Me too! Me too!

So lots of other people have posted about their dads in honor of Father's day. Well, I have an amazing father as well, I just have been too lazy to blog about it. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of him on my computer here at work, but I stole this one off of my aunt Jill's blog.
If you couldn't tell, my dad's the one on the far right in the front. But if you couldn't tell, I'm guessing you've never met him, because it looks just like him!

Well, here's a few reasons why my dad is so great!
-he is always excited to talk to me on the phone
-he has the greatest advice!
-he can find ANYTHING that is lost...I wish he were here to find my wallet
-he loves to travel and was always willing to take us kids on his business trips...the hotel was always the best part
-he gets excited about little things like getting a hotel room on the top floor and learning something new
-he is always reading at least 3 books and loves to share what he learns from them
-he made me the critical thinker that I am today
-he always respected and loved my mom and expected us to do the same
-he has an answer to EVERY question
-he always puts family above work
-we are welcome at the office anytime
-he loves to come out and support us in all that we do
-he is always learning a new skill or hobby...have you seen the ducks he's carved? They are amazing!
-he is a man of many hobbies...throughout my childhood I remember him having all of the following hobbies at one time or another: coin collecting, duck carving, reading, rock tumbling, star gazing, model cars, and the list goes on. He knows a ton about each one and loves to share all that he knows.
-he knows how to unwind and relax with the best of them
-he is a hard worker
-he taught me everything I know about playing cards
-he doesn't value his material possessions too much. he has loaned his car to just about anyone and when asked if he's crazy he always responds "It's only a car."
-he loves others...I can tell because he doesn't speak negatively of them.
-he loves me and is the greatest dad ever!

I love you dad!

Visitors

In between all the work on the house we were lucky enough to have some visitors. Alisa and Andrew along with Owen, Ella, and Liam stopped off in Denver for a few days en route from Illinois to Arizona. They stayed with Andi and Spencer, but we were lucky enough to get to spend some time with them and here are the pictures to prove it!


Ella swinging at the park before the rain hit again.

Uncle Nate and little Liam

Ignore the bloated looking pregnant woman in the back, but look at Liam and Olive...aren't they cuties?

All the uncles and all the kiddos...believe it or not, this was one of the better shots I got of the group.
Also, not documented by pictures, we had the whole crew over for dinner one night and after dinner they all went out and pulled weeds in our backyard. It was fantastic!

The big day has arrived

So today's the day Nick entered the MTC. I can't believe he is that old. I still think of him as the squirrly little 5 year old with the crooked glasses who could not sit still and was constantly running into things. (I can say that because he won't be reading this for awhile!) He was so excited when I talked to him last night. I know he will make an awesome missionary. We missed the MTC send off (the family couldn't go in due to swine flu anyways) but we did manage to make a little trip home for his farewell. Somehow we got away without any pictures of him or the family, but we have plenty of pictures detailing our trip in first class and the baby shower!

Oh, and sorry about the underlines, if I knew how to fix them I would...trust me.


Disclaimer...we do not belong in first class. We were by far the youngest, poorest, most underdressed there. How did we come upon these tickets you are wondering? Well, as it turns out it costs the same number of frequent flyer miles (thanks Dad for the miles) to fly first class on a holiday weekend as it does to fly economy, so we did the only logical thing and upgraded.

So this is what a first class ticket looks like. I had never seen one before. It includes priority boarding and...drum roll please, a special line that gets you to the front of the security line...priceless!

Upon arriving in first class, you receive a drink before you even take off (aka while the peons are boarding). Then shortly after take-off we were served these cute bowls of warm mixed nuts. These were followed by a warm towel for cleaning the salt off our hands. We thought that was all the food we would get and we were quite pleased.

Then dinner arrived. This is the Cobb salad with chicken and turkey bacon with a side of pita chips and cream cheese dip. Delicious! Needless to say, we were spoiled and are now ruined. I don't know if I can ever fly again, that is until I am wealthy enough to fly first class all the time or develop amnesia so I don't remember that blissful experience.

These are the cute cookies from the baby shower my aunts threw for me. Everything was beautiful and delicious and everyone was so generous. It was a great party!

My favorite part was how all the little girl cousins gathered around for an up close view of all the gifts.

This is the beautiful quilt my mom made. Isn't it amazing! Apparently she had the same gut feeling I had that it was a girl because I believe this blanket was in the works long before the baby was! I love it!

And for those of you who made it to the end of the post. Here's a shot at 24 weeks. Yes, I am definitely pregnant.

As promised...the fridge saga

So for some reason unknown to man all appliances come in standard sizes except for fridges. Knowing this, we carefully measured and remeasured the spot where our fridge goes. We found the perfect fridge: side-by-side, white, ice and water in the door, glass shelves, affordable/on sale, and we measured it (no less than 10 times) and it came in exactly 1/2 inch shorter than our cabinets. Perfect! So we bought it. We went back the next day with the U-Haul to pick it up. It was too tall, so we had to lay it down. Ok, not a big deal we just had to wait 24 hours before plugging it in. We got to the house and it was too wide for the door. Ok fine, we'll just take off the front door and get ourselves a couple more inches. We rolled it into the kitchen and...well look for yourself.

It was about half an inch too tall!!! Granted, this was not the exact same fridge we had measured, it was out of a box, but it was the same model. Talk about frustrating.
Thankfully we have an angel of a friend who came over with all of his power tools and spent a few hours shaving off our cabinets. Thank you Tyler!!! Now the fridge works great! In fact it's my favorite part of the kitchen.

The Ups and Downs of Owning a Home: Part 2

Ok, so I know I promised pictures, but we don't have internet at the house yet, so I do all my blogging from my work computer and my pictures are on the lap top at home. I might get myself down to the library this weekend with the lap top, but no promises!

So between having "pregnant brain" and moving I lost my wallet. I have no idea how this happened because I never take it out of my purse, and I have my purse. All I know is one day I had it and the next I didn't. I immediately checked all of my acocunt balances and nothing had been charged (thankfully). After a week of tracking my accounts and hoping it would turn up, I finally decided it was time to get new cards. What a pain! You would think having cards from only 2 different banks I could call 2 numbers and it would be taken care of, but no. Each account (4 total) required a different phone call. Then there is the matter of the driver's license. I still had a Utah license, so that complicated the process dramatically. However, yesterday after only one and a half hours at the DMV, I finally become the pocessor of a valid drivers license! The catch...I am once again Julie Rozier because I did not have my marriage certificate. Does a drivers license that says Rozier do me any good when all my credit cards, checks, etc say Frederiksen? I don't think so.
Stay tuned for the third installment: the fridge that grew.

The Ups and Downs of Owning a Home: Part 1

So while we are so glad to have finally moved into our house, it has not happened without plenty of drama. The first installment of our house drama involves the master shower. The master shower was DISGUSTING! We're talking black all over from mold and mildew. We found this miracle stuff at Home Depot that took it right off and were feeling rather smug. However, we knew the reason it was black was because the shower leaked. It was a small leak, but nonetheless it was a leak. We figured a new showerhead would do the trick. Nope--it still leaked! Then Nate took the handles off and fiddled with the part inside. This resulted in our small leak becoming a steady flow. Nate figured out which part we needed on Saturday night...it was too late to go to Home Depot, so our first 3 days in the home were spent running down to the basement to turn on the water main whenever we needed water then running down to turn it off when we were through. Needless to say, this quickly got old! Oh, and to avoid having the water run all night with the noise keeping us awake we turned off the water each night. That means no midnight potty runs for the pregnant lady! Well, I am proud to say that my handy husband was right on about which part we needed, went straight to Home Depot after work on Monday, and now the shower works!!! YAY!!! Now it just needs to be regrouted....that's Nate's weekend project. Stay tuned for the next installment of the ups and downs of owning a home.

We're alive

So after lots of drama with the closing on our house getting pushed back again and again, we FINALLY were able to close on May 21. Just in time to get on a plane to California. By the time we got back we had 5 days to get the house clean (it was beyond filthy!) and get our stuff together. But we did it! I love our new house! Pictures are forthcoming...