DIY Dining Room set= cake!

My Dad donated the old dining room set to us as a sort of house warming present. We absolutely love the set up, but wanted to make it our own. There was also some water damage/scratches to the table, so we decided we could fix it all by ourselves and stain it a darker color. Pinterest once again saved the day and gave us step by step instructions. We're almost finished- just one last top coat to seal it all in then we'll build it all and eat happily ever after at our beautiful dining room table. Here's a quick preview of the first stages of the project.

This is after the first two coats of stain. 

The chairs aren't done yet. See the original oak color?

                                

QT or Circle K? Not even close!!!

Kai and I have always disagreed over which gas station is the classiest. Today, I think we found our answer. And no surprise, but I was right!

Debate: We all agree that 7-11 is by far the most ghetto, although their slurpees are still fantastic. Kai and Kelly are both addicted to the 79 cent (86 cents with tax) Polar Pop drinks at Circle K, but they have to walk past all the hobos, thugs and un-mopped floors to get them. QT has always been the cleanest and has a healthy stand in each which offers sandwiches, bananas, yogurt and string cheese. Until this point, the "K's" have continued to argue that the tastiness of their Dr.Pepper still ranks Circle K above QT.

So here's the deal... the new QT's have an ice cream set up where you order what you want on a touch screen (fancy!) then a person helps make whatever you ordered-very similar to a mini Dairy Queen, but lots cheaper. They offer blizzards, smoothies and soft serve! They even have an entire wall with approx 20 different flavors of slushies. It turns out the soft serve is the best I've ever had and it's only 49 cents! What a happy place :)

 

Bummer :(

As most of you already know, I had an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy. So, since I've told the story a bunch of times, I figure I might as well just add it to my blog! Kai and I found out I was preggers 1 week before our 1 year anniversary. I was at work one night and posted at Banner Good Samaritan hospital (which just happens to be the BEST OB/GYN hospital in AZ...) I had seriously sharp abdominal pain and got extremely dizzy. My EMT partner at the time got all freaked out because apparently I looked like crap, so he talked me into going into the ER, which at this point I was fine with because the pain was getting worse and my lips, legs and arms were getting all numb and tingly. They started an IV and gave me Morphine, Benadryl and Zofran, which helped with the pain a lot but also dropped my blood pressure and I think I passed out, but to be honest I can't really remember. 

Side note: Up to this point in my life I had 1 pap smear and that was the most embarrassing thing. Let's just say after this hospital visit, a pap smear is nothin! haha

Anyway, a bunch of docs and nurses and whoever else decided they needed to do ultrasounds, pelvic exams, blood work, etc. Throughout all this stuff my awesome EMT told me funny stories and called Kai, who was pretty sleepy, but drove over with a bag full of clothes n stuff. I was admitted and they had us stay that whole day and overnight. It was actually pretty boring. Kai saved the day and brought me Jimmy Johns sub sandwich, the #16 which is my favorite. I listened to the Coyotes game (we won, of course!) and then we watched Tangled and Just Go With It, which are both awesome movies. They finally let me go home, but first gave me a few shots of Methotrexate, which is actually a cancer drug. It made me all sorts of loopy- dizzy crampy whiney, etc. But they didn't get to chop me open and go the surgical route, so I was a pretty happy chica. 

Recovery wasn't too bad. I got off work for a few weeks, had my blood drawn 7 times over the next 2 weeks and started paying all the hospital bills (ouch!). All in all, it was not the greatest experience in the world, but I'm so grateful it didn't end up much worse than it did. There were actually a bunch of mini blessings hidden in there: I just happened to be at my favorite hospital, my dad and EMT talked me into going into the ER (you guys know me- I would've probably tried to tough it out until I was completely unconscious), and I got to see how calm/loving/tough my husband is- especially in not so fun situations. So, no baby for now, but I guess I'll practice the whole "patience" thing for a little while. 

Not bad considering how grungy/tired we are!

Movie time!

BuNkEr!!

 

Meet our studly little puppy! We seriously love this little guy. I'm pretty sure he thinks he's a person. Bunker has been good practice for parenting. We've found we have to be very consistent with him on the rules (no getting up on the couch!), he is happiest when he's on a routine and he just loves attention. He just learned how to swim last week and it is seriously the cutest thing! He's basically the best buddy we could have ever asked for.

 

There's no place like HOME!

We bought our first house! I'll try to get a video tour up soon, but for now here's a few pictures of the new place and the move. Don't judge the mess/lack of decoration...we're still newlyweds, so it'll take a little while for us to make it look and feel like a home. 

Front Yard

Rainy Day, but still love our pool!

Leads to our bedrooms, garage, laundry room and bathrooms

Copying our Keys!

Our first year went by so fast!

I can't believe we've been married for over a year and I still haven't gotten around to scrapbooking or facebooking or journaling or something!!! So many of my friends have these amazing blogs that keep memories and pictures all organized and I'll admit it... I'm completely jealous! This is going to be my attempt at keeping the world updated on all of our adventures. I guess we should start with a quick update up to our first anniversary :) I'm lazy so we'll just recap with a bunch of pictures. 

Of course, we made it to a couple of SUNS games... these fantastic seats were courtesy of our Uncle Jeff for the Suns season opener the day after Christmas!

We made it to a zillion Phoenix Coyotes hockey games!!! We LOVE them!!!

San Diego trip! Sea World, shopping and the beach.

We bought the cutest/smartest/friendliest puppy in the whole world and experienced the exciting world of potty training. haha

We took a couple of trips to Orlando, FL to visit Kelly and Michael. Our favorites were the character drawing class, Beauty and the Beast musical and the Tower of Terror

We became obsessed with tennis and even bought ourselves fancy raquets. We agree that the better equipment improved our game. 

Golf is probably our favorite lately. We watch the Big Break shows, root for Rory McIlroy/Rickie Fowler, and head over to the driving range on a regular basis. I can even drive the ball in the air now! Seriously, it's not as easy as it looks, people. 

We even tried an all day snowboarding trip to Sunrise mountain with Joel and Nathan. It was so much fun to escape the heat, but I don't know if either of us has ever been as sore/tired as that day. Ouch! 

I'm sure I'm missing a ton of stuff, but that covers some of the basics. We had such a great year with lots of visits with family, celebrating holidays, wonderful trips to the temple and learning to cook (poor  Kai...lots of "new recipe" nights). Wow this year went by so fast...I can't wait to see what's next!