of Rillz

Baby Brecken!

Jeff hardly ever gives a nice smiley face either. This face is pretty goofy

Gunnar looks so cute in this one.