Apricot Freezer Jam

I swore I would never be a food canning type person.

But somehow, Josh convinced me to make him some jam after a friend offered me her apricots.

 

I used a RECIPE I found on the Bell website.

 

 

In my last batch, the pectin clumped. But other then that, it turned out pretty good. 

Longhorn Day Races

This year, the Altamont Longhorn Days added a new run to their activities. They called it the Park to Park run. It started at the Bluebell Park and ended at the Altamont Park. It wove through the area, so it took 8 miles! Josh decided to run it.

Josh did his run in 1:11:52. He was pretty proud of his time and hopes to get it closer to the hour mark next year.

 

I decided to finally try a 5K race. Josh was already on his run, so I only had myself to take my picture.

 

 

I did my run in 41 minutes. I thought that was pretty good for my first try. I ran most of it, with a few short walking breaks along the way. I hope to trim it down to 30 minutes for the Electric Run 5K that is in September.

Fireworks with My Family

The Sunday after the 4th, my brother invited us over for a BBQ and fireworks. We laughed, because a few nights earlier we had talked about how we'd rather buy other things instead of fireworks and I said, "You know who buys great fireworks? My brother!"

 

We all must have been excited, because that morning, we ran into each other at the store, each there buying something to bring to dinner. My mom and John were out of town, so it was us, Vanessa and the boys, and Alden.

 

While Josh was grilling burgers, I tried to sit on the bigger trike. Daxsen came over and pushed me off.

 

Uncle Alden even had sparkles and snaps for the boys.

 

Alden's friend, Hank, had some glow sticks and gave each boy one. Daxsen chews on everything, so by the end of the night, his had cracked and both boys had green stuff glowing on their faces.

Fishing with Valex

 

Yesterday, we invited my sister and her boys to go fishing with us at Little Montes Creek. But DJ was acting like he wasn't feeling well, so Vanessa stayed home with him and we took Valex with us. He loved it! He is such a little chatter box and says the funniest things.

 

We set my pole up for trout and cast it out. Then Josh rigged his up to chum at all the little fish hanging out next to the dock. My pole didn't catch anything, but Josh caught about a dozen small fish. He let Valex reel each one in and pet them. 

 

Our first fish!! Valex giggled and then said "that's funny!"

 

We also saw a hawk dive and catch a fish in the lake. He thought that was awesome. 

It was lots of fun and we can't wait to go again. 

Our New Home

 For the last three years, Josh's job has had him working out of town, just about every week in the spring, summer and fall. The first year, he stayed at his grandparents each week. But then the next year, the company made room for him in their company house they own in Vernal.

 

Last year, we started talking about buying a home that would be more central for our jobs. I had been making a 40 minute commute for my work. We wanted to cut that down and also be able to get close enough to Vernal that he would be able to come home each night.

 

We looked at several houses, and even put an offer on one, but nothing worked out. Then hunting season came, followed by winter and the holidays, and house buying got pushed to the back burner.

 

Then this spring, our landlord told us he had a family member that needed to move into his rental. So we started house hunting again. We looked at a few, but everything in our price range was a serious fixer upper, which we had no desire to get ourselves into.

 

We kept looking online at this town home. But Josh is a country boy and we just didn't know how we would fit there. My cousin lives in one of the units, so we had seen them up close before and always thought it was cute, but never pictures ourselves in one.

 

In the end, we had two homes we wanted to look at. The town house in Roosevelt and a home in Lapoint. But because we were using the first time home buyers program, we couldn't qualify for the Lapoint one because it had too much acreage. We decided to look at the townhouse and quickly feel in love.

 

It was built in 2008 or 2009 ( I can't remember now) and had no serious needs like anything else we had looked at. All the other homes needed new carpet, paint, holes patched, etc. But this place was in great condition.

 

So we put in an offer and then road the rocky roller coaster of approval and closing for the next 40ish days. I won't get into it, but our banker was very disappointing and there was times I thought this move would never happen.

 

I started boxing stuff the first weekend after we made our offer; and when the big day came, we moved everything (but the freezer) by ourselves.

 

We've been here two weeks and its starting to feel like home.

The down stairs has a half bath. As I was unpacking, I found the owl tucks I sewed last year and decided to use them to decorate the down stairs bathroom. I found some cute décor on Amazon. Then I also plan to print out some pictures of burrowing owls that Josh has taken while he's working.

 The kitchen was one of the things we feel in love with. We've never had a decent kitchen. Just this weekend, I used several things I've never used before. I joked its because I'm still in the "honeymoon" stage, but really its because there is so much more storage room that things are easy to find.

 

 And it has a pantry!

 

Just this morning we hung Josh's elk. He declared it is now officially home.

 

A week after we put in our offer, our washing machine broke. We decided to limp along by doing laundry at our mom's and just buy a new set when we moved. This way, the furniture store would deliver & set up for free. It was kind of a pain, but well worth the wait! The laundry closet is at the top of the stairs and I'm glad we didn't have to pack them up there.

 

Upstairs is a full bath.

 

It also has a walk in closet!

 

The spare bedroom is still a work in progress. It will be our work room. I will craft in one corner and Josh will reload in the other.

 

Josh has had to work out of state a few times, so he's not been home at night as much as we hoped, but still, he will be able to come home more often then he used to. I love that my job is literally 2 miles up the road. So far, we've adjusted to town life pretty well. I LOVE my kitchen. The cats seem to be adjusting well. We've decided they will be indoor pets from now on. Sage has loved the move. We let her come inside each night and we are working on house training her. I also get up every morning and walk her. After years and years of renting, it is exciting to be home owners.