Livin' La Vida Loca

The whole month of August was livin' one crazy life. Good Crazy though. Let's see if I remember it all. As many of you know, last September we bought a fixer upper (I mean Fixeeer Uppeeeer) in Concord. Last year we mainly remodeled the Living room (if you don't remember, here is the link to the post about it in our 2007 Christmas Letter), the kids' rooms, the hallway bathroom and this month well lets see: August 9: Took the kitchen apart. Everything. All the cabinets and appliances, the floor (four layers of linoleum- Yes four) and later on the windows and the sliding glass door. August 10: Blessed Baby Samantha. Had a party in our house. We barbecued outside and I made the side dishes at my mom's house the day before. We had Grandma Grandpa Bradshaw from Beaver Utah, My sister Kimia and her husband Jeff from Provo, Our good friends Parvin and Rostam and our parents. Josh gave a very beautiful blessing and we had so much fun having family in town.

For the next two weeks we (the kids and I) lived out of our car and stayed with our parents in San Jose while Josh was remodeling the kitchen with the workers. Thank you for letting us live with you for a while.

August 15: We celebrated our fifth anniversary. We were not together for the actual day but we went to Diggers diner for burgers and shakes two nights before.

We finally got back home on the 17th and tried to put our kitchen and our life back together. It was a lot of work with three little children but it was worth it. Our kitchen was absolutely disgusting. Now, let's just say everything we did was a huge improvement. Ready for the big reveal? K. First lets start off with some before pictures.

I know embarrassing, even for a before picture but here we are getting ready to pack the kitchen up.

Icky floor. We were planning where the Dishwasher and some base cabinets go.

We needed some room for our pantry so we had brought in the garage cabinets.

One of the worst part of the kitchen was this ugly ceiling fan.

OK. Ready.....

Tadaaaaaa

We put in granite tile countertops (The one piece kind was way expensive), tile floor (no more linoleum, yeah) and new windows and sliding glass door.

Since our kitchen shares a wall with garage, we made a hole in the wall to put the fridge in and a pantry next to it.

Ahhhh, the clean nice ceiling fan. We also put in recessed lighting with dimmers.

We love our new kitchen. The food even tastes better in this nice clean kitchen.

5 Wonderful Years

Last Friday was 5 years that Josh and I were married for time and all eternity. I remember thinking that day that how wonderful life was and I could not love him any more. But not only my life has gotten better everyday, my love has grown a lot more along with deep fondness and appreciation. I love you honey and here is to many more years together.

Are We Crazy Or What!!!

So when Samantha was just a week old Josh came home from church with Collin and Amanda and this is how the conversation went: Josh: Honey, I have a crazy idea. Me: (Trying to guess the idea by reading his face) I am not gonna like it, aren't I? Josh: Probably not, but it came to me at church so I will give it a try. Me: K. Shoot. Josh: Well, the kids were crazy during the sacrament meeting and we had two High Counselmen speaking but one was actually interesting. But all I could get from his talk was that he got a flat tire on the way to Utah and had to drive 600 miles on a doughnut since he had to have a specially made tire for his SUV. So here is the crazy idea, since you are doing well, Samantha is perfect (at least in our eyes, and grandparents), why don’t we go to Utah for the 24th? Me: You mean drive to Utah? Josh: Yep, we have a minivan now, I have this whole week off for Paternity leave and we can drive and stop as much as we want. We can also surprise my grandparents and show up for the family reunion for the July 24th. Me: That sounds like a good idea. I just have to think about it some more. Josh: You mean you are actually considering it? Me: Why not? Josh: Ok. Let me call Tony (his brother who lives in Idaho) and let him know we are thinking about going and see what he says. So, we called Tony and talked to his wife since he was at work and told her our plan and had her swear not to tell a soul since we really wanted to surprise Grandma and Grandpa Bradshaw. By Sunday evening we kind of talked ourselves out of going but Monday morning we get an e-mail from Tony and the title was, WE ARE GOING TOO. Then we for sure decided to go. We called and arranged with them and they were going to go straight to Beaver on Tuesday evening and we would go to Hurricane and spend the night with Josh’s aunt Nancy and met up with them on Wednesday morning and on Saturday we would all caravan to California together. So on Tuesday evening they went and surprised the heck out of Grandma but kept to themselves that there were more family coming. And on Wednesday morning we walked to Grandma’s living room with our then 10 day old baby. (Note that no one really locks their door in Beaver) She was half sleeping on the couch and when he saw Josh coming at first thought to herself whose baby is Tony carrying? (Josh and Tony do look a lot alike) but then realizes that it were us. She was very much surprised and excited to see us and we were so happy we did not cause heart attacks. Then we took the kids and drove to Grandpa’s Auto Shop and entered from the back door and surprised Grandpa with our presence and the new baby. That was way fun. We stayed at Beaver on Wednesday and watched the Parade on Thursday morning the 24th and met up with tons and tons of family. The star of the show was baby Samantha and everyone loved holding a new born. They just don’t stay that little for long .Then we head out to the John Flat campsite in the Beaver Canyon and pitched our tent and got ready for the reunion. We ate lots and lots, talked and talked, played and played and rode four wheelers and horses and had tons and tons of fun. On Thursday night my sister Kimia and her husband Jeff came down to Beaver from Provo and visited with us. We had not seen them since their wedding on February. It was wonderful seeing them. Then we headed back to California early in the Saturday morning with Tony and his family behind us and killed 5 birds in last 20 minutes before we left the Utah border. We were not sure why the birds were flying into our car but they kept coming and there was nothing we could do about it. We had a great time and the kids were fabulous thanks to the new born that slept most of the way and the portable DVD Player that we bought the last minute before we left home.

This is the Bradshaw's float. It says The Bradshaw's 6th and 7th Generations in Beaver since 1861.

Our spot at the campsite.

She picked these wild flowers for me. Isn's she just adorable?

Kimia and Amanda

From Left to Right: Josh and Amanda. Emily and Liahona and Tony and Collin.

This is what we found on our first pit stop.

Liahona came to our car for a visit to watch Elmo with Collin.

Sister Sunbaths

We cannot be held responsible for those of you in child bearing ages who view this post and stop using birth control!

Left: Samantha Right: Amanda

Josh's Garden - The Harvest

Not only are we raising kids but we're gardening while at it. Here we have starting with the basket of green beans going clockwise, yellow squash, carrots, cucumbers, white Patti Pan squash, Persian cucumbers, okra and zucchini. The green by the fence is lettuce, beets and some climbing green beans. After taking this picture yesterday morning I picked our first two tomatoes. We've been blessed with a bounteous harvest (and our neighbors have too).