Home Sweet Home

A few pictures for your viewing pleasure.

We are slowly getting unpacked.

We have accumulated quite a bit of "stuff"

over the past 3 1/2 years.

We really hope the dead grass comes back.

Family Room

Kitchen

Entry Room/Front Room

Master Bath

We love our new home, I am just so anxious to get all boxes out of my sight!

Can it Really be TRUE??

We don't have to eat all our meals on the kitchen floor anymore?

Or live in a house with no toys? (Although soccer is much easier with no furniture!)

Remember how 2 weeks ago I posted how excited we were to have closed on our brand new house? Yeah. Well, 2 weeks later we finally get to move in to that house which has been so generously holding all of our stuff just waiting for us! We have survived an absolutely crazy, nightmare of 2 weeks, living in our house with just our bed (thankfully), computer, and piano. Paper plates, bowls, and cups have been our friends, creative juices have flowed to help us come up with dinners, with the help of friends and family, and lots of getting out of the house activities. We have overcome it all and actually will get to live in it now! (Good thing since my family is coming to bring Lori to school TODAY!) I will post pictures as soon as I can!

P.S. I do not plan on moving again for a VERY LONG TIME IF EVER.

P.P.S. If you plan on moving soon take my advise and use a financial institution, DO NOT USE A MORGTAGE BROKER!

$2 Tuesday!

Thanksgiving Point has $2 Tuesdays for the month of August so we decided to take advantage of the opportunity and go check out the Dinosaur Museum. Unfortunately, half of the Salt Lake Valley had the same great idea. The line wrapped around 3 sides of the building! It's a big building. Luckily the line moved pretty fast, it only took us about 45-50 minutes to make it to the door. We went with our friends Becky, Ben, and Julia so the time in line seemed to go fast. The kids had fun playing with the dinosaurs, puzzles, running up and down the ramps, and digging for bones in the sand. It was impossible to get many pictures of their faces, they were just too busy for pictures, definately worth the $2 for a fun morning. Thanks for going with us Becky, Ben, and Julia!

Weekend Getaway

Ever need to just get away? Forget all your problems and just have fun and spend time with the ones you love? This last weekend was one of those weekends. We decided Thursday night to just take off and have fun! So Friday after Brad got off work we headed to Rexburg to stay with Mandy, Tyrel, and Ivan (Brad's sister and family), then head on to Yellowstone and take advantage of their free admission weekend! We had a blast, it was just what the doctor ordered. My sister, Rachel, came along with us since her hubby just left for India to study up in the Himalayas for 2 1/2 weeks. Have I mentioned she's expecting her first baby? Due the end of January and we are all VERY EXCITED! I haven't been to Yellowstone since I was about 2 so this was all a new experience for me. We saw the mud pots, geysers, Old Faithful, the Upper Falls, Artist's Point, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, lots of Buffalo, Elk, and beautiful scenery!

We got to Old Fatihful at the perfect time. It was supposed to blow in the next 20 minutes or so, I was very impressed with the height of the blow!

We camped with the kids for the first time here. Kate enjoyed pushing her stroller around and getting dirty.

Daylen and Ivan enjoyed playing in the back of Brad's truck. They just randomly started singing "I love you" from Barney and giving each other hugs. These boys are so cute together!

After Uncle Tyrel's fun bedtime story we put the kids in bed and called it a night.

The kids did great, Daylen slept the whole night, Kate woke up a couple of times but I just snuggled with her on my tummy and she went right back to sleep. We didn't bring a pack 'n play for her so I'm glad it went as well as it did. I've decided next time I'm bringing some kind of mattress for me though, my hips just can't take the hard ground anymore.

Here we are at the Upper Falls. They look cool from here at the top, but don't seem quite as tall as they do from far away.

Here are the falls again from the Artist's Point and they look huge from here. Isn't that a georgous site! I can see why they call this the Artist's Point. Breathtaking.

This guy was standing right on the side of the road, not moving, just staring traffic down.

We rounded a corner and there were about 200 buffalo along both sides of the road. We got held up a few times by these guys walking down the road, right along side traffic or slowly leading the long train of cars down the middle of the lane. They think they own the place. :) After 2 days we only saw a fraction of Yellowstone, I think we would need a week to see everything there is to see there. Beautiful, super cool place to visit, highly recommend it if you haven't yet. Just beware, I didn't realized Yellowstone was a volcano about 50,000 years overdue for erruption, it could blow at ANY TIME. Really, you should go.

Alaska-Part 3

To finish off our fabulous trip to Alaska here a couple of georgous pictures of the Alaskan scenery.

Wednesday morning we decided to do a session at the Anchorage Temple, and low and behold in this small world, I saw someone I knew there! One of my best friends and roomates from college is from Palmer which is about 45 min north of Anchorage, anyways, her mom was working in the Temple that day! She helped us in the dressing room, AND helped me out later in our session! It was so fun to see her!

That afternoon we headed to Kinkaid Park for a round of frisbee golf. It was the most beautiful course I have ever played, not that I've played a whole lot of different courses, but is was so peaceful. There were a LOT of trees which was challenge, but you just felt like you were in your own little world. The park is over 100 acres, it has mountain biking trails, large open areas, lots of trees...we saw a big bull moose here the last time came, but not this time. No moose sitings as of yet on this trip.

This is throw number 2 on this hole for Brad.

And throw number 3 on the same hole. Like I said, the trees were a challenge.

Michael, Daren, and Landon.

Dave taking a turn.

Our frisbee golfing crew.

Thursday we went to Whittiar, a super small town, which includes exacltly 1 apartment building, and is only accessible through a 2 1/2 mile tunnel. Daylen LOVED the tunnel drive and talked about it the rest of the day, luckily we got to go through it again on the way back. We were hoping to hike up Whittiars Pass and see the great views from up there, but rain and fog foiled that idea. So instead we walked around a bit, went in a few shops, bought some yummy donuts, and met up with Heather and the boys at Portage Glacier to take that cruise.

Here we are in front of Portage Glacier, did you know that glaciers are blue? That's how you can tell if it is really a glacier or just snow. Blue with lots of crevasses, really cool looking.

On the way home we stopped at Potters Marsh to see some wildlife. We saw a couple of bald eagles and lots of fish. No moose. No bears.

Friday we headed north to Eklutna Lake and did some kayaking. My first time kayaking and it was really fun, kinda cold, but fun.

Saturday morning we decided to hike the infamous Flat Top mountain. It was our last chance since we were all leaving later that day. On the way to pick up Brad's brother, Chad, what did we FINALLY see? A MOOSE!! A mama and her 2 babies just walking down the street. So of course we had to pull over and watch them for a minute and take some pictures. They were literally RIGHT THERE. It always is like this, the very end of our trip we finally see a moose in the wild.

My batteries died after just a couple of pictures. Here we are at what is called the "saddle." After this point your just a hop, skip, and a jump from the top. Except that last jump you are pretty much just climbing up rocks, no trail. My mom made it to the top! And on our way down we passed Chad finishing the last part for the 2nd time helping his mom up to the top. So Karen made it all the way as well! Our moms are awesome!

We went to the zoo that afternoon to see our bears, then it was time to eat dinner and pack and be on our way. We love our visits to Alaska, we just wish we could make more often than every 3 years. We loved having both our families there (well, part of both of our families) and hope to make it back soon!

TODAY

We FINALLY closed on our NEW HOUSE!

We are so sad to leave our amazing ward and fabulous neighbors,

but we are so excited about this next chapter

in the lives of the Brad Gasaway Family!

We are moving to Salem,

not far away,

we love the area.

Alaska-Part 2

We finally got to relax a bit on Sunday. Church wasn't until 1:00PM so we got to sleep in a bit. Brad's dad took my dad, Brad, and sister Lori to a place called Shipcreek where you can watch the Salmon run. There are a LOT of fish, I saw it last time we went, it's pretty cool, there is a waterfall the salmon actually jump/swim up.

Grandma Gasaway with the kids.

Grandma Goodwin with the kids.

After dinner we headed over to Flat Top, a famous mountain in Anchorage for it's flat top, imagine that. We just went to the look out spot where you can see the whole area. The actual hike came later in the week. It was super windy. You can tell better in the picture of my parents and sisters below.



Monday we did a few things around Anchorage like the Chocolate Factory (YUM), there is a huge chocolate waterfall inside. I just realized I don't have any of the pictures, my sister took a bunch of cute ones of Kate loving the mansized stuffed teddy bears they have. We also went to the Ulu factory, where all the famous Ulu knives are made, I brought one home to use with my cooking. We took the little trolley ride around downtown which Daylen thought was pretty cool.

Tuesday we hiked to the Russian River falls, and also to the river to watch some real Alaskan Fishing. (We didn't actually do any fishing ourselves this time, which I am ok with.) Kate had a nice ride, and Daylen ended up on my back for most of the 6 mile hike. I definitely got a good work out that day. A few of us also wore backpacks carrying guns seeing as we were in bear country. A part of me really wanted to see a bear in the wild this time, but at the same time I was glad we didn't actually have to USE the guns. The hike was beautiful, as were the falls.

Our moms!

Daylen "fishing" in the Russian River!

After the Falls we headed on to Seward to the Sea-Life Center. The kids really enjoyed it, Kate got very excited looking at all the fish, she kept pointing and "talking" at them. Unfortunately, it was POURING rain in seward and very foggy so we couldn't really enjoy the scenery there or see the boats. Lots of day cruises and fishing boats go out of Seward. They were having a flood watch while we were there. We were just glad it was a nice day earlier for our hike.