The last few months with the Johnson's

I realize I am not a very good blogger these days, I'm going to try and be better. Its been over two months since my last post! Life is going great for us. We survived the holidays and loved all the time we got to spend with our wonderful families. There is something about Thanksgiving and Christmas that I just love. It is such a great time to celebrate the birth of our Savior and realize how blessed we are.

Since I last posted Jonny has been hard at work. He took his real estate test and passed on the first time. This was a big milestone for him- he's been talking about getting his license since I first met him. I was so proud of him for accomplishing this long time goal. And last week he closed on his first house! He was so excited and it was awesome to see all of his hard work paying off. He's also still doing the alarm systems as well. He's such a hard worker and I'm so lucky to have him!

I've been looking for a job since we moved back in October.... yes I said OCTOBER! I have never had this hard of a time getting a job. I guess its a sign of the economy and the overwhelming amount of hygienists in Utah. Thanks to a friend I have been able to get a job for Mondays. I'm so grateful for it :) Its at an awesome office in Provo and so far I have loved working there. So I'm just crossing my fingers to find a job for the rest of the days. Even though I haven't been working much I still find things to do with my time. We finally finished painting and fixing up the house, which feels great. But the housework never ends. I always find myself thinking, really do we have this much laundry? I just did it and yet its piled up again! And we don't even have kids yet. But, I am grateful for it. I'm grateful for all the blessings we have!

So here are some pictures of what we have been up to lately. There is a lot.... so enjoy! or don't...

Thanksgiving 2009

My parents came and stayed at our house over Thanksgiving. It was so fun to have them here and to be able to have them stay in our house with us. Two of my brothers live in Farmington so they were also around. We had a great time. We got together with old friends, saw some family, went to Grandma Boyle's grave, played games and watched movies.

Here is Mom and Dad sporting their BYU shirts ( they met at BYU, awww) . Go Cougars!

My Mom with her sisters, Rita and Rochele. They are a riot when they get together. We always laugh and have such a good time. Don't they look alike?

Here are some of the cousins that were also in Utah.

We went to temple square and looked at the Christmas lights.

Pinnacle Year End Party

We always look forward to the backend party for Pinnacle. They have great food and celebrate the success over the year. Jonny had a great summer working with them and ended up being 9th in the whole company. He worked so hard all summer so it was good to see him being recognized for all that work.

He he was getting an award on stage. He won some great prizes and got a nice plaque (below).

These are some of the girls I hung out with in Chicago (minus Mandi!)

My Birthday

I'm not one for big birthday celebrations and if you know me you know how much I don't like having a lot of attention. I love having parties for other people, just not myself. I had a great birthday this year. Jonny surprised me and had a little party planned with some of our friends. We showed up to Texas Roadhouse for dinner (just the two of us) and thats where everyone suprised me. They were already there waiting for us at our table. After dinner we went back to Josh and Rachel's for cake and ice cream. (Thanks Rach for helping plan it and for making the cake AND letting us hang out at your house!)

Table #1

Table #2

Jonny surprised me with a new MAC computer. I LOVE it. I was so surprised too! It was a great birthday and I have the best husband for making it so special.

Christmas!

Here is Cubby on Christmas Even in his PJ's. I thought they were so cute, even though Jonny thought they were silly and that I'm crazy for dressing my dog!

In our matching PJ's that my parents get us every year. This was our first Christmas in our house and first time having our own tree. I loved it!

Jonny on Christmas morning playing with his new golf clubs.

Trip to Las Vegas

Jonny was in Las Vegas for work. So on Thursday night I flew down there and spent the weekend with him and drove home with him. It was a fun little vacation. I pretty much hung out in the hotel by myself during the day when he was working. But we had a lot of fun at night. We walked around the strip, ate at a buffet, and saw Mystere. It was the most amazing show ever!

Sundance Film Festival

Last weekend Jonny, Cameron, and I went up to the film festival. We weren't there too long, just enough to have some dinner and walk around a bit. We didn't see anyone famous :( I'm not sure of where the hot spots are to go! Next time we'll plan a little better and try and see a show or something. But it was still a lot of fun!

Home projects

As soon as we got back from Chicago we started working on projects around the house. We painted just about every room in the house and got new carpet and tile throughout the whole house. I'd be fine if I never saw a paintbrush again! It was quite a mess for a few weeks, but it was so worth it. We love how everything turned out. The colors aren't great in all of the pics- but you get the idea.

Jonny tore out all of the carpet and old tile. It was quite a chore, but saved us some money. I'm still trying to get everything back in order. I think we had about an inch of dust on everything in the house!

Jonny and his brother tearing out the kitchen. Jonny's family was so great and helped us a lot through the process!

This is the basement. The wall on the right is khacki. We painted the dark brown on top and stained the bead board on the bottom.

Another view of the basement. And Jonny's pride and joy for selling 300 this summer, his TV. Close up of the bead board.....

Looking up into the entry way.... Cubby was following me everywhere.

Looking down on the landing.... new tile and new khacki paint.

This is our new dining table. I love it! It'll be great since we're having Thanksgiving at our house this year!

The kitchen.....

Living room.....

Bedroom- we did a light tan wall and dark brown accent wall.

This is Jonny's favorite room- he picked it out himself. So it was only fitting that its Bingham Blue right? :)

This is my favorite room- the color looks really off in this picture though. Its a really pale green- not so bright. Then we stained the bead board in here too.

Close up of the beadboard and green wall

It was quite a project but its so nice to have done!!

Trip to Arizona

Last weekend I made a quick trip to Phoenix for my friend Robin's wedding and also to see my Grandma. It was such a great weekend. I saw a lot of great friends that I haven't seen in a long time. We all went to hygiene school together and we feel like family after all that we went through together! Friday night we had a girls night with Robin- we did a little shopping and went to dinner. It was so fun, it was just like we hadn't been away from each other! We had a lot of good laughs!Mindy, Kim, Robin, Colleen.

Ashley, Robin, Mindy, Kim

The new Mr. and Mrs. Stichler! The day was perfect and they make a great couple.

Kim, Robin, Mindy, Me- outside the temple. It was SO warm!!

At the reception. It was so pretty! It was at a friend's house on the lake and it was decorated so awesome. After the reception they left in a boat! I am so happy for Robin, JD seems like a great guy.

A view of the reception....

Me and my Grandma. I love being able to go see her and spend time with her. She is so great!

Halloween Festivities

This post has a lot of pictures- we had a fun Halloween this year.

First of all was our ward Halloween Chili cook-off and Trunk of treat. Neither Jonny or I had ever been to a trunk or treat before, so we weren't quite sure what to do with our trunk. But considering we threw it together at the last minute I thought we did ok. Jonny actually did most of it, and it looked really good. We even won an award for it. You can't see very well in the pictures but we had purple lights so our trunk was lit up. It was pretty cool. Jonny in front of his hard work.

Jonny holding our award. He worked hard for it.

HALLOWEEN WITH DEREK AND NICOLE.....

Derek and Nicole.... so cute :)

Jonny being our photographer....

Nicole and I making carmaled apples. It was really fun and they were SO yummy. We had a fun night with them- going to dinner, making the apples, and ending it with a scary movie. I HATE scary movies. Its a good thing Halloween is only once a year.

Some of the final products....

THE ANNUAL JOHNSON HALLOWEEN PARTY

Every year Jonny's aunt and uncle have a Halloween party. Jonny talks about all the memories he has as a little kid at the party. Melinda always has fun games like fishing, bean bag toss, cake walk, and of course the adult money tree!

Some of the boys....

Jonny and I....

The girls....

Decorating cookies.

Papa and Addie

The MONEY tree before we picked our envelopes...

I won!!!!

Derek and Nicole- the BIG winners!

Jessica and Tyler's big day

Jonny's little sister got married a few weeks ago. It was such a great day and the weather could not have been better! They are such a happy couple. Congrats Jessica and Tyler!Jonny and his two brothers Jordan and Josh Jessica and Tyler Day

Johnson siblings

The original siblings.... plus Tyler.

aww.... at the temple. It reminded me a lot of our wedding day :)

The Johnson girls

The growing Johnson family.

At the reception center- it was amazing there.

Bridesmaids.

Goodbye Chicago!!

About a month ago we said our final goodbye's to Chicago, and I don't think we could have been more excited to get back home. Chicago is an awesome city, but it wasn't too often we got to take advantage of the fun things to do. My Mom flew out to spend the last couple of days with us, and to help us make the long drive back to Utah. Isn't she great for riding in the car with me for all those hours? We spent a few days in Chicago, a couple of days in Nauvoo, a few more days in Omaha, and then eventually arrived in Utah. It was a long week of travelling but we had a lot of fun.

On our last day in Chicago we spent the day downtown. Jonny took the morning off of work and hung out with us for a little bit. This is Jonny in front of Soldier Field.

The Field Museum

This was us in front of the Field Museum- a museum that has everything from dinosaurs to plants to Native Americans to Pirates....... You could spend days in there. But a few hours was enough for us. I was lucky enough to even get Jonny to walk into a museum, let alone spend time in there :) They had a pirate exhibit.... but we actually didn't go see it. We happened to go on one of the museum's "free days" and didn't want to pay extra to see the pirates.

This is looking down at the entrance from the seond floor. I really felt like I was in the movie "Night at the Museum."

Chicago Double Decker Bus Tour
My Mom and I went on a bus tour of the city. It was the best thing! They had 18 stops- and we could get on and off the bus whenever we wanted. They had buses come every 20 minutes so we could really do whatever. We got to see all of the hot spots in the city without having to worry about parking or taking taxi's. We ran short on time because we spent so long at the museum, so we didn't get to do everything we wanted. But it was so worth it. I wish so bad I would have done this earlier with Jonny. It was awesome to see parts of the city we normally wouldn't have and hear all the interesting facts. They had great tour guides so you learned things you normally wouldn't. We even drove by Oprah's downtown apartment!

Cool statue we drove by.

My Mom on Navy Pier- one of my favorite views of the city.

An awesome old church- where part of "My Best Friend's Wedding" was filmed. The architecture of all the old buildings in incredible.

Driving on the bus.....

American Girl!

The Famour Bean in Chicago....

Our reflections on the bean.....

One of my other favorite views of the city. It is such a gorgeous place!

NAUVOO THE BEAUTIFUL

We stopped for two short days in Nauvoo and Carthage. This is one of my absolute favorite places ever. I love it there. Jonny's cousin is serving a mission there right now and we were lucky enough to see her in Carthage. She even gave us the tour! She is an amazing missionary and it was so awesome to see her there.

In Carthage Jail.

This is the cabin we stayed in in Nauvoo. Jonny's relative owns all these old little cabins that they've rennovated(?)- they were really old cabins that they've fixed up. Each cabin has its background of where it came from and who owned it. Its such a cool thing and the cabins are so fun to stay in.

The temple at night - so pretty!

OMAHA

My brother and his family live in Omaha so its always fun to see them when we're driving through and spend a few days with them. I didn't take many pictures while we were there- I don't know what I was thinking!

Mom with her 2 grandkids.

FINALLY HOME!!!!!!!!

With my brother's before my mom left.

We are so excited to be home! We're both trying to find jobs right now- which is the pits! Jonny is studying his little heart away to take his real estate test. And I'm.... just being a bum until someone wants to hire me :)

Bahamas Cruise

Here are some pictures from our fun cruise to the Bahamas. I loved the Bahamas! The water is beautiful and so warm. I hate cold water and don't like getting in if its freezing, so it was fun to finally get in the warm ocean! All together there were 16 people in our group, all young married couples. Jonny's brother and sister in law went too, so we had lots of fun with them!

This first picture is the first day on the boat- at the sail away party. I seriously love cruises, I think they are so much fun!Our first stop was at the Grand Bahama Island. We rented scooters and drove them around the island and ended up at a really pretty beach resort. Since it is September and the start of their off-season, there weren't a lot of people there at all. We pretty much had the place to ourselves! It was great! We laid in the sun, swam in the water, and played a little beach volleyball. And of course did some shopping. We got a little lost on the way back to the ship, but got to see a lot of the island so I wasn't complaining!

Our second stop was at Nassau. It was my favorite stop by far. We went to this awesome waterpark/hotel resort that a bunch of our friends had been to before. You could spend a whole week there on vacation and not get board! They had awesome water slides that all came out into the lazy river at the bottom, so you didn't have to get right out of the water! Then they had a water slide that went through a shark tank (we were in our own tube inside the tank). The landscaping of this place was awesome too! They had their own private beach, an aquarium, climbing wall, etc. I'd love to go back and just stay at the resort one day!

T
Some of the girls....
We were on the newlywed game- Jonny has wanted to do it every cruise that we were on. He was great at it, but I'm not so sure I was the best :) It was fun- and now I can check that off my list and never have to do it again! They recorded the show and then replayed it throughout the whole cruise on the TV in people's rooms. So the rest of the cruise people would come up to us and say stuff about it. I could have done without all the attention :) Half the group at dinner. They have the best food on cruises.

The group- minus a couple.

On the last day we stopped at a private island that the cruise ship owned. It was beautiful just like the others. There were jellyfish EVERYWHERE in the water, and people kept telling us they didn't cause problems. So some of the brave people went snorkeling- but I didn't. Two of our friends did get stung by them! That was enough to scare me! The boys played in a volleyball tournament and won first place! It was a fun, relaxing day.