Monday, November 26, 2012

Fall 2012

Well, our computer died.  Not quite sure whats wrong, but it appears that our hard drive has been erased. In the meantime, we just have Josh's laptop which I hate using.  And that would be why none of the pictures are even the slightest bit edited or anything like that.

We love Autumn especially here on the east coast!  It's beautiful!  Plus we love the cooler weather, the food, sweaters and everything else that comes with the season.  We started out the season by making these yummy pumpkin cinnamon rolls.  Recipe found on Pinterest and can be found here.  (I love Pinterest)

 
We got out our decorations.  With all the pumpkins (below is only about half).  I thought I had taken a picture of everything but I guess not.  This is just a quick picture I took on my phone.
 
We didn't carve pumpkins or hand out candy or go trick or treating but we did go to a Renaissance Faire with some friends.  We had a great time with them.  Neither Josh nor I had ever been to one so we weren't sure what to expect.  But we did have a great time. Here are a few pictures we took.
 
  
  


 

 

Josh and Nick were chosen to participate in a bird demonstration.
 
And we played a few games
 

 


 
 

Sunday, October 14, 2012

July-August 2012

Josh officially started residency in July and time has flown by since then.  The first month went by really fast.  I thought it might be hard for Josh adjusting to working  so many hours, but he was so busy that there was no time to really think about.

In July, Josh turned the bug 3-0.  Being in a new place and being as lame as we are, we didn't do much.  Josh opened a few presents then went to dinner at Chili's.  Birthdays just aren't nearly as fun as you get older but hopefully, he still had a good time.  Here are a few birthday pictures that was like pulling teeth to get Josh to take.



After dinner, we ended up going to our friends' child's birthday.  There we had cake and ice cream and were able to celebrate a little more than what we probably would have otherwise.


That was pretty much our month of July...just full of work.  We both worked a ton of overtime. The only fun thing I think we did was Josh's birthday.  We didn't even go see fireworks for the 4th.  We still didn't have power from the storm and just weren't in the mood to go out.  We are totally lame, I know.

August followed suite.  We both continued to work a ton of hours each week.  We didn't really do anything fun or exciting the whole month except towards the end.  I was able to go back to Oklahoma!  I was pretty excited especially to have a break from work but also to see my family.  My Dad turned 60 on the 26th!  I can't believe he is that old.  He had no idea I was coming.  I flew in on Thursday, I think.  Christine and her kids picked me up from the airport.  Then we headed to go see Nichole, Kylie and Payton.  (Nathan was at work and Matthew at school.)  I think this was the first time I didn't go straight to Braums' from the airport!  But not to worry, we went to Braum's right after Nichole's and met my mom and Shawnee there.  I spent the next few days hanging out with my mom and siblings. Here are a few pictures I took.














My Dad's party was on Saturday.  We all met at Shawnee's for the party.  Again, my dad had no idea that I was coming. He was in complete, utter shock when I walked in.  It was great!  We went swimming, then hung around talking.





Here is the cake we had made for my Dad.  My Dad has several sayings that he has always said while we were growing up and still says them today.  If you ask him what day it is, it is always August 3rd.  He will always "threaten to 'flatten you out like a pancake.'"  You ask him how he is doing and he will say, "Shucks, I'm just tickled pink to be alive."  Ask how old he is, he is 29 (although now that he has a few kids over the age of 30, he has now bumped it up to 39.  I'm sure there are many more that I am missing right now, but I loved the cake.  I came up with it myself.  It's a stack of pancakes, if you can't tell from my pictures.





It was a great party and to make it better towards the end of the party, a huge storm rolled in towards the end.  I miss and LOVE Oklahoma storms!  It was a great way to end the party.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

June 2012

After the Wray Reunion, our lives went into even more of a blur.  We finished packing and cleaning everything.  Logan came into town and we went to Cedar Point and had a ton of fun.  And then packed everything into the truck the following day and moved to New Jersey.  Then began the unpacking.  It was a pretty crazy time in our lives.  I only had a week off work for the entire moving experience.  We got a lot of things done before I had to go back to work then Josh was able to finish up some things on his own.  We still have a few things that we could probably unpack but never will :)  The whole moving experience was full of stress.  I'm so grateful that we wont have to do that again for 3 years.

We love our new place.  We live in a duplex/triplex.  We are the end unit so we have lots of windows which I love.  I wasn't going to take any pictures because I didn't feel like cleaning first :)  But I decided that I couldn't do this post without pictures.  So here are the pictures without cleaning so just ignore the mess and clutter.

We have two fairly large bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs.  Here is the master bedroom.  It's a little too big as we don't really have any furniture, but better than being too small :)



Master Bathroom.  I LOVE having double sinks even if they are tanish/brown :).  The bathrooms were really the only reason I didn't really want to live here.  The floors are ugly, showers/tub are gold and the toilets and sinks are brown.  But I have grown used to them and love our place now.


Master Closet:

Second Bedroom aka my office/craft room:


Second full bath located upstairs.


Our Living Room that is located on the main floor.


Kitchen....please excuse all the junk.  We plan on painting the little island piece either a bright blue/teal or maybe a bright red....not sure yet.


View from the kitten looking into the dining area and living room:



Laundry room and half bath which are both located off the kitchen.

Our Basement/Family Room/Computer Room:




We love our new house and have really enjoyed New Jersey thus far.  We love our new ward.  They have truly opened their arms to us and have been so friendly.  Our lives here in New Jersey seem to be completely different than in Cleveland but I think we are adjusting well.  Josh and I have already had two callings each.  Josh was first called as the cub scout leader and then was released and called as the young men's president.  I was called as a primary teacher and last week was called to the first counselor in the primary president.  I think I prefer just being a teacher but I am sure I will soon love this calling too as I have in the passed.

I love working from home.  I love not getting dressed and to having to deal with office drama.  It's great!  I'm not sure that I could go back to working in an office.  Josh is now working (he started late June/early July) and is no longer a student!  He now gets a paycheck!  We love that!  Residency has been a little trying and exhausting.  We are both just hoping that these three years fly by which I am sure they will.

The second weekend that we were in New Jersey, we headed to the beach with the Huish's, who moved here from Ohio with us.  We are so excited to be so close to the ocean.  It was beautiful and the waves were huge.  We played in the sand, went into the water and walked the boardwalk.  We had a good time.  Here are some of the pictures I took.










Josh's brother, Chase, married McKenzi in June.  We were able to go back to Idaho after being in New Jersey for just a few weeks.  We are so thankful that we were able to go and be there for this very special occasion.  She was a beautiful bride, he was a handsome groom and they just looked completely happy.  We are so excited for them.  (picture compliments of Katelyn Wray Photography via facebook)

This is the only picture I that was taken with my camera the whole wedding weekend.  This is Alexander and myself at the family dinner the night before the big day.

The weekend following the wedding, we went back to Cleveland for a baptism of a boy that Josh home taught and a wedding for a different couple that Josh home taught.  To say that June was a busy month is an understatement.  While we were gone, a huge storm had hit New Jersey.  We came back to no power, which ended up lasting a full week!!!  It was one long week as well as the hottest week of the entire summer.  It got up to 100 a couple days.  We stayed in the basement pretty much the whole time as that was the only place that was somewhat cool.  We also spent many hours at the Huish's.  I don't know if we would have survived without them.  Their power came back on after about three days. 

It was pretty crazy looking at all the damage this storm caused.  Here are a few of the pictures I took.






This is how we ate the first first days as we tried to use up all of our meat before it went bad.




And that pretty much covers our exhausting month of June.