Fine... I'll get my own ultrasound

After my first trip to our OB, I was so disappointed that we didn't get to see our little "sprout" for the first time. I wanted to see the reason for all my nausea and queasiness... to help me remember that I want to go through this. No dice. We have another 10 weeks to wait. After finding out that was pretty normal, I decided I can get my own picture (though it's not of my child).

We are SO excited to have this baby join our family. I'm pretty sure we're both scared to be parents, but this baby will be so loved. Thanks to all our friends and family for your love, support and advice. We don't know what we're doing, so it is all appreciated. Seven months to go!

We're taking a poll

If you haven't heard yet, Brent and I will be parents in September! But combining our genetics has brought up an interesting question: Who's hairline will the baby inherit? I (Allison) was born with a head of hair. Brent's hair came in around his second birthday. What do our friends and family think? The poll is officially open. :)

Our annual post

I considered waiting another week to make it a whole year since our last post. We are obviously not very good bloggers. Ironically, a lot has happened this last year. Both of our jobs have changed, we live in a different state and we are no longer newlyweds. Quite a lot of accomplishments. Here are a few of the changes we've made from 2009-2010:

*Brent graduated from ASU with his MBA (YEAH!!)

*Allison finished teaching her second year of fifth-grade

*Brent and Allison took a belated honeymoon to the east coast. We visited DC, Philadelphia, NYC, and Boston

*Brent applied at Edward Jones

*Brent got hired at Edward Jones!

*We packed up all our belongings and headed north to Seattle

*Brent started with Edward Jones

*Allison started subbing

*Brent and Allison had their 1 year anniversary!!!

See! I told you it was an exciting year! It's been great being close to Brent's sister, Tammy and family. We've also been able to head south to Portland to visit the Platt clan.

We love living in Washington, and look forward to our future here. Brent and I are part of an amazing ward. We were quickly put to work. Brent teaches the Sunday School class for the 17/18 year olds while I was called as the first counselor in Young Women. We are busy and happy.

We hope that you all had an amazing Christmas and are starting an amazing New Year. We will see how long it takes us to post again. :)

Another attempt

We are not good bloggers.  That's my new conclusion.  But I'm still going to make an attempt. We've been married now for over 2 months, and life is starting to settle down a little.  I will be done with this school year in May, and Brent will graduate soon after.  We're excited to have more time together, and finally take our honeymoon.  Life continues to be good.  We love being married.  We should have done this sooner!  :)  

Here are some of our bridals, that we had taken back in September.  Amy Hanson (Sara's sister-in-law) took them for us, and we love them!  We'll write again "soon".  (That could mean 2 months from now.  :)

Yes...We're Alive

So, we decided that after two month of no new posts and six weeks after getting married we'd let everyone know that we're still here.  So here's the Reader's Digest version.

We were married Saturday, November 8th in the Portland Oregon Temple.  Considering it was Oregon...and the middle of November, the weather was great.  It rained for about a minute while we took pictures.  Our parents and all of our siblings were able to spend the day with us.  Later that night we had our reception in Newberg where we saw how much people really like candy...especially the adults.

The next Saturday we had an open-house here in AZ at our old bishop's (Paul & Heather Sandstrom) house. The weekend after that we went to Montana to have our third, and final, reception.  The best part was when we went into Drummond to pick up some ice at the grocery store and saw our announcement and picture taped to the door of the store.  Who knew that we were celebrities in Drummond?  

Now that the craziness is over, we've been piecing together our apartment.  The best part was when we lugged our 7-foot couch up three flights of stairs, while our neighbor stood at the bottom and watched the whole thing.  I'm sure it was hilarious to watch.

Married life is good...what else can we say?  We hope that you all have a Merry Christmas and a great New Year!

My sister Sara

With a week off for Fall Break, I came home to finish planning for the wedding.  My sister, being the saint that she is, planned a bridal shower for me.  It was beautiful!  Her and my mother spent a lot of time preparing, and then pulled off a wonderful  event. 

What good is a blog, if you can't use the space to gush about the people in your life.  Sara has been my best friend for as long as I can remember.  We were nicknamed "Salt and Pepper" (guess who is who from this pic).  I'm so grateful to have her in my life!  

Um...yeah, that's not water damage. It's dog urine.

Not only am I out to prove to Allison that I'm actually kind of excited to contribute to our new blog, but I also have a funny story (funny-interesting...not funny-ha ha).  So we've been looking for a house since neither of us wants to continue living with our current roommates after we get married.  With the state of the current real estate market in the Phoenix area we thought we'd try our hand at the short-sale/foreclosure market.  Along the way we've run into some interesting situations.  Houses left with refrigerators full of food, ceiling fans ripped out, appliances missing, holes in walls, etc.

After looking at 20+ houses, the beaut pictured above caught my eye in the listing so I went by to take a look.  I spent about 10 minutes in the house, called my my friend, Preston, who is our realtor, and told him to make an offer.  He submitted and the next morning the bank holding the lien accepted our offer.  The rest of the day at work I spent dreaming about where I'd finally be able to hang all of my Pokemon posters and the case that holds my genuine Captain Kirk, Star Trek suite I won on ebay.  

Preston called and suggested that he go check out the house with me since he hadn't seen it yet.  Since he used to work in the construction industry I thought that would be a good idea since I didn't spend much time in the house.  Within the first minute of being in the house he found, at least what appeared to be, water damage in about 5-6 spots around the house.  I started to get pretty down, knowing what he was about to tell me.  Water damage = potential mold = don't buy this house.  About this same time, Allison arrived to the house from work.  We were both pretty frustrated at that point, considering we'd already looked at so many houses and are getting married in less than 6 weeks.

So Preston calls the listing agent and asks what the deal is.  The agent says, "Um...yeah, that's not water damage.  It's dog urine."  Now, call me crazy but hearing those words actually made me feel a little better.  We can replace drywall, replace all of the flooring, and paint the entire house to get rid of the smell.  But if it's legitimate water damage and mold we're not so certain we want to get into that.  Anyways...we're having a mold contractor go out to assess the damages and see if we can't talk the bank down.

My point in telling this story isn't so much to update you all on the status of our house hunting, although it is a great by-product, as it is to make a point.  I'm not against having pets in a house, as long as it's not a cat since I'm severely allergic (sorry, Allison).  The moral of the story is to house-train your pets and clean up their "accidents" when they happen.  One would think that this goes without saying, but...

And now you know...and knowing is half the battle.