Our "New" Home!

As many of you know, we have moved into our house! We are completely in love with it. It has its quirks, but we like it that way ;) We are excited about adding our personal touch to the house to make it ours! Justin is excited about staining the cabinets as our first project. 

The last week of June we prepped to move again. Jon and Laura put up with the crazy of our house closing. The original closing date was June 11th, and we didn't sign until June 23rd. Even then, the sellers couldn't move until the weekend (June 27th). Considering we moved out of our apartment on May 28th, we were basically living with them for a whole month! Thank you Jon and Laura! 

June 27th finally rolled around and we were anxious to move. Justin's parents helped us shuffle boxes from our storage unit to the moving truck, and then into the house. A couple from our ward came to help as well. When we finished, we all had burgers at Jon's house and enjoyed their AC one last time ;)

Last Sunday I subbed and taught relief society for a friend. I really love teaching RS; so far it's been my favorite calling I've had. They finally split our Sunday school class which is so much better now! We had 15-20 16-and-17-year-olds in our class and it was just too much teenager ridiculousness in one room (which isn't even a room considering we teach on the stage!). Now we have no more than 7-8 teenagers and it is much better! Don't get me wrong: I really like them! It's just much better this way ;)

So now we are moved in and adjusting to all of our new space! I read "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo and would recommend it to anyone! I read it just in time to apply everything to our house. We are loving it! We have trashed/donated a lot of our "stuff" and our place is sleek and tidy! Papa Jon and Joe came up on Wednesday to help us out with yard stuff. I chopped down two huge bushes, one of them being a wisteria bush that was taking over our deck so that felt awesome! Mom gave me advice for washing windows and I did that as well. Here are some of our favorite things about our place so far:

The deck: it is huge and wraps around 3/4 of the house. Love it! 

The trees: 1/2 the house is surrounded by trees which keep the house cool and give us privacy. Though we live in the city, it doesn't feel like it! Love it.

The creek: it runs behind the house, which prevents future construction around us: more privacy.

The name: the neighborhood is named after the creek: Kelsey Creek! HELLO!!! 

The windows: they are HUGE and beautiful and let in so much beautiful natural light!

The house: it was built in 1950. It is solid as a rock according to our inspector. It was a farm house and has so much charm! 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms will accomodate us and a growing family for a while :)

This weekend we played with our Vegas team in a tournament (Potlach) in Redmond. They flew up here to play three days of ultimate. We played on Friday and Saturday. It was HARD! There were not enough ladies and I am out of Ultimate shape....with few subs there was a lot of running in the 90 degree heat. I am glad it is over! Ultimate is a strange sport where people dress up like hooligans, drink a lot of alcohol, and wear little-to-no clothing. I saw way too many butt cheeks this weekend and Justin and I agree that this was probably our last hoorah. Ha! But it was fun. Our team ended up winning our division of the tournament, so that's something! 

We had a most delicious BBQ at Keith and Gerda's house the evening of the 4th. We had cheeseburgers, baked beans (Mom's recipe!), potato salad, lemonade, and pie...seriously, what is more American than that? Love it! We shot a few fireworks and were finished. People in Washington are crazy. EVERYONE buys fireworks, and by that I mean EVERYONE buys HUNDREDS of DOLLARS of fireworks! It was a war zone, but we were so exhausted from playing ultimate we fell asleep no problem!

Today in church Bishop read the statement from the First Presidency and we had a discussion on it. I am just reminded of a paragraph of The Family: A Proclamation to the World:

"WE WARN that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God. Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets."

The Supreme Court ruling is certainly a continuation of the disintegration of the family. There is a reason marriage between one man and one woman has been encouraged for so long: it is the best scenario for raising children. Strong, traditional marriage is the basic unit of society. The Proclamation also states that, "Children are ENTITLED to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a FATHER and a MOTHER who honor marital vows with complete fidelity."

I am reminded of the prophesy of the constitution hanging by a thread in the last days. Regardless of what others think, our religious freedoms are under attack. I'm sure we will see more and more lawsuits as bishops decline marrying two men or two women, and as we decline the use of our church buildings for gay marriages. With social media blowing up in our faces, I am reminded of Elder Perry's last conference talk, where he reaffirmed, "For whatever reasons, too much of our television, movies, music, and Internet present a classic case of a minority masquerading as a majority...Despite what much of media and entertainment outlets may suggest, however, and despite the very real decline in the marriage and family orientation of some, the solid majority of mankind still believes that marriage should be between one man and one woman."

For now, Justin and I are extremely happy and very blessed. We are loving life and are so excited to enter a new chapter of life in our first home. Idaho family: it's time to come visit! ;) We will spoil you rotten!