Travel Log

I know I know.  It's a miracle!  I'm actually writing.  But lots of stuff has happened this last month and it totally deserves a post.  The month of December was crazy!  We moved in with my parents for the month to save rent, but what we didn't pay in money we paid in labor.  My parents great room has now been sheet rocked, taped and textured, painted, all the lights installed, doors painted, as well as carpet put in.  I will admit some professionals were there for the more technical things, but we helped a lot.  It looks great and I'm so excited for my parents.

Christmas was a blast!  Paul and I completely surprised each other with every gift we bought.  We spent Christmas with my family and then went to St. Johns the day after to have a Badger Christmas.  We made Paul's parents a bed for Christmas and it was so exciting to surprise Pauls mom with our gift.  We came back the following monday, spent tuesday packing and loading the trailor, then went to Mesa Tuesday night.

Wednesday, the 30th, was our 1 year anniversary and we spent it moving into our new apartment.  We don't have a lot of stuff so the whole place was unpacked and put together in just a few hours.  For my present Paul sent me to Massage Envy for an hour long massage.  Mmmmmm.  It was the best present!  Then we got all cleaned up and went to the temple.  We wanted to do sealings but it was 7:15 p.m. and we weren't sure they would still be going.  If that was the case we had to book it for the last session.  As the men scanned our recommends he said "Would you two be interested in doing some sealings?"  We just smiled and said yes and he sent us on to the sealing office.  It was such a nice experience.  After the sealings we went to sealing room 3 where we were sealed for Time and all Eternity.  It was such a peaceful and happy feeling to be standing in that same room a year to the day.

After the temple we went to dinner at the cheesecake Factory.  Thanks for the Gift Card Grandma!  It was delicious and very filling.  It was such a big day that i was about to fall asleep on the ride home from the restaurant.

Thursday we went back to pima to take the truck and trailor back.  We packed up some more stuff, dropped some things off with different people, and went back to mesa.  It was New Years Eve.  We unpacked until after eleven, watched an episode of Castle and drank my favorite pink bubbly, Cherry 7UP.

Friday we got up, I died my hair, we packed, and were off to Vegas for my nephew Dane's baptism.  It was so fun to be with Chris's family and see the kids.  We usually only get to see them once or twice a year and they're adorable!  Saturday Afternoon we were back on the road heading home.  Got home around midnight.  We found out our new ward is at 8:30 IN THE MORNING!!  Can you tell I'm not happy?  Needless to say we went with Brady and Sherri to their ward.

Monday I started school at the American  Institute of Interior Design.  My first section is on lighting and we spent the whole day going over light bulbs which their correct name is 'lamps.'  I loved it!  I know so much about lamps aka light bulbs that everywhere we've been since i've been staring at light fixtures.  It's awesome and I love every minute of it!

Paul is still looking for a job.  The way things work in my family he probably won't get a job until we are completely desperate and on our last penny.  We call it Bingham Luck.  But everything will work out fine.  My problem is I stress out when things are going great so I'm a nervous wreck right now.

My new goal is to actually sit down and post new stuff about once a week.  We really do need to start taking more pictures though.  I realized we didn't get one with my nephew at his baptism.  I totally blew it!  Oh well, we learn from our mistakes.

Magic...

I love how one small event can bring back a flood of memories.  Tonight I was lucky enough to have that happen.  Paul and I have been married for just over 6 months and have known each other for almost two years and tonight was the first night we've seen a lightning storm together.  Around 7:00 a huge storm blew over the mountains and struck the Gila Valley.  Although it didn't rain as much as I would've liked the lightning was amazing.  We sat on our front porch in camping chairs and talked about what the future holds for us while enjoying the weather.  Once the rain came I was reminded of the summer storms I loved as a kid here in The Valley.  Back then it seemed like it rained a lot more.  I always remember the power being out, but my parents might have just turned off all the lights.  We had an old wooden rocking chair that we would set on the porch, along with our kitchen chairs, and we would all watch the lightning and listen to the rain.  I'm not sure how long we stayed out there, but it seemed like hours, and it was Magical.  The next day my mom would pack me, Matt, and Brooke into our old Nissan hatchback and we would go puddle hopping.  My mom would drive all over Pima with the windows down and deliberately drive through as many puddles as possible while we hung out the window and got soaking wet.  My mom was the absolute coolest for doing that and it's one of my favorite memories.  I love Arizona Rain and to me its Magic... (Top) Usually you can see the mountains from this angle, but not with this crazy orange storm.  Everything really did have an orange hue to it. (Below)  These were the first clouds rolling in. I thought they looked cool!

Badger Family Camp Out

(Above) At the campsite there were lots of little green cabins that everyone stayed in but Paul and I were dying to try out the tent his Dad had given us so we stayed in our tent instead.  It was so much fun!  It's an awesome tent and is even waterproof!  We got rained on our last night there. (Below)  Corwin is one of our nephews and keeps surprising us with his athletic skills!  He had this whiffle ball bat and a whiffle ball and kept asking anyone he could to play with him.  We would actually pitch it to him and he hit it out of the air almost every time.  We love Corwin!!


In the middle of June Paul and I got to go to his annual family camp out up by Roosevelt Lake.  We had a blast and it was so much fun spending time with all of his family.  James and Megan surprised everyone and showed up on Friday!  James let everyone know that he got into the Seminary Teaching Program and will be student teaching in Queen Creek for a year!!  Everyone is so excited for him!!

The Beginning...

I figured that the cool thing to do once you get married is create a blog. I'm about six months late, but I've finally joined the bandwagon. This thing is going to be under construction for a while until I get it all figured out, but hopefully you guys will have a better idea of what we're doing with our life together!