Home Owner

Matt and I are offically home owners again.
We got the keys to the house yesterday, let the work begin!!!!

Family

Matt and I have been married for all most 5 years and together for almost 6. Over those 6 years I have become quite fond of his family. He has great aunts and uncles and all of them are not so healthy. Well Thanksgiving was a day of up and downs.
Matt's Uncle Jim has been pretty sick. Off and on he has been in the hospital or been really sick. Every time he tells me "I am not going to let this get me". I admire his strength to keep fighting. Last week he got really sick again. So sick that if another one of Matt's uncle had not stopped to visit him he would have died. He could not breath. So all week his daughter has been staying at his house. Early Thanksgiving morning Matt's parents got a call from his grandma, Jim is there and is worse. They are considering bringing him to the hospital. Well some how he managed to get through it and was able to stay for our untire dinner. However, he looked horrible. He looked super skinny, as if his clothes were going to fall off of him and he is attached to an oxygen tank. When we left I told him I hoped he started to feel better soon, expecting to hear his normal respose, I was quite surprised when I did not. He said Thanks, Matt asked if was going to be here later, he said if I make it through the night. This told me he was done fighting.
Now he is the hospital, there is nothing they can do, but wait.
He has not been my family for long, but Matt's family has accepted me and Patrick into their life with no questions. I will miss him when he is gone.

Idaho Falls House

Over the last two days I have been in Idaho Falls taking care of our house. We cleaned, shampooed carpets and painted and tonight we signed papers to sell it. It was really bitter sweet. I am happy to have it sold, we have not lived in Idaho Falls in a year and a half, but I am sad.
There are so many memories that were made in the house. That is where Matt, Patrick, and myself began our life as a family, that is where Matt became a licensed plumber, that is where I finished school, that is where Patrick grew up before my eyes.
On Monday we were there cleaning and stopped to have lunch. Matt and I sat on the hearth in front of the fire place. Matt says "we began here and we end here." When we first moved in and it was a mess we sat and ate lunch on the hearth, when it was empty and we were leaving it for good, we stopped and ate lunch on the hearth. I cried. I know, a house is a house. I am sure we will have many more to come and the memories from the 8th st house will stay with me forever, but it was my final goodbye, I am finally ending that chapter in my life.

However, the signing process was less than perfect. We were supposed to close on Monday. We got a call about 1:30 to say there was a hang up and we would not be signing. With the push from our Realtor we signed Tuesday at 4:30pm. It was a very stress 2 days and I am glad they are over!

House

They have accepted our offer on the house we submitted it on. We will be signing Dec 15 and moving in the week after Christmas (I don't want to move before christmas).

Here are some pictures of the outside of the house. It is dated and needs work on the inside, but I love it and cannot wait to move in.

New house offer

Today we went to look at yet another house and this one was a winner! We withdrew the offer on the short sale house and put an offer in on this house. We should know by Nov 5 if they will accept the offer or not. This house is a tri level home, walk in to the main level, which has the living room and kitchen. There are about 5 stairs up with 2 bed 1 bath and 5 stairs down with 1/2 bath, 1 bedroom and a family room. The house is extremely dated and needs the kitchen and bathrooms updated, but we got it for a great price. I am pretty excited about this one and can't wait!!

Halloween

Halloween is not as fun as they used to be. I no longer have the little kid so I do not get to do the fun dress up. Patrick typically will hang out with friends instead of hanging out with family. Typically my older sister has a big party and the entire family comes over so I get my little kid fix. This year her oldest, who is 17, placed in state for cross country. So on Halloween they were in Cour de leane for his race. So this year we hung out with Matt's parents, which was fun, but nothing like little kids on Halloween.
Funny how things change.

House

The deal with our house was going very smooth almost too smooth. I got an email with things that need to be fixed. There are only 4 things so not bad at all. Some we knew about. However, one thing is completely ridiculous! The house is cedar shakes and there are some parts of the house were the paint is peeling a little. No big deal we can touch up the paint.
The frustrating thing about it is the buyers do not care. They want to side the house with the tax break they will get. The only reason we have to paint is because the bank will not find the loan until the chipped paint is touched up. The buyers argued it even, with no avail.So this weekend we will be going into IF to fix the issues the buyers and the bank want fixed. I guess I shouldn't complain it could be worse.

Finally

Well it has only been the entire summer and most of the fall, but I have decided to post. From July until now has been pretty busy.
Football is over. Patrick played his last game last week. Football was a lot of fun. Matt and I are not big football fans but were there to be supportive. We ended up loving it. It was so much fun to go to the freshman games and cheer for the team. They were not the best team and lost most of their games, but it was fun. Patrick had fun playing and will probably play again next year.


Patrick is in band as well. October was a busy month for him. He has been doing marching band competitions through all of October as well as September. They have all been on Saturdays so that has consumed him!



We have finally sold our house. Well we are in process. We are supposed to sign on Nov 10. I am pretty excited and cannot wait. It is bittersweet. I am glad to move on and glad not to have that expense any more, but it will be sad. I love that house and the neighbors. I am sure I will cry when it is final.
We put an offer in on a house in Burley.It is a short sale and we put an offer in 5 weeks ago and the bank still has not assigned it to a real person. So we are not sure if the offer has been accepted or not. We are starting to look at other houses to see if there are any others out there that may be better for us. We are looking Tuesday, so I guess we will see.

What I love about Burley

What I love about Burley is Holidays
Living in a small town means a lot of sacrifices. No big stores, no where to go out to eat, not a lot to do. But living in a small town does mean a lot of community support and activities. Especially when it comes to a holiday.
Now Christmas great, lights were strung everywhere, decorations in every corner and a ton of activities going on. One other holiday that is big here, the 4th of July!
Rupert (Which is 10 miles away) does a 5 day 4th of july celebration. It is held at the rupert square and all 5 days there is food vendors there and music performances every night. They begin the 5 day celebration off with fireworks and end with fireworks again on the 4th. They have lawn mower races, carnival, rodeo, parade, and on and on. Since I love the 4th so much this is the best to me. I get 5 days of celebration!
Last night the celebration began. We went to the square and had dinner from one of the vendors, listen to music all night, which ended with a great band and watched the fire works, and the 4th was still 5 days a way! I Love it!
So that is what I love about Burley.

PHR

Yesterday I took my Professional Human Resource certification test and passed!
Now this is so exciting because I took it last year and did not pass it. So I was a little nervouse this time around, but I passed.

This certification doesn't really benefit me know with Boise, but if I decide to look for another job it will benefit me. Most of the really good HR jobs have begun to require a bacholers degree, PHR Certification, and 5 years of experience. Once I get the experience I will have all requirements!

June 13

My baby is now 14, yet I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday.

I will have to post pictures later, but I cannot beleive that my cute little screaming, fit throwing baby is now 14. He will be entering into highschool next year, taking drivers ed, and doing all of the grown up things that no longer require the assistance of a mom.

For his birthday we celebrated with matt's family the weekend before. Matt's dad cooked hamburgers and we had a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake (Patrick does not like cake). The day before his birthday we opened presents and went to Twin Falls for dinner. The day of his birthday he went to football camp.

I will post some of the pictures a little later....

One Year Ago

It has been a little over one year since I have moved to Burley, and what a year it has been. I think I have gone through every emotion and every question possible. Well I got to Burley, loved the job, hated the town. After a few months I grew frustrated with the job, but worked through that. I dealt with the frustration of our house not selling or even being looked out. I worked through the long distant thing and then when Matt finally moved her I watched him hate his work and get frustrated with going to work. The worst part was when I watched Patrick cry because he hated school and did not have friends. I often asked my myself, what have I done? And wondered if I had made a huge mistake.
So after a year what do we all think?
I love the job, all of the frustrations I have worked through and will probably continually work through. The town has grown on me, I don't mind it too much now. Matt loves his job and is happy for he has learned and Patrick is getting involved in school. He is playing football, in the band, and making friends.
Now when I say we can move bakc to Idaho Falls, they say no.
It is crazy to think it has been a year and nice to know that we have finally settled in.

Road Signs

Who comes up with the pictures that are put on road signs?





Patrick and I went into Idaho falls for March birthdays. On the way this is a sign that we came across. I thought it was pretty interesting.

Sisters

I love my sisters. There is nothing better than having sisters. I think girls who grew up in a family full of boys sure missed out on what it is like to have sisters. As kids we fought all of the time. We did not like each other, I like to think that is normal for girls. As we have gotten older we have become better friends, in fact they are my best friends. A few weekends ago we went to Salt Lake on a day trip. That was a lot of fun. We laughed over the stupid things and just had fin together.

So I just wanted to say to Jennifer and Heather, I could not have asked for a better sister. We may have been at each others throats as kids, but letting each other live to see another day sure paid off. Look at us now. I love you both.



Jennifer, me, and Heather

We also had the oppertunity to spend some time with my sister in law. I sure love having her in our family!

My Name

My whole life I have had to deal with questions on my name.
For example
- that is a boy name
- is it short for Roberta
- Being called Robin (there is not N sound at the end of my name)
- being accused of not being Robbie (this goes back to it being a boy name)
- did your dad want a boy
- where did a name like Robbie come from?

I have faced this my whole life, but it seemed to have died down. I am not sure if it is because more names are less gender specific or if abnormally names are now the norm. For a long time I have not had to explain my name, until recently. I have been asked how I got my name and what it is short for from the managers at Pacific Ethanol (the ethanol plant next to us) and then while in Wallula (another Boise plant in Whashington) the guard assumed my name was short for Roberta and then a few days after that I am questioned on whether the credit card I am using is indeed mine, she just wanted to make sure I was not using my husbands card!
Oh well, at least my name is original.

Grandma Turner

On Sunday Matt and I went to a mission farewell for a guy he works with. One of the speakers talked about his storage and how they were making bread and then he began to tell a story about his grandma, I wanted to ask him if we had the same grandma!
He told a story about how they would go to her house and they could not leave until his grandma gave them all bread with butter, I leaned over to Matt and said sounds like my grandma, but she gave us honey to put on our bread and butter. Then he was telling about how she would send bread home. She would pull out a used plastic bag to put the bread in and then would put a rubber band around the bag, the rubber band came from the newspaper. She had saved it so she could reuse it. All which she stored next to used tin foil she had saved to use later.
The bread that came from my grandma's was always in a bag that had been used before. She had a neat little stack of rubber bands in her house and I am sure she re-used her tin foil. After all she would save wrapping paper to use again! You would have thought he was talking about my grandma!
The best part about grandma..... frozen chocolate chip cookies and sauerkraut.

Pulled Over

I got pulled over for the first time in Burley. Now not the first time ever, just the first time in Burley. I have a very heavy foot and have had my share fare of tickets. Matt lectures me the whole time about how our insurance is going to go up and about how good I had been doing. Well the cop comes back and gives me a warning.
Matt is telling me how lucky I am and I tell him I have been pulled over enough, I knew he was only giving me a warning. At which Matt tells me that is nothing to be proud of. Now I will have to watch my speed, the town is small and I know the cop will remember me, especially since I have Bonnivelle county plates, not Cassia county.

McKenzie Birthday

March 5 was my little niece, McKenzie's birthday. She turned 14.
You see this particular neice's birthday is a little hard for me because that means in just 3 short months Patrick will be the same age. Yes, he will be 14. Everytime McKenzie gets older I question how that happened. How is it that she is so old. And how is it that I have a son that old.
It is a little hard for me to take in.

Bogie

My dog bogie is part human. He has learned how to show his emotions and we some how manage to understand. He got his hair cut the other day and he was not happy about it. He has been so bad since he got his hair cut. I gave him a bone and told him to put it on his dog bed. He looked at me and kept chewing. So I took it and put it on his bed. He glared at me and took his bone out of his bed. I put it back and this time it stayed. I tell him he has to stay home, he can't come with us. So he bites Patrick's ankles because he wants to go.
This is not it, we went to the vet last week to get his shots. Bogie was mad at the vet and would not take the treat he was given because he was mad. So I took it with me. We get to the car and as soon as the door to the car is closed he begins to try to get the treat out of my hand. He knew I had it, but refused to take it from the vet!
I guess I can only blame myslef for his finikiness.

Broken Ears

The other day I read heather's blog about broken ears. Apperantly her little girl tells her that her ears are broken when asked to do something.
Well thinking it cute and funny (it is always funny when it is not your own kid) I tell Matt and Patrick. Well Patrick thinks he is pretty funny.
I asked him to walk Bogie (a task he hates to do) he looks at me and says, what mom I think my ears are broken.
Being a smart kid and old enough to understand "the look" jumps up and gets bogie to take hin on a walk as soon as he got "the look".

Afirmative Action

This last week I have been working on an Affirmative Action Plan and it has sucked!
Now don't get me wrong. I am a believer in Affirmative Action. However, I am not such a big fan of putting them together. There is so many steps to take. I have had to print off a million reports to put in the hard copy of the plan. This is just in case any employees or god forbid the EEOC wants to see it. Then I have had to write narratives. I had do do a business summary and a narrative with an action plan on how we are going to try to "fix" where we are under utilizing women or minorities and a narrative explaining our community involvement and how that has encouraged women and minorities to apply. I have not even began working on the veterans section!
However, I cannot complain too much. I knew that I would have certain things like this to deal with on my job. Hopefully it is easier to put together next year!

Weather

There is not much about Burley that is better than Idaho Falls, but one thing that is better in Burley is the weather. We do not have any snow. Not to say we have not gotten snow, but when it snows it usually is gone soon after it stops snowing. It also is warmer. We have had a few cold days where is has gotten into the 20's and some in the 30'. But for the most part it is in the low to mid 40's.
Wednesday I went to work in snow and come home with sunshine and most of the snow melting. It is weird, but I sure love it.

Moving Day

Friday was moving day. I hate moving. It is a lot of work!
I don't mind packing things up, but I sure hate to move it and unpack it. You have to figure out where you are going to put things and then you can never find them! This morning I have no idea what hapened to the pair of shoes I wanted to wear today. Even though it is a pain it already is so nice. This house is so quiet, we only hear each other and we control the smell!
We bought a new washer and dryer. We have not hooked them up yet so we had to go to the old house do to laundry. So we walked in and the smell about knocked me over. The smell of cigarette smoke was so strong I thought I was going to puke. Then when we were putting our clothes away they all smelt like an ash tray. So that made me wonder did I go to work smelling like that? Or was it faint enough that it really could not be smelt? Anyway those days are gone. All we have left is to clear out the fridge and clean and cleaning should not take us that long.
So while it was a pain to move and to unpack it is all worth it in the end.

Better late than never

Here are some Christmas post. A little late, but here they are finally!
Enjoy....

Christmas

Christmas this year was something new for us. We have never lived away from family and have never had to figure out how to celebrate with family while living away from them! Well we took the week off and went into IF. It was a nice Christmas, we brought all of our presents and opened them Christmas morning at Matt's parents and then spent evening with my family. It was nice and being so far sure makes me appriciate family!

The best part of Christmas was Patrick's present my little sister had gotten him. She bought him a book that helped teach him how to play the guitar.True to her personality she decided to make the present unwrapping funny. She wrapped the book in tissue paper, then in 10 grocery sacks, then with wrapping paper, then put it in a box and then wrapped the box. She was laughing the whole time. It was funny and funnier to watch her think she was so clever than it was to watch Patrick!

Patrick opening his BIG present. He got an Xbox


Matt with his new hat, pretty cute huh?

Me with my new sonicare toothbrush. I love it.

It is blurry, but this patrick opening his clever present. See all the bags on the ground?
Isn't heather funny?

My sisters laughing. Again, Cleaver Heather!

Gingerbread House

Last year at Christmas time we made a gingerbread house. Nothing fancy, just one of those kits you buy at the store. Well I thought it was fun so I wanted to get one again this year and make a new tradition. Well I got one and it sat in our house for about 3 weeks. Then we came into IF sooner than we thought we were going to so I ended up bringing it with us. Finally on Christmas eve we put it together. Now let me tell you I am no Martha Stewart. The roof kept falling off and the candy design is less than desirable, but we sure had fun.
After we were done Matt read the direction. "Let the icing dry before decorating" Is that where we went wrong? HMM... Maybe next year.

Don't we look like we are having fun?

Here it is in all of its glory... Pretty huh?

Gym

In the last part of October I got my family a gym membership. Matt thought it was a ridiculous idea so usually it was just Patrick and I going. Well I finally got Matt to go. He started going on the elliptical machine with me about 2 weeks ago and has turned into a gym rat.
He loves the treadmill. He will go on the elliptical with me for 30 minutes and then he gets on the treadmill. He will walk on it at an incline of 10 and won't stop. Last night after we had been on the treadmill for a while I told him I was done and was going to do some weights in one of the other rooms. Well he got off the treadmill and came with me. While I do weights he got back on the treadmill in that room at an incline of 10 again. It is the craziest thing to watch.
He used to have the mentality of why pay for a gym membership, just go outside and move. Well we were talking about going to IF and he says, "do you think APPLE will give us a 2 day pass?"
What?? My husband is officially a gym rat.

Hair Color

Hair is pretty interesting. I had my hair colored right before Christmas. The colors I picked were golden brown a dark brown and then a few pieces of blond (bleach blond). The girl that did my hair was a little worried about the blond, but it took fabulously. The blond looks like blond, not orange or any tint of orange. However, the golden brown did not come in as it should have. It came in almost a reddish. The color has toned down a little, but in looking at it you would think I tried to go red! Hair sure is funny.