Moving in to Our First Place!

Moving was so crazy, since Ben was not able to take any time off of work, and I was on my own to pack up and move our entire house with a five month old. I was SO grateful when after calling my Mom in tears with the stress of it all, that my Dad and brothers came down to help and even brought a few of their teenage friends. I was so touched! My grandparents even took Jayden for a couple days while we made the big move (better for him and us), and my Mom and sister Cami came and helped me two-tone the house before we moved all of our stuff in. We started at 9:00 in the morning and she busted it out with me until 10:00 p.m. and then Ben and I finished. It took us until 3:00 in the morning, so instead of driving back to Salt Lake and with Ben working up north anyway, we drove to Wal-Mart and bought an air mattress and spent a very interesting first night in our new place.

The next day was moving day and although Ben had to work, our incredible new ward came over and helped me carry everything into the house along with my Dad and brothers. Ben’s family came later and helped me organize inside. I never would have made it without the help! Thanks to all of you that were there for us! I am a bit of an OCD freak when it comes to getting all settled, and within two days I had everything organized and decorated. This happened with many thanks to a lot of help from my mother and mother-in-law. After that move, I do not want to move again any time soon, but all of our waiting and hard work had paid off and we LOVE our place! We feel very blessed to be here.

 

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We stopped by my Grandparents daily to see Jayden. I think it is a safe bet that he had a good time there. He LOVES being at their house still to this day. When we take the exit to get to their house, he starts yelling “Grandpa! Grandma!” all excitedly! It is SO cute!

After getting all settled into our new place, all that was left was needing to go and clean our old apartment. We went a few days after our move. This worked out great since it was the weekend and we moved a week before our contract was up. I was glad we got to space it out a bit. Ben and I made a little date night out of it with dinner in Salt Lake first. We picked Jayden up on the way home and we were anxious and excited to settle into our new place, and enjoy some much needed time just the three of us!

Can you believe that in moving we would be saving $300 a month?! Crazy! Owning in definitely the way to go!

Ben’s 25th Birthday Festivities!

Ben’s birthday was a blast this year, and the best news? We did not move this year!!! Remember his birthday last year? We were in the process of moving the past two of his birthdays before this one. I hope he enjoyed the break from moving on this particular birthday, because a year later, we bought our townhome and were moving in on his birthday, yet again! Poor guy! Guess you could say he gets a new place to live for his birthday present though and that is a big gift, right? The bad news was that this year, I was pregnant and super sick by the time his birthday rolled around that I could not even make a cake! Sad I know. I tried, but one look at those raw eggs and any food I was able to consume beforehand was history back in that day. So, he got a cute little hostess cupcake for his cake this year. Can you say sad? How about wife failure? I think my mom took pity on him, because she ended up throwing him a party with a real cake. Even if it did have different sections of sprinkles and frosting to accommodate my picky little siblings. Ben and I are obsessed with the Betty Crocker Rainbow Chip Frosting, but the kids don’t like the “bumps” in it, so Ben was sweet and once again let his birthday give way a bit for the greater good. I have said it before and I will say it again-I found myself a trooper, folks! My Mom was even nice enough to include Ben’s family and some of his friends as well. Did I mention I also have a trooper Mom? Ben and I did manage to get away and have some fun together with some window shopping (in which Ben of course tried to buy me something on his birthday) since the snow had bad weather had finally let up. Lucky for Ben, pregnancy symptoms do not interfere with presents, so we opened presents when we got back. All in all, I hope he had a good day and hopefully one day circumstances will allow me to make the past 5 birthdays up to him.

Isn’t it just pathetic? Ha ha! I told Ben one day we would miss the days of store-bought-cupcake-birthday-cake-substitutes because they meant we had a little one on the way. Do you like the candle holes? Since 25 candles would not fit (obviously), I did two on one side and five on the other. It worked…kind of.

After weeks of this…

We finally got this…!

and were oh so ready for some shopping and fun out on the town…just not without my Sprite!

My Mom’s party was AMAZING! I am so lucky to have her as my Mother and Ben is pretty lucky to have her as his Mother-in-law.

Like the artistic cake? ;) Sometimes when you are from a big family with lots of different opinions and tastes, things get pretty interesting, but that just makes it all the more fun!

Hope you had a great 25th birthday, Ben! I am SO glad you were born and that I get to call you mine, and hopefully…one day…I will be able to give you the birthday I have always dreamed of giving you. LOVE YOU!

Officially Saying Goodbye to Colorado and Moving Back to Utah

Well, after moving around from place to place to place every few weeks-months for a year, we were excited to finally be moving back to Utah and hopefully getting settled for a little while. We stuffed Ben’s work truck chuck full with all of our stuff, and drove to Trent and Janae’s, who kindly let us load it into the extra space in their moving truck, and then spent the night with a family from their current and our previous ward. The bed we slept on was so comfortable! We had the hardest time waking up early for the long drive to Utah the next morning. I rode with Janae in her car, while the boys rode in the truck, and after stopping at a small diner in Wyoming for a very tasty lunch, Janae joined Trent, and Ben joined me the rest of the way back. They dropped us off at my grandparent’s and we then unloaded everything into my grandparent’s living room (what trooper’s, eh? -they definitely love us) and made plans to find an apartment close to Fashion Place since I was able to transfer to the Nordstrom's there!

Moving…again…yay…I think Ben was a bit more optimistic than I was. He usually is.

We were excited to be moving back and a load of stress was taken off with Ben’s new raise and promotion, but we still had to find a place to live (and fast) and with the $500 deductible for the accident things were a bit tight as far as paying for background checks, deposits, and the moving truck. Although I was stressed about finding a place and moving for our 10th time in the year and a half we had been married, I am happy to say we found a good place for a good deal by the end of our very first day apartment hunting, and it was just a few blocks away from the Fashion Place Mall and two exits North of Ben's work! What a relief! I am glad we liked it, because it ended up being our home for 2 whole years! Trust me-that was an eternity for us, I almost got bored…almost. We celebrated this victory by going out to lunch with my Grandma and Grandpa Durfee, their treat.

It was a crazy week as we got the moving truck, emptied the storage bay, emptied grandma’s living room, moved in, got settled and tried to squeeze in celebrating Ben’s birthday. If you know me-you know that I literally had the boxes unpacked, the pictures hanging on the walls, and everything in its new place in 3 days (I am very determined when I get into my “project modes” and sometimes eating and sleeping even take a backseat to the task at hand). Organization in everything to me and Ben has learned quickly that an organized Danae is a happy Danae. I am very lucky to have a man willing to do so much to help me obtain that very much, sought after ambition in life. We even moved right during his birthday, which has sort of become a tradition over the past few years-poor guy. We did pause at my grandparent’s one day so he could open his presents. I am sure glad he loves me and is so patient with me. He is definitely my calm and steady constant in our very crazy life.

Happy 24th birthday, Ben!

 

“Budget” rentals held up to its name, until it came to filling up the gas tank…

Our new place-definitely not designer-savvy, but it was ours and that was everything to us at that point in time.

All-in-all a week later, it was so nice to be all settled in to our own place again after being office hosts and nomads for a year.