Our New House!

Finally I have the right cord to hook up my camera to my computer and upload pictures of our wonderful new home. And I finally found the time when everything was clean and in its place that I could take "after" pictures. Warning: picture over load!

So here we go: This view is of our dining from the living room area, as you can see we have a fireplace, but to be completely honest I absolutely despised the marble and wondered when we would have the money to rip it out and replace with something else but then...

after painting this wall brown I fell in love. The brown walls around it made it stand out and become the focal point of the room instead of just another color of white. I love my fireplace and am super excited for winter to come.

A closer look at the dining room, we have a beautiful view of the mountains out of our windows. I should have waited until after noon to take these pictures so you could see the view but I couldn't be sure how long my house would stay this clean

The living room, on the other side of the fireplace. Someday we will replace that black couch with something that goes better with the room but until then I'm thinking I'll at least re-cover the pillows. I love my huge windows!

The other side of the living room. That is our front door entry way and stairs to the basement on the other side of that wall. Someday, when we get new couches, the tv will go downstairs in the family room and I will do some rearranging with bookshelves and such.

The upstairs bathroom... too much white right?

We took care of that! My amazing friend Ellynn picked out this icy teal color and to be quite honest I was still nervous about it as I was painting, but one trip to Wal-Mart for all the right accessories and it came together beautifully.

This kitchen is what initially drew my attention to this particular place, although I wasn't super fond of the countertops.

The blue changed the hue of the countertops and I'm loving all the compliments I get. (the missing cupboard door was put back on after some TLC from my awesome father-in-law)

Not much to see of Evelyn and Adia's room before...

but after some paint and some cute decals from Costco their room is much more inviting. Its also quite a bit bigger then their last room with plenty of room to grow.

Our room... and my silly husband...

We weren't really certain on a color for our room but Neil really liked the green we used in the dining room, so thats what we did in our room. The giant window is the sliding glass door to our back patio, and once we fix up the back yard I'll post some pictures of that. I plan to get a dark brown bed set to go with our curtains since the cream and green plaid don't really go with the decor of the room, but I haven't had any luck finding anything I love yet.

There are two more bedrooms downstairs along with a bathroom, laundry room, and a giant family room with a second white brick fireplace. The family room currently stands empty but once it becomes more comfortable I'll post pictures. We love our new home and are so excited to finally have a place to call our own. We have awesome neighbors and live in a nice quiet neighborhood, the girls are thriving on so much time spent outside and love to just run everywhere.

Our Love Story

A few days ago my sister Felicia posted her love story on her blog, and even though I'd heard it all before, I loved hearing the little details and it definitely made me smile to think of them back then when they were falling in love. Neil and I celebrated our 4th anniversary just a few days ago and I thought now would be a fun time to post our love story.

I was living in Orem at College Terrace apartments going to cosmetology school, Neil was living in the same complex going to UVSC. I was going to school 8am-5pm then working 6pm-11pm, so needless to say a day off was precious. My roommate Miriam had set up this huge game night with tons of people on my first night off in 2 weeks, which would have been fine if she had stuck around, but out of the blue she had decided to pick up and run off to Idaho for a week and not bother to tell anybody she had invited. So I was thrilled to be parked next to phone and a front door all night being Miriam's answering service. My patience was wearing thin and I was annoyed, and Neil just happened to come to the door when I had decided I'd had enough. I answered the door, he asked "Is Miriam here?" me being patient and polite yelled "NO, and she won't be back for like 5 days!" and slammed the door in his face, my other roommate Madison was there and couldn't believe what I'd just done. That was my first encounter with this Neil character, and I honestly didn't remember his face, and didn't think he'd remember mine.

The next day was Sunday, so me and Madison are sitting there in sacrament meeting listening and this guy giving his talk says something about how his friend's roommate slammed the door in his face. I was mortified, I turned bright red and Madison gasps and starts giggling. I'm sure everyone around knew I was guilty. I manage to avoid him the rest of church and head home. Our neighbor Holly was having a movie night that night and she insisted I grab a blanket and head over. Thinking it was going to be mostly girls, I change into to pj's, grab a blanket and head over. Walking in the front door I'm greeted by the same face that I the night before had slammed a door on and had completely embarrassed me during church today. Trying to play it cool I introduce myself and Holly says something like "I know you guys have met before". I sit on the other couch that Neil isn't sitting on, and he says something about avoiding him and I say I'm not. He says "good" and joins me on the little couch. Holly says something about getting cozy and he jokingly puts his arm around me and pulls me into a hug giving me whisker burn on my nose from his stubble. We laughed and talked and got to know each other and I apologized for my rudeness the night before, laughed it off saying he thought it was funny.

He started being around when I'd get off work and stuff and we started seeing a lot of each other. Thinking that we were just good friends, I let another guy kiss me. And when I told Neil he wasn't exactly happy about it, liking the idea that he wanted to date me exclusively. After spending every available hour together for about a month, I knew there was something very special about this guy and I needed to sit up and take notice. One night we were sitting on the stairs "saying goodbye" and he looks me in the eye and says "I love you, Angelica." my heart skips a beat and I'm speechless. I cross my fingers and pray he won't be hurt when I ask him not to feel bad about me not saying it back right away. A couple of weeks later I have to admit that I've falling in love with him. Neil had some trouble excepting that fact that he was going to marry a 19 year old girl from Utah (exactly what he said he wouldn't do) but we worked it out and knew it was right. I was constantly getting flack from the girls at school about not having a ring yet and having most of my wedding planned already. One day after school I had had enough, and Neil had told me we were going on a fancy date and I needed to dress up, I told him I didn't want him to spend money on a fancy date, but to spend it on my engagement ring. Looking back now, this is as play as day, and I had some suspicions.

When he climbed in the car on June 17th for the date I watched his pockets to see if there was a certain tale-tell square bulge, nope, but he did pull his camera case out of his pocket and ask me to put it in my purse. I complied thinking, "is it really a fancy date if we're taking pictures?" He took us to La Caille for a beautiful 3 course meal. After each course I kept thinking, "ok maybe he will now. Ok maybe it'll happen after this course" After we'd finished our food and ordered dessert, I had to excuse myself to the ladies room to give myself a pep talk, and convince myself I shouldn't be disappointed when it doesn't happen tonight. We decided to take our dessert out on the grounds, which were amazing, and we came upon this gazebo. Neil said we should take a picture, so he located a table near by and set up the timer on the camera. He walked back to me and went down on one knee and proposed just as the picture took. I said "YES!" and cried, it turns out that he'd left the ring box at home and put the ring in his camera case, which was in my purse the whole blessed evening. He later told me that this was where his dad had proposed to his mom, I thought that was so sweet. Neil and I were married July 29th 2006 in the Manti Temple. Its been 4 amazing years full of ups and downs and I love the idea of the rest of eternity with this guy, he keeps me on my toes, and laughing. I love you Neil, thanks for being my "lub"