Our Humble Abode

So I know we've been here almost two months already, but I finally took some pics of our apartment. Part of the reason it took so long is because it took this long to get most of the pictures up on the walls. We still have a few frames left to put up, but we need pictures to fill them first! Anyway, as promised, here are some pics of the apt!

 Our bedroom is probably the most boring room in the house, those three pictures are the only ones up in there. I'll work on making it pretty.... eventually :).

Anyway, we love our place. We don't have a whole lot of furniture or fancy decorations, but it's all ours, and we absolutely love it. 

On two completely unrelated topics... 
I finished my first sewing project, which was a baby quilt for my friend Audrey and her new baby. It took probably about 100 times longer than I expected, and was the most stressful project of my life, but I finished! And it turned out alright for my first one, I think. 

The other unrelated topic is that tonight is Halloween! And I'm sitting at home (alone) writing a blog post. This is because Todders has to do a clinical shift in Idaho Falls tonight (sad me). We did get to celebrate last night, however by going rock climbing in our halloween shirts!

That's about it for new news! Miss you all!

~Most Triumphant Brooksies~

A Year of Bliss

Hello one and all!

The first weekend of this month, Todd and I celebrated one year of being together!!! This past year with Todd has been the happiest year of my life, and it has also gone by the quickest. It really has made me think about how blessed we are to have the opportunity to be sealed for time and all eternity. You know how they say, that in the spectrum of eternity, a few months or a year will be merely an instant? I feel like I have had a glimpse of the immensity of eternity because this past year has truly felt like merely an instant. Not only am I so blessed that Heavenly Father thought me worthy enough of such a great man in my life, but I am so lucky that Todd thinks so too. He makes me feel like I am so special, each and every day. He puts up with me when I am ridiculous, he goofs off with me when I'm being silly, he'll hold me when I am sad, he'll do whatever it takes to make me happy. He truly makes me feel like I am the luckiest girl on earth. 

Anyway, in celebration of our year of bliss, first and foremost we slept in! I say this because we've been getting up early every day for sooo long it seems, and sleeping in was heavenly. Once we were up and ready, we met Stacy and Michael at Boondocks and had lunch with them. Then we went up to Red Rock and went rock climbing. It's a pretty sweet place, and I think it's where Todd and I both gained our appreciation for outdoor rock climbing. 

Professional

After rock climbing, we went home and got all cleaned up. Then we played outside with the kiddos for quite a bit. They all are so stinkin' adorable, and so so fun! We also got news that Ciara's pregnant! We're so happy for her and Brandon... and maybe also super jealous :-p

Trying to get lil Annie to smile with me for a picture :)

Annie chasing Todders on the tramp

Todd was launching Alexa and Noah. He got Alexa up super high!

I love this one!

After playing with the chillens, we headed out to get some grub! Cafe Rio was super packed, so we went over to Chile's since I had never been there. It was delicious! Then we went over to the Haunted Forrest! It was really sweet, and super well done, especially the first part!

A lot more has happened since I last posted, but I think I explained our crazy schedules in the last post, and it has indeed been crazy. However, I recently put in my two weeks at Little Caesars and my last day was Monday! There were a few reasons behind me quitting, but the main one was that I never got to spend time with Todd. There would be days that we'd get maybe half an hour of quality time together the whole day, and it was no fun at all. Even this last week alone was amazing without having to go to work. We're still pretty busy, but we managed to go on 2 dates and I got to cook dinner! I was starting to worry that Todd and I would quickly become obese because we were eating Little Caesar's for dinner every night. Not healthy. It did save money on groceries though, that's for sure. 

Life won't be slowing down too much, however, because Todd just got hired at the fire department as an EMT! It is such a great opportunity for him, and he really loves the work. I'm so happy that he's loving the field that he's going into so much. It's great to see him light up telling me about the people he gets to help. 

Last night, I also finally set up the sewing machine my momma gave us. It's been almost two months, but I did it! I also have a project I need to start soon... maybe even today. One of my really good friends is having her baby shower in about a week, and I want to make her gift. I won't reveal what I'm making for two reasons. One, if it fails, I wil be embarrassed. And two, I don't want her to read this and find out what it is. Anyway, I'm excited to be a little crafty now that I have the time. 

So, this Sunday was apparently our Stake conference, and we had no idea! We showed up to church at our normal meeting time, and Stake conference was just drawing to a close. I'm afraid our bishopric might start to think that we're inactive! Oops! Haha. So we got home and decided to take a drive out to Mesa Falls. We had tried going there twice when we were dating, but were never able to make it. We made it this time though! We had a great time at the falls, and also stopped to feed the fishes on the way back. Did you know that they'll eat Little Caesar's pizza? They ate about half of the pizza! It was hilarious!

Ring Pops!

Todd was so excited that we finally made it!

Lower falls

Also, last night we had the COOLEST date ever! We laid out plastic on the dining room floor, and made a twister board out of paint. We had an automatic twister spinner going on the computer, and we played twister! It was super slippery, and we didn't last long. So then we just wrestled in the paint, haha. SO fun! I highly recommend it!

Well, I believe that is all for now folks! Love you all!

-Most Triumphant Brooks-

Home At Last

It has been a while since I've had a chance to update the blog, but this month has been crazy to day the least!

Our first flight left Juneau at 7am on Sept 4th. We didn't have a good way of getting to the airport that early in the morning, so we caught a ride with one of the drivers from my work the night before, and spent the night in the airport. We had a good time watching prison break on netflix and working on a puzzle. In the morning, when we went to check out bags, two of them were about 10lbs overweight each! Eeeek! In a panic, we shuffled our stuff around between our checked bags, and our carry-ons. When we re-weighed our bags to be checked, we had one bag that was exactly 50lbs (which is the weight limit), two bags that were 49.5, and another bag that was right around 48lbs. Talk about cutting it close! Our trip was pretty flawless after that, and we were super happy to have finally made it home.

The few days we had in Utah were jam packed trying to get everything together before going up to the Burg. This included buying the rest of our furniture, selling Todd's car, getting insured on my car, and spending time with the family.

Did you catch that? WE SOLD TODD'S CAR!!!! After four long months, FINALLY someone followed through with buying the car and we are SO grateful. That was just an added stress that we're so happy not to have to worry about anymore :)

So after just a few days in Highland, we loaded up the Subaru, the truck, and the trailer with our entire lives inside. Apparently we win the award for having the most stuff... Which is probably mostly my fault... But we did have a bed, mattress, two couches, kayak, and a dresser. That pretty much filled up the trailer alone. Then we had the cab of the truck and the little subaru for the rest. I don't think it's all that bad ;).

So we're... basically all moved in. Our apartment is great, we really really love it. Once we get all of our pictures up I'll take some pics and post them here and probably on facebook. But for now, I'll leave you wondering :)

Another reason it's been so crazy is just because of our schedules. I got a job at Hawthorne Elementary school in Idaho Falls, so I have to drive there every morning and be there by 9, then on MWF I have a class at 3, and I'm also working at Little Caesar's in the evenings. To add on to that, I just started coaching the goalkeepers for competitive soccer. Todd's schedule is just about as crazy. He has class every day until about two... On Mondays he has mock scenarios until about 6, Wednesdays he is in Idaho Falls doing clinicals and gets back around 11, and then every week he has to do a 12 hour shift at the fire station (which is where he is right now).

The worst part about being so busy, is it feels like we never see each other. Today I think we spent a total of 45 minutes together.

We did, however, get to go on a camping trip in Yellowstone! It was really nice to get away together and just relax a bit, and enjoy this AMAZING weather! I never want this weather to stop, it's soooo nice!

Anyway, that's basically all that's new... I'll leave you with some pics from our yellowstone trip.

Fly fishing

Caught one!

Buffalo!

Mating ritual?

Touching the mini geyser 

OW!

Squirrels follow us everywhere!

Pictures of the apt coming soon!

Light at the end of the tunnel

So, if you don't count today, we have SIX DAYS left in Alaska and we cannot wait!!!

I'm so excited that I've packed up all of our clothes, minus the stuff we'll wear in the next week.
I'm really worried about how we're going to fit all of our stuff in the 3 bags that we each brought.
We've acquired/bought lots of stuff here, and I'm pretty sure it's not all going to fit in our suitcases on the way back. Not to mention the fact that we brought snowboarding pants (that we never used), a climbing rope (that we never used), a tent, climbing gear, and two sleeping bags with us to Alaska. I don't know if you knew this, but all that stuff is MASSIVE, and doesn't all even fit in one bag. Another thing we're a little bummed about, is that checked baggage costs $20/bag with Alaska Airlines. So we're going to have to pay $80-100 to get all of our stuff home. Oh well, I guess that's just the price you pay for bringing up all the equipment for some pretty unforgettable experiences. Can't complain too much :).

We're also trying to eat all of our food before we go, but somehow we have way too much.
We'll probably end up leaving a ton for our roommates. We've mooched off of a lot of their stuff in the last few months anyway, I figure we owe them:).

So my good friend from high school, Lisa, came up here at the beginning of this month to visit. She's in Petersberg for about a month for an internship where she gets to hang out with whales all day. How rad is that? Anyway, she was here for a little less than a week, and we had a blast with her. The weather was pretty awful when she was here, but she was well equipped for the weather, and she loved it!

Also, my coworker, Gale, went out of town for about a week and asked us to house sit since she lives just down the street. We gladly agreed, seeing as we'd get her car and get to play with an adorable dog all week. We had a great time with Gracie, the dog, and it made us even more puppy hungry than we were. I don't know if you know this, but Todd and I are dog lovers, and very very puppy hungry. We realize that dogs can be pretty expensive to care for, but we're starting to think that it's worth it. We have a goal that we have to reach by the time our last paycheck comes, and if we reach it, HELLO PUPPY! If we don't reach it.... HELLO PUPPY! Haha, just kidding. If we don't reach it, who knows what we'll decide... but if we do reach it, there's going to be another addition to the Brooks family :).  We're thinking a Boxador if our apartment complex will allow it. Or a Boxer. Or a Lab. Boxador is #1 on the list right now though because they don't shed that much, have really short hair, and are just awesome. Here's a pic for those of you who may be unfamiliar with the Boxador cross breed. What do you think?

Puppy!!!!!!!!!!

Adult... I don't know about the scarf, but still super cute :)

One thing that we're SUPER excited about, is finally having our own place!
Usually that's something that happens right after getting married, but we had to wait 4 months, which is lame. But maybe it's a good thing after all. All the post-wedding excitement has died down a little bit, so now we can have apartment-decorating excitement! And boy, are we excited!!!!!

We're only going to have a few days in Utah before we have to venture up to the Burg for school, so we're trying to get as much as we can in order before we get home. We want to get our furniture on ksl because, let's just be honest, craigslist cannot even compare. And we may have been saving quite a bit up here in Alaska, but we still feel pretty dang poor because we know how quickly that money will probably go away once we're in school. Anywhoooo, we're super excited because we found our SOFAS and our KITCHEN TABLE! For the sofas, we just arranged with the lady selling them, that she'll hold onto them for us until we get there, and we'll pick them up and pay her on the 5th. For the table, we negotiate the price down about $50, so we figured we wouldn't be able to ask them to hold onto it for us. Luckily, Michael and Stacy are absolutely amazing, and were willing to go pick them up for us... which will happen on Wednesday. Sadly the table doesn't come with chairs, so we ordered some on ebay yesterday. We also bought our comforter on Overstock.com because it was a much better deal than Target, and we liked it better. I doubt any of this is as exciting for you as it is for us, but I want to show you pictures of the stuff we've found anyway :).

The "EAT" table! This table was a little bit more than our budget, but who could resist a table as cool as this?

Hopefully the chairs don't clash horribly with the table. They were a really good deal at least! Like $17 each :)

I absolutely love this comforter! Todd pretended to like it as much as I did, and I pretended to believe him so we could get it :)

The SOFA! Which also comes with a matching love seat. We love how homey it is

Well, I think those are the main updates. This is most likely the last Alaskan update... EVER! So I will bid you all farewell with some pictures of the adventures that took place in August! 

Miss you all!

Lisa and I got to go on one of Todd's tours, which meant we got to go whale watching.!

So it turns out Amanda from America's Next Top Model works on the whale watching boats! CRAZY!

A cute little cinnamon black bear out by the glacier

Lisa and I doing a helicopter tour

Todd got a day off! So we got to hike to the ice caves in the glacier!

Found a new spot to fish, and couldn't pass up this beautiful day :)

a VERY happy boy

Biggest fish EVER!

~Most Triumphant Brooks~