The Lusty Month of May

After we returned from our Seattle trip, we celebrated Star Wars Day with some of our friends by making and eating pizza, ice cream, and Wookie Cookies, and watching "Empire Strikes Back" outside in our yard.  The weather got a little chilly, so the gals got in the hot tub and watched the movie from there, and the heat made it feel so much better, and there were only a couple instances where our outdoor screen got a little too involved in the action and decided to blow over in some over zealous wind, but all-in-all, it was a lot of fun.

A few days later, I made my way down to Salt Lake City for work to help train some new employees.  It has been 5+ years since I have regularly gone into the office for work, and things have changed SO much since then. There are entirely new buildings that our people work in now!

I was fortunate enough to be able to stay with Kelly and her family while I was down for the training, and the time overlapped with Kelly's birthday, and it was fun to be able to spend her birthday with her, though our lives have changed so drastically since the last birthday we spent together!  It has been way too long since we had seen each other face-to-face, and it was fun to spend time with her and her daughter, who is super feisty and adorable.

The weekend after I got back from my Salt Lake trip, my brother and his family came up to visit, and to drop off the newest member of the Scholes Clan.  We have taken ownership of Murphy once more, and he has been getting to know Watson, and reuniting with Cooper, and has been thoroughly wearing himself out with all the running and playing that they have all been doing together.  We might be a little crazy for having 3 dogs, but hey, we're just crazy people! One of my friends even made me a "Dog Mama" shirt for Mother's Day!

Forgive the greasy hair and lack of make-up! But I love this shirt!

Sleepless in Seattle

Bruce and I returned from our trip to Seattle a few weeks ago, where he received his MBA!  I am so incredibly proud of him and this amazing accomplishment!  He has put in so much hard work, time, and effort into this journey, and we are both glad it is at an end.

Our trip out to the great pacific northwest began at 3:30am on the day we headed out.  We decided that leaving ridiculously early on our 12 hour drive would be better than getting in late, so we took the driving in shifts, and I was the "fortunate" one who got to drive first.  We had gorgeous weather on the drive there, and we listened to "Ready Player One" on audio book.

We stayed with my sister Jenelle and her family on this trip, and we spent the first few days doing activities in both Redmond and Seattle, including doing an escape room with Jen, shopping, watching Avenger's Infinity War (with a great photo-bomber behind us), wandering around Seattle, eating macarons, visiting the Amazon Go store, the Chihuly Gardens, the Space Needle (note to self, don't wear a green shirt if your picture is going to be taken in front of a green screen!), and the waterfront.

Bruce's parents flew in for the graduation, and we met up with them for dinner the night before graduation and went to The Crab Pot down by the waterfront.  I had always heard about this restaurant, but had never been, so it was a fun experience to share with them.

The next day, Bruce's graduation took place at Key Arena, and it was so exciting to see him walk across that stage to receive his diploma (or, at least the booklet that will sold his diploma once he receives it)!  We then went to Pike Place Market for lunch and some good old fashioned wandering and shopping.  We ate lunch at Pike Place Chowder where we sampled all of their various chowders, and we purchased some fun items from the various shops at the market, including an amazing Blackberry Vanilla Jam that I cannot rave about enough!  It is truly fantastic!  Afterward, we went to the Seattle Aquarium and enjoyed watching the fish, touching sea creatures in the tide pools, and seeing the adorable otters during feeding time!

The next day, Bruce's parents headed home, and he and I headed to my home town of North Bend, where we attended my old church, and it was so much fun to catch up with people that I have not seen in 15+ years. It was surreal to be back in the place that I grew up, that holds so many memories, and to know that so much has changed in my life, and in the lives of those I knew, and even how much the town has changed.

Our remaining days were spent with my sister's family, playing, organizing, decorating, shopping, and talking. I miss seeing my sister, and it was so nice to spend time with her and her family and to see them in their home.

On the day we headed home, we decided to stop for breakfast in Snoqualmie at the Mt. Si Golf Course, since we had read that the view was just as great as the food.  However, it was ridiculously foggy on this particular morning, so we really just had the great food, until the sun started burning off the fog halfway through our meal, and then the view did not disappoint either!  So green and gorgeous!  I have a definite soft spot for Mount Si, and it always signals "home" whenever I see it.  So it was good to see it as we said goodbye to our trip.

A year later...

Well, here we are a year later...and if you have been checking for updates regularly, I apologize for the lack of information!  I loaned my personal laptop to my cousin Rebekah while she does her schooling through WGU, so I have been even more lax with updating everyone on our lives than usual, which is saying something, since I haven't been that great with it in recent times!

So I will try to update on various things in a somewhat intelligible way!

Puppies:

Our boys have continued to grow and learn over the last year.  Well, that is to say that Watson has grown, and is now roughly as big as Cooper!  We had some rough bits as Watson is a bit of a chewer...he has destroyed a kitchen rug, a prescription pill bottle, numerous socks, sticks, toys, a spray bottle, and was bold enough to steal Bruce's steak off of the counter one evening...an act which I am pretty sure has not yet been forgiven entirely... It's a good thing he's cute!

The boys have become the best of friends, and love spending time together, whether it be cuddling, playing, play fighting, chilling with Bruce and myself, or playing with their other friends.  Soon we will be adding Murphy back into our little family, and we are excited to have him back and introduce him to Watson, since they have never met.  We are officially those crazy dog people!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The house:

We have now been in our home for a little over a year, and it has been a whirlwind!  After dealing with flooding last winter, we put gutters on our house, because for some crazy reason, it didn't already have them!  Just adding the gutters made a huge difference!

I painted the kitchen, nook, and basement to match our living room and dining room, which is a light grey color that I simply love!  It gives such a fresh and clean feel to everything. I also painted our bedroom a pretty navy blue color, which will look beautiful once we finally get around to putting up curtains, buying bedding, and getting a headboard...which I still have yet to do!

We later learned that our entire roof needed to be replaced, which turned out to be a large expense that we had not been planning on, so we are basically paying to literally keep a roof over our heads in more ways than one!

We also built some raised garden beds, and planted some fruits and vegetables last summer, and it was so fun to actually have things grow!  Perhaps I don't have s black thumb after all!

We also had our driveway replaced right before the weather turned in November, and we LOVE having concrete rather than dirt and gravel!  So much nicer!  Now we just need to do something fun with the sides of the driveway to make it look more finished.  We do also need to reinforce some areas on our fence, as it is painfully obvious that parts of it are strongly sagging one way or the other.

In January, we also needed to replace our sink in the upstairs bathroom, which turned into replacing the vanity, tearing out the tile behind the vanity and adding new back splash, removing the side mirror and the night light, repainting the bathroom, and adding more storage.

 

This past week, we also got together with our neighbors and decided to chop down the tree that is on our mutual property line, since we both think it is an eyesore, and we were sick of the squirrels chucking chestnuts at our respective dogs, so now that has been taken care of, and everything is looking up that we will avoid those sneaky squirrels this year!

Our Lives:

We've made some good friends in our ward, and we have loved spending more time with them and getting to know them better, which is something that we have missed with other friends moving, and with all of our own moves throughout the years.

While we don't get to see some of our older friends as often, we are always super excited when we are able to get together with them once more and catch up on our respective lives!  I get to spend some time with Kelly in the next few weeks, and will be with her over her birthday, and I am super stoked!

Bruce:

Bruce and I went to his 10 year high school reunion this past year, and were able to see some of his old friends, which was fun.  He also attended a healthcare conference this past autumn, which he enjoyed.

I was able to surprise him this past Christmas with a homemade Xbox Onesie, courtesy of my fabulous mother's sewing skills, which I am pretty sure won Christmas!

 


Bruce will be graduating with his MBA this coming Saturday, and we are going up to Seattle for his graduation ceremony!  He has worked long and hard for his degree, and we will be taking some time for a small vacation while we are up there.

His clinic was also acquired by Bingham Memorial Hospital this year, and he has accepted a new position with them as a Clinic Informatics Specialist, which allows him to travel to various clinics owned by BMH, and help them solve some of their issues surrounding their systems.

Lisa:

Among all the house projects that were undertaken within the last year, I also resolved to get healthier, having once again gained more weight than I was comfortable with.  While I was not at my heaviest weight ever, I continued to struggle with it, and made the determination to get some help and work harder to get rid of it.  As a result, I have successfully lost 60 lbs in the last 10 months, which is such a relief.  While each day is still a struggle, I know that success is possible!

I am also restarting my grad program in July, so that should be fun as well!  I am hoping to be done within a year, but we will see if I can stick to that goal, since it is a little ambitious.

Oh, we did also recently purchase a second vehicle, since I will be needing to travel down to Salt Lake on occasion to train new employees, and since Bruce also needs to travel more with his new job, it only made sense for us to get another car.  The new one is also larger, so we will be able to drive the (soon to be 3) dogs around much more easily!

Well, that is the recap for now, hopefully we will both be better about posting a bit more regularly than we have in the last year! Fingers crossed!

Weekend Adventures and Projects

I took a couple days off from work this past week.

Not because I had any fun or grand plans, but mostly because I am close to capping out on my vacation time, and I need to use it or I lose it.  Super exciting stuff, I know!

Well, it turns out that my taking vacation time when I did was extremely fortuitous!  (Love it when that happens).  On my way home from dropping the husband off to work on Thursday, our tire pressure light went off in our car...again.  For some reason, we keep getting bead leaks in our tires, and it is super annoying.  During the winter, I think we took it in every 2-3 weeks for a while.

So I got to spend some of my time off dealing with that, after dropping the pups off at doggy daycare.  Which, doggy daycare is the best!  They get to run around all day, and get nice and worn out by the time we pick them up at the end of the day.  Not having them underfoot while trying to get things done around the house is a HUGE plus!

After dealing with the car, I did some weeding and edging in the front and side yard, which needed it badly...I am still not done, but it is a definite improvement!

Before

This was a couple weeks ago when everything had bloomed and looked pretty, but the weeds and grass are everywhere!

After

The blooms are gone, but so are the weeds and most of the grass!  And I love having the nice edge on the flower bed too!















During this whole process, I tweaked my neck, which hurt like the Dickens for the next 2 days, but I feel fine so far today, so that is good!

Later that night (Thursday), I got a call from my parents who were driving up to Washington to visit my sister and her family for the twins' baptism on Saturday, and it turned out that their car had completely died when they hit Burley!  So they had their car towed to Pocatello, and they stayed with us for the night, and then they rented a car here, and left the next day, but luckily still made the baptism!  So glad I had the day off to help them get where they needed to be!

Friday was spent getting things done around the inside of the house, since my neck was giving me grief, and making it difficult to move, and it was nice to have a relaxing day with almost zero responsibilities.

On Saturday, we decided to take a day trip to Shoshone Falls, since Bruce had never been before, and I figured that since we live relatively close to it, we should make the most of it!  The weather turned out not to be as nice yesterday in Twin Falls as it was in Pocatello, so it was pretty overcast, but they were still really pretty, and impressive!  Bruce is always a bit wary of being so close to large waterfalls, but he thought they were pretty neat too.

The Falls

 He looks a little nervous!

On solid ground, much more relaxed!













It was fun to get away together for a little trip.  We didn't take a big trip this year like we have in years past, so even just this little jaunt was nice.

Later in the day, my stud of a husband did the edging and laying of pavers in our backyard to create a mowing strip along our flower bed, and it looks amazing!  He is such a stud!

 The flower bed desperately needs to be weeded!

Such an improvement!


















I am now of the opinion that weekends always need to be 4 days long...it really is the only way to get all of your projects and chores done, and still have time to relax a bit!  Whoever decided that 2 days off per week is sufficient is crazy.