Temple Square Sunday: Love Where You Live

 

 

I used to read this blog, called Design Mom. She had a featured called "Love Where You Live" and she would go out and do some sort of touristy type thing in her own town. She encouraged other bloggers to do the same and it was cool to see what people were experiencing that they might not usually take time for. 

Greg and I met in the month of April and one of our first dates was at Temple Square. He had asked me on a couple dates but I wanted to return the favor. My mom had gotten some tickets to a concert at the tabernacle of Handel's Messiah. So I asked Greg to go with me. He came to my apartment and then we walked to Temple Square. About 20 minutes into the performance, he held my hand for the first time!! It was absolutely magical. Then he held my hand on the walk home. So I guess you could say our love blossomed around the same time the flowers at Temple Square were blossoming. 

We went back last year to see the tulips and it was lovely, as expected. 

This year has been a bit crazy for us, and a little overwhelming emotionally. We had a free Sunday afternoon and I had mentioned that we ought to go to Temple Square sometime while the flowers are in beautiful bloom. 

Greg said, "Well let's go right now." 

And I said, "Well I don't know, we probably have other stuff we should get done."

But he convinced me. He's the sweetest. So we drove over and took some fun pictures of the flowers. He wore my purse and the camera bag across his body and said, "Bec, take a picture. And then caption it "Instagram Husband." :)

I was crouching down in a flower bed to take some pictures and there was a woman who is a senior missionary there, and she said, "Your skirt matches those flowers too perfectly! Let me take a picture of you!" It was really sweet. 

On our way home, Greg played Salt Lake tour guide barbie and stopped at the Gilgal Sculpture Garden. I had never heard of this place, but he said that there was a sphinx with Joseph Smith's face at the top. Ha! So we thought we ought to check it out. It was a little bizarre but these are the little quirks that make Salt Lake City what it is! 

This Sunday was one of the best ones we've had in awhile. We came home and made BLT's for dinner and prepped some lunches and snacks for the week, and made some cookies for dessert. Yum! We love this stage of our life and having so much time to be together. 

Texas Trip: Beatrix Blessing and Matilda's Birthday!

For my birthday, Greg surprised me with plane tickets to Dallas to visit my sister and her family. He had arranged it all with my sister for us to go 2 weeks after my birthday. I was ecstatic! We got in a Thursday afternoon and stayed until Monday afternoon, so it was a nice, long weekend. 

A few of the highlights: watching Aaron and Greg race in go-karts, eating Tex-Mex for every meal, walks to the park, snuggling my newborn niece Beatrix, playing legos with the kids, meeting up with my friend Katherine in Dallas, seeing the new Richards Group building that I would have been working at if I still lived there, visiting Central Market, helping Aaron finish up the melimba online shop, stopping by Klyde Warren Park, coming up with new games on the trampoline, making yummy food, listening to Greg read the boys Star Wars books, lots of playing outside, visiting the kids at elementary school, and going their volleyball games. 

The best part of the whole trip though, was on Sunday. It was Matilda's birthday and she turned 8 and she chose to share her special day with Beatrix, who was blessed at church. It was so fun to be there on this special day for the Wood family. 

 

  

   

Rebecca's Birthday 2016

I had a really nice birthday this year. Greg has learned that I like to open up presents first thing in the morning! So he had a few gifts for me waiting at the foot of our bed. I got to wear a new shirt and come to work. My office had been decorated so nicely by my co-workers and they had brought me flowers. My sister, Emily sent me some gorgeous flowers as well. 

For lunch, I brought a quilt and took a bunch of my co-workers up to a nearby park where we ate our lunches we brought from home. Greg had made me a nice, hearty, cobb salad. I made oreo cake bites the night before so we could have a little treat afterwards. 

Then after dinner, Greg and I met with up my parents at this cute little Italian restaurant in Sugarhouse. We tried so many delicious things and ended the night with a cannoli. Divino! 

Spring Cooking 2016

  

  

One of the big perks of finally getting to the spring season and starting Daylight Savings time is that I can take pictures of our dinner before we eat! Woot woot! We made so many delicious things in the winter that I wanted to take pictures of, but the light was just off and it didn't work. I LOVE talking about food and so it's really nice to have my instagram account that's just dedicated to food chats with my friends. And Greg doesn't mind too much that I make him wait to eat so I can take pictures. :)

In general, we've gotten real into Asian foods this spring. We've made lettuce wraps and stir fries, and we figured out a new ramen pack that we buy online. We've been making our own ramen with toppings and roasted pork belly and it's really fun. We still love to get pho take out on rainy days, but it's nice to be able to make some of those things ourselves. So this spring, I finally went and bought all those Asian ingredients that pretty much go in every recipe: rice vinegar, hoisin, green curry paste, fish sauce, sesame oil, etc. It's crazy how many new things we can make now that we have the staples!

We're also trying to eat a few more meals that are meat-free, so vegetarian fajitas are always a hit. And then we put the toppings on salads throughout the week. I made the smitten kitchen recipe for homemade meatballs and they were incredible! Next time I'll have to half the recipe because we ate meatballs for days and now it's probably going to be another year until I will want them again. We've also been buying Harmon's sourdough artisan bread pretty much every week when we go to the grocery store. I really love bread, but ever since Greg did the paleo diet a few years ago, he's been less into the bread world. But now that we've found a bread that we both really love, it's fun to have more meals surrounding it. 

First Time Home Buying

I'm sure that some day when Greg and I are all settled in a dream home that we have paid off, the struggles of buying our first home will be long in the past and difficult to remember. But today, the struggle is real.

When we got married, we decided that we weren't going to take on too much in our first year of marriage. So we rented a really small apartment, didn't make too many purchases or major life plans. We spent a lot of time working on our communication and planning life together, and took a couple trips, including my dream of traveling to Europe. Our second year of marriage has become much more stressful, even though we feel like our relationship is much more solidified.

We're trying to figure out how to take care of our families, when we should start our own family, and where to live. Last September we took a home buying course at our local community education center and we learned so much about the process. So in January, we met with a mortgage broker and got pre-qualified for a loan. After going through all of our numbers, he said that we are the most prepared first time home buyers he's ever seen in the 20 years he's been coordinating loans. So we felt great! On top of the world. We got a realtor, we figured out our budget, and which locations we were the most comfortable to buy in. We assumed it wouldn't be easy, but we did hope that because we were prepared, things would go smoothly.

Well it's been 5 1/2 months and we still don't have a house. Insert frowny face. It's been a rough-go. We've put in 4 offers (June update: 6 offers!) now but the market is very competitive and things move really fast. It's hard to get pumped for a place and then lose the dream of it a few hours or days later. I think the hardest thing has been all the time it takes. We spend at least an hour every day looking at the email list of what has become available in our search area. And then we spend at least 2 hours a week actually looking at the listings. And then I spend at least another hour each week looking at surrounding areas to see if something strikes my fancy.

Of course the best things in life usually require patience, planning, and little miracles. Last month we fell in love with a house that checked all the boxes and then realized that it was already under contract when we went to go see it- so it was never a real possibility.

It's been pretty hard and has required more of a sacrifice than we could have planned for, but the hopes of owning our own home is really, really exciting. It turns out, most all of our hobbies surround home life. We love to cook together, I love decorating and sewing, Greg loves working in the garage, we would grill our dinner every night if the weather allowed for it, and we both dream of having a big garden space with bees and a chicken coop.

We feel really grateful that we have such a nice rental and that we've been able to get a taste of that home life by renting a house, but it also re-enforces the dream to have something of our own.

Luckily we've been real busy with other things that we can spend too much time getting down on the house hunt. And rather then wait until we have a house, we're doing all we can to prepare for it. Bulking up our savings so we can make a larger down payment, getting a new bed, finishing the nightstands (Greg took a welding course and made these beautiful nightstands- he designed them, welded them, then we picked out the wood together and he finished them off!), and making some cute decor for now and for the future.

We have lots to be grateful for and I'm just glad I get to have Greg with me on these exciting and sometimes difficult journeys.