New addition to our family!

Introducing......


SKIPPY!

Andrew and I got a new car this weekend. Since his truck is manual transmission, I don't really like to drive it, plus I needed a way to get to my new job. I've been looking for a new car online for about the past three months. We decided on a Hyundai Sonata, mainly because it's comparable to a Honda Accord but cheaper. I had narrowed it down to 3 cars that were the best deal, so we went to look at them on Friday. One of them had sold, so we had two to choose from. We chose this one because it was BYU blue and it had a V6. So there you have it, our 2006 Hyundai Sonata.

Lots of Good News...

So my first piece of good news is that I got a job! Yay! I got hired to work for State Farm at their Pacific Northwest Operations Center. I'll start Monday, and this couldn't have come at a better time! It was getting pretty boring being at home all day long by myself. We actually picked our apartment because it was closest to State Farm in hopes that I would get the job there, so I think things worked out really well!

Moving on to my next good news, I found the best recipe for Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut cookies! I found it on the internet, and apparently it is a Mrs. Fields' recipe. Andrew's Grandma likes to shop at Costco and most things come in two, so she's been very generous in sharing with us. Last weekend she sent us home with this can of nuts, and I really wanted to make something with them rather than just eat them all...

I'm not a big fan of white chocolate, so, lo and behold, Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut cookies:

Here is the recipe, you should give them a try. And if you have any other recipes that use Macadamia Nuts, please share.

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
2.5 cups oatmeal (it says powderized, but I didn't take the time to do it and they came out just fine)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
12 oz. chocolate chips
1.5 cups nuts (you could probably use any nuts and they would come out delicious)
Bake at 350 for 8 minutes. (Don't overcook them)

Last bit of good news, we finally got a desk. We got it from Wal-Mart, so of course we had to build it ourselves. Here's Andrew putting it together.

And the finished product...


We really like it and it came with a little bookshelf. It's much better than sitting on the floor with our computer on its box. Our butts were beginning to leave an imprint on the carpet. The rest of the furniture on our "to get" list aren't really necessities, so we'll probably just try to get them slowly one at a time: a dresser, end tables, maybe a coffee table, and a dining room table and chairs.

One last thing, not really good news, but kinda cool. Anytime something scouting related is going on, Andrew jumps at the chance to go so last night we went to a Court of Honor for a young man in our ward. Here's Andrew with all his gear on.

He probably likes going so he can show off all of his patches, 60 of them to be exact! Pretty cool, huh?

I know...We're the worst bloggers ever!

December was such a busy month...my birthday, plumbing problems, Andrew finishing BYU, my last days of work, moving to Washington, Christmas, and a new apartment. So I thought I'd just sum up the last months in pictures.

First, my bday started out with Andrew sending me flowers at work

Here I am after work opening up my present from Andrew.

I already knew what he had gotten me and so I had to act surprised, check out my surprised face, not bad, huh?

He got me a pair of brown Coach high heels. We were at Nordstrom rack in early November and I tried them on and loved them, but would never spend $100 on a pair of shoes. So I continued to browse around and Andrew told me he was hungry and going next door to Wendy's while I was looking around. Well I noticed he was acting a little sneaky and I was pretty sure he had the shoes behind his back. I didn't want to ruin his surprise so I just played dumb. So as my birthday was approaching he would tell me that I was going to LOVE what he got me, but I already knew what it was, so I just kept my mouth shut and acted surprised when he gave them to me on my bday. :)

Here I am at Cheesecake factory that just opened up in Sandy, UT. The wait was 2 hours, so we just browsed around the mall next door and I got my nails done, which was quite a treat because the acrylics from my wedding back in August had finally grown out and my nails and cuticles were pretty gross, so it was nice to get them cleaned up and polished. I had a great bday!

Moving on, we had some major plumbing issues in our apartment about a week after my bday. One afternoon the toilet started to overflow, then the bathtub started filling up from the drain, it was seriously so disgusting. Well it turned out the mainline was backed up in our little complex and some other people were having problems too. Water (and probably sewage) even started leaking through to the living room carpet. Needless to say, it stunk really bad. So we had to call a carpet cleaner to come take care of the funk. He couldn't come until Thursday (the overflow happened on Tuesday!) So we had to live with stinky wet carpet in our living room for two days. Here I am really excited to have the carpet cleaner there.

As the month progressed Andrew became closer to finishing at BYU, which was bittersweet. It was exciting to be moving on to bigger and better things, but at the same time kind of sad to leave Provo, where I've been for the past 6 years and move away from my family (Jessica, Scott and kids, and Laura and Freddie), and leave my job. I hate starting new jobs and I was really getting into the swing of things. It was especially fun having Freddie work at my office with me. Here we are on one of our last days on the job. (We're wearing hard hats, because one of the majors that we work with is Construction Management and they had these hard hats lying around.)

So here's our little photo shoot...

(notice my pretty manicured fingernails, the asian lady at the nail salon suggested I get red for the holidays)

Before we left Provo, we also had to use up a gift certificate we had to Market Street Grill. That's where we had our wedding reception so they sent us a gift card. Here's Andrew when our food got there.

Here is what I ordered, Crab cakes, yummm.

Our move went pretty well. We were a little nervous to drive through the Cascade mountains this time of year, so I did some research and found us cheap one way flights to Seattle and some cheap movers. Well the movers were actually ABF. Their motto is U-pack, we move. So we packed all our stuff and loaded it in to one of their trailers and they moved it to Washington for us. The only catch was, the cargo goes terminal to terminal. So the terminal in Utah was in Salt Lake and the terminal in Washington was in Tacoma, so both times we had to rent a Uhaul to fit all our stuff. Don't worry, I did all the math, this was still cheaper than a real moving company that goes door to door, and even cheaper than crashing Andrew's truck off a mountain somewhere in eastern Oregon/Washington.

From the Uhaul trailer.....

to the ABF trailer....


All of our stuff had to fit in a space 9'x8'x6'. Andrew and John were really good at getting it all to fit like it was a puzzle.

Our friend John helped us do the moving in Utah, so we treated him to a dinner of his choice at Fudruckers. Here we are with our milkshakes and so happy to be done with the first leg of our move.

Once our apartment was all emptied out and cleaned up, we stayed at Jessica and Scott's until we flew to Washington on Christmas Eve. I finally had some time to finish my quilt that I've been working on. Here is the finished product...

Also while staying at Jessica's, we got to spend some more time with Ethan and Grace and watch how excited they were for Christmas. When we "moved" up to their house for the weekend before flying out we brought with us some things from our pantry. We shared some Lucky Charms with Grace and she was a huge fan. So we got her a big bag of the off-brand and we got Ethan some gummy worms. They were really excited about their presents even though they were a last minute idea at the grocery store. Needless to say, they aren't very hard to please, they just wanted presents to open. (Sorry if the cereal made a huge mess, Jess!)

We spent Christmas with Andrew's grandparents who had gotten us some presents under the tree and filled our stockings. They bought themselves presents as well and opened them up as if they were from Santa, it was pretty amusing.

I got Andrew some new socks, a BYU alumni license plate holder (and a tool chest and new pair of church shoes which he opened while we were still in Provo, they didn't make it to Olympia in time for Christmas.)

Andrew's grandparents got us a Bread Maker and some cookie sheets. Andrew got me a new pair of earrings and some comfy slippers from LLBean. He also scheduled an appointment for a massage, but the day it was scheduled for, all of our stuff got in to Tacoma and we had to go pick it up so I had to cancel my massage.

Here's me and Grandma Kohler with our lovely Marionberry pie. It was made with love, notice the heart.

Our stuff finally made it to Washington on December 28th. This time it was just me and Andrew unloading our stuff off the ABF truck into our Uhaul. We even got our loveseat up a flight of stairs into our new apartment by ourselves. But I didn't think there was anyway I could do the sofa as well, so luckily we got a hold of the missionaries in our area. We treated them to some Cold Stone afterwards. One of them was such a huge fan of it, he was so excited when we told him he could have all the "punches" for his punch card. He even finished his "gotta have it" sized ice cream in about 4 minutes. Gotta love the missionaries!

My favorite Christmas present would have to be our new apartment. It is so nice compared to our little place in Provo. Our unit was actually a model unit, so we are the first ones to live in it, which is really nice because it feels so new and clean. Here are some pictures...

The kitchen..

Notice the taco soup in the crockpot, yeah we're addicted...

Our dining room. We don't have a table quite yet. Andrew's grandparents gave us some flowers for a house warming present. They have lasted a long time.

Entering the living room...

We need to get some end tables to put our lamps on, but this will do for now.

Our pretty fireplace and balcony.

This is what it looks like from our balcony.

Our bedroom, complete with a walk-in closet, woohoo!

The second bedroom, Andrew likes to call it the nursery. Notice, that's our computer on the floor in there. We don't have a desk yet either.

Our bathroom, probably about three times the size of our bathroom in Provo.

One of Andrew's many contributions to our marriage, our lovely bathroom furnishings. Notice the camping theme :)

So there you have it, a glimpse into our lives for the past month. Now I'm just looking for a job and going down to our fitness center everyday while Andrew is at work. I had an interview with State Farm when we first got here. It turned out that they weren't hiring until March, so I have that as a back up if I want it. Also, I just turned in my resume to the management office here at our apartments. They said there was an opening for an assistant manager. I could totally do that, right? And that way I wouldn't even have to drive to work, just walk on over to the clubhouse. So we'll see what life has in store for us. One of my New Year's resolutions is to stay more up to date on my blog, so stay tuned!