Why we are not coming home until Christmas

A lot of people have been asking me this recently. "When are you coming home?" I tell them, "Christmas." Then they get all, "But we miss you!" and make me feel guilty. I really do miss everyone and I really do want to see Kristen's baby but here are the reasons we aren't coming home until Christmas...

1. My boss is about to pop. She is set to have her (first) baby any day and then she will obviously be going on maternity leave for a few months. Aside from her, there are only 5 of us that work in the coffee shop. If I were to take a week off to go home, I honestly don't know what would happen.
2. I'm taking two summer classes and two fall classes at the University. If everything goes as planned, I'll graduate Spring 2010. I really want to get this degree done. I would have finished last fall but, you know, the wedding and moving and all got in the way.
3. Kyle's family is coming for a few weeks in June and his grandparents are coming in August.
4. It costs a small fortune to fly from AK to FL and back. If even just I were to go home this summer or something, Kyle would be the only one going home for Christmas. (Which may work because I don't know what we're going to do with the cats while we're both gone. Putting them in the kennel also costs a small fortune.) (I'M KIDDING AND I'M COMING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. I'm leaving the winter wonderland that is Anchorage [ahahaha, I'm killing myself over here] for Florida.)

So there you have it. A full explanation as to why I'm not going to get to see the baby before Christmas. (Yes, I really want to see this baby.) But we really do miss and love everyone! I'd like to say we miss the weather but I went into our garage today and it was 70 degrees in there and I was like, "Good LORD! It's hot in here!" I'm telling you all, 30 degrees feels dang good.

J-Rod

Haha, I bet you thought I was going to have pics of Kyle and Jared, didn't you? Well...I didn't take any. None. I know, I'm really awful. Jared has some, though.

Jared stayed a week and, as I told Kelly, whoever stays with us next (or ever) has a tough act to follow. Jared shoveled our driveway, did dishes, and even took out the trash. On the houseguest scale of 1 to 10, he was a 12.

He and Kyle had a great time snowboarding and hanging out. We took him to Moose's Tooth, a local pizza place, and Las Margaritas, our favorite Mexican restaurant.

I had told him that Moose's Tooth might be better than Pizza Connection and his exact words were, "Woah. Woah now." So after we ate, I asked him how it compared to Pizza Connection. He looked at his empty plate, looked back up, and said, "It doesn't. This blows Pizza Connection out of the water." Thank you.

He also enjoyed the $7 (!yes, I know!) margaritas at Las Margaritas.

We were both sad to see him go but he's already planning on coming back next year.

Small tour

We got our bedroom furniture today (yesssssssssssssss!) so I though it'd be a good time to give a little tour of the house. I'll start with the living room.

I made the curtains and the pillows, we bought the couch from a lady on base (hooray for Craigslist!), and the little side table is from Target. (Yes, our house is almost always this clean. I swear. No really, it is.)

Closer look at the couch and pillows.

And the TV. The stand is also from Target. They have far too much of our money.

And now the bedroom...

We got the furniture at Bailey's and it was a steal. Headboard, footboard, nightstand, dresser/mirror, and chest of drawers for $899. Most of the other bedroom sets we looked at were at least $1500. It's no wonder we had to wait 8 weeks to get this because it was backordered.

Can you see Olive?

I was very scared that the furniture wouldn't fit in the room because of the way the room is. It's kind of long and narrow with the cable outlet in the most inconvenient place. It all fit beautifully and I'm so excited to have furniture!

Jared Gamble will be here this week. Kyle is so excited to get to hang out with him and go snowboarding. I'm sure I'll have plenty of pics to post later.