Knock knock.

Who's there?

It's me!

"Me" who?

Me, Ashley!! 

 ...  ...

You know.  Me...?  I (used to) write on this blog? ... no?

*Sigh. Anyway. 

Well hi.  First of all, let's ignore the fact that it is August 3 and this is my first blog post for 2015.

Ignored. Check.

You know how a lot can happen in a year? Well, it can. A lot can also happen in just eight months. And I have the pictures to prove it.

However, instead of boring you by putting 8 months worth of pictures into one super lengthy blog post (because LBH - no one wants to look at 8 months worth of my pictures all at once except for me, and because it is utterly impossible for me to pick just a few pictures for those 8 months), I will split my super lengthy blog post into two somewhat average-length blog posts.

Starting with where we left off.  Because that makes sense.

DECEMBER

We visited Santa Claus at Casey's work.

(Santa sure looked (and smelled) a whole lot like Casey.)

We spent Christmas week up in Pocatello with Casey's family.

My mom came up with us, too- and it was really nice to have her there.

We played for hours in the freshly-fallen snow.

And some of us ate said freshly-fallen snow. (Not the yellow kind.)

Kennedy loved playing with her best furry friend.

The feeling was completely mutual.

To get in the Christmas spirit, the kids acted out the nativity scene.

It was hilarious. And they were way too adorable for words.

The whole Price/Harding clan! (Photo cred: my mom.)

JANUARY

Happy 2015!

I went on a girls' trip to sunny San Diego with these lovely ladies.

And went on a spooky ghost tour. 

No ghost sightings. Boo. (See what I did there? Hahaha)

We skied a bunch. When it actually snowed. (grumble)

FEBRUARY

Kennedy was the "student of the week." For a week.

Casey caught a rogue chicken in our front yard.

MARCH

(This month was crazy.)

Kennedy was Elvis at school.

"Thankyouverymuch." 

Then she was a cowgirl in a play called "Lightning Larry."

AND we went to Salt Lake Comic-con for an

afternoon to witness the craziness. There was definitely craziness.

She was so excited to see THE REAL Draco Malfoy.

Oh- also, we bought a new house. Well actually, an old house. 

So, we moved. (This is before paint and carpet)

This house needed (still needs) a lot of work.

Starting with wallpaper removal. (My two besties worked

like crazy to help me in the process. And wine. Wine helped, too.)

Then it needed paint. And carpet.

We lived like this for the entire month of March. 

And this. It wasn't awesome. (We also lived 

in my grandma's basement for a few weeks 

so we didn't get high from paint fumes.)

I was so happy for March to go away.

But we all know that March showers bring April vacations. ... or something like that.

A few thousand words

I'm doing my random thoughts a little differently this time. Today it will be in the form of random pictures.  Since they say a picture is worth a thousand words, here are 9,000 words for you (plus a few more that I added in for clarification).

My garden (which I will blog about later because my mother told me that I simply must), has some basil in it. Lots of basil. So I got creative (i.e. I spent some quality time on Pinterest) and found something to do with that basil. I made my own pesto pizza. This was GOOOOOD. Holy mother of all that is amazing. This pizza was wise-man-gift-worthy, know what I'm sayin'? It was THAT good.

Here is a view from the building where I work. So pretty. Did I mention that it is 102 degrees outside? Good thing I have air conditioning.  

This makes me laugh.

They (the city people) are tearing our downtown...down. They're re-vamping. I hope they put in a new mall! 
Oh wait. They already did that. Maybe they'll put in a water park so I can go on my lunch break.

Hey look! Boxes in the back of my car! Why? Because I love to play with them, of course.
When I finally get sick of them, I'm giving them to Ashlee because SHE BOUGHT A HOUSE (and needs to pack)! You go, girl.

Kennedy sometimes makes beautiful pictures for me to hang on my wall at work. This is a picture of me. She wanted to make sure everyone at my work knew how old she was when she drew it, in case they were wondering. She certainly wouldn't want them thinking she was 7.

Here are the flowers I keep at work. Aren't they beautiful?
Yes they're fake. Don't judge me.

I painted my toenails all festive-like for the 4th of July. I'm so festive. Like.

This is sitting on my desk. Staring at me. Waiting for me. Laughing at me. Because I have to go through that whole stack of paper over the next few days. And its only job is to be looked at.

(I can't help but imagine how much fun it would be to throw all of those papers off the top of my building and watch them slowly float to the ground... )

Zombie

Packing + moving + cleaning old house + cleaning new house + looking through boxes at 5:30 this morning to help Justin find his work badge + realizing how much unpacking still needs to be done + 4 hours of sleep = Zombie.

Pictures coming soon.

Not of me - of the house.

Tradition, tradition! Tradition!

(For those of you who are uncultured, the title is from Fiddler on the Roof)

Family traditions.
Some are fun. Some are dull. Some are not even meant to be family traditions. Apparently, in my family, it was customary for us to be transients. We never lived in a house for longer than 4 years. I thought that once I was married, I would break away from this family "tradition" and actually live in the same neighborhood for longer than 5 years.

So far it looks like I've failed miserably by carrying on this custom. I actually think I'm shortening the time span down to 3 years.

House #1 (I don't know why I'm numbering it, since it's the only house we've actually lived in since we've been married, but oh well):

We bought a house when we were first married. It was so adorable. It was tiny (650 sq. feet), but it was ours. We were going to stay for a long time... maybe add on to the back...

And then, 3 years later, I remembered the moving custom that was ingrained in me.

Actually, a business opportunity opened up for us, so we moved. To Texas. Yep. We sold our house, and moved into an apartment ("house" #2) in Dallas.

Long story short, it didn't work out in Texas, so we moved back home (7 months later). Oh- and guess what!! By that time, the housing market went up like a bajillion times, so we had to rent! For the rest of our lives! We found a basement apartment, aka dungeon, and lived there for a year ("dungeon" #1, "house" #3), then we had to move because, well, I got that moving bug again, I guess. (Actually it's another long story, but I won't bore you with it.)

Throw some furniture in there and voila! Our living quarters:

In the span of 2 months, we moved 3 times: Into an apartment we THOUGHT we were going to move into, then we moved out the next day because it was a bummer deal, moved our junk into our storage unit, then when we finally found another place, we moved our stuff into the basement apartment we currently live in ("dungeon" #2, "house" #4). So...3 times in 2 months. Talk about carrying on family traditions.

Well, it's been another year. And now that we've moved so many times, I think it's more of a habit than anything else. Time to move, again. This time, our landlord is very flakey about things, and selling the house we're living in, so we're not sure how much longer we'll be able to live there, anyway. It just so happened that a couple in are ward are moving out of their duplex (2 story) and it is available for us to rent. We will no longer be in a dungeon! YAY!

At the beginning of next month, it will be Duplex #1, or "house" #5.

Oh- and we're planning on moving, again, after Justin finishes school (next year).

I don't like packing.