{christmas cards}

David and I just finished up our Christmas cards and I am seriously in love with them.

No, really.

I love everything about them, but especially the envelope presentation. I realize that is a little odd, but I love it. You see, I had this vision of how I wanted them to turn out and they exceeded my expectations. You always take a risk when trying something like this, because sometimes things don't look half as good in reality as they do in the imagination - but these? These knocked my vision out of the water!

Here they are in all their festive red and green glory:

This is the front and back of the 4x9 envelopes. The top/front has the address and the bottom/back has our return address. I love this "envelope wrap" idea, and have wanted to do this on wedding announcements for a really long time. Our Christmas Cards were the perfect opportunity! 

 A closer look:

The front.

The back. Look, our return address is now Lehi!

This is what the labels looked like before we put them on the envelopes.

Oh, you wanted to see what the Christmas Cards actually looked like? 

(Click on them for larger images if you would like.)

Also, see my Christmas tree list on the post below. I realize that posting so close together means that many people will miss that post... but I may or may not be able to handle the music that automatically plays from this post when I open my blog. I just need one more post before it goes away.

{a list}

A

list of

the reasons

that I love this time

of the year: Reminder of 

the love of the savior 

Jesus Christ. Lots of time 

to spend with family members 

and friends. Delicious orange sticks 

in my stocking. Sleeping in and staying 

in my pajamas for the rest of the 

day. Sending out pretty Christmas cards 

in red envelopes with fancy envelope seals on 

them. Sue's amazing Christmas sugar cookies and 

delicious cheese-chip cupcakes. Finding new traditions 

to incorporate with my family.  No school

or homework. Cuddling up with David and lots 

of big blankets while reading and watching movies. 

Putting up Christmas lights and then watching them blink

through a frosty glass window. Making delicious pizza with my

family on Christmas Eve. Having two families to celebrate Christmas

with. Listening to Christmas music while watching the snow fall outside.

Sharing it all with 

David and looking
forward to many

more Christmas 

seasons together.

It's a Monday.

Friday is only 4 days away.

I hope that I can make it. I've had a hard time getting started today and feel like it should be Wednesday at least. But, Christmas cards are in the mail - I'm almost done with work - and the latest wedding announcements that I have been working on will be done and ready for delivery today.

That means today has been a successful and good day.

These are some other things that have been happening around the Peaden household:

Painting our beautiful blue wall.  That was the deal with our Landlord - we could paint if we wanted, but we had to paint it back before moving out. It was SO worth it! We started painting on Saturday and got everything all primed up - but when we went to open the leftover paint (from when we painted the room a year and a half ago after we had to tear up the carpet to get it replaced) it had gone b.a.d.

Apparently, you shouldn't keep paint in a storage shed where it can freeze during the winter, boil during the summer, and then freeze again during the next winter. Think really bubbly oil-water, with little bits of paint chips floating around in it. Or rather - don't think about it. It may make you sick. 

This means that tonight after work, David and I will be stopping at Sherwin-Williams to pick up the "custom paint color" of an ivory/off-white that our Landlord had created to paint all of her apartments. 

If anyone wants to join us - it's going to be a party!

------------

We have slowly and steadily been making progress on our packing. We have one whole wall full of boxes that are packed, and we feel pretty good about that. It's still a little difficult right now, because we still have time that we have to live in our apartment and we are trying to keep things relatively un-disturbed. Our focus has been on things that are hidden away in forgotten drawers and corners that we don't use on a regular basis. But, with only 10 packing days left... it's about time to get everything packed up!

-------

We have just recently started watching Psych and we LOVE it.

Also, because of Psych, we discovered the term "dramedy." We now know that this is our favorite genre. Thank you Psych and Netflix for teaching us so much. Also, thanks to all of those who suggested Psych to us even when I was skeptical. It great!

-----------

 My friend Allison is incredibly talented and creative. She decided that she was going to tie-dye a wedding dress and asked if I would take some pictures for her. Check HERE for some of the pictures that I took of her and HERE for the whole story.

-------------

I was able to take pictures for one of my greatest childhood friend's older brother. The Cragun's lived just around the corner from us in Ephraim (and actually... we bought their house from them, and then they moved around the corner) and they are one of the most wonderful families that I know. I had so much fun taking pictures with Steve and Natalie, and am so happy for them and their soon-to-be little family! I've spent a lot of time editing pictures lately, and am happy with the improvements I have been making with my photography skills.

p.s. 

We are right in the middle of the Abigail/Shawn/Juliet love triangle. 

It's a tough call. I think that Juliet is wonderful but Abigail fits so well with Shawn. This is the first time I have ever really gotten into a Television series that was still on the air (usually I'm into things more along the lines of Remington Steele, Quincy, and Mork and Mindy) so please bear with me!

I just love them both!

Happy Sunday!

 Wasn't the Christmas Devotional wonderful this year? David and I stayed home and streamed the devotional live from lds.org (which, by the way... I love their new website!). It was so nice to cuddle up on our couch and listen to the words of our living prophets. 

In case you missed it, check it out here:

(If you want to know about my faith, mormon.org is a great new resource.)

We finished out our Sunday by drinking some Hot Chocolate and eating Sue's special Cheese Chip Cupcakes (brought to Logan especially for us by Jeff and Kevin) while watching a Christmas Carol.

We had a wonderful Sunday and we hope that you did, too! 

Love of Reading

I love to read. I always have. When I was younger, I would crawl into the bottom shelf the linen closet next to my bedroom with a flashlight and read to my hearts content. (I'm sure this was to avoid any chores I was supposed to be doing.) Actually, I would read everywhere: Inside, outside, in my room, in the car, at the kitchen table, at school, on the computer etc... Once, when I was in Elementary School I was supposed to be listening to my teacher talk at the front of the classroom, but instead I had a book under my desk that I was reading whenever I thought I could get away with it. My teacher caught me and told me to put it away. I wasn't in trouble until I started arguing that anything I was reading in the book was definitely making me smarter than anything she could be teaching me. (oops.)

I also love to read ANYTHING. I'm a bit of a weirdo because of the variety of books I like. Of course I love the classics like Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. I'm a sucker for LDS romance novels. I enjoy reading history, and went through a phase last year where I couldn't get enough of the French Revolution. My favorite author writes Science Fiction almost exclusively. I read newspapers and magazines and even the fine print on the bottom of advertisements. If you like to read, I am confident that we can find a book in common that we love - no matter what your favorite genre is. I love them all.

I wish I could really explain how much I love to read. I am so grateful that David likes to read, because some of my favorite times spent with him are reading together on the couch/floor/porch. It becomes a problem sometimes, because many times when we should go out and be social with other people, we opt to stay home and read books. I'll be honest though, I have read more in the past 6 months than I have in the past 5 years. Homework really puts a damper on reading for fun.

So, one of my friends just posted this on Facebook.  Apparently the BBC came out with this book list of classics that everyone should read. They say that the average person has only read six of these books. I have read 25. I feel pretty good about that. There are several books on this list that are on my personal "To Read" list. (Specifically Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell - It is next up on my list.) I don't think that I will ever read all of these books, but I would like to read many of them.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Graham
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne 
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen 
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert  
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
 87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
 96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (contained within the complete works)
 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

After going through this list, I feel like it is very poorly thought out. How do you think that they compiled this list of books? It seems like such a random assortment, but without even representation. I love Jane Austen, but to have 4 of her books on the top 100? And next to Whinny the Pooh? Also, they have The Chronicles of Narnia, AND The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Umm.. those are the same thing. Besides, who is the BBC to say who should read what books. They only have British/European/English authors anyway... they are missing all sorts of great books. Like Uncle Tom's Cabin.
  
Sidenote: Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy was quite possibly the saddest book I have ever read. Ever.

Hmm... Maybe I will write my very own list of books that everyone should read. (Enders Game would definitely be on it.) The hard part is mixing old classics with pop-culture must-reads. How can you say "this book is among the top 100 books ever written" when it hasn't had to stand the test of time. I don't think that its really possible. So instead, I am going to write a list of books that I love/have read. It will be my very own version of the "Official List that Everyone in the Whole World should Read" but will lean more towards "Books that I would recommend to anyone because I loved them that much." (Or maybe even "I didn't like this book because it made me cry the entire time and the ending was the saddest possible ending the author could have ever imagined but I think I am a better person for it and so I am including it on this list.") I guess we will just have to see what the list develops into.

Here we go:
1. The Ender/Ender's Shadow Series by Orson Scott Card. Seriously, my all time favorite. Especially when you get into the Shadow Series. A-mazing. 

2. The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy. I love everything about this book. It is also my favorite play. Percy Blakeney is right up there with Mr. Darcy. And speaking of... 

3. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen. A classic - definitely belongs on this list. 

4. The Screwtape Letters - C. S. Lewis. I read this when I first got to college and loved it, it gave me so much insight into my actions and how to become a better person. 

5. The Harry Potter Series - J.K Rowling. These books create a whole new world of magic and adventure. I love everything about them and think that everyone should read them. 

Well... There you go... the first five books on my list. I think that I will continue to add to it as I think of books that need to be added to it. What books do YOU think should belong to this list?    

Quiet Book Project

I mentioned a while ago that I was participating in a quiet book project with some friends. Thirteen girls got together and we each created one quiet book page 13 times. Then we sent them off to the wonderful Emily Pugh, who organized the whole thing, and she put them all together for us!

I am SO excited! 

Here are a couple of shots of the pages that I made: 

In case you can't tell, they are pea-pods. I was in charge of doing a "zipper page" and when I saw this idea I fell in love with it!

(Thanks to Emily for taking these pictures for me because I forgot to take my own before I sent them to her, and thanks to Amy for helping me find the pea-pod idea online!)

Here are some other pictures that I just stole from the
post where Emily revealed the completed Quiet Book!

Isn't it darling? 

I am so glad that I am associated with so many talented people!

{Update}

1. Our Thanksgiving was wonderful. Lots of food with the Walker family on Wednesday. Lots of food with the Peaden family on Thursday.  Lets be honest... lots of food everywhere for the last week.

2. After looking at hundreds of apartments (okay, maybe 25-30 apartments) we finally found the perfect place for us to live. It's right off of I-15 in Lehi and it has an open floor plan, radiant floor heating, lots of storage, and a jetted tub! It was a tad bit more money than we wanted to spend, but still within our budget so we are super happy.

3. We officially only have three weeks left in Logan. (So sad!)

4. We officially only have three weeks until we move to Lehi. (So excited!)

5. I made a Spinach Artichoke dip for Thanksgiving and it was delicious. I may eat it everyday for the rest of my life.

6. I played hide-and-seek with my nephews for over two hours this morning. At one point, we lost Nathan in the storage room and couldn't find him. The food storage ate him. My 4-year old nephew, Jacob,  would search and search and then calmly announce "Haha-found you" everytime he found anyone. I'll probably try to get them to play with me again later tonight.

7. When I asked Jacob how old he is so I could post it for #6 - he told me that he was six years old. I looked to his mom who gave me his correct age - 4. Apparently, he tells everyone that he is six.

8. My little sister, Melissa, got accepted to Utah State! David and I have been working hard to convince her to go to USU next year, and I think we have finally succeeded. Also, when USU sent the acceptance letter they included a finish-line ribbon for her to run through to celebrate her victory. I think that's cool.

9. I am currently wearing a BYU shirt. It's a way to show my support to the Peadens during today's football game. Go Cougars.

10. I am still a true-blue Aggie fan.

11. Tuesday was my Mom's birthday. I love her so much and I am so grateful for her love and support. We celebrated by decorating the house in pink and green streamers and eating a "Melissa Special" from Deb's Spicy Pie.

12. Today is Jeff's birthday. (My brother-in-law.)  We are celebrating by playing hide-and-seek, watching football ALL day, and eating cheesecake tonight. Happy Birthday Jeff!

13. Zupas Chicken Tortilla soup is delicious. We ate there last night to celebrate finding an apartment.

14. Business for Red Ladder Design has been booming.

15. David and I have been blessed in so many ways. We are grateful for our family, friends, religion, education, jobs, food, and each other. We have spent this week enjoying all of those things and being thankful for all of our blessings.

Whats for Dinner?

Lately, David and I have been trying to be really good about planning out our meals in advance. It started several months ago when we had eaten pasta with ranch three nights in a row (or something like that). We realized that if we don't have a plan for what we are going to eat... then we end up eating junk. Thus, our ten day forecast was born. 

For some reason ten days is much more effective than just a seven day menu. AND we like to call it a forecast, because it's like we are predicting the weather. "This is what we think is going to happen, but really we're flexible."

We eat WAY more healthy if we can plan out our menu. We usually do it on Sunday or Monday, but having the extra three days means that if we can't get to it until Wednesday... we won't starve. (Not to knock pasta and ranch dressing, because I really do enjoy it, but there isn't a whole lot of nutritional value to be found.) 

When we sat down this Sunday to plan our menu we decided to just plan out the next three weeks. We knew where we were going to be for several of the days (like over Thanksgiving) so we didn't really plan out those days... but for all of the days that we knew we would be here, we planned out something delicious. It's freaking me out a little bit, because we now have meals planned up until the week before we move! (And we figure that during "moving week" we will just eat pizza anyway... nutrition shmutrition.)  

Last night David and I ate my favorite "Chicken Enchiladas"

(This is not my picture. I stole it from Google Images - but I can't remember where. Sorry!)

2-3 chicken breasts
3 cans Cream of Chicken soup
1/2 white onion, chopped
1 small can green chilis
1 pkg. flour tortillas
1 medium tub sour cream

Lots and lots of cheese

Boil chicken in a large pot. While boiling, chop onion and shred cheese. In a large bowl, combine Cream of Chicken soup and the sour cream. Mix well and remove enough of the mixture to cover the top of the 9'x13" baking pan. Set aside. (You should have a small bowl and a larger bowl set aside with the chicken soup and sour cream).
Once chicken is done, shred into small pieces. Put chicken, onion, green chilies and cheese in with the large bowl mixture. Mix well.
Get your baking pan and tortillas out. Put about 2 large spoonfuls of the large bowl mixture into each tortilla and roll it up and place it in the pan until full.
Cover enchiladas with the mixture from the small bowl. Cover with a thick layer of cheese.
Bake at 350°F for 30-40 minutes or until cheese is melted and mixtures are bubbling.

 It was delicious, as always. This recipe has been one of my favorites for, well, ever. In fact, the other day as I was watching some old family home videos I watched my 9th birthday (or some age similar to that.) I was explaining why I had requested Chicken Enchiladas for my birthday dinner and why I loved them so much. Yep, that love has not diminished over time.

Tonight, I will be making Cheesy Potato Soup. It is also a favorite in this house and I think that the weather calls for some yummy, warm, comfort food.

Home Sweet Home

David and I have been getting pretty sentimental about leaving our wonderful little apartment. We seriously looked at like 50 apartments before we found the one that was just right for us, and we have LOVED it here. Everything about this place is perfect for us, from the quirky dish-disposal/dishwasher placement to the large and open front room. We have talked about wanting to take pictures of our apartment before we move down to Salt Lake so that we will always remember this place, but life has been crazy and things haven't exactly been "picture-worthy". 

Unfortunately, this has been getting in the way of us getting a head start on our packing. We couldn't start packing until we had taken pictures, and we couldn't take pictures until it was clean. It was this weekend or never, so we put our shoulders to the wheel and pushed along until our apartment was sparkling!

And so, for your viewing pleasure (as well as our desire to document this for our posterity and/or anyone else we may be able to force show these pictures to in 25 years) we give you...

Our Home:

For those of you who have been to our home, you know that it can be pretty tricky to find. The key is locating this little driveway/road that goes back into the block. It can be tricky, but it is possible! 

This is our mailbox. All of the other mailboxes are black, but ours is grey. It makes us feel special. 

"The Haven" 

(Our apartment complex is called PineHaven Apartments. We started calling it "The Haven" after we found out that about half of our ward lives in an apartment complex called "The Horseshoe." Not to be outdone, us and out neighbors decided that we would start referring to where we lived by a cool name so that people wouldn't think that we were the outcasts of the ward.)

Just a quick sidenote: There used to be an empty lot across from our apartment behind the East fourplex. It had a bunch of random junk like an old boat and a big wooden box and the like. Then one day during the summer, we drove home to find that all of that had been removed and that a house was being built! 

It is such a random place for a house. It has NO yard and it's huge picture windows in the back have powerlines criss-crossing about five feet away. (We know this because we snuck in while they were building it and scoped everything out.) The old man who built the house seems nice enough. We wave to him in the parking lot sometimes. Unfortunately, we have to be a little bitter about the house on principle. You see, our garbage cans used to be right in front of his garage, and now they are in front of our parking spots so that instead of there being 8 spots (2 for every apartment) now there are only 7 1/2. It causes a little bit of drama every once in a while... like when we have to park on the EAST side of the parking lot instead of right in front of our doors. Haha. Poor dramatic us. 

Now, where was I? Oh yes...

The steps leading up to our porch. (We have spent many wonderful rainy days, curled up on couch cushions, with good books and lots of blankets on this porch.) 

Our Front Door. 

(The wreath was a housewarming gift from our darling neighbor Kristen McNinch. We absolutely LOVE the wreath and are SO grateful for it!)

And now for the good stuff:

Our living room.

 

 

 

 

(I love the blue tea-light candles)

(We love our "Logan Shelf".)

We love how large the living room is. It makes it perfect for inviting friends over, and we love spending time here. Before my graduation party, David let me "re-decorate" this area. I had $100 and I love the way it turned out. I made curtains, spray painted picture frames, bought the mirror, sconces and green "sticks". I love the way that it turned out. There is still a little bit of red decor mixed in with the blue and green, but it works really well for us. We are going to miss this room! 

Welcome to the Kitchen: 

 

For the first six months of our marriage, we didn't have a table. Instead we just sat at this little bar on the stools that we got for our wedding and it was perfect. We love how the kitchen opens up into the living room. It has been nice for when one of us is in the kitchen and the other is working on something in the living room.  We like to be together, and are glad that the kitchen isn't a separate room.

 

The one problem that this kitchen has is the placement of the diswasher/disposal. You see, the disposal is in the right hand side of the sink, and the dishwasher door opens up directly in front of that. It makes for some acrobatic dish-washing (and a sore back).

We had to take a picture of all of my aprons. I think that I have seven of them. I love them all so much! Seriously, I wear them every time I cook, or even do dishes. I must just be exceptionally messy, because if I don't wear an apron I get food all over my clothes. Anyway... I adore cute aprons. 

Now lets head over to the bathroom:

 

 Through the "hallway"...

 

Three words: Storage, storage, storage!

 Isn't she cute?

And now, the 

"Second bedroom/craft&sewing room/Red Ladder Design room/

office/throw all of the junk in there so the guests won't see it room"

 You can see a bunch of my Red Ladder Design stuff in the corner. I have several thousand envelopes, as well as hundreds of extra invitations and Bridal Faire display items. Also, we love that orange chair. Davids parents gave it to us and it is so great!

 My sewing area. *sigh* I love to sew. 

 This is Davids little corner of the room. He gets his own bookshelf (that I keep a few things on anyway) and a little white bin for all of his things that he needs. I can't help that I have so much more stuff! 

And, the desk where our beloved Romeo lives. I spend a lot of time sitting at this desk. Side story: Do you see the star mirror that is hanging on the  wall by the desk? We got that for our wedding and when we opened it, we thought that it was the most ridiculous thing. I had no idea what we were going to do with it. We stuck it here for lack of a better place to put it and... I LOVE IT. I don't know why but it has really grown on me. I will probably keep it in my house forever. As for right now, I do my makeup in that mirror every morning. When people ask us about our weirdest wedding gift, I usually say this one. (It came in this super old box and has probably been re-gifted like 7 times.) But truly, I love it. 

And now... the Master Bedroom! 

 (The necklace holder my Uncle Roger made for me for Christmas like 15 years ago.)

 (The cedar chest my Grandpa Brown made for me. I got it on my 14th birthday and I love it.) 

 We didn't get a great picture of our blue wall, and this one has weird ghost spots (which would explain A LOT)... but our landlord let us paint this wall and we have loved it. David picked out the color helped me paint the whole thing. We have to paint it back when we leave, but it was WELL worth the time and effort spent. We have loved the splash of color in our room. 

 I begged David to let me get this chalkboard at a garage sale we went to this summer. We love to leave little notes like this on it for each other. 

(p.s. we really like popcorn.) 

Do you see the cork-board hanging on the left side of the room? My Dad made that for me out of a calender hanger (or something). I love it. (I have really crafty family members, don't I?) The drawing on the right was done by one of my really good friends out of ink. It looks really cool close up. The dresser used to belong to my dad. He had it since before I can even remember. We will probably keep it forever as well.  Maybe someday I will be courageous enough to try to re-finish it.

And that, my friends, is our humble abode. 

Oh wait... there's more! 

Lets go back outside: 

And around the back...

One of the many perks of living here is the storage shed in the back. 

It has been so nice to have a place to stick all of the random items that just don't have a home in the main body of the apartment. You know those large red ladders... they always are getting in the way. 

And there you have it folks! The whole kit and caboodle.  Our home sweet home. 

We hope that you have enjoyed this virtual tour of our apartment. I realize that most of you are probably bored stiff, but we really want to remember this place. We have loved it so much and there just isn't anything like it (in our price range) in the Salt Lake area.  We are excited for the next phase of life, but it is definitely bittersweet. 

Now... on to the packing!