2012

Well, friends, 2012 is almost over. We've been blessed greatly this year and I have had the grand opportunity of getting to know my in-laws a lot better. It's definitely had downsides to living with the in-laws but I can say that I feel like I know them a lot better. And working the farmer's market with Amanda turned out to be a great bonding experience with her also. (I sure am ready to move though ;))

2012 In a Nut Shell

January-Settled in. Oliver got his job back at Appleton Steel. I worked at Little Angel Child Care for my 7 week internship. Callings in the YM and YW.

February-Still working hard. Enjoying Wisconsin! Finished internship and therefore all homework ;) Quit Walgreens :D

March

April-I officially graduated from BYU-Idaho with a Bachelor's in Child Development

June-Trip to Wisconsin Dells with my family for the annual Dells Run. Three year anniversary. Day trip to Six Flags! Rode the new X-flight coaster and every other roller coaster a few times. It was a great day to go.

July-I got an ipad for my birthday! So worth it. Noah's Ark in the Dells with the Clares. That was a great day (on the Fourth of July).

August-

September-Paid off Oliver's student loans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think Brittany and Ethan got engaged sometime around here. Also started a new job at Play and Grow Learning Center as a three-year-old teacher.

October-Carved the sweetest pumpkin ever.

November-Being thankful. Picked up Oscar.

December-Excellent Christmas. Started looking at houses!!!

So our year was not all that exciting. Honestly we've been working our butts off to pay off our student loans and save for a house. This has meant restricting our budget a bit (although we got a break for Christmas because Oliver worked on a house with his Dad and that paid for Christmas). We finally got to start looking at houses! We're working with a great mortgage lady and the relator seemed pretty nice when we looked this past Friday. I have already found the perfect house in the perfect location and Oliver likes it too but since we've only seen three houses we're going to check out some other ones in the area first before moving forward with that one. I would be okay with not looking but it's probably the better idea. If we find a house, etc, then we should be moving in March and more than half of my student loans will be paid off. So living with the in-laws has been bitter sweet. We have been able to save so much by living here and it has been a great experience getting to know everyone even better but I am so looking forward to moving on and being able to have my own house in just 3 months! I'm really looking forward to using all of my stuff again and two Christmases worth of presents that I haven't been able to really open because I can't use them yet. It's going to be a big year!

Christmas

Christmas was excellent this year. Oliver got some awesome legos from me that he was not expecting. He built me some beautiful furniture that I now have to sand and stain. He made matching bedside tables and shelves for our movies. 

Thankfully, next year we will have our own house and will be adjusting our Christmas schedule so that we can spend more time at my parent's house etc. I do have a lot of Grandparents that we went to and my parents were there but it was kind of lame Christmas morning when we had to leave their house right away after presents to get back to the Clares. It would have been nice to linger. Next year we'll probably just stick to going to my parents and Oliver's parents and visiting everyone else some other time. We'll see what happens. :D

Halloween

As always, we carved a great pumpkin this year (by we I mean Oliver did).

Yes, we took it from Pinterest. But it still looked fantastic!

Oscar

The week before Thanksgiving Oliver was going hunting at his friend Randall's parents land. Since they had to be up early they spent the night over there and Sarah (Randall's wife) and I went over for dinner. So Randall's parents own a big piece of land with woods and a barn full of cows...and a lot of cats...and therefore kittens. And then I took one home with me....

 

 Alex really enjoys Oscar. He likes being able to carry one of the cats around.

His name is Oscar. And I will seriously not be getting another animal until one of our three kicks the bucket. Anyway, he is super fun and full of energy. He and Mikey had become the best of friends for a little while and then Mikey got some eye infection (which is better now) and now hates the world and specifically playful Osacr. Oscar is a little trouble maker and usually gets kicked out of our room at night because he will not sleep. He really likes to play with my hair an dandy ones feet (is hazardous while walking).

Luckily, his claws and manhood will be gone this coming Friday! We're all very excited.

Little Brother

I had a great summer spending time with my brother outside, etc. he loves to come to my house and asks me a lot if he can come over. And he does come over a lot. He turned four in November and is very into Legos. Very specifically dinosaur Legos. He did get all the big "dinosaur city" Lego sets for Christmas that he wanted. But don't ask if you can take the Legos apart to build them again. Every
time I do it's a definite no. I also started working at a different child care center in September. At this new place I work four days a week for 10 hours a day. Therefore every Friday I spend the whole day with Alex. This does mean that he usually gets stuck running errands with me but we do have lots of fun together!

Farmer's Market

Every Saturday over the summer was spent at the Neenah Farmer's Market. It took a ton of work and the second half of the season was not really worth it but we were able to promote Oliver's photo business a bit more and sold a decent amount of alphabet letters that we worked really hard on finding.

Oliver's sister, Amanda, shares the booth with us. She sold jewelry that she makes (and is upper gorgeous and has really good prices).

This was our booth and examples of the photo letters. Some of Oliver's photos were also available for purchase (we only sold two the whole season but got a lot of compliments). Also note that we had a banner made and polo shirts embroidered with his logo. We're pretty legit. He did get some photo jobs scheduled throughout the season but a lot of them cancelled for various reasons.

That's a better picture of the letters and one way I came up with to actually use them (besides framing your last name, which is how the whole alphabet thing got started because I wanted our last name done).

Over all it was a pretty good experience. We had some really yummy egg rolls from another vendor and made friends with our neighbor who crotchets hats. If we ever do it again we have already decided to only do the half season because 18 Saturdays is way too many.

Finally!

I have not posted any blogs since July because I got an ipad for my birthday and have not been able to figure out a way to upload photos to my blog with my ipad. Well I have finally figured it out and will now post a bunch to catch up!

Fourth of July

The past two years for the Fourth of July (one of my favorite holidays) we were in Rexburg. The first year I had to work and then Adrienne and Will stopped over and we lit some kind of fireworks in the parking lot. Last year, we walked all the way down to the fireworks in Rexburg and waited for about an hour and then left. We found out the next day that they had started 2-ish hours later, since the rodeo hadn't finished on time. This year the Fourth of July ended up being the only day that all of the Clares (Steve, Monica, Oliver, Heather, Emmett, Elliott, Amanda, Bob, Alex, and Elias) could make it to Noah's Ark together before Emmett leaves on his mission next week. So, we went to Noah's Ark! (Since it's a waterpark I don't have any pictures). It was a fantastic day and we got lots of sun but stayed cooler than our friends and family stuck here. We did a lot of slides and some time in the wave pool. I learned that I very much do not like waiting in line for water slides compared to roller coasters. The wave pool was by far my favorite part. I think it was a fantastic day, and we stopped at Pedro's afterwards for a snickers chimichunga (little piece of heaven). We also made it home part way through the Neenah fireworks so we walked to the park to watch some of them. It was a great day.

Three Years Later...

Yesterday was our three year anniversary. We got chinese takeout from Oliver's favorite: Hunan One and had a carpet picnic in the living room. We then took a nap and watched The Dark Knight (we're more excited for the new one now that we watched that again). And just when we thought our night was complete....we walked to Dairy Queen for ice cream! Best night ever!

Here's some snap shots from three years ago and what we were doing on that day.

June 20, 2009

(This was our roller coaster prep, for Six Flags)

A lot has happened in three years and there's a lot more yet to come!

I {heart} mod podge

My Date Night Jar. Oliver may not like it but I do! Now to put it into effect. And to get Oliver to add some of his own date night ideas. He's not such a willing participant so far.

Dells Run 2012

This past weekend was the Dells Run. My Dad won best of show, stock for his red Fiero (obviously all stock). Mom, Dad, Brittany, Alex, Laurie, Bob, Kyle, Kaylee, Devon, Destiny, Leah, Tracy, Lisa, Oliver and I were all there for the weekend. We had tons of fun swimming in the waterpark (outside was too cold), eating good food, and enjoying all the Fieros. My dad sure is popular with the Fiero crowd too. He has a lot of friends and a lot of people that want to talk to him!

My Snickers Chimichunga...aka little piece of heaven! (It looks fancier when it's not to go)

 

(Most of the pictures are on Oliver's camera, but it was one heck of a weekend!)

Memorial Day

I think this Memorial Day was pretty awesome. I have one hefty t-shirt tan to prove it too :) I rode a bike to the Neenah-Menasha Parade to meet up with my dad and brother. I rode as far as I could and was at the corner they were supposed to be at but it took a good 15ish minutes before I realized they were right across the street from me. I did a quick run across at a slow point in the parade and was able to watch the end of it. Then my dad said he and Alex were going to check out a car show in Omro and asked if I wanted to go. It was a nice little show.

It was a very hot day and Alex's ice cream melted much faster than he could eat it. We then spent the evening eating good food out on the front porch with my parents and Oliver's parents. Alex is pretty hilarious when he is over here. Usually when he comes over he likes to search for my cats, go to the park, and then read books out on the front porch. So when he came to eat dinner he really acts like he owns the place! He likes to run inside to look through the windows at everyone on the porch and then do it all over again. And he sure knew how to get some delicious fruit punch soda from Oliver, every time he went inside. It was an awesome day.

Headbands

Before

After

Yes, it says gorgeous on it :) I feel so organized now

I'M AN ACTUAL GRADUATE!

Well, you can't really read it but it's a Bachelor's in Child Development.

We are going to rock the Farmer's Market!

All I can say is I've got one talented husband! Our alphabet project is turning out pretty fantastic!

New Creation

This is something I found to do on pinterest. I made one for me, one for my mom's birthday, and one for Kaila who is getting married! Now that they have officially been given their presents I can show off my handy work without spoiling a surprise.

I used velcro instead of working with messy magnetic paint as they did on pinterest and I think they look amazing! All the blogs I looked at said the clear calendar sheets were the hardest to find so if you want to make your own go to http://www.orientaltrading.com/api/search?Ntt=clear+acrylic+calendar because it is a WAY better deal. OR I will be making and selling these at the Farmer's Market this summer...in case anyone is interested.

Impatience

http://www.homes.com/listing/155521512/?zmc=EM-LST-STF

I have found so many cute little houses for sale around Neenah, like the one above. I am so ready to have my own space again! I love my in-laws and am super grateful that they are letting us stay with them but I am so IMPATIENT. I just want to get out and I know an apartment is just throwing away money when there are soooo many houses for sale around here. Besides, I now have to share a bathroom with three boys since my two brother-in-laws are home for the summer (well, one will be on Wednesday). Anyway, I really just wanted to post that house because I love it. It's very small but very clean and cozy.

In other news, Oliver has not found a job outside of Appleton Steel yet. Still looking. I have learned to crochet and make some super cute head bands. 

Oliver is going to have a booth to promote his photography business at the Neenah Farmer's Market so I thought I would sell these also. It gives me something to do with all my free time. The semester was officially over at BYU-Idaho on last week Friday. A few more weeks and I should get my degree in the mail!!

The Saturday before Easter we were able to be chaperones for the youth temple trip. It was amazing and a very long drive :(. Oliver and I both have callings in the YM/YW. It has been loads of fun although some of the girls were in YW with me when I was there. So I am either Sister Heather (my mother-in-law is also in YW so Sister Clare is taken) or just Heather.