New house, MN, Fire and Fireworks!

It has been a while since I have updated our blog. Wow, have we been busy! So we are officially in the new house and are loving it. It has been a whirlwind last month, the weekend prior to moving we went home for my Grandma B's 100th Birthday. How cool to go to a great party and see family and celebrate? When my grandma turned 90 I promised her that when she turned 100 my cousin Dawne, myself and Grandma would were sparkly red dresses. Well the closer to 100 she got I panicked and instead knit all three of us red sparkly flapper hats. They turned out fantastic and the trip home to MN was great. I also got to meet my best friend Al's little boy Chase. Enjoy the pictures below!

With the help of friends and family we got everything moved and unpacked. The video tour will hopefully be next blog post, just have a few more finishing touches. The day before the 4th of July we had a fire scare in our neighborhood. It has been really dry in the West this year and suddenly Tuesday afternoon it looked like a bomb went off behind our house. There was a fire 7 miles from us and we were told to get our to go bag ready. It was pretty scary and I hope the closest we ever get to experiencing that. All is safe and good now but a lesson in how you really decide what would you bring if you had to evacuate. On top of everything else we also thought my good old 197,000 mile dodge stratus kicked the bucket on us so we were down to one car. Lucky for me my awesome husband was able to troubleshoot the problem and get the car going again. Won't be long before I need a new car though.

We had a great fourth and had some friends over for pool time, crab legs, drinks and hot dogs. It was so nice to just sit back and enjoy our house and good company. My Mom and Dad come to town next weekend and we are looking forward to showing them the house and just spending time together.

Love,
Alyssa and Brendan

Video from Camping Summer 2012

Packing

It feels strange to be packing again after we have been at the same place for two years. I actually don't mind packing up because it gives me a chance to re organize my life and simplify. I get heartless with the throwing and donation bags. I am so excited to move into our house, I find myself dreaming at night about just how I want to arrange things, how I might decorate and everything house related. We leave for MN this week to celebrate my Grandmas 100th birthday. The day after we get back we close on the house and hopefully get the keys the next day. We are planning the BIG move the following Saturday with help from some of our awesome friends. Not much has been new just organizing and packing. Our memorial day trip got canceled due to ugly weather. We literally had snow here on Memorial day weekend. The next weekend the weather cleared up and we were able to get a camping trip in with the Mays to the Uintas by Mirror Lake. I will try to post a video from that weekend, when I remember to upload it. Then that Sunday night we had a fun night over at our friends the Hallocks we had a yummy dinner then biked to the park to play bocce ball then biked back home for desert. We decided that needs to be a monthly event in the summer. Besides packing I have been knitting a lot of gifts and reading. Lately it has been a mix of classics and new stuff. So far my favorite has been Great Gatsby, I cannot believe I never had to read this in high school. I also read Pride, Prejudice and Zombies. Definitely like the Zombie version of the book best! Mountain biking has also kept us busy with about two or three rides a week. We did our favorite Mid Mountain ride to Spiro this past weekend and it was gorgeous. Next time I write a new blog it will be in our new house!!!!!!! Love Alyssa

We are Buying a HOUSE!

This whole house hunting extravaganza has been quite the drama. We originally submitted bid for a bank owned home on the market for one day. After resubmitting and competing with our highest bid secured this home. The bad news was upon a second visit and investigation we realized there was some serious roof damage that had previously occurred and could probably happen again. Lucky for us Brendan's parents were in town and also pointed out some other issues with the home that we really had not seen before. After talking it over we decided the best decision was to walk away and let it be a money pit for someone else. So we continued looking at houses. At this point we had seen over 65 houses and were still just not in love with any of them. This past Saturday our luck changed, we found our house. We found a gorgeous 2005 newer home in Draper in the Suncrest neighborhood. This area you have to see to believe it is incredible. Literally overlooking the whole city and tucked up in the mountains. The views are spectacular but the house is stunning. The only down side to the house is I would still have my hour commute to Ogden. I don't mind this too much since I listen to a lot of audio books and I absolutely love my job. For this house, I would do it. We put our bid in on Monday, Tuesday we received a counter offer to which we counter offered. Today they have accepted the third addendum and we will be moving by the end of June! I am so excited and thrilled about this house and location, it is a good size house with five bedrooms so start booking your Utah vacations! Love Alyssa and Brendan

Zion Angels Landing

Zion as always was gorgeous. Stunningly clear blue skies and perfect mid seventies temps. Brendan and I decided that we would hike Angels Landing to do something different this time. It is a 5 mile total hike with a huge elevation gain. The last half mile is holding on to a chain that is against the mountain. Brendan and I got freaked out because if you let go of this chain you really could die it was steep and sketchy. It was still a gorgeous and awesome hike. Here are a few pics we took from Zion and Angels Landing. Our next bike hiking, mountain biking adventure will be over Memorial day we are planning on checking out Flaming Gorge in Wyoming, should be awesome!

Graduation Video

I couldn't get the video to work but here are some more pics from his graduation, enjoy!

MBA Graduation

He finally did it! Yooooohoooooo! Schools out for ever! Two weekends back Brendan finally graduated with his MBA and also getting a GPA of a 3.5 which is awesome. It was a great weekend, Wednesday our cousin Karen from Ireland came to town, Thursday his parents got here, friday he graduated and Saturday we went down to Zion. It was a whirlwind weekend from start to finish. The graduation itself went great and I could not have been a more proud wife, he worked so hard to get into graduate school and then finished with a great GPA and a new career he loves. I am going to upload the video of him actually walking. Proud wife, now onto the next adventure...