Happy Holidays!!

It's been a little while since the last update but things have been a little busy! But now that Christmas has passed, I can sit down and catch up.
Last weekend Del and I flew over to Olympia and spend a 4 day weekend at my parent's house with the WHOLE family; both of my sisters and their husbands/families were able to come over as well. It's been a long time since we had all 3 sisters and my parents together at the same time so it was great.

 

Left to Right: Jake & Jeni, Julie & Malin, Me & Del

Of course, everyone knows yesterday was Christmas :) This week has been Del's week to be on-call so we got up early enough to get our presents opened before he'd start getting calls. THANK GOODNESS this is his last Christmas that he'll be at this job. I'm ready to have him around during the Holidays and not wonder if he'll have to get up and leave at any minute.
We brought Oakley inside to chill with us and he had fun watching us open gifts and then munch on wrapping paper.

Del showed Oakley his new "Grilling Bible" and Oak was very
into a steak recipe ;)

My main present from Del! LOVE Coach!

My collection of gifts. Got some good stuff!

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas and holiday season! I look forward to seeing what 2011 has to bring! Lots of changes to come for sure! See ya'll next year ;-)

 

On the boardwalk in Oly

Winter Wonderland! (Sort of...)

So today we have had slow but steady snow for majority of the day, which is odd since the forecast called for a 30% chance of afternoon flurries and highs near 40. Yeah, that didn't happen! Del has shoveled the driveway and walkway twice since I got home from work and I'm not sure why he even tries. By the time he's halfway done, the first part is already covered again. Oh well though, Oakley and I had a little fun while dad worked!

Pup watchin Del shovel

It was impossible to get him to sit still and look!

Proud Wife!!

Well, for those of you who don't already know, I have some awesome news! (No, I'm not pregnant like 1/2 of you thought when I called to tell you haha). But the 2nd coolest thing just happened - Dellas got offered an internship at his top choice company, Kiewit! Not only did he get in with his top company, but also his top choice of districts, their Bridge and Marine district. He interviewed for this internship about two months ago and it sounded like it had gone well, but the competition was tough. Kiewit interviewed at around 15-20 schools and only 1 to 3 people from each school would be offered a position, and Del was one of them!

Little side story - about 2 yrs ago I asked Dellas what he hoped to do with his degree and if there was a company he had in mind as his "ultimate employer." He didn't hesitate to say he'd heard awesome things about Kiewit and that he'd like a chance to work for them someday. And now he does!!

We don't know the details yet, but we have some bits and pieces of information. We know it will be paid (yay!) and we know he will not be in Idaho for this coming up Summer (and I won't be going with him since he's coming back in just 3 months to finish his last semester of school). At the interview the people had said they try to keep interns close to home if they have spouses and/or families, and that it's likely his location would be in the Portland or Seattle area. However, in today's offer letter it named Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, British Columbia, Louisiana, Texas, and Hawaii as all possible areas.

Anyway, I'm SO proud of my hubby (thus the blog title) for going for his goals and achieving the first major step towards a great career! Now, we just pray it all works out and he actually LIKES working for his "dream company."

Thanksgiving Time With the Clarks!

Here in Boise we celebrated Thanksgiving for almost an entire week instead of just 1 day! We started the week out with my wonderful in-laws rolling into town last Saturday from San Diego. They hardly stretched their legs before we put them back in the car and took them to the 2010 Holiday Expo. The Idaho Center was PACKED with fun booths and vendors with enough holiday decorations to make my head spin! I LOVE decorating for winter and the Christmas season, and thank goodness Mom Clark does too :) We spent a few hours dragging our husbands around while we drooled over the cutest stuff. Of course, we both left with a few new additions to our snowman collections as well as some other odds and ends.

The next highlight of the week was game night on Monday night. Dellas was able to get the night off of work so we stayed in while it snowed and played Cranium...twice.  For those who have never played it, you're missing out! We had lots of laughs and all of us have some incriminating pictures to prove it!

Diana acting out "The Hulk"

Del had to make me act out something until I guessed it

Mel's attempt at acting out "Humpback whale."

 The next couple nights were a little more low-key at home. We played some Wii, hung out, talked, and ate way too much! Diana quickly became Oakley's new best friend too. He could hardly contain himself whenever she was around.

Kisses!

Diana had to take a lint roller to her clothes after this!

 

Thanksgiving Day was spent at Ned & Renee Pontious' (Del's Aunt and Uncle). I made my favorite dish, greenbean casserole, while others provided the amazing turkey, stuffing, gravy, and tons of other delicious food! We had a total of about 15 people which made the day extra special. Even though the gathering didn't include too much of our immediate family, it was still great to have such a great group share a fun night together. And just to paint a ridiculous picture, if any of you had peaked in on us, you would've found 6 of the 15 or so people in the living room, face to our phones, playing the most addicting game ever - Angry Birds. Please, no one with a smartphone should download that game! Although pathetic, it was funny.

Unfortunately, I had to work the day after Thanksgiving but Mom Clark did some shopping on her own and found me some cute things! I've been much too spoiled by her this week! She added on lots of cute winter decorations and a card/picture holder for any holiday cards I get this year. So anyone who's doing one, send one to me so I can display it! Haha. 

Today, Diana and I braved the snow and crowds and ran some errands. We spent a few hours at the mall then headed downtown to check out the Boise Festival of Trees.

Mom Clark and I at the Festival of Trees

All-in-all, it has been a great week having Mom and Dad Clark in town! It's been way too long since we saw them (over a year!) and it'll be sad to see them go since who knows when the next visit will be. We've had a great start to the holiday season and look forward to more family time next month when we head to Olympia for an early Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Scrapbookin' Fool

With the weather quickly deteriorating I've gotten back in touch with my inner-creativity. I decided it's time that I put together a wedding album. But not just an album with pictures thrown in it, it's my goal to make an actual scrapbook of the day. So, Dellas took me to Michael's and I got myself started with some scrapping basics and got right down to work. In the last week I've completed the following pages.

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Let me know what you all think! I'm trying to keep the pages fairly simple or I'll be doing this for the next year! It's still all about the pictures, not the "decorations" so I'm trying to fit lots on some of the pages.

The Many Faces of Oakley

I decided it's time to give an update solely dedicated to Oakley. We got Oakley a year ago this month; I believe it was Oct 24. He's provided us with a lot of laughs, annoyances, and plenty of entertainment in the last year so I want to share some with everyone :)

Oakley does this whenever we take him anywhere. He "yawns" while we're moving and the wind makes his jowls flap. Love it!

We call these Oakley's "spit-cicles"

Now, I've never been very good at taking videos when funny or cute things happen, but I have caught a few things that made us laugh. So here those are.

Del put a lifejacket on Oakley and it was too funny. Oak would run & jump around while chewing on it.

Every now and then we give Oak a new bone. He gets SO excited and shows off by running around playing with it before he chills to chew on it.

Make sure your sound is on, but not too loud, for this one...Del is "singing" in the background and Oak is obviously very confused & does his head tilt. And don't blink! It's short!

Punkin' Carvin'

In the spirit of Halloween (a little early), Del and I decided to carve our first pumpkin together. We went to Albertson's, picked out the perfect one, and brought him home. I had planned on printing out a stencil/template to help us get the design first since neither of us are the best artists; however, I forgot that our printer ink was out so I brought the pumpkin into the office and, with my stencil on the screen, I used my best drawing skills to copy the design. After admiring my impressive skills, we got to work!

Here's Del scraping out all the punkin guts. Yes, I helped too!

Del and I took turns carving

Of course, you can't carve a pumpkin without roasting the seeds!

The finished product (it says "Welcome," kinda hard to tell in the pics)-- may not last till Halloween, but oh well

All lit up

I have to say that I found an awesome recipe for the seeds too! The few times we roasted them growing up we would just basically salt them so I wanted to try something different. This recipe has you melt butter, add garlic salt and Worcestershire sauce and spread over the seeds. It was very tasty!

ZUMBA!

Alright, I just have to share my newest "obsession." I recently started working out again and decided to try the Zumba class at our gym. Zumba is a dance fitness class that is based mostly on latin dance. I've heard great things about it but was always too afraid because I've never been a dancer! But, my co-worker, Alicia, and I decided to go together for moral support.
I figured I would be the most uncoordinated and funny-looking person in the room since I have absolutely no experience in following choreography! But to my incredible surprise, I had a blast and didn't do too bad! I've only done 2 classes so far but I'm already not having to stare at my instructor's feet the ENTIRE time. Surprisingly, I'm getting the feet down just fine and today I was able to tap into my inner "dancer" and allow myself to dance and not just do the steps.
This video is one of the exact routines we do in my class...and one of the more difficult ones for me since there's a lot of different movements and belly-dance type moves that I've never done.



I showed Del this video too and he shook his head and goes "wow...I'll just stick to lifting weights." haha. I highly recommend Zumba to anyone looking for a fun and GREAT workout. It was nice to know I can look like an idiot, laugh at myself and still have fun.

Important Lesson for Everyone!

Alright, gotta make this quick cuz I have to head to work. But this morning on Facebook I saw a video that was posted by my sister and thought it was too cute. So, for anyone who is from Boise, been to Boise, know of Boise, or even have ever said the word "Boise" PLEASE WATCH THIS! haha.

"Goodbye Summer" Weekend

I promised to give an update on how Del did with planning our 1st anniversary celebration so here it is: he did good for a 1st timer ;)
No, in all seriousness it was a great 1st anniversary. I came home from work on Friday to a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a card on the table. While admiring the bunch I noticed a gorgeous dark pink lily in the middle of the bouquet and commented on it; Del then pointed out there was 1 red rose as well. He had specifically asked for 1 of each since those were the flowers we used in our wedding. How thoughtful ;)

On Friday night, we went to dinner at a place called Cool Hand Luke's, not far from where we got married, then rented a movie and indulged ourselves with cake truffles -- the same ones we served at our wedding. Del had promised me about 8 months ago that if I'd let him throw away our wedding cake, that was taking up 1/2 our freezer, he would buy me cake truffles for our anniversary so I gave in.
The next day, after running some errands, I was loving the fabulous 88 degree weather and said, "I wanna go camping." So we got groceries, packed things up and 4 hrs later we were at our lakeside camp spot. Dellas jumped right on his jetski and he and Oakley played around in the water until dinner.
Every time Del would take off out of sight, Oakley would go running down the shore or swimming WAY off shore to try and catch up to him, but was never quite fast enough :-P So Del tried to give him a little ride, which turned out unsuccessful seeing he couldn't hang off the back, hold on to Oak, steer, balance and hit the gas all at once. Instead, he let pup just chill on it for awhile.

All-in-all, it was a great anniversary weekend and perfect end to the summer. I've given in and put up my fall decorations and decided to embrace the new season...but I still can't wait for next summer and our 2nd anniversary!

1 Year Ago...

Today Del and I are "celebrating" our 1st year of marriage already! And I put quotes around celebrating because unfortunately he has to work today so there's not much of it going on :-P But it's ok because we're going to celebrate it for real this coming weekend. What are we doing? I have no clue. I somehow convinced Del that he has to try his hand at planning, so he's supposed to be doing so. I'll report back and let you know how it went :)
But anyway, I can't believe a year has passed since I married my best friend and I can't wait to see what the next 50 hold!

Guest Bath Remodel is Complete!

The time has come for us to unvail our last BIG project on our home! Now all that's left is maintenance and small stuff. It's been only 1 year THIS WEEK since we signed for the house and we've come a LONG way!
As you scroll through the pictures below, you'll see that we wanted our last big project to go off with a bang with a complete overhaul!

Here is the before picture take a year ago! Note the gross linoleum floors, pink vanity and dirty everything...

And now! The beloved AFTER picture!!! Note the amazing tile floors, beautiful dark wood vanity w/matching mirror and clean EVERYTHING!

Here's an angle that shows the shower curtain, which was my inspiration. Bought it when i moved to Boise 2yrs ago and still love it :) Here you also get a better view of Del's wonderful tiling job!

View of the main attractions from the tub. Originally, this blue wall was brown like the rest, but after we bought the vanity I was afraid we were getting too dark. So I pulled out the blue we used on a wall in our bedroom and slapped it up! So glad I did; I think it makes everything pop perfectly!

Now before you go, I also want to point out the sweet welded tree design that was made for us by a friend of ours...if anyone is interested, he sells them!
Well friends, that's it for now. We still have work to do yet, but Del worked hard during his summer off and got us to a point where we can take a break to enjoy the past years' hard work :) And to kick that off, we head out tomorrow morning for 4 days in McCall. Time to relax and enjoy what's left of summer!!

Newly Painted House is Revealed!

Alright, I don't have a lot of time to write this evening, so luckily the pictures will say it all! Dellas worked HARD last week to get our house painted. He prepped and prepped and woke up at 6am on Thursday morning to bust out a few coats before it got too hot. By the end of Friday morning he had it done enough to get us ready to head out camping for the weekend. Now this week was the finishing touches - finishing trim, new light fixtures, etc. and it all turned out better than i ever could've imagine!!

First, let me remind you of how the house looked weeks before we moved in with the very FIRST picture I ever took:

And now...without further ado, our home as of now!! (click to enlarge)

Going back in time once more, here's back in September just a couple weeks after getting the keys (we'd ripped out all of the plants):

Now for the after! New lawn, plants, paint, lighting and all!

YAY! We now feel like we have reached a point on the house where we can enjoy it a bit more! Our backyard still needs some TLC but that'll come a lot easier than the front! I want to thank my amazing husband for being such a HARD worker! Without his handy work, we'd either be living in a crappy house, or broke! haha.

We're Still Alive!

Figured I should post a little update to show that we haven't fallen off the face of the earth! We've just been staying busy workin to make money, then spending it on the house and to have fun :) I'll just cram some of the main events in to catch up on the last 6 wks or so.

Oakley recently made a new friend in my co-worker's new puppy, Bear, who came over for a visit the other day. Bear has already grown since this picture and is starting to hold his own against Oakley.

Of course, we've been continuing our work on the yard. My mom came over for a week to visit and for church convention and with her she brought some plants from her yard. It was fun to get some spaces filled in the front planter beds.

I feel like it's finally at a point where it can be enjoyed and just maintained instead of torn up all the time!

I think in a previous post I ended it saying that Del's goal was to finish exterior painting by mid-June. Well, that didn't happen, but that's ok! It gave me a little more time to contemplate paint colors and get used to some samples. Below is the concept I first started with...I'm not saying what the decision is, but I'll debut the finished product one of these days!

With all the work we've been doing (ok, Del has been doing most of it to be honest since he's home for the summer!) we decided to take a weekend off and take our first camping trip of the year! Not only was it the first trip in general, but it was our first trip with the trailer and first with the pup!

We headed down southwest of Boise about 2hrs to Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park. Neither of us had been there so we thought it was worth a look. The weather was spotty, but in general pretty good! We woke up Saturday morning and climbed to the top of the Dunes (about a 500ft vertical climb) which was harder than we anticipated! No matter how big of step you took, you'd end up sliding 1/2 way back down in the sand! But we made it to the top and took in the view!

We ended up with one TIRED pup through all this, but he was a good sport!

At the top with Oakley...was a great view!

Well, I suppose that sums up life in the Clark household over the last little while. We've had some great times to lead us into the summer season and already got most of the summer booked up...I can't wait for it!