"There's no place like home..."

Today was the day where at 2:45 this afternoon I got the call from our lender telling me that we were to close on our house at 4:00. WOOHOO!! You know you hear all these stories about when people close, and how it takes FOR-E-VER (you have to say that like the kid on the movie The Sandlot). We were both surprised when the guy from the Title company said "and here's the last one, we just need your signature and initials right here on the bottom". "That's it?" We both said. Needless to say it was painless and quick. I think the whole process took maybe 30 minutes.

We've been packing things up tonight, although we don't have a lot of things it's still plenty to be carrying down 3 flights of stairs. Glad my brothers will be here to help us. :)

Anyway, tomorrow we get the keys to our new place. By the way the picture of this place isn't our exact home, but it looks exactly like it...just to give you an idea. To see pictures of the inside you've got to go to Ryan's blog and click on the post called, "really people, it's just an empty house". :)

Ode to Ryan

If any of you have never met my husband Ryan, it's a crying shame. He's so stinkin' funny!! It's funny because at first when you meet him you may think he's all serious, but give it a minute or so and you'll see just how funny and witty he can be. If you read his blog you'll see what I'm talking about. Click on his blog link on the right. Love ya babe! :)

I never thought buying a house would be so difficult...

We were supposed to close today but found out on Thursday that the HOA person needed to still sign a certificate and send it back to the preocessor, who then sends it to the underwriter. So, our closing date has been changed to either Monday or Tuesday of next week. Grrrr!!! Although I'm sure things could be much worse, it's just frustrating knowing that we only have a certain few days to pack up and move. I have a work convention Thurs, Fri & Sat of next week and then we have to be out of our apartment by Wednesday the 31st.

I talked to the guy, who is doing our walk through, to set up a time to do a final walk through.It's funny because we met with him about a month ago, he knew when our potential closing date was, and he needed to put in a new counter top for the master bathroom, the old one wasn't pretty. So, I call him to set up the time and he tells me that they were supposed to put in the new counter top YESTERDAY (not a few weeks ago when we first met with him)...hello...we were supposed to close today and they're just now doing our countertop??? Anyway, so he told me that the new countertop back splash didn't fit like the other one, so he's sending a guy out to move the mirror so it fits. I told him that our closing date has changed to Monday or Tuesday, so this countertop needs to be in right away. Ryan said I was too nice on the phone when he told me this. I guess I could have been more assertive; something I'm still learning to be.

Oh well, we were able to find a new couch & chair yesterday that we both agreed on. Today we're going to borrow the pillows from the couch, head on over to our new place and make sure the it matches the carpet and the walls; both neutral colors so we should be ok. It's a really nice couch set that will be put in our living room. It's classy & a bit formal looking...yet it's casual, which is exactly what I wanted. Cross your fingers that we'll be able to start moving in this next week. :)

Oh! The stress of waiting...

...to close on our house. We're told that we are still scheduled to close this Saturday, the 20th. Waiting to know for sure if we close that day is the hard part. We haven't even started packing things up in the house, because we haven't gotten the "yes, for sure we close on the 20th". So we're anxious to get things going and just move in already.

We bought a new washer and dryer, and a king size bed...good thing because we've been sleeping on a full sized bed since we've been married. When we knew our loan was approved we started splitting up the rooms we wanted to decorate. I told Ryan he could decorate the family room, and his office & I would get the Living room and our bedroom; now we just need to do rock, paper, scissors on Lexus' room. Anyway, we're realizing how completely different we are, especially when it comes to our decorating styles. I love the calm, neutral colors, cozy colors while Ryan loves the bright orange, lime green, bright red colors. I guess we'll have to negotiate on something.

Pictures, pictures, pictures...

I've finally put together a little blog showing the pictures I've taken, to help my business grow. There aren't a lot of pictures on there, but they are the most recent pictures I've taken. Take a look at the link to the right of this page. "Shannon's photography blog". Let me know what you think and give me any ideas you have to make that blog better.

Grrrrr!!

Ok! So I think I'm going to need to make a separate blog for pictures that I've taken. When I added the slide show with the Fall pictures below it messed everything up. You can't see the links to my friends' blogs, my music, other pictures, etc... So, be on the look out for a link to "Shannon's Photo's" blog. I think this will help too with my photo business. If anyone out there knows how to fix my little "sitchiation", please let me know. :)

Fall is here...yay!!

I love this time of year. I love the red, yellow, orange leaves, I love the cool weather where I get to where light jackets, I love the rain, the snow...I love everything about fall, especially just knowing that Christmas is getting closer.

So, today after the first session of conference was over, my sisters Erin & Megan and myself drove up to South Fork to take some pictures. I took some of them and some of the beautiful scenery, and even some of my nephew Kalin & Kai. I am making a new blog site with just pictures of I've taken. So look for it in the links on the right side.

Elder Eyring become part of the First Presidency

I'm so happy to hear that Elder Eyring is now President Eyring. He was one of my favorite Apostles. I always loved listening to him speak, he always got me so emotional, in a good way where you couldn't help but feel the spirit. He's a wonderful man...they all are. We're so blessed to have these incredible leaders of our church.

I love conference time. I love being able to lounge around in my pajamas all day. We literally did that today, and then I finally went grocery shopping later in the evening. It was nice and relaxing, despite the HUGE headache I had all day today. Tomorrow we'll be heading to my parents house to watch the Sunday morning session as we eat her famously delicious Cinnamon Rolls. Yummy!!!

A house is a house of course of course...

We are under contract!! WOOHOO!! We'll be closing on a beautiful, brand new townhouse in Lehi, Utah at the end of the month. It has 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 2 car garage, comes with stainless steel appliances, 2" blinds throughout. Did I mention that it's beautiful?? You can view it by clicking on "Ryan's Carbs & Chrome blog" on the right hand side of the page.

I'm not the best cook but...

I sure want to be. When I was younger my sister Caitilin LOVED watching the Food Network. I used to think it was so boring, and never understood why people enjoyed cooking and baking. Caiti and my mom would try to get me to cook by teaching me how...but I just wasn't interested in learning.Ever since I got married I've been wanting to learn how to cook some good meals that I could make for Ryan. I'm the type of person where if I see someone make something, I automatically think "oh that looks easy, I could make that". So, I try and if I don't have certain recipes that the meal calls for...I just put in whatever I think will work. BAD IDEA!!!Here is a list of my "Life lessons I've learned from cooking". I call these my lessons because that's what they are...I tried, I learned and I won't do again. :)

-If you're making Macaroni & Cheese and you don't have Milk, don't try to use Vanilla Soy Milk as a subsitute. The cheese and vanilla combination don't work so well together.

-If you want to make Chicken Fried Chicken, make sure you use actual bread crumbs...not brown sugar coated cereal with almond slivers. Sorry for making you the Guinea Pig, Ryan. :)

-When making something with a bread crumb coating, (like chicken fried steak), don't mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients and think it's going to stick to the meat...it won't. You've got to dip them separately.Good times!

Anyway, so my favorite show these days, lo and behold, is the Food Network. My favorite cook by far is Paula Deen. She cracks me up! I've even come home to find Ryan watching her show. She's such a funny lady. I want to be like her someday. I told Ryan that for Halloween I wanted to dress up like her. I really do too! Her accent makes me laugh...I wish I could talk like her. Hahaha!The only thing I don't like about her cooking is the BUTTER. I'm not a butter fan at all...I never use it when I cook. I only use "I can't believe it's not butter" spread. I don't know why, but the smell of real butter makes me want to gag. YUCK! Sorry Paula, I know that's like saying the worst swear word.

Afternoon tea

This picture of me, Caiti & Erin was taken while we were having Afternoon Tea (you have to say that with an English accent) at the Grand America Hotel. LOVE THAT PLACE!!! Any girl who has not gone there to have tea; you really must. It's delish, and oh so fancy schmancy. They even have someone playing the harp. This is definitely going to be a Curran girls tradition. :)

Yellowstone

People keep telling me to update the blog, which I need to do, and which is the purpose of this new posting. However, I just don't have a whole lot to share. Man if we had kids I'd be updating this thing like crazy with new pictures and funny saying. Ha! Actually, we went to visit Ryan's family up in Powell Wyoming a few weeks ago. It was good times. My favorite thing about going to Wyoming is that you get to see so much wild life. It's fun to stay at their house and wake up in the morning to find deer roaming around the front yard; and that's something totally normal. I guess if you lived closer to the mountains here in Utah you'd probably find the same thing. But, we certainly don't see Buffalo walking in the street. That's right...a big huge Buffalo was on the side of the road eating grass. Craziness!!! My dream place to live is close to the mountain and close to wildlife. I love it!!