From Halloween to Now

I dressed up as a Crayon for Halloween this year. I chose a crayon because I knew all my kiddos would know what it was. We had a fun Halloween party at school and all my kids looked so cute! My co-teacher was a crayon box. We looked awesome.



Neal's family has a tradition of making chili and scones so we thought we would keep that tradition going. We had fun making dinner together!


Neal went off studying and I was excited to pass out candy to all the trick-or-treaters. But to my dismay we only had 2 trick-or-treaters come! I was so sad! So Neal took me to go get a pumpkin shake!

The day after Halloween, I got a phone call at 6:55 a.m. from my mom. She was calling to tell me that my Grandma Smith had passed away. The news surprised me. My grandma was old, but she was doing pretty well. I was able to fly down to go to her funeral. I was glad I was able to be there.


I was blessed to have a such great grandma. I have many wonderful memories of her! I will love and miss!

A few weeks later Neal and I went to Salt Lake for Thanksgiving.
We had a good Thanksgiving! We went to Neal's family first and then headed down to my family dinner.

We left early to have our first Black Friday experience. And what an experience it was!!! It was crazy, I have never seen so many people in a store before. We got what we wanted (a 46 inch TV) in a very round about way, but that is a long story! Needless to say, we had a fun, eventful, first Black Friday. Maybe we will try it again next year.


Our new TV, much bigger than our 32 incher.

We saw Arthur Christmas with my family. Didn't really love it, but it was ok!
My best friend from High School was able to take a few pictures for us while we down there. They turned out great! Thanks again Mel!


We had a good Thanksgiving weekend. It was fun to relax and spend time with family. I have so much to be thankful for. I am thankful for my amazing husband and the trials that we go through that brings us closer together. I am grateful for my parents. They are great examples and are always there for me. I am grateful for my brothers and the friendship I have with them. I am grateful for my job, even though I complain about it a lot. I am grateful for my health, my friends, Gabby, my little townhouse, and I am extremely grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!

The Idaho Life

Life here in Idaho is pretty uneventful. Neal goes to school from 8-5, comes home studies/makes dinner, studies, studies, and studies some more before he goes to to bed.

I get up for work at 7:00, get ready, walk Gabby, and work from 9-6, get home, eat, do the dishes, and then before I know it, it is 11:00 and time to go to bed. Here I am in my awesome Challenger shirt. Neal says I look like I work at McDonald's when I wear it. :(

The weekends are so precious and go by so fast. We don't usually do a lot, but just spend lots of time together. A few weekends a go we did something a little different. We watched my co-teachers kids for the night. It gave us a little taste of parenthood, and showed us that we definitely aren't ready to have a four year old and an eight year old. We took them to McDonald's, which if you already didn't know is the nastiest place on earth. We definitely will not be taking our kids to McDonald's. We came back to our house played games and watched Rio. It was kinda fun to watch Neal with the kids. I know that someday he will be a great dad!




This past weekend, my parents surprised me and came up for the weekend. I have been a little bit home sick lately and was so glad they came up for the weekend! Unfortunately, there isn't much to do in Boise. But it was just fun to spend time with my parents. We showed them the Greenbelt, saw the movie Moneyball, ate some yummy food, and enjoyed each others company.





We even got to see a little red fox on the trail. It was pretty neat.

I sure do miss my parents and CAN NOT wait for Thanksgiving to come. I miss Utah and my friends! Honestly, I miss college life. Life as a student is so much better. The only plus to working so much is the paycheck! :)

Old to New

Ogden, Utah to Meridian, Idaho.
This is where we spent our first two and a half years of marriage.

Quincy Avenue in Ogden, Utah
We loved our old little place on 3729 Quincy Avenue, me made many great memories there. It is where we cooked our first meal together, where we had our first argument, where we would hug and kiss everyday, where we had our first Christmas together, and it was our first place to call home. Even though we loved it, we were ready to move on and get out of there. It is old and needed some work. The pictures will explain....


I mean who has their washer and dryer hook-ups in the middle of their kitchen?!? And the sunflower decor and orange counter tops need to go!

I will not miss anything about this bathroom!!!


Our bedroom was so tiny, we couldn't even fit a headboard in there! I should have taken a picture of the closet! It was the smallest and most nonfunctional closet ever!
Our first home!
You were good to us!


Welcome to Idaho!

The view from the front door!
The living room is to the left.
Another view of the living room.
The kitchen! So much nicer than our old one! Love it!
Cute little dining area.
The view from the washroom.
I love all the extra storage space. I don't even have a picture of our second room in our old place because it was the storage space!
This time our washroom is not in the kitchen!
That door goes out to the garage! SOOO glad to have a garage! Especially this winter!

The main bathroom.

The second bedroom...aka...Neal's room!
Our bedroom! We were so surprised all of our new furniture could fit in this room! (I still need to figure out something to drape around the canopy. I am not sure how to do it, if anybody has any suggestions let me know! :))

Our bathroom off the bedroom! I love having two bathrooms!
I was so excited when we got here to find out we had a walk in closet! I can actually see all my clothes! And you can't even see the other half of my clothes!

Well that is our house here on Cathy Lane! We are loving it so far! It is a little bit nicer wouldn't you say? We are excited for all our new memories and adventures that we are going to make here in Idaho!

New Job

After many prayers and a lot of faith I finally got a job! I am a Preschool Teacher at Challenger School. (A private school with uniforms and everything). I am teaching an all day Kindergarten Prep class, they are 4 years old and are the most advance 4 year olds in the school.



Although this is not my dream job, I am very grateful to be teaching! I pretty much left a job in Ogden at the school I did my student teaching. It has been hard for me to move here and not even get called for one interview. Sorry I am going to be cocky for just one second, but I know that if they would have interviewed me they would have liked me, but nobody even gave me a chance! I had nothing on paper that made me look good or stand out against the 1,700 other applicants. Its hard to compete with somebody who was years of experience and I had none, but everybody has to start somewhere. I am frustrated with it. I want to be setting up and preparing my own classroom so bad! But I am trying to have a positive attitude and really I am so grateful to be teaching! Maybe I will like this better or this is better for me, the big guy up stairs knows more than I do. He has a plan for me and knows what is best for me! I know everything will work the way it is supposed to!

Stay tuned for pictures of our cute new home! We are loving it here in Boise so far!