New Adventures

Two months. TOO long!

In that time... 

♥ Dan got offered a new job as the general manager of The Port of Subs in St. George and he accepted! 

♥ He started training for the job in St. George in the middle of July and over the few weeks that followed, he did more training in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada, as well. 

♥ By August 11th, Dan was done training and we had officially moved our little family to a new apartment in St. George, Utah! 

Since then, we have been loving life as St. Georgians... and for a girl who has never lived anywhere but Cedar City, that is a BIG deal! 

In other news, Dan and I bought life insurance AND Dan started selling life insurance for Primerica on the side of being the GM at the Port of Subs. We loved that the company was all about helping families get where they wanted to be financially. It's helped us, so far, and we've been able to meet lots of other couples through that.

Also, I'm working now, too... two days a week at Port of Subs! haha It's been fun and I get to work with my cute hubby... as my boss! I was nervous about starting work because of finding a sitter for Aurora in a new town, but we have had such luck with finding AWESOME friends here. 

Our great friends, Shaun and Kara Cox live in St. George, and they recently gained a cute little six year old foster daughter. Kara works two days a week also, so we worked out a babysitting swap thing for the days either of us work. That has been a life saver! 

Our other friends, Mike and Bobbi Nessen (who we met through Shaun and Kara) have been life savers on the babysitting front, as well as in many other instances... always willing to help us out when we need it; no matter what it is! We are blessed to have met them. 

And my friends from Cedar, Aimee Sanders and Marissa Wade live in St. George, also, and have been willing to take Aurora if needed. 

Plus, Dan's Grandma and Grandpa Rigby live practically down the street from us and are always so good to us in any way we may need them.

We have truly been blessed and felt the love of friends who have become like family and grandparents who we have grown closer to as we have lived here. 

Also, our ward is basically awesome! We have loved going to church and felt extremely welcomed! 

(Sorry, I think I have rambled a bit... haha)

BUT the last bit of news is BY FAR the most exciting!

WE NOW HAVE A CRAWLING BABY ON OUR HANDS WHO WILL PULL HERSELF UP ONTO ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING!! 

Look out, world! We love it! ♥♥♥

We have a "Plus One"

GUUUUYYYYSSSS!!! I'm back!

We (finally) got internet at our house again and so after almost 8 months AND a beautiful new addition to our family, I am back to blogging. Ah, I feel so happy about this!

Oh, how I have missed blogging. I have been journaling but it's just really not the same. Blogging combines words and pictures to explain my thoughts while journaling just contains my thoughts. I have loved getting back to actually writing on paper with a pen each day though. It's been nice to have some way to document all the wonderful things that happen in my life.

Speaking of wonderful, we were blessed to have brought our sweet baby girl, Aurora Elise Johnson, into the world on January 9, 2014. She is an absolute joy in our life and we are loving learning with her and watching her grow! Dan and I think that being parents is pretty freakin' cool! Ha! But really.

I can't believe our baby is 3 months old already. Boy, does time fly! She can laugh now and she always tries to sit up. She loves holding on to anything and everything near her hands. AND she's a talker! Well, kinda... she's always always babbling and cooing away. I love her stories. I'm pretty sure she gets more and more beautiful each day.

Today, Dan had to work at Ernie's (the new gas station here) so Aurora and I walked to church at 8:45am. (Oh yeah! And we moved! We live on the East side of town now, near the Canyon Park, so we go to the rock church building-beautiful!) It had rained during the night so the ground was wet in spots but the sun was shining bright and it had just started to warm up for the day. So grateful for the beautiful world we live in and the opportunity I have to be out in the sunshine with my baby girl.

Church was great. There was a baby blessing and the young men's presidency spoke on how the Aaronic Priesthood prepares young men for receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood (Dan's the secretary for the YM so he was supposed to speak too but was unable to get free from work...). Hearing that father give his baby boy a blessing using the power of the priesthood and then hearing talks on the priesthood was so wonderful. It brought me back to a month ago when Dan was able to give Aurora a name and a blessing, as well as all the countless times I've been able to witness Dan or my dad or my grandpa or other men in my life use their priesthood to bless the lives of others and be examples of Christ. I love being married to someone who worthily upholds that gift so our lives can be blessed and we can more fully feel of His spirit in our home. I have such a testimony of the power of the priesthood and I am so grateful to be a participant in it.

Life is so good! These past 8 months have been amazing and so so SO much has happened. Unfortunately, too much to catch you all up on sooooo... if you feel like you've missed out, just look at all the pictures I've posted on Instagram or Facebook and piece it together yourself. Otherwise, I'll (hopefully) be posting more from here on out about our lives and the adventures of the 3 Johnsons! Yay! We love having a third!

Settled In

Well, we're all moved into our new place (We even met some of our neighbors yesterday). Still unpacking and setting up our stuff how we want it but it's looking great and Dan and I are loving it! It was pretty cool that while putting away things, we found some cute shelves in the laundry room. Dan put those up yesterday to hold our TV in our front room and it looks so good (I'll post pics later)! Dan is such a handyman J Then I made a cute little display for all my instant photos using twine and my old bulletin board. I love how it turned out! I can't wait til we have everything just how we want it in our little place.

7 Q's

So I've jumped on the Gentri-Lee-7-Questions train and this time it's the "Back to School edition". This edition is quite timely for all those high schoolers (eh-hem, Collette, Cody, and Christina), middle schoolers (eh-hem, Erin), and elementary schoolers (eh-hem, Caleb) who go back to school tomorrow... the poor saps! haha kidding. But really. I can't believe it's school season again! I start my last year of college in 2 weeks! I'm only freakin' a small bit.

Anyway, so here it goes:

#1. It's back to school time! Are YOU going back to school?
Yes, on August 27th. 9am in the education building. AHHHH!!!

#2. Speaking of back to school... You receive 10 pts if you can name this movie:
"Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms."
Answer: YOU'VE GOT MAIL! That has got to be one of my ALL TIME favorite movies. Seriously, if you haven't seen it then you must! Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are incredible in it and oh, it makes me want to visit NYC so freakin' bad! 

#3. Who did you  hang out with in school? Cool kids, jocks, nerds, were you a loner, etc?
In HS I hung with the swim team, basically. Plus a few others that hung with us but I wouldn't say I was in a category. I was pretty friendly with all "cliques". In college I kept a few friends from HS but gained tons of new ones! 

#4. What was your favorite subject in school?
English! I wrote for and was the sports editor for the school paper in HS :) And now my favorite subjects in my elementary education degree are definitely reading and literature. Can't wait to help those kiddos learn to read!

#5. If you had to go back and redo one of the following, which would you choose and why? Preschool, Elementary, Middle School, High School, or College?
I'd choose elementary just cause it was fun and simple but that's why I'm excited to be a teacher. It's like going back to elementary with all the perks of being a student but not actually having to be the student haha I'm da boss!

#6. Home/Packed lunch or School Lunch?
Back in my K-12 years, I would say school lunch cause it was yummy and all my friends did it hehe but now that I'm paying for myself, home lunch. MUCH cheaper that way. Chartwells sucks the life out of my bank account when I get lunch on campus. 

#7. What's more exciting? The first day of school or the last day of school?
I like both! But this year, I'm going to be so freakin' excited when it's my last day of student teaching and I can graduate! Boo ya!

In other news, today is moving day at our house. I'm so looking forward to being in a new place! Dan's home doing all the dirty work (packing and lifting the furniture) as we speak and then we get the keys at 3pm. Woohoo!

Yankee Yard Sale

Saturday morning, Dan and I got up very early and headed outside to set out all of our stuff on our lawn and driveway to have a yard sale (day #2). When it was all set up, we sat back on the futon we were selling for Dan's mom and waited for people to show up. Promptly at 8am we had a few come by and look around but no sales. I turned to Dan and said, "Honey, I don't think we're going to sell very much today because we sold most of our 'bigger items' yesterday and no one seems very interested..." Yeah, I'm an optimist haha So this is when I swear Dan set out to prove me wrong. From that point on, our street was packed with cars; people were coming and going, buying and browsing! I was floored! I told Dan that it was only because of what I said so he should be thankful I had no faith ;) haha Although I'm sure it had more to do with the fact that my cute hubby was out there being a pro yard salesman. Needless to say, after selling most of everything we started with and ending up with a profit of nearly $600 ($800 when you add in what everyone else made), I will never again doubt when Dan says he wants to do a yard sale.

Also, Sunday night we went camping with Caleb and Christina at Yankee Meadows. It rained pretty much the whole time but it was a lot of fun. We stayed in Dan's cargo trailer that doubles as our camp trailer and played games all Sunday night then we went fishing for a bit on Monday morning. The rest of our Monday was spent moving Becca's furniture into her new place for her, cleaning our house so it's ready to show to future renters on Wednesday, and putting in a new ceiling fan and fixing the floor in our laundry room. Dan and I were definitely busy yesterday. We are really started on the packing now because we move in 16 days! Ahhh! I'm stressin' about work, money, vacations we have planned and getting our house cleaned and ready to go in that amount of time but I'm also excited. It'll be good. (Just breathe, Liz! Just breathe.)

Coconut

Urga-burga-bloo-bla-bloo-blab. That's pretty much how I'm feelin' right now haha I have all these thoughts in my mind of how I want to decorate my house and how I want to be crafty with scrapbook type stuff and how I want to organize my house but I have no $moo-la$ to do it all. Also, we have so much stuff in our house and our trailer and our garage for a multi-family garage sale this weekend (including that piano) that I'm beginning to feel a bit on the claustrophobic/stressed side of things. Dan does not quite understand this feeling. Poor guy. OR rather, lucky guy. haha AND in my mind, I'm wondering how I ever managed to shop and cook meals for Dan and I everyday cause now that we have some food in the house, I'm totally drawing a blank on all my previous "wifey" knowledge... 

The good news in all this, though, is the fact that we have an entire box of coconut popsicles all for me in the freezer right now. 

I think I can make it through.

We're gonna have a pool!

Well, we're moving in a month. We found a place in Three Fountains right by Cedar High School. I'm really excited! We'll be saving about $100 a month and we'll have a pool... ohhhh yessss! But we are having to give Koda away which is not so exciting. I will miss having a dog. Erin's really sad about it so we're taking him on a walk tonight because a girl is coming to look at buying him tomorrow... Ch-ch-ch-changes! haha But it should be good.

Yes, this is an illegally obtained photo taken with my camera phone of Bane during The Dark Knight Rises at Fids...

In other news, I did go to the screening of Batman with Becca and it was A-MAZE-ING (now to see it in the daytime with Dan when I won't fall asleep haha). Also, our house is beginning to feel like an episode of Hoarders what with my in-laws moving, our friend Tracy Rust moving, and us moving. We've collected so much stuff to sell at a yard sale this weekend (EVERYONE PLEASE COME haha). I can't wait until I can have my house back to normal... seriously.
In the mean time, I'm just working working and Dan is working working. Oh, life haha Don't ya just wish you could have all the money you ever needed and never have to work??

2011 at it's best

2011 has been pretty grand, I'd say.
So here's the best of 2011 before the new year rolls in.
Bring it, 2012, cause this year's going to be hard to beat!

{January}- I married my best friend for time and all eternity ♥

{February}- I had a girls night with my sisters in our new place for the first time...

and Dan and I went sledding at Wood's Ranch for our friend, Bryan's birthday

{March}- Dan and I went on a really fun triple date to Fiesta Fun with Jeremy, Kaela, Tasha, and Amos

{April}- Brian Regan (the comedian) came to SUU so we went and laughed our butts off

and we helped Dan's family move from Green River, Wyoming, to Payson, Utah

{May}- Dan and I had officially been together for 1 year since our first date so we went to the carnival where our first date took place with my family

and my mom graduated from SUU...

and my sister, Bec, graduated from Cedar High

{June}- We got a new puppy and named her Roxy

and I went to the lake on the hill for the first time of the summer (it was so COLD)...

and we went to a pow-wow...

the Summer Games Opening Ceremonies...

and the Groovefest

{July}- We celebrated Independence Day weekend with Dan's family and mine

and we went to the July Jamboree...

The Ren Fair...

and the final Harry Potter movie

and the lake on the hill

{August}- I went to two bridal showers up north...

and went to two county fairs...

and was a photographer for a wedding...

and wore false mustaches with the fam

{September}- Dan did landscaping on a yard for The Parade of Homes with his brother, Jeremy...

And we went to Acappellastock with my parents and my aunt and uncle

spent Labor Day weekend at the cabin

Was a photographer for engagements shots...

and Bec and I put signs up around Collette's school to let everyone know she turned 16

{October}- We went up to Park City for Dan's mission reunion with his mission companion, Shaun, and his wife, Kara...

I went shooting for the first time in my life

And we celebrated Halloween

{November}- We celebrated Thanksgiving twice

{December}- We checked out the St. George Temple lights with my family for FHE

And put up our Christmas Tree

And went to Bountiful for the Barclay Christmas party at my grandma's where Dan got to play Santa's elf, "Lucky"...

What were your "bests" in 2011??