With this warm weather and the completion of our new kitchen, we decided it was about time to have a house warming party. Yummy food, great friends, good conversation...need I say more?
Eric is a master at the grill. The chicken teriyaki burgers were huge, messy, and a slam dunk! Pretty sure everyone left very full and satisfied.
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| This isn't the best picture of Kaitlyn and Nate but it's the only one we got of them together. We met these kids at our student married ward years ago and have remained close friends ever since. Nate and Eric go snowboarding a lot together...which leaves Kaitlyn and I with time to hang out and make crafts. She has the best style and together we're helping each other decorate our new homes! |
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| My college roomies and lifelong friends, Emily and Rachel. These lovely ladies are always there for me not matter what and are the definition of a GNO for me. Their friendship is part of the reason why I loved Utah so much when I first moved here. It's because of our many wild adventures together that I decided to stay the full year at UVU. Love them! |
What made the night even more perfect than it already was were all the smiling babies and kiddos running around. It was nice to hear lots of laughter in our backyard and I loved seeing Leila, Bella, Max, and Sam chase after each other...it was crazy how well they played together. Max and Sam are exactly the same and so are Leila and Bella.
Sam is obsessed with Leila and kept following her around and would go wherever she went. If he couldn't find her he would ask for her. And Max, he's such a cutie. He's a little older than Leila and last time they hung out Max would talk to her but Leila wouldn't say anything back because at the time she didn't know very many words. Max asked his mommy, "how come Leila doesn't talk to me?". Rachel assured him that Leila's a little older now and can probably say more words. Well, I hope she was able to keep up with Max's conversations with the 60ish words she now knows.
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| Met Cristina so randomly though my good friend Erin. I'm so glad we met because in the short 1 1/2 years we've known each other, we've become instant friends. You know when you meet someone and just "click"? Well, we clicked! Not to mention she's from the bay...and Bella is the same age as Leila. We have so much in common and were meant to be friends. Trevor, we love you too! Erin, if you're reading this we miss you so much! You're the only thing missing from this party! |
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| Chris and Sepideh. We met these kids when we were newlyweds in one of the many student married wards we lived in. We haven't kept in touch with all the friends we made but Chris and Sepideh are different...they'll always be involved in our lives. I don't know what I would do without Sepideh's friendship. We have so much fun together and always laugh when we're with them. |
I'm so glad it's finally watermelon season. We got it especially for Leila because it's her favorite fruit. It was a hit with the rest of the kids because they were going to town on it! Slice after slice after slice. We had to regulate because some were going on 5 slices...we just didn't want them to get the runs!
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| Rachel, Ben, and their 3 week old Ruby. Such a cute family. Max must have been running off chasing Leila somewhere. |
A summer BBQ isn't complete without s'mores. I'm so glad the old owners left the fire pit because we've used it so much this year. And thanks to pinterest I made a s'more bar with different types of candy bars. I'm not very unconventional and don't like change, but the white chocolate chip was off the hook. I hear the peanut butter cups were awesome too. And thanks to my good friend Chelsey, who is the best chef I know, I learned how to make the best mini cheesecakes. They're so easy and she was right, they are a hit at every party (they couldn't come because last minute Claire came down with a sickness).
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| Chris is telling the story about how he almost killed me with a huge beach ball at the New Years Eve party last year. Pretty hilarious. |
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| Trevor and Sara. Trevor and Eric go way back to Eric's Best Buy store days. Trevor is the type of person that will do anything for his friends. If we move, Trevor's there to help load. If we need to tear out the rest of our kitchen, Trevor's right there. Always the first person to arrive and the last to leave. Trevor and Sara are just such great people and we're lucky to have them as friends. |
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| Ashton and I go way back, we both studied Social Work in college and she was definitely my best friend in the program. We took a lot of the same classes and always sat next to each other...mostly talking of course. She is such a good friend and I'm so glad we've kept in good touch after all these years. We've become so much closer since we've moved to Murray because she's only 20 minutes away now and we hang out at least biweekly. It also helps that Sam loves Leila. And Leila loves Sam. And I love Stephen for answering all my medical questions. |
We ended the night watching our episode of House Hunters. Many of our friends don't have cable or a DVR and since our episode wasn't online they were unable to watch it. So we all gathered around in our tiny living room for some real entertainment!
I felt like I was at the premier of my own movie and was nervous and excited to see what our friends would think of how goofy we looked on TV. But I loved everyone's reactions and I didn't think our episode was that funny but it was non stop laughing almost the whole time. Of course, we explained the behind the scenes and it was a good times.
We seriously have the best friends. Ashton is the only one that lives in Salt Lake county, so the rest drove up from Utah County...as far as Spanish Fork. The hardest part about moving to Murray was moving further away from our very best friends. We still put in the effort to see each other but now we actually have to plan to hang out. It's harder to do things on a whim like before. We're only a 30-45 minutes away which wouldn't be a problem but when you add the distance, kids, naps, and bedtimes and it can get hard!
Many of our friends had already seen the house (pre kitchen remodel). But to give them an idea of what it was like before and during, I printed pictures and stuck them on the doors of each room just for fun. Because I mean, who doesn't like to see before and after pictures! I also printed pictures for our design inspiration for the house because our house is no where near complete, there's hardly anything on the walls and many windows don't have drapes. We have a laundry list of things we want to do. But that's the beauty of buying an old home. We can make it ours. Slowly but surely.
