Cadet Stevenson is Home!!

look how serious!!
Dane and Hannah
Dane's squad- ROMEO

My brother has had quite a busy summer. He has traveled for the past month and a have to two months straight! He spent a couple of weeks in Africa helping build a school and an outhouse and stupidly chased an elephant until it decided to charge at him.

For the month of August he spent his time at field training in Alabama and Mississippi for the Air Force. The weird thing was I was more excited/ nervous for him to be at training than I was for him to be around the world in Kenya.

We got to video chat with him on Saturday & Sunday and it was so fun. He did this cool thing on the computer where you can screen share with audio so we were able to talk and look at all his pictures at the same time.

I love video chatting with my family- Smitty rolls his eyes a lot but I think it's great. We just laugh a ton!! I can talk to them while they do their hair, eat, show me projects/ new outfits, work on the computer, etc. Hannah even shows us how she can put her foot over her head we laugh at each other the whole time.

Love you guys

August 2009

I just need a moment to say how excited I am for my husband. He has been in school for 6 weeks now and he is acing Anatomy! He is loving every every moment of Medical school and it fits him so well. He is a born doctor. He has been doing really well on all his classes. Every Sunday one of the guys tells me that Smitty is on fire and he is the smartest guy in the group.

We had a little incident in our home today. For the past month every time I turn the oven on it takes about 45 minutes to pre-heat and the main floor of our house smells like gas the entire time I'm cooking. I finally had time to call the management company and they sent the whole neighborhood over to fix it. They have yet to fix the water heater, doorbell and they need parts for the oven. We were in no immediate danger but the headaches were starting so I'm glad they came so quickly and that Smitty wanted to eat out after his big test today because I will not be turning the stove on until it is fixed.

I was thinking today that I need to write down all the things I have learned about moving to make myself little reminders for next time of for the next wife in my shoes: sell as much of your furniture as possible before you move. The next place will probably require a different layout anyway. Make sure you organized, purge and LABEL everything you own so you know what you have and you can keep track of everything. Put aside at least $3500 for moving expenses and $5000 for living expenses for the first couple months- look up all the info on renters/ car insurance, drivers licenses, registering cars, transfer your mail, renter's walk thru- complete with photos, I recommend not working for the first couple of months so you can meet people in the ward and have time to get to know them. Move to the area and live in an extend-a-stay hotel for a couple weeks so you can get to know the area and can find somewhere to live if the internet is not helpful( like in erie) Take to first week or so to find what you need to make you feel comfortable- Mall, Target, new favorite grocery store, drug store, movie theatre, dry cleaner, etc. drive around and "get lost" so you can get to know the area- closet parks, gym, post office, library, etc.

That's enough for now

Peace out

What happens when your not employed

Ambush's recent activities
72 hour kits with laminated labels- yes I answer to nerd
extreme close up!!
New labels on bins
Storage
Scrapbooking & card supplies
New TV stand
So when I am unemployed I make up a lot to do. In the last couple of weeks I have refurbished some furniture ( I am very proud of this one) and organized, organized, organized! I should have thought of this before we moved 1850 miles across the country but better late than never I guess. With my trusty label maker and my new computer (Bert is back people) I should now know where everything is. My life should be easy as pie now, right?! AS soon as all the project are done my evil little fur ball sees a fly that needs to be caught mid air so she jumps in the direction of the fireplace mantel and there goes my cute little hurricane glass of red beads. Oh well I think target is calling my name!

One month in Erie

Our bedroom
Our bedroom
Guest room
My new TV stand ($5 & some spray paint)
lake Erie It's Huge!!

I find her like this alot
Living room
Updated wedding photos
Front door
Our deck and back yard
Dining room
Kitchen

We have been in Erie for one month now. I love the weather, Smitty has not seen the outside of a classroom of Library. The ward is awesome!! I wouldn't be sane with out them, I have already made a couple of friends and they do not work in a hospital and we do not talk about codes or trauma (that's a stretch for me) We have been back to Utah which was unexpected, unfortunately Smitty's Nana passed away. I do not have a job yet, hopefully my license appears soon but I have been going to the gym everyday and loving it.

I did go buy another camera cord so I can show off our place (as soon as I got home I found my original camera cord)

The lake is great I have been there a couple of times and I want to go back before the summer is over. You feel like you are at the ocean but Smitty tried it, and it is fresh water.