We make sense

I love that Scott.  His last post speaks volumes of him; he is so good to me.

Humor me while I share two other pet stories?

When my rabbit died a few years ago (the one that was 11 years old), he painted me this picture of her. It looks just like her, I cherish it.

 For Christmas 2008, he made me a shadow box of all my bunny ribbons and his belt buckle from showing pigs.  I tell you, he never fails to amaze me with his creativity!

He is also very humble.  In his post he omitted any details about what has happened to him in the last six weeks.  He dealt with 4 pricey car repairs, he broke his foot, and had a painful tooth abscess that made his cheek swell to the size of a golf ball (which resulted in a 3-hour root canal that we were very thankful for).

We have definitely had opportunities to serve each other lately, and have had a lot of support and advice from our family too.  I sure love having a nurse for a mother :)

On Sunday we heard someone talk about the meanings of names.  We were curious exactly what ours meant.  We were tickled by what we found:

Scott means: From or pertaining to Scotland
Heather means: A flowering evergreen plant that thrives on peaty barren lands as in Scotland 

So there you have it: we make sense.  Scott and Heather are meant to be together.

Tender Moments

I had a special experience tonight with Heather.

First, a little background:

SCOTT:

When Heather and I met my view on animals was that they are a drain on your wallet as pets and useful for sport.  Heather often wondered if I would ever allow a pet into our family.  

Christmas of 2009 I surprised her with a Hamster.  We named her Belle.  I wanted Heather to know that I could love and own animals if it really was important to her.  

HEATHER:

Heather has always had a love for animals.  

She helped raise a goat, Tugs. The bell that hung around Tug's neck now hangs on a lattice archway in their yard.  Each time Heather passes underneath it she reaches up and rings the bell in remembrance of Tugs.

She helped raise Chewy the alpaca.  Chewy has special significance to our relationship.  In the infancy of our relationship I was at Heather’s on a weekend when her Father decided that the alpaca needed to be sheered.  I was there so I helped with the dangerous process.  We held, tackled, accidentally choked, and eventually sheered Chewy.  I like to think, and hope it’s true, that Kevin (her dad) decided that I was the real deal that day.  It was through Chewy that he realized that I had some work ethic and was maybe worthy of his daughter.  

Once Kevin approved enough I joined the family – one of the members of the family was Zeus, their dog.  He was a cute pup – that looked a lot like a border collie.  He had an immune deficiency for most of his life, but lived long.  One day he ran away and never returned.  It was a sad day for everyone.

Her claim to fame is her rabbits.  She used to enter them into the Davis County Fair and she won Best of Breed with her rabbit Scamper.  Her favorite Miss Dotty lived for 11 years.  Other notable rabbits included: Bopsy (first), Velvet, Hershey, Willow, and Lightning.   The average life expectancy of a rabbit is 6-8 years.  Heather is a great owner.

One of the harsh realities of owning pets it knowing that someday they will move on and not be with us.  Out of a family of  6, a general curse for Heather has been - she is the one to discover the deceased animal.  NOT something she enjoyed.

After that her dad would take the pet and bury it without her knowing the details and the plot. 

Present Day:

This weekend – while we were out of town our first pet, Belle, passed away.

When we arrived home at 1 am from Paragonah - Heather announced her arrival with the typical "Hey Belly! " she promptly went and changed out Belle's water and changed her food.  That night Heather didn't hear the squeak of the hamster wheel or the rustling of Belle in her food bowl.  

In the morning before leaving, Heather (suspecting the worst) made a trail of sunflower seeds to lure Belle out of her covered house.

That afternoon Heather sent me a text telling me of her suspicion and asked me to check on Belle.

I checked right away, so Heather wouldn't have to be the one to again discover the loss, and her suspicions were right.  So I ignored Heather for as long as I could (she thought I was sleeping all afternoon because I had plowed snow through the night).  Finally on her way home she asked me if I had checked.  I had to tell her the news.  

This brought a new duty to my role as a husband.  I was in charge of burying Belle.

We found a small box and placed her pink bowl in it (she loved to curl up in her bowl).  Inside the bowl we placed sunflower seeds (her favorite- taking after me).  And placed her deep in the flower bed in the front of our first home.

Last Photo of Belle, taken two weeks ago

Heathers love of animals has softened my heart.  It felt monumental for me to be the one that was able to take care of the pet that she cared so much for.  

In life Heather has had a way of softening my heart.  She has changed me - and made me better.  This is a small example of how she does that.

*Sorry for the length. It should make up for our month of bloglessness. And this is our Journal in a way.

A day in the life of...us

I haven't known what to blog about lately, we're just settling into our fall routine.  For lack of anything else to talk about, I decided to take pictures all day on Sunday and just give a glimpse of our day through pics.

7am Sunday, it felt too early to be up, but it was a beautiful morning.

Why was I up so early?  This little gal was running circles like crazy in her squeaky wheel.  I must have been sleeping pretty light because it woke me up, and I decided I might as well stay up.

I finished preparing my sharing time lesson (for the little kids at church). 





Scott was dressed and ready for his 7:45am church meeting.  Might I say he looks pretty handsome in his shiny gray suit.

Then it was my turn to get ready for our 9:00 church, and by some miracle, I was ready on time!

Look how surprised I was! (yes, I took this picture of myself...but yes, I really was surprised I was ready on time!)

After a nice time at church we came home, changed into some comfy clothes, and did what most people do... memorize the state capitols.

Seriously though, we bought some $1 flash cards at Target once and every now and then we sit down and try to memorize every state capitol.  Quiz us next time you see us!

Pretty soon I was out like a light.  When I woke up, my face was totally indented from the square pattern on the pillow.  I'm glad we don't have a picture of that...

When I woke up, I found that Scott had made his favorite treat, caramel puffs, all by himself.

After Scott got back from another church meeting, we were on our way to my parents house for Sunday dinner.  Scott couldn't find his sunglasses, so he just borrowed some of mine :) 

After eating, we got into an intense game of Bananagrams, one of our favorites!

We missed my sister Ashley, but we did get to skype with her later that evening.

Our little niece sat in her chair like a big girl :)  She is usually our entertainment for the evening.  We all just sit around and listen to her "stories" and watch her dance.

Back at home, Scott checked to make sure he had everything done for school the next day.

And that sums it up! Just a regular day here at our home. At least it's a blog post.  I was feeling guilty :)

Decor Project

After a year and (almost) a half of marriage, Scott and I have found that one of our very favorite things to do together is decorate our little home. Last semester Scott needed an art credit so he took interior design. He did really well at it and it was fun to work on his assignments with him.

Recently we did a design project in our living room I thought I'd share. We have an entire wall of shelves and until now they had books, movies, and mis-matched nicknacks on them. There wasn't a real rhyme or reason to them, so we decided to make it more cohesive.
Here's a picture of our blank canavas. We took colors from our living room to choose the color palette- orange, cream, and black. We also decided we wanted some glass pieces mixed in.

We bought some frames at D.I. (for .50-.75 cents each). We spray painted them cream, and also painted the base of some plants we already had.

The frames were a nice (and cheap) way to take up some space on the shelves. We didn't even end up putting pictures in all of them, some we left blank.

Here is a closeup of some of our favorite shelves. We got inspiration from the blog young house love. The jar in the far right corner is for postcards that we'll send home to ourselves from vacations we take. It should be a great way to remember fun times.

Another "memory" themed project are the jars on the lower shelf. One jar has ticket stubs from things we go to like concerts, plays, movies, sporting events, etc. The next one has mementos from vacations, and the third one has a bunch of odds and ends we collected on our honeymoon- rocks from the beach, a voucher for a free game of mini-golf we won, a bottle opener from the Grand America Hotel, stuff like that. We have six jars in all and are having fun deciding what to put in them!

One thing I knew I wanted was to have a few items on the shelves that were unusual; some things that almost don't belong. For instance, I picked out this little cake stand at Hobby Lobby.

Another thing we did was fill a glass jar (I don't have a close up picture of it) with pennies. The pennies are the perfect copper orange color. We have been picking pennies up off the sidewalk frequently, now that we have a place for them.

Our little hamster Belle lives on the shelves too. I think she likes her spot there. I love how she literally eats 'in' her food bowl. Too cute.

Anyways, here's the finished project! It was a lot of fun to put together.

We love having more of a theme in the room.

Christmas Surprises

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! From what I see on your blogs, it looks like everyone had a nice holiday. Thanks to everyone that sent us Christmas cards, we got excited every time one came.

This year we stayed with my family on Christmas eve. Christmas morning Scott was up at 5am ready to start the day. We made him go back to sleep, poor guy. Around 7:30 or 8 we woke up again :)

When we were all gathering around the tree, not quite ready to open presents yet, I heard a faint squeaking sound. I turned around and noticed it was coming from a big wrapped box in the corner. I got closer and put my ear to it and yep, there was definitely something squeaking in it!

I was curious, and I guess I finally just assumed it was for me. Without waiting for anyone, I opened the lid and peeked in the box. I saw a tiny furry thing run from one end of the box to the other and I threw off the lid!

Scott bought me the cutest little hamster for Christmas! I have wanted a pet for six months, but never thought Scott would want us to get one, let alone go and buy me one! What a sweetheart. (Scott, not the hamster. Well, actually she is too...) I was beyond excited and was so happy! We named her Belle.

I think I surprised Scott with his gift too. When we were in New York two years ago, he saw a shiny gray suit at a store in Soho and fell in love with it! He didn't buy it (partly because it was $400) and often says he regrets not getting it.

Well, gotta love Amazon.com, I found him an awesome shiny suit for less than half the New York price! I don't have a picture of him in it yet, it's getting hemmed, but this is at least a picture of the suit. Trust me, he looks incredible in it :)

Later that day we went to the Cutler Christmas party at my grandparents house, and it was so nice to get to see everyone.

On Saturday we went and saw Princess and the Frog with my family. It was pretty cute. More than anything, I was just happy to be seeing an animated Disney movie again.

That just about sums up the weekend. I'm excited to wrap up this year (which has been an awesome one) and start 2010 now!