No, you da ho!

Hahaha! Get used to it people, because I'm going to use and abuse that joke for the remainder of my earthly days.

 

Last week, Justin and I flew out to Idaho for a house hunting vacation (yes, vacation, because we went with NO KIDS)!! The week leading up to the trip was incredibly stressful. My floors were raw, we were working desperately to get the house on the market, our dryer broke (hello, Laundromat, you're disgusting), and we had our first showing (before the house was officially listed). The cherry on top was when Justin tore his ACL the DAY before we left (you win again, church basketball, you win again). To say I was a basket case is a serious understatement. I was so tightly wound and stressed and emotional it was ridiculous.

 

The day before we left, my mom flew in. She is basically a saint who volunteered to stay with our children (in a hotel, mind you, because they couldn't walk on the floors while they were being finished) while we were gone. I took Josie with me to pick her up from the airport. When I saw her walking to our car I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. I'm 34 years old and I still, very much, need my mommy. Josie said it best. When she saw Grammy she said, "Mom! There she is! I'm so happy I could cry!" Me too little girl, me too.

 

Honestly, I don't know what I would have done without her. Just being with her for a few hours made me feel so much better. It was like, I knew everything was going to be okay because she was finally there. I really hope my kids still feel that way about me when they're adults! (**Yes, my mom is super cute and yes, she totally copied me with the bangs.**)

The next morning, Justin and I were out of there. The plane ride was actually really nice (for me anyway, poor Justin was such a trooper with his newly torn and incredibly swollen knee). I got to sit, read a book, drink some water, sleep a little (a very little), and have some fun chats with Justin. It's amazing how much I don't mind a long trip when there are no children involved.

We got to Idaho and I immediately rolled my pants up to capri length and fist pumped over my wise decision not to wear socks. The weather was in the 60's! It was dry! The sun was shining! Absolutely gorgeous.

We flew into Boise and, at the recommendation of one of the interns (who is from there) checked out its, sort of surprisingly, very cool and hip downtown. We ate at a really yummy restaurant and took a short walk of the downtown (but we didn't go too far - I was so, so afraid of doing more damage to Justin's knee - not that it could have gotten much worse). After that we drove to Jerome - an hour and a half away. Our hotel was nice and we were just relishing the time we got to spend alone (which, this month, meant we turned on the TV and watched our March Madness brackets bust wide open).

The next day, Monday, was house hunting. As much as I hate (HATE) selling a house, that's how much I love (LOVE) looking for a new one. I adore house hunting. It is possibly one of my favorite things in this life. Even when we're not looking to move, I am constantly looking up houses for sale. Houses for me, for my siblings, for my parents, for my friends, etc. Seriously, I love it. So this was like Christmas. We looked at about 10 existing homes. Some were immediately ruled out (the house with the giant pond in the backyard and the mural of Tuscany painted on the living room wall) and some were awesome but not for us.

 

Then we found this awesome foreclosure. It had everything we could ever want in a house. 7 acres of land, 5200 square feet, updated EVERYTHING, gorgeous. Seriously. It was built for 1.2 million and then the owners walked away. We could have snatched that baby up for $400,000. And we were tempted, oh boy were we tempted. We got preapproved at the bank and everything. We both really, really wanted this house. In the end though, we decided against it. The main deciding factor was that if, for some reason, this job didn't work out, we'd be stuck with a million dollar home that we'd never be able to sell (people in Jerome just don't spend that kind of money on a house). We don't expect that to happen to us, but we'd heard so many cautionary tales that we just couldn't pull the trigger. Not going to lie. I was pretty bummed about it (even though I am 100% sure we made the right decision) but Justin just told me to make notes of what I liked in that house and, someday, we'll build the one I'm dreaming of.

 

So, after a hard day of house hunting, we didn't see anything (reasonable) that we thought would work for our family. Then our realtor took us into this new development. The homes are still being built (although it's mostly all developed at this point). She showed us around and showed us the largest lot that was still available (.23 of an acre) and told us that one option was to build there. I'd looked into it a little bit before we went out and had actually seen a floor plan I liked. Justin and I took about a half a day to mull it over and then we decided to do it. So we got land!

 

Standing together on our land. Notice the blue sky. It was heaven. 

Us on our land. .23 of an acre in a master planned development is far from our dream home, but we're so excited because this is going to be a great place for our family for the next 5 or so years while our kids grow and we save the money to build the house of our dreams on the acreage of our dreams.

While we aren't excited about the small lot size or the proximity of our neighbors, there are a lot of things we LOVE about this neighborhood.
1. See that brick building on the left (in the bottom picture)? That's the elementary school where Noah and Josie will go. Awesome, right? They do elementary school a little different out here. There are two K-3 schools and one 4th and 5th grade center. The 4th and 5th grade center (where Clayton will obviously go) is the furthest school from our house (counting the high school and middle school). Justin and I drove one day from that school to our lot. Less than 4 minutes!! Sweet!
2. What you can't see is that right across the street from the elementary school is a big park. So our yard might not be huge, but we'll be in easy walking distance to a nice park.
3. The church is about a 10 minute walk. I would absolutely NOT do that on a Sunday (in heels, no way). But for scouts or mutual, absolutely.
4. There are sidewalks throughout the neighborhood and, at the end of the development, it drops you off onto a nice biking, running, walking path that goes for three miles one way. It's really an awesome location. I can actually see myself taking a daily run on that path (once I get used to the elevation, of course)!
5. When we went there to look at a few spec homes we noticed that there were kids EVERYWHERE! Honestly, we saw zero adults, but there were tons of kids out. They were running in between yards and down the sidewalks and riding bikes. It was awesome! Especially since there seemed to be quite a few boys who looked like they were Clayton and Noah's ages. Instant friends for our kids. And, from what we could tell, apparently I could just send them outside all day to play with friends! Gotta love small town living.
6. Our realtor was telling us who lives in this community. The new veterinarian, the high school band director, a jewler, a manager at one of the dairies, etc. Basically, it's a community full of young professionals and their families. Perfect for us.
After learning all of this we were sold. Hard. I honestly can't wait!

This is Justin. Licking a rock that we took from our property. You better believe that we brought that rock back with us to Indiana!

These are our neighbors. We are kind of at the end of another dead end street (which we absolutely love). Our realtor told us that the people who live in the green house have four young kids too! Yay!

After signing all the paperwork, we made an appointment to go to the design center in Boise to choose all our finishings. Honestly, I couldn't wait. Being able to choose my own stuff!?! Awesome. Especially because we are viewing this house as a temporary home, this gives me the opportunity to get a few things figured out before we build "the big one" someday!

If you want to see our floor plan, here's the link:
http://www.cbhhomes.com/floor-plan/legacy/sundown-3200/
The only thing that will be different is that we are taking bedroom #4 upstairs and converting it into another bathroom (I really don't need that many bedrooms, but when we have guests, we'll be so happy to have that extra bathroom)! They are currently working on the updated plans, but I don't have them yet.

We drove to Boise on Thursday (we were leaving from there on Friday) and went to eat before our design appointment. We went to Boise Fry Company! This place is going to become a tradition when we go into Boise for sure! Oh my goodness, amazing!

Then it was on to the design studio. Basically, we spent 4 hours there, choosing finishings. Here's a very small sneak peek:

This will (probably) be the flooring. Wood in the dining room, kitchen, entryway, and mud area. Shag carpet in the bedrooms and all throughout the upstairs (well, except the bathrooms and laundry room). Tile in the downstairs bathroom and master bathroom (the two upstairs bathrooms will be getting linoleum - I know linoleum isn't great, but the price was right).

Kitchen preview. The wood floor, the white cabinet (this isn't the actual cabinetry we'll be getting, it's close, but not the same - we are using it because it's white, which is the color we'll be doing), the light colored granite countertop, and the dark gray subway tile for the backsplash with the long rectangular tiles thrown in about halfway for one row. I love it and cannot wait to cook in this kitchen!

Exterior. The middle color (which is a light gray) will be the majority of the house, the white will be the trim, the darker gray will be at the top of the house, the stone will go around the bottom, and the door will be daisy yellow!

The fireplace surround (I think). A large, light gray, glass tile with the long rectangular ones running through it to tie it into the kitchen (it'll be a double sided fireplace between the living room and the dining room so it'll be visible in the kitchen and we thought it'd be nice to have them coordinate somehow).

Half bath sink.

The bathroom faucets (the kitchen one we picked out is also very similar). They will be in a brushed nickel finish though, not so shiny.

Our shutters (bottom left). They will stay black.

After our appointment, we ate one last meal in fabulous downtown Boise, spent one last night yelling at basketball on TV, and then flew home.

As far as the house goes, they are currently working on my updated floor plans. When they're finished (hopefully next week), we'll sign off and they'll start construction! We have a tentative closing date of August 15th. I really want to be in there before the new school year starts but we'll have to see. I'm not really holding my breath for that one.

We came home to four happy kids, brand new floors, and my awesome parents. Seriously, they rock. My mom did most of the heavy lifting. She did crafts with the kids, swam with them almost every day at the hotel, took them all to the Blue and Gold banquet (for scouts), and shared a bed with two kids every night. Seriously, I need to give her some sort of award.

 

My dad came out and helped Clayton start on his Pinewood Derby car. My dad is kind of a Pinewood Derby legend (Clayton thinks he's famous) and it made my heart so happy to watch the two of them work together. My kids are beyond lucky to have these selfless and loving grandparents!

Now we're back to stress over keeping the house clean for showings, surgery for Justin's knee (oh how wrecked it is!), spring break (next week! Yay!), and preparing for our move. It's really making me a little crazy, but I know it's going to be so very worth it. I am excited for our new adventure. Now that we're to this point it seems so real and I feel like these next three months are just going to drag. When they start building our house, I'm going to have our realtor go by and take pictures for us, so those will definitely make it on the blog! Stay tuned! Big things are happening!!

34!

It's official. I'm old. Truth be told, I'm excited to be 34. This is going to be an exciting and fun year and I'm really looking forward to it. Highlights of my year will probably be:

-Justin finishing fellowship (which means we'll be seeing a lot more of him around here - yay)
-Moving (there are highs and lows here)
-Starting our new lives in ID
-NOT having a baby (which means getting in killer shape)
-Living close to my family and being around for all the exciting events that will be happening this year!
-Perhaps a vacation or two...

So you can see, I've got big plans for 34. It was a birthday that didn't disappoint either! I woke up to this sweet note on my mirror:

Justin has taken to calling me RABF (rare and beautiful find). It's because I'm like a unicorn. I'm lovely, perfect, mysterious, and pasty white.

We also learned, while watching the Olympics, that apparently 34 is seriously old. If you're a 34 year old Olympian you've got one foot in the grave. This note is still on my mirror several days later. It makes me laugh. Love this guy of mine.

Josie dressed up fancy for my birthday. She informed me that all girls should be fancy for birthdays. Not sure I was quite as fancy as her (in fact, I know for a fact I wasn't), but I love that she tried to make my birthday special in her own sweet way.

Let's talk about this cake. For the past few years Justin has gotten me my favorite red velvet cake from our favorite local bakery, Indulgence. It tastes much better than it looks (which should say something, seeing as it looks amazing). This cake entered my house late Friday afternoon and was gone early Sunday afternoon. I ate a lot of cake. I regret nothing.

A birthday pic with my favorite girls. We tried to get a better one, but there was something weird about every picture. I finally just landed on this one (even though Josie is kind of photo bombing in the background and not in the main shot like we'd tried for).

Not all the kids appreciated the deliciousness that was my birthday cake. Sammie, however, totally got it. She demolished her piece and even tried to lick her plate. A girl after my own heart.

 

After cake (dessert first) Justin and I got a babysitter for the kids and went out to our favorite sushi restaurant. It was delicious, as always. Then we came home and watched a movie together. Perfect.

34 is definitely off to a good start. I felt loved with all the phone calls and numerous rounds of "Happy Birthday" that were sung to me all day. It was exactly what I wanted.

I love where I'm at in my life. It is so good. I can't wait to see what happens this year! Happy birthday to me indeed!

 

He Did It!

It's been a very busy summer over here at Casa de Smith. So much has happened and I'm painfully close to becoming so behind on my blog that I've considered giving it up altogether. However, like so many others, I will not quit (yes, Anisha, I'm looking at you)! You're welcome.

Aside from the fact that I know that there are fives to tens of you out there who find my life absolutely riveting and cannot wait for another post, this is pretty much my journal right now and I figure I should keep it up. If for no other reason than so that when my kids grow up and whine about the crappy childhood they had, I can pull up the blog and say things like "we visited a cranberry bog" and "I potty trained you" and "I didn't murder you for coloring on the walls with sharpie". You know, important stuff like that.

Usually, when I get this far behind I have a hard time deciding where to start again. This time though, it's easy. The moment we've all been waiting for finally happened...(drum roll)...

Justin graduated residency!!!!!!

That's right! He's done (well, except for fellowship)! He passed his boards and is now a board certified, totally legit, doesn't-have-to-say-resident-anymore, doctor! We began the celebrating by going out to a fancy dinner, just the two of us:

While we were at dinner, Justin gave me a gorgeous (and totally unexpected) diamond necklace to let me know he appreciated my support and love. He told me he couldn't have done it without me. This journey has been rough at times for both of us. I cannot say how much I appreciate and love that he acknowledged that it was a team effort. We've grown so much together throughout this experience and I'm more in love with him than ever (diamonds aside). I'm married to a great guy - the best guy, if you ask me.

For his graduation, we had my parents, Justin's dad, and Justin's sister come to visit. We had a great time. We got to meet our new nephew, Xander, and get to know our niece, Abby, better. It was fun times hanging out with the Smith cousins. (As usual, I am pretty much the worst when it comes to taking pictures.)
This series with Sammie and Xander cracks me up though:

We travelled as a pack and our van was crowded! Packed to capacity (I'm glad we got the one that seats 8!)

It was a great weekend. It all culminated in Justin's graduation ceremony. For graduation, they do a nice event with appetizers, drinks, a sit down dinner, yummy dessert, slide shows, awards, and speeches. I loved sitting at the head table with Justin, I was so proud to be there next to him. Justin was given an award for being an exemplary teacher to interns and med students (which is something he loves and is really good at).

Each resident is asked to give a little speech. There are a few things about Justin's that I particularly loved: 1. He asked me to stand next to him. (When each resident is called to receive their certificate, their significant other is called to stand and be recognized too. However, when the resident gives their speeches, most significant others stand in the background. Justin had me stand next to him. We're a team. Love him.) 2. He danced. Not only did he dance, he called one of his old attendings out of the crowd to dance with him. He taught her how to booty bounce. I know that there is video evidence of this somewhere. Dad, Missy, if one of you have the video, please send it to me and I'll post it. It really deserves to be seen.
He totally rocked the three piece suit to graduation. Handsome devil.

I didn't bring a camera to graduation. I should probably try to get some pictures that other people took there but I haven't attempted that yet. This is one that my dad took. Not sure what Justin's doing, but look at how yummy my chocolate cake looks!

There are a thousand little details that I'm missing about graduation, but the short story is: my man is an official doctor now. He did it. We did it. I am so proud of him. One more year of fellowship and then it's off to the real world for us (I'll do a post about that in a few months when we've decided where we're going).

Love you Just. You're pretty much the most amazing person I know.

Happenings

Life has been just chugging along over here at Casa de Smith. A few exciting things, a few fun things, and a few mundane things. Here's what's been happening:

Clayton had been taking an acting class with the civic theater. At the end of the session they put on a play, "Fractured Fairy Tales". It was a completely random story with lots of characters thrown in. Clayton was Spiderman. It was pretty awesome. I do have some little video of his performance but I hesitate to add it because I was fighting with Sammie while filming so the video isn't great (Justin was working so we were trying to capture the performance for him).

He was amazing though. He had great comedic timing and had everyone laughing in all the right places. I was a proud mama watching him! He's going to be doing a camp later this month all about improv. I love that he's found something that he loves and is good at. Plus, I love going to his performances!

The boys had a spirit week at school last week. Tuesday was crazy hair day. Unfortunately, they'd both just gotten haircuts so there wasn't much we could do that was crazy other than spike and color. They loved it though!

Wednesday was favorite sports team day. The boys weren't 100% sure who the Portland Timbers were (until I told them) but these were the new shirts we'd brought them back from Oregon and they really wanted to wear them.

Thursday was pajama day. Who doesn't love the idea of going to school in your super comfy pajamas!?!

This awesome and crazy, messy baby turned 21 months. It's wild to me that she'll be 2 in just a few short months. Where does the time go?

She has reached the age where she loves to wear our shoes all around the house. I think it's written in some contract that all toddlers must go through this stage.

 She has started to assert her independence a bit more which is fun and frustrating at the same time (getting shoes on this kid is a battle). She has temper tantrums periodically but overall she's still a super sweet, super funny, super happy little girl. Love that she's mine!

A few weeks ago, Justin finished the railing on our deck. We put our deck furniture that we bought off Craigslist last fall out there and have been hanging out 'decking' almost every day. It's our new favorite room in the house.

The kindergarten classes at Noah's school have been learning about the rainforest. Therefore, my whole family has been learning about the rainforest. It's amazing to me the information Noah knows. He now also wants a chameleon. Good luck buddy.
The kindergarten had a 'rainforest open house' last week and we all got to go and see the projects he's been working on and the things he's been learning. It's impressive. Here's Noah and his teacher. We've loved Mrs. Helms. She was such a great teacher for Noah!

The boys still have one week of school left but, sadly, Noah's best friend moved to Arizona the day of the open house. They literally left the school with their moving truck. It was hard on Noah especially since his other best friend is moving at the end of this week. Here are the three boys together. They've been such good little friends!

I have been training for a 10k and finally ran the race last Saturday. I had a goal in my head that I wanted to run it in under an hour but my very best time was an hour and thirty seconds. No matter how hard I pushed I just couldn't break that hour mark. So my ultimate goal was to break an hour but my realistic goal was to be under an hour and two minutes (which would put me at a 10 minute mile average - which is pretty good for me).
The day of the race I got up and put on my Team Jen shirt (this is the magic shirt I ran my 5k in a few weeks ago when I had a new personal best of 27 minutes). This shirt is to show support for my friend Jen Roper and I love it. The back says, "I can do hard things". It's kind of become my new running mantra. Anyway, the day was humid but otherwise a pretty good day for a race. I wasn't feeling that great about the way I was running until I hit mile 5. I was getting pretty discouraged because I didn't feel that I was doing the pace I wanted but I ran by the mile marker and they'd set up a clock to let you know your time so far. The clock said 47 minutes! By this point I was dragging and my legs were really tired (no wonder - I was running at a faster pace than I'd ever run in training) but I was renewed with this news. It is seriously what got me to the end. When my final time was posted it was 58:55!! I was unbelievably happy with that. Plus, I finished 32nd in my age group out of 119 women. Not super stellar, but I was in the top half! Makes a girl feel pretty good so I'm going to keep up the training and try to do another half marathon in the fall. I can do hard things!

We took an afternoon to get some yard work done. Everyone pitched in.

 Love these hard working men!

These little ladies didn't have much attention span for the work we were doing (which was just fine since their 'help' wasn't really helpful anyway).

As Justin was finishing up, he had us come outside and see what he'd found. A next with three baby cardinal birds in one of the bushes by our garage! (We know they're cardinals because we've been stalking that bush now and we see the mama with the babies.) Justin was trimming the bush with hedgeclippers and almost took out these little babies! Thankfully he missed them by a narrow margin and they're safe and sound. Because of how close a call it was though, this nest is easily visible to us now and we've loved watching these little birds!

The kids don't want the birds to grow feathers and fly away, but I think I'll feel a little relief when they finally do! I've become very concerned about their well being since we've found them and have started checking on them several times just to make sure that they're all still alive and well!

I think we're all caught up now. Which is excellent timing because school gets out this week and we have some adventures planned! Yay!