5 Year House Anniversary and the BIG Reveal

Hi All,
If you have been following my posts this last year you know we have been working hard over the last year to get our house the way we wanted it. With the help from my amazing Friend Stacey here is the changes, enjoy:

The front of the house before:

The front of the house prior to moving in had a ton of snap dragons and overall clutter. Between Mothers day and summer gardening, I now am thrilled with what we have done. Most evenings we sit out here for a glass of wine after the kids go to bed.

THE AFTER:

Love this so much, although this is my 3rd red maple I have planted in the front. The blue pots were a house warming gift from my parents five years ago.

The Front Room Before:

The front room used to be so plain and we really didn't know what to do with it for most of the year. It always looks amazing at Christmas because we put our tree in there but it needed more for the rest of the year.

The AFTER:

We love what Stacey suggested for the front room with the round rug, two chairs and traveling wall photo collage. This hallway also got an updated light fixture from West Elm and also you can see in one of the photos we got a larger light fixture also from West Elm on our stair case against the red wall.

The TV room off of the kitchen before:

The AFTER:

This room felt so incredibly different when we were done. The build in bookshelves made the room and fireplace so much more cozier and less stark. Also a bigger rug has made a huge difference. I can't believe it took us so many years to fill in around the fireplace.

The Kitchen Before:

The Kitchen After:

I got bad lighting in one of my photos but the big change is new stainless steel appliances and getting the cabinets painted white. It makes our very tiny kitchen feel so much more open. We still are going to be getting granite and a new back splash probably this year too.

The Powder room on the main floor before:

The After:

Bren and I are particularly proud of this room because we did the tin ceiling our selves. I had always not liked the color of this room so we painted it almost a navy, changed the light fixture and felt like the room had the needed face lift.

The Laundry Room Before:

The laundry room After:

Not a whole lot done here but a coat of mint paint, some signage and chandelier lighting. We really also use this as a mud area as well winter gear in the ski season and towels and pool gear during the summer. Iron man (the red washer and dryer) continues to kick ass.

The Basement Before:

The Basement After:

The basement really needed more work on the guest room. We added a TV, dresses, bed frame, curtains, bedding and a lighter coat of paint to give the room an open feel. Even though our basement has a ton of toys, we like the feel of the high top table, some new art and more games.

The Office Before:

The Office After:

I decided since I work from home and have been for the last two years I really needed a lighter space. So we painted and added colorful artwork which is extra special because my God Mother Trudi painted it. We also have a navy, velvet futon in here in case we needed more beds.

Our Master Before:

Master After:

This was the room that really made a difference. After putting so much effort into both kids nurseries both Bren and I decided that our master really needed a facelift. Lots of paint, new furniture, bedding and artwork made a huge difference.

Slight view of the master bathroom before:

Master Bathroom After:

New lighting and eventually we will be doing a full remodel of this bathroom with hopefully a soaking tub and shower and new window. In the meantime I like what we did.

Upstairs Rooms Before:

Upstairs Room After:

This makes my heart happy because I had always hoped when we bought our house that this would be the house we started a family. Now that we have our family seeing these two nurseries makes me smile. 

The backyard Before:

The backyard after:

Same as the before picture, I love all the junk in the backyard. it says a happy family that likes to get outside and enjoy nature together. 

Life is good! Five years into our house and we love Utah. Next up, a cabin!

Love,

The Whites

Pigs CAN Fly

My flying pig

Prior to writing this blog the only song I could think of almost every day was "it's the most wonderful time of the year".... yes the Christmas one. Now I am aware it is June but it is my busy season meaning dance recitals and convention. Here I am on Sunday evening and HALLELUJAH- I survived. Hooray for optimism and singing happy Christmas Carols when stressed!

Not only is the actual convention a HUGE event but then we had record numbers once again with some 450 people coming together for one event that me- (just me) is in charge of. I figured out a long time ago that if you do the prep work ahead of time life will be easier. For the last three weeks almost any night I could I would work anywhere from 8pm to midnight or to 3am doing prep. This is stuffing envelopes, printing signs, touching base with sponsors or speakers or just doing any of the other normal parts of my job that don't go away when annual congress comes around. Yes my title might seem fancy as an executive director but the reality is I am here to serve my association, optometry and my doctors and often that means being the janitor, mover or whatever needs to be accomplished.

Sometimes you do just need to work because all of the other anxiety, nerves will keep you up as well.
Did I cover everything, what did I forget (you always do) and what will go wrong (something always does)? I forgot AV for entire room this year and my printer broke. Luckily all were easy to solve but meant some early mornings to get caught up or come up with a plan B. During the convention I usually work 18-20 hour days and am lucky to get 5 hours of sleep. The conclusion is we had another wonderful, successful conference and I feel damn good. So good in fact that I had to stop at the grocery store on my way home to get dinner for everyone and I saw a little statue that had a flying pig and I bought it for myself because I thought "I could do that or make that happen". Maybe I do it the way my little 3 year old says, "look Mom it's a pig with a Butterfly on his back".

At one point during my conference my board surprised me with a bouquet of flowers and thanked me and said my passion and determination made them believe I could probably get the president there if I had wanted. (Anyone know any Trump impersonators for next year)? As I walked up there and was presented with some flowers I couldn't help but laugh and start doing my best beauty queen wave because the whole thing was so awesome and I thought damn it I'm going to be myself and I feel like Ms America right now. Lesson learned don't work a day in your life because YOU should be truly passionate about what you do and be yourself, Ms America, flying pigs and all!

Love
Alyssa

PS- you know why I love Utah my amazing, incredible single Dad husband brought babies up Saturday for the carnival and all my doctors were so wonderfully kind and hilarious to them running around the last hour of education. Utah loves families and I love Utah!

PPS- someone tell my board to get me a tiara next year!!!

Me oh My oh May!

Its May 31st and it wouldn't be this time of year for me without at least one panic attack and some serious stress. Welcome to the season that I work up to all year long, annual convention...
By some miracle we beat last years numbers for attendance and sold out our exhibit hall. I didn't expect that since I credited a lot of last years success to our state licensing board doing an audit year but our education committee did it again and its going to be huge. Part of me right now thinks I shouldn't be writing this blog post and instead should be working but I feel like if I don't take some time for myself or my family this job will burn me out quickly.

Its been a good month for us, April ended with our Presidents club to trip to Costa Rica. How can you complain celebrating your birthday in such a gorgeous part of the world. It was amazing, even including the black eye I got trying to learn to surf the morning of my birthday. It was a really, really relaxing trip for both Bren and I. We also felt like it was just the "reset" we have needed over the last year. Both of our favorite excursion was the catamaran boat cruise we took to a private island, so nice with the wind, sunshine and ocean. When we got home it was full steam ahead for Bren for training for the Iron Horse bike race in Durango on Memorial day. Lots and lots of two a day rides for him to get prepped and ready to roll.

He is amazing and finished it last weekend and we continued the awesome tradition of being in Durango with friends. It is amazing after 5 years with the Mays and Hallocks watching our kids grow up together is priceless. There are 6 kiddos all around and they stay pretty busy together. It was also cool because us girls got to go biking, do some shopping downtown and then the 6 adults managed to have dinner together Sunday night thanks to the Zane and Sara getting a babysitter. That adult time catching up was probably my favorite and made me sure miss not having all of us in one place again.

Hard to believe this Sunday our sweet girl Kinsey Kay of the Milky way will be 2 years old. She is just hilarious these days with her antics, giggles, deep conversations (we don't know what she is saying yet but it is serious and intense) and stubbornness. We are having a Frozen party and will have an Elsa princess come visit too. Seems fitting for the little girl whos first words were "Let It Go". I don't have babies anymore and instead have toddlers and little tiny humans who we love so much it hurts.

On to the summer which means lots of porch sunsets, pool time, biking and grilling. Can't wait!

Love
The Whites

Break a Leg!!!

 What’s new with us? I missed March for blogging because we were busy, out of the last 6 weekends we have had family in town 4 of those weekends. So awesome to be able to share what we love here with our loved ones. Lots of skiing, great conversations, yummy meals and just a good time. 

April has started out with a bang with the lovely pistol Kinsey breaking her right leg. We were at our local neighborhood playground last Wednesday night with my parents and out of the blue she stepped off of a high ledge about 5-6 feet off of the ground. For all the times we have played there, I was stunned because she had never done something even close to that. Fortunately she landed on her feet but we knew right away something was wrong because she wasn’t putting weight on her right foot. She has been dancing, walking and running everywhere so to see her want to crawl we knew it was trouble. Off the ER mom and daughter went to find out she does have a buckle break on her tibia. We will be getting her casted this week because of the swelling.

Just as she did when she was born she loves to align herself for my really, really busy work events. About twelve hours later we were packing up the car to go to St George for my spring conference. I am in charge of every detail and the events so I had to be there. Luckily my parents were in town this whole week so they were able to take good care of her. Funny enough, even a broken right leg hasn’t slowed her down and she is still hobbling around. I think we are in trouble for the future since she is that big of a daredevil even before being 2!

Quinn is good, talking up a storm. The other day he listened to my heart and then informed me that I had chicken in waffles in my heart. Pretty hilarious conversations we have. Thank goodness we have a little book where we write all of these gems down. Still struggling to keep him in his own room at night but we are getting by. Some weeks I feel like a new born parent again but I know once you have kids as a mom you always then sleep with an antenna up.

2017 is going to be the year of traveling. Bren and I decided we want experiences and travel. We have three international trips planned, Costa Rica, Ireland and Paris at Christmas. We can’t wait, we are also starting to work on planning a Brecke family trip to Norway in 2018. I don’t know if it’s going on mid-thirties or what, but lately we both have been taking a step back from our crazy, crazy lives and asking ourselves what we want. What kind of relationship do we want? What kind of life do we want to live? Is my job rewarding? am I happy with my day to day life? Looking further into these questions we have had some interesting and at times hard conversations. Nobody said being adult gets any easier. I do think you do have choices and you can choose to stay positive and you can change what isn’t working. For us its keeping the focus is on our little family of 4, having a happy marriage and raising these two lively babies. I think as a married couple take the trips and hopefully pass on a love of wanderlust and adventure to our kids.

Excited for my birthday month, warmer days ahead and Utah summertime!

Love,

The Whites

Hello Dreary February

The Dashing Steve and me at the Ballet

2017 is moving at lightning pace. Cannot wait, I have always had a dislike for the month of February, not totally sure why. I am just happy it is the shortest month of the year. March and April scream spring, snow melting, spring/sunshine skiing, clean open windows and birds singing.

Brendan in Jackson WY on a guys weekend

We are all good over here, more house projects. I know I need to do a blog post on them all which will happen but believe it or not we are still in the process. Its funny how you start small thinking your only going to re do or paint one or two rooms and next thing you know I have done every room in the house but the kids nurseries and their bathroom. I think both of those are going to be sooner then later since both kids will be in big beds pretty quickly. Quinn already has a bed but wants a big boy bed as he keeps insisting. The problem is you do one room and then suddenly you start looking at other rooms and think OH we could change this, it would be small and then suddenly your redoing the whole thing. Its awesome but ready to be done and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

We did Quinn's three year old pictures with Darren yesterday, pretty cool since Darren has been shooting my family since I was pregnant with Quinn. Its great to use a photographer consistently because my kids actually really know Darren and don't treat him like a stranger when he comes over. I will try to do a post with the photos once we get them. Kinsey is great too, she is babbling up a storm and has started to figure out we understand her words like "up", "gilles", "more". She marches to her own beat but I love that about her spunky personality.

Legislative session has been very, very quiet for me this year. I know I should probably enjoy it but it has felt bizarre. Still loving my job and so is Brendan.
Can't for March and April we have lots of visitors coming and can't wait to show off the house and see everyone.

Love,
The Whites

Fear

Hello Family and Friends,

I debated about writing this blog post most of the day because I worried I might offend and then I decided as the day went on that this is bigger than me worrying about upsetting someone’s feelings. President Trump won the election by electoral votes last November. He didn’t win my vote but I fiercely respect American policy and the peaceful transition of power so yes, he is my president and yes I am very proud to be an American even though it was not my candidate I voted for. 

President Trump is known for being very sensational in everything he does, as most of the world knows by now. As a new president, I think he was trying to make a statement or I am not really sure what his mind set was but this last Friday the same day as Holocaust Remembrance Day he set a movement into place that I can’t stay silent on. President Trump started a travel ban on six countries including worn torn Syria on refugees and who can enter America. Even though this program is only supposed to last 120 days it was the first time a leader of a well respect country put a ban on certain countries that are predominantly Muslim, thus the hashtag #Muslimban has taken off.

As a Catholic or Christian I thought on Friday and throughout the weekend “what a terrible policy but it doesn’t really make an impact on me”. Maybe I offend some by sharing that but I am sure I am not alone on that mindset. I try to read scriptures every day and I had an eye-opening moment on Sunday where I thought what if this was a Muslim president who banned Christians for 120 days, or from predominant Christian cultures. How would I tell my friends from Ireland who I love like the family and are family they are not welcome in my country? It started to really dawn on me the REAL, real, real impact of the message of hatred that America was sending to the world.

Here we are on Monday morning, once again consumed into the chaos of the beginning of the work week. My job is involved with a wonderful charitable organization that provides free eye exams and glasses to kids in need who have already been prescreened financially and visually to determine there is a desperate need for help. We were supposed to have over 100 exams between 2 days this week for kids who met this criteria, we provide the doctors who perform these exams. I found out today one of the days has been canceled. I called and asked what changed and to my horror found out that since the new President and administration has taken charge between his Muslim ban and his Mexican wall proposal that over 100 of these parents refused to sign consent forms for their children to attend this event. There is a fear of the government and our new president and even in a charitable situation a fear of being targeted. So, over 100 kids who already have been prescreened and determined they need help will not receive the exam and glasses they need because FEAR has taken this country by storm.

I will not be quiet.  This has impacted me now. Will my son be targeted someday because almost every school shooter has been a white male? Hatred and fear is not the America I know. Have courage, be brave and don’t be afraid to speak out when you see wrong policies start to impact your life. I saw a sign from the protests this weekend and I loved it. It said “First they came for the Muslims and we said not this time you Nazi F***S”.

Lets live in love and hope. Be the America we are and don’t allow fear mongering to win.

Love,

The Whites

Quinn is 3!

Is there anything in the world better than being three years old? I think not, at this age you still can be spider man when you grow up and a kiss from a parent magically heals every boo boo. I hope this magic continues to last. Our sweet boy turned three last Sunday and I still pinch myself every day that God blessed me with a family. How cool is it tonight when my husband is out of town I still have a little roaming gang of friends to go play hide and seek with in my house, pretty sweet!
Anyhow since we are now having coherent conversations (more then demands) I decided 3 years old is a good age to start the interview on their birthday. I hope this continues for many years. Without further ado......enjoy!
1.) How old are you?
Three
2.) Who is your best friend?
Jack and Bryson at Ms.Wendys
3.)What is your favorite thing to do?
Cut birthday cake, play with my screwdriver
4.) What is your favorite color?
blue
5.) What is your favorite food?
cake
6.) What do you like to do with your family?
Walk somewhere with Mommy and Daddy
7.) What is your favorite toy?
no favorite toy but really like spider (hexbug spider)
8.) What do you want to be when you grow up?
Five or do spider stuff for work
9.) What makes you happy?
vacuums and spiders for work
10) What makes you sad?
He pushed me down (something about the minion movie and being pushed down)
11.) What is your favorite show to watch?
Paw Patrol and Nim nims (minions from despicable me)
12.) What is your favorite book?
Nemo book
13.) What do you love to learn about?
bugs
14.) What is the best part of your birthday?
cake
15.) Where do you like to go?
with Mommy down the stairs
16.) Who is your teacher?
Ms.Wendy
17.) What is your favorite treat?
Crackers, Piece of bread, marshmallows
18.) What do you think about before you fall asleep?
No (this was his answer multiple times, Mommys guess would be dragons)
19.) If you could meet someone famous who would it be?
Dragons and Chase from Paw Patrol
20.) What is your favorite birthday present?
Cars

We hope 2017 is starting out right for everyone!

Love,
The Whites