Before and After

I'm finally posting the before and after pictures of the main level of our house. I don't know why it's taken me so long to just do it. I guess I felt like it wasn't done enough to post. We still have some doors missing, some furniture to buy, and some decorating to do, but most of it's done.

Enjoy.

Before

Don't be fooled by the okay looking floor. There were probably 30 screws holding it down where it had bulged from expansion. The trim was also pretty hacked in places where they'd tried to fit the flooring underneath it. We thought it was termites at first.

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

The tile floor was cracked in places because it wasn't installed with cement backer board, so it was either replace a few and have the same problem later or redo the whole floor. We chose the latter.

After

Before

After

Before

After

I wish we would have taken real pictures of the half bathroom- I think it was one of the rooms that had the biggest change.

Our Love is Fueled by Humidity, Warming Ocean Currents, and an Appetite for Destruction

Every once and a while when the conditions are just right, and the stars are properly aligned a true love is allowed to form...somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This year just happened to be that year.

Down in the Gulf of Mexico, over the last few weeks of hurricane season, the area was rocked by the one-two punch of hurricane Matthew followed by tropical storm Nicole. Yes...we make a good team. There is no one in this world that I would rather destroy the Caribbean and Mexico with than my sweet, tender wife.

Two

It's true.

Matt and I have hit two years together.

I'm madly in love with this one.

There's been so much in two years- fun things, trying things, trips to England, trips to Sandusky, hard jobs, wonderful jobs, missing family, family visits, F1 races, dance performances, learning to mountain bike, learning to dance, sleeping in a resort in Cabo, trying to sleep in our car driving across the country, chocolate, and flowers, and tools.

Happy Two.

It's like this,

I have a million excuses why I haven't blogged in a long time, you know work and house and stuff, and I feel like I have been aloof lately on our blog- so I will show you a few of the wonderful people we saw this summer.

We finally made it out to Utah in July and even made it down to Cedar City after a year and a half of being away. We love Ohio but I missed my family so much.

One of the main reasons for making the trip was to meet my two new nieces!

I didn't ever think we'd get two at once, but here is heaven on earth.

We met up with some of my long lost cousins who now have kids of their own and had a bbq at Carolyn's house.

Matt and I have the most amazing grandparents. We got to go down to Delta to see my dad's parents (it's been since our wedding) and it was so good to see them.

Did you know my grandpa is the handiest man alive? He built a barn a few years ago the size of a football field... almost.

Did you know my dad plays the banjo? He does, and he's really good, even after taking a break for a while.

We also went to see Matt's grandparents in Logan and Lehi. It was so good to see them and we had a great time visiting after such a long time of being away.

This is one of the strongest, happiest girls I have ever met in my life. And I love her and miss her. We're best friends, can you tell?

Matt and I both got to visit good friends from home that we haven't seen in a long time which was so nice. (See post below for Matt's venture with Arthur)

While we were down in Cedar City my family all went camping.

Can you believe this red rock? I can't believe that I took it for granted for so long. I miss the look of Southern Utah. Can you believe how big my nieces and nephews are?! I miss them so much.

We also had a birthday party for Ryan and Rosa.

I want to kiss them all! I worked really hard to maintain the favorite aunt status,

but I think Matt is winning on favorite.

3 weeks - 3 Rides

The last three weeks have been especially good for Nicole and I. The last weekend in June, we took a break from all the house stuff and went camping. We decided to go out near Rio Grande, Oh to the Bob Evan's homestead. They have some camping and even more important, some mountain biking trails. The weather was nice and sunny, however, in the morning, everything was foggy.

On Saturday we got up early to ride before breakfast, and before we had even made it 50 feet, I broke my chain. Luckily I had another chain to use. We went for a short ride for about 35 min just to get warmed up. Then we took a break and went to breakfast at the origianl Bob Evans restaurant. It sounds charming, but it was about as exciting as all of the other Bob Evans' in the world. But it was still a good hearty breakfast.

After we got done, we went for another ride. There is some nice single track up there.

The following weekend, we left for UT. We were out in the mother land for about 10 days. While there, my brother-in-law and I decided to rent bikes up at Brian Head. This was a pretty exciting venture because Brian Head is significantly steeper than just about anything I have ridden before. Thankfully we rented some burly bikes. The picture below is me with my bike and then James with his bike.

Below, is a steep section that James was supposed to photograph my awesomeness on.

Here's a better close-up of all that awesomeness:
That's about as graceful as I get unfortunately. We rode for about 5 hours. Which doesn't sound like a lot when you get to take the lift to the top and gravity does the rest. But we were both beat by the end, and decided to call it a day while neither of us had yet required an ER trip. I was surprised the next day how sore my upper body was. That downhill stuff is a lot of work.

Then to top it off, on Mon, I got to ride with my best friend from high school up in Corner Canyon in Draper. This was more of a traditional cross country ride. It had a long climb at the beginning...a really long climb. It was especially difficult since I've been living almost at sea level for the last year. But the downhill was worth it. I didn't get to take any pictures of us riding because I left the camera in the truck, but here's a good one out of the archives from the glory days for your imaginations.