Paint, Paint, and more Paint!

Afraid of heights?
Sarah's room all ready for carpet
No more green in Kat's room
Say goodbye to the Red Wall!
Dad painted this section. He now has one arm longer than the other. Our ceilings are so high!!!

Washer, Dryer & Toilets!!!! YAH!!!!!!!

Master Bath Floor
These babies have been running all day long!
Girls bathroom floor turned out very pretty

Sam & JC

Three New Floors!

New Marble in the Master Bath
Beautiful Marble in the Laundry Room
Girls Bath gets Marble too
Thank goodness for great Neighbors!!!!! They're behind us all the way!
John had a productive weekend. He was able to tear out the upper kitchen cabinets and back splash tile and put down three new marble floors. Quite Amazing!!!! I'm sure he's ready to go back to work so he can get some rest! I love him:-)

This is the tearing it down for today

Are we tearing it down or building it back?

Old Kitchen Back Splash, but notice the new drywall
New accent wall in the Living Room
Lighter accent wall in Living Room
Can't wait to get this laundry room finished!

Tear it up!

Tearing it down to build it back again!!!

Dehumidifiers along with fans made quite a wind storm
Still can't figure out why it broke?
Goodbye to the sheetrock
Say goodbye to John's beautiful Marble entry!
Cutting out the sheetrock

"Mom! The Tank Just EXPLODED!!!!

Taylor's phone call was the last we thought we'd ever hear. He was the only one home when the fish tank decided to give way, under the two tons of pressure it held ,with three hundred gallons of water. We were all in shock and so sad. We all rushed home as quickly as possible. John was an hour and a half out. (Longest drive of his life! This tank was his baby!) Taylor was frantically trying to find and save corals, after placing what we thought were dead fish into a bucket. He took the corals to Petco for Refuge. Sam and JC rounded up shop vacs and went to work sucking gallons of water. Sam became very strong with the adrenaline rush, he was picking up huge furniture items to save them from the water. The girls and I got home ASAP and joined in the efforts. We were all in shock and now I wish I had taken more pictures of the kids and their reactions. I was totally amazed at the way they worked and helped!!! I of course was crying over the dead fish, etc and Taylor with great sympathy rushed them to Petco. He learned that there is such a thing as Fish CPR. He managed to save seven of our fish. They along with our corals have been placed in local tanks. A few hours into the disaster, Kathryn found "Jailbait" our black and white striped fish under her bed:-( I called the Ins and NW Restoration, and within an hour or two they were at the house tearing things up!!! They worked into the night and returned for six days, each day tearing out and removing more walls, cabinets, floors, and sheetrock, etc. Now the reconstruction begins!!! Thank goodness for Insurance and for John and his great talents and abilities. We will have an almost brand new house when we're finished. I've never seen John quite so sad! His countenance changed as soon as he got a new tank set up in the garage keeping his rocks alive. Our big Hermi crab survived and even on anemone!! Quite amazing!!!

las vacacciones invierno

kat and i are ready for cabo... what about you?!

new work

Sarah Schwab now works at Dr. Jourdan Nicholls Podiatry Office. She likes it very much. She has quit her job at Orange Julius. No more smoothies. But speaking for Sarah Schwab, I would like to inform all of you that she loves you oh so very such. The END.

Cabo

Were going to Cabo!!

gobble gobble gobble

happy thanksgiving weekend familia!

i realized that this was my very first thanksgiving where i didn't have any family around... but luckily i've still been able to spend the entire weekend with people who i really love and care about! i spent the weekend at aaron's parent's house with his siblings and their families... chrissy can attest to the fact that aaron's family can be quite entertaining when they all get together so i was definitely in good hands! here are just some fun pictures from the weekend that i wanted to share with you all! love and miss you and can't wait to see your faces next month! xoxo

my darling little emma face flew into town wednesday night for a friend's wedding this weekend so aaron and i picked her up and got to spend some time with her before heading off to his parent's house.

aaron and i before thanksgiving dinner... i have the cutest boyfriend ever!

probably the best picture of aaron i have ever taken.

aaron's cute neices playing in their pj's before we all went to bed that night.

even baby ty got into his cute pj's... he's getting so big! he can walk all over the place and talks in his own language all of the time! ahhh i'm so obsessed!

the next morning aaron and i actually woke up at like 3:45 am to run to wal-mart in hopes of snagging a good deal on a flat screen tv. the first store was already out of stock when we got their at 4:30 (even though the sale didn't start until 5!!!!) so we jetted over to one in downtown salt lake and ended up getting the 5th to the last one they had in stock after waiting in line forever! totally worth it though!

anyways, after aaron and i got back to his parent's house, we all went up to this cool privately owned forest place and cut down this christmas tree for aaron's parents. the boys couldn't even fit the tree on aaron's truck so we had to drag it the whoel way back. (and no, aaron doesn't always look so white trash.... hahaha)

this picture is too funny for so many reasons. yes, aaron and i both look realllyyyyy white trash after not sleeping all night and getting dressed for cutting down christmas trees. aaron's dad made me take this picture after he put his hat on my head so that my hair wouldn't look so poofy.... so considerate.

that night we went to temple square to see the light display (by the way, the light display really isn't worth seeing anymore... they cut back on the amount of lights by a lot, so i think this will be the last year we all go for awhile.) here is aaron's pretty sister, sara, and her baby boy!

this picture describes aaron's family perfectly... me, aaron and aaron's dad and sister being silly. this picture is just one of the many silly ones we took inside the conference center. all of us were laughing and being sooooooo loud in there, so i'm pretty sure all of the volunteers were happy when we decided to finally go back outside.

aaron and his beautiful mother! i tried to get aaron to make a normal face with his mom but to no avail...

aaron's dad and baby ty! hahahah i love his dad's face in this!

post pictures of all of your fun adventures! missed you guys this holiday!
xoxo

Hi everyone!

I made it to Korea and am loving it so far. Go to my blog at www.chrissyrenae.com for the fulllll update. I would lovve it if everyone updated the blog like once a week so that I can stalk all of you and keep updated on what's going on back home. Plus it will be a good habit to get into since Erik is leaving soon too and I'm sure will want to know what's up as well. I know everybody's busy, but a few updates with just whatever random stuff you're up to would be very much appreciated!!!

I miss you all already. Love!

missing summer

How precious is this picture???

where are you?

it's a little lonely up in here. i'm feeling a little disconnected. talk or come home, all.

OK.
There has been a little questioning about the cruise we are trying to put together for next year. Yes, we are definitely considering making this happen. It has and will take quite a bit of time on my part to make it all happen, so just be patient. So far it looks like all of our immediate family, along with Linda, Butch and some of Linda's friends that we have cruised with before are all up for it. The more the merrier. But remember, it takes a lot of planning to make it happen the way we all want it to.
So, with that in mind, I have a favor to ask all of you. Both family and non family. Please give us just a little of your time. Whether you agree or not, I would like you ALL to spend just a few minutes of uninterrupted time and watch just two of the General conference talks that were given a week ago. This isn't a trick just to get you to watch them. I just think that with all of the complexity of our family, these two talks are what we need to answer some questions that I hear so often about some of our family. It's not asking much of you. You don't have to agree with any of it, but please, at least give us this much. We don't ask very often from any of you, so please, just this once. If you care for any of our family, you will not want to mis this. Trust me on this.
The first is Elder Jeffrey R Holland, Sunday PM. Just click on this web page and when you see the conference line up, click on Sunday PM and look for Jeffrey R Holland. Please turn off your cell phones, computers and TVs. Please, just give us this attentive time. I will ask nothing of you in return. Here is the web page. Just highlight, copy and paste it to your browser. If it asks you to download the player, do so. It only takes a few seconds for the download.
http://www.lds.org/move/index.html?type=conference&event=Oct179&lang=english

After you have all seen this one, I have one more for you to see. After that, I will not question or bring it up again. This is only for you, not for me. I have already seen them.
The second one is from Sunday PM, Elder Dallin H Oaks. This one will answer all of your questions about our confused family relations, and will help all of us. Again, please give these two talks ALL of your attention and try not to cut it off. It is only a few minutes of your time and will help you understand so much of our family. And please send in your comments on this!!!!!!!
Love you.
Dad

"would I were steadfast as thou"

Bright Star

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art---
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors---
No---yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever---or else swoon in death.

-John Keats.


***Just watched Bright Star. I am romantically inspired...