Christmas Decorations

Yay!!! Decorating is one of my VERY favorite parts of Christmas and it was so fun to have my very own, new to me house to decorate. Here's some pics...


I've been excited to put a tree here since I first saw the house... part of the reason I wanted the house, who doesn't want a house with a perfect Christmas tree spot?!

And here are our stockings hung by the chimney with care... there's Paul's (the plaid one) by the way.

My latest craftiness

Store bought stocking and some good old fashioned creativity and felt! :)

I'm doubting myselft... HELP!

So... I'm doubting a paint color choice. I need some opinions. I have a fairly modern styled house, not neccesarily by choice but dictated by my house, and i think my remodeled kitchen is looking too traditional. I'm not willing to post more pictures till it's done, but this is a glimpse so I can get opinions. If I change, I'm thinking of sticking with the gray I have in the living/dining room. I DO love gray and white, but I also love green. Oh the DRAMA!

Pumpkin carving

Happy day before Halloween! Paul and I carved pumpkins together for the first time in our married life... they turned out pretty sweet if you ask me! And no, no templates in our house... pure creativity and heart and soul into our pumpkins! Probably don't need to say, but the snake is Paul's and the "R" is mine.
Oh... and I learned that my Mom really, really must have loved us kids. It never failed that we got roasted pumpkin seeds when we carved pumpkins... it's a PAIN to seperate those slippery devils out from the guts! Love you mom!!!

Our life for the past 4 months or so....

So, my sister, yes the one who made me post pictures of my house, says that she's bored of looking at my living room. So here's more stuff... and NO she's NOT the boss of me!!!!

So, let's see. P.S. this is our life according to our camera... and as we all know I don't take pictures very often so it's rather sporadic.

We went to Carthage finally..



Then my mom came to visit. We went to Milwaukee on a whim to watch a baseball game. Turns out the team I was rooting for won... and I didn't even realize it. I'm a HUGE baseball fan... obviously... not. But Paul was in heaven, it was his happy place; a Giants baseball game.



On the same trip we went to

We did a double decker bus tour. TOTALLY worth the money!!! Definitely the way to see the most Chicago in the amount of time we had.
This is for my nieces, Grace and Ella, who LOVE American Girls, a WHOLE store devoted to them... heaven!

Lots of skyscrapers... cool town I tell ya!

We did the cool Iowa thing, which means we went to the Field of Dreams.


Other than that, we've just been working on the house. The kitchen is my current project. And it is riddled with problems. But what's a renovation without problems?! Here's 2 of them...

That's a countertop... look closely at the edge and you'll see white dots from them sanding the edge down (couldn't be avoided... Rrrriiiight!) I fixed it, don't worry!

This is a cabinet door... lovely eh? Don't worry yet again, they're fixing it for me! It'll be beautiful when it's all done. No pictures till it's done. So be patient my friends!

Paul has been in school. No pictures of that, sorry. He turned another year older. No pictures of that, sorry. We both got sick. No picture of that, lucky you.

The end. :)

Living Room/Dining Room

My sister has been getting on my case *&#@$ (fake grouchy noises) about posting some pictures of my house. My living room and dining room are all that I'm willing to show at this point. Let it be known that my tastes aren't normally this retro-modern, but my house kinda forced me to do it and I'm really diggin the results! :)

This is what you see when you walk through the front door...

Here's another view of the living room...

And the dining room... note how beautiful my kitchen currently is, goes SO well with my decorating. It's one of the next projects, don't worry!

There are a few things we still wanna change, rug, get a round table, get a real side table not a repurposed stool, but we like it. You should all come visit... it's way cooler in person ;)

Home!

It is a bit weird to say that we went home for ten days, because we now own a house in Iowa, but we did go "home" to Spokane and it was a really nice break from the everyday trials of Iowa... and when I say trials, I mean trial... and when I say trial, I mean humidity...oh how that word bugs me! So Natalie flew to Washington, because her schedule is less open than mine and I drove... because at one point when I made the decision to drive, it made economical sense... however, I didn't take into account how boring it is to drive alone in a car for 12 hours... four times!!! Anyway, I noticed that everytime I stopped for a bathroom break along the way, the weather slowly improved as follows: Iowa=hurry up and pee and get back into the car as fast as possible. Nebraska=its still a bit muggy, but its better than more driving through the exciting fields of Nebraska. Colorado=hey... this feels pretty good... and then idaho, montana, and washington were all pretty awesome.

After studying other's blogs, I've come to the realization that a lot of people buy cameras, and take 10 pictures of their kids... every 3 minutes or so... and blog... all of those pictures. Well, in our 10 days of vacation... we took a total of 10 pictures... including the times we took two pictures of the same thing to make sure we got a good one. So... here come the highlights, according to our camera:

For a birthday party, my family rented this whole building called "Jump and Bounce" and the funnest part was this obstacle course. My brothers talked me into racing them, and as you can barely tell, I'm the one already inside... and then thats me popping out first on the right... such a proud moment, which I shall never forget, because its one of our 15 pictures we've taken on our camera this year, lol.



This is Natalie and I duking it out in the ring. About two minutes later, we were too tired and sat on a bench with the rest of the adults... getting old stinks.




One of the days, all the boys in my family went golfing, but there are no pictures so that's not important obviously... The girls on the other hand got to go enjoy what Natalie's family has named, an Estrogen adventure... meaning they all got pedicures. It may be hard to tell, but there are three brown feet, and three white feet in the circle(my mom, Natalie, and our sister in law julie) so if you want to know which is Natalie's, use that knowledge to make your guess.

Other than that, there are three pictures of me trying to do a backflip, a couple more boxing pictures, and that's all she wrote. Apparently we need to learn how to take more pictures of what is going on. We did other things too in our 10 days away from the land of humidity and mosquitos, but I'll let Natalie blog about that later... bye bye now.

Power out + dark grocery store + pharmacy = Me working in the dark!

Last night we had yet another sweet Iowa storm. Apparently there were sustained 70 mph winds, the sky was green, lotsa thunder and lightning... all of this is second hand though... I was stuck in my windowless pharmacy just listening to it. Then, the power went out... for 6 hours. I was only there for about 4 hours of darkness. And you would think dark + pharmacy = get to go home, but no such luck. Darn backup batteries! I had 1 functioning computer, my register worked... what more do you need... oh yeah light to read and count by. flashlight! Solved. So i worked in the dark for 4 hours, with creepy people staring me down (everyone is creepy in the dark by the way), and 30 minutes into it a kitchen employee comes running up and asks

Them: "Are you a nurse?"
Me: "hmmm... no but what do you need?"
Them: "someone's choking in the kitchen. No I didn't call 911, they didn't want me to"
Me: once again... hmmm... as I run across the store.

Don't worry she was fine and I didn't have to brush up my rusty first aid skills. She was apparently breathing the whole time, just had something stuck in her throat and someone did the heimlich on her anyway and she had a piece of food lodged in her esophagus that she just had to "spew up". I then sat with her for 5 or so minutes while she "spewed" in a bucket... lovely!

Ahh... Friday nights at HyVee!

Winter Quarters

Last weekend Paul and I, well mostly I and Paul obliged, decided to take a 4&1/2 hour trip across the glorious state of Iowa to Omaha, Nebraska. What's there you say? Winter Quarters! The trip out started out a little scary, lets just say when it rains here, it pours! Enough rain that I got to wondering: what exactly does one do if a tornado occurs while you're in the car? Thanks to the wonders of technology and the iPhone, I was able to learn that you NEVER try to outdrive a tornado... the moral of the story is, get out of the car and get into a sturdy building or to low ground and cover your head with your arms. Just FYI, in case you ever find yourself driving in rainy, thundery weather on the great plains of Iowa.

Winter Quarters was nice, I think I was expecting more from Church history sites considering that the only other one I'd been to was NAuvoo. We went through the visitor's center, walked through the Pioneer Cemetary and the went to the temple.

Shiny new toys

So we decided it was time to move up in the world and buy a new grill so that I (Paul) could be more of a man and learn to cook outdoors. So after weeks of searching, I finally picked out the perfect one.




So we started simple with some burgers and sausages... even tried steaks one night. Then last night natalie threw together some beautiful kabob type things with chicken, peppers, and pineapple.





Well in the middle of it, this part of the midwest got put on tornado watch and there was tons of wind, lightning, and of course... loads of rain... which ironically, is something we really like about living here. So, wanting to protect the shiny new grill and the delicious food, I did the logical thing and moved it closer to the house where it was protected by the little bit of roof that hangs over. Well, you know how you never want to break or damage your shiny new toys? Well, the grill is fine, but I melted a good chunk of the vinyl siding on our shiny new house.




I then proceded to stare in disbelief and shout one of my favorite words... "CRAP!!!" Yup, I'm pretty much an idiot. Natalie thinks we should just tell people that lightning struck our house. I suppose that would sure make me come out looking a lot less like a fool.

Luckily, the previous owners of the house left us a box of new siding that was the same color and everything. The other day I fixed some leaky valves on our washing machine faucets and I've been feeling like a handy man, so without having a clue what I was doing, I threw on my chemistry goggles, busted out my new saw, ripped the siding off and made it look all pretty again. In the words of Napoleon Dynamite, "YESSSSS!!!!!!"




I don't think Natalie would have been very happy if there was a permanent melted blob on the backside of our house, so I'm glad everything worked out in the end. So learn from my stupidity... don't cook with the grill too close to the house! Even if its raining.

Update

I'm sitting here alone at work for the next 3 hours and realizing that we haven't blogged in a L O N G T I M E!!! We've been busy, what can I say. So here's a quick update on what we've been doing since Paul turned brown...

We are now proud first time home owners!!! We moved out of our lovely rental and are now enjoying the bliss that is homeownership... realizing that we never thought about having to buy a hose or toilet seats or dealing with wood curtain rods that were NOT designed to hold up my wardrobe. I'm lovin' my purple countertops, actually we try to scratch them so we have NO excuses to hold onto them for any longer than necessary. I'm having fun picking paint colors, kitchen cupboard and drawer hardware, buying my first real couch (our last set was a dumpster find...shhh don't tell the many people who have sat on them for the past 7 years... he he!)

The day of the main move I got sick, really really ucky sick. My muscles ached, couldn't talk, couldn't sleep cuz I was coughing so much.... therefore I was a BIG help in the moving process. And it meanth that our house was in DISARAY... I didn't know where anything was, nothing got unpacked, total chaos which I HATE! Then I got Paul sick, he wasn't quite as bad, but he tends to get a lingering cough which has been bugging him for a while now. It was convenient that we were coughing on the plane trip we took... people don't seem to sit by coughers, can you say swine flu paranoia? We got a whole row to ourselves the way back... LOVED IT!

We travelled 18 hours total to go see my WHOLE family in Idaho Falls. 3 hours to Chicago, 3 hour flight Chicago to Salt Lake, 3 hours Salt Lake to Idaho Falls... then repeat in reverse. My little brother went through the temple for the first time and we all got to be there and see him for the last time (for some of us) before he goes on his mission to Wisconsin. It was awesome to see everyone and see how much the kids have grown, I miss my family tons out here in Iowa!!! And paul and i got to dink around temple square for a while while we waited for our plane to leave. It was sooo pretty with everything in bloom, they had a beautiful bed of tulips and poppies that I LOVED!! 2 of my favorite flowers!

Now we're back to normal life. Working, trying to unpack and make my house a home, trying to get back into the workout routine which was ruined by moving/being sick. Turns out it really stinks to run outside in hot/humid weather... mental note to self. Paul's undertaking the task of finishing our basement family room. He's a bit intimidated by it, having never done it before but he's finding lots of people with knowledge and skills to share, so it should be fine(?) keep the finger crossed for smooth sailing. I'm planning out my painting projects and wanting to plant a garden... I may have to kick out our bunny friends that like to hang out in our backyard and are SO cute.

That's us in a nutshell. I'll try to come back and edit with some pictures later.

The Joys of Brown Skin.............

Hi everyone, its me Paul. So I got a phone call the other night from a friend who was watching American Idol. He said that during one of the songs while this guy named Anoop (seen in the picture above) was singing, my friend's 3 and a half year old daughter was dancing to the music when she suddenly stopped and looked at her Dad with a confused face, and asked, "is that Paul...?" Aren't kids awesome? I suppose, that this Anoop character doesn't only have similar skin and hair color to mine, but also some pretty awesome eyebrows too huh?

It reminded me of a time on my mission when we were eating with a family and one of their little girls looked up at her Mom and curiously stated, "Mom, that missionary has darker skin than that missionary." It was pretty awesome. Having brown skin has definitely provided some funny experiences in my life that make being a little different, worth it. The girl's Mom looked embarrassed but quickly answered her daughter with... "Isn't it beautiful!!!"

One more funny story... Another time on my mission we went to a house for dinner and as we walked up to the table I saw everything all set up for us to throw together our own taco salads. As I sat down, the Mother that prepared the meal looked at me and then gasped as she said something along the lines of, "Oh no! I should have made something else; this probably won't compare to the mexican food your Mom makes back home." This of course was hilarious, seeing as how my Mom is as white as can be, and my Dad is Hawaiian/Filipino, which of course makes me... 100 percent Mexican right? lol, good times.

Funny Thing Is...

... turns out the most annoying part about losing my purse is the fact that my purst is now FOUND. Turns out it was never lost to begin with! It was at the customer service desk of my work the WHOLE TIME!!!! Not that I didn't check there 4 TIMES AND have my tech check AND have the store director check. Apparently it was put in with all the employee purses, not where LOST purses should go... like in the vault. Whatever. I happy to have it back but totally annoyed that customer service is incompetent!!!! Now all my cards are cancelled, bank accounts changed and have to change all my direct deposits/debits. Pain in the NECK! UGH.. but hooray for having it back! Thanks for all your sympathy. People don't suck as much as I thought. Yeah!

Good Things About Getting Your Purse Stolen

1. You get to get a new picture on your driver license to replace the previous nasty one that made you look 10 pounds heavier... oh wait I WAS 10 pounds heavier. (almost)

2. Get to bust out (and of course eventually BUY) different purses. I WAS kind of stagnating (is that a word) with my sweet purse from California. But I happen to have seen it in our amazing mall here. That's it in the bag... sniff sniff.

3. You get to empty your wallet of all those useless cards... I really can't even think of all the cards I had in there... memberships, blood type, Buckle rewards... tons of them. Wallet now purged! check!

4. Get to buy a new camera! I've been toying with wanting a new cool one like my sisters (which include my awesome sisters-in-law) have. But I have this odd picture taking phobia... don't know where it came from, but I tend to feel like a total dork whipping out my camera randomly. Odd because I don't think anything of it when other people do... in fact I envy them because they're documenting their life better than me. Tangent sorry!

5. Get to get sweet new checks... I ordered WSU checks... I'm super excited!!!

6. I got to learn how to replace doorknobs... they got my keys + license = they know where I live and have my keys... ugh. New locks hahah!!! P.S. I'm faster at putting them in than Paul... shhhhh don't tell him. And he'll say that he had a harder door to work on... whatever!

So all in all... yes my purse WAS stolen. I was DUMB and left in under the table in my work (grocery store) public eating area/cafeteria and went back to work for 4 hours. Unfortunately there are crappy people that AREN'T NICE or HONEST or people their mommy's should be PROUD of. ;) So we changed the locks, cancelled the cards, closed accounts... all while we're in the middle of trying to buy a house... goodie! No worries, they didn't get ANY cash, didn't use my cards. Good times!

Lots of Strumming... not so much writing though...

Hey everyone, its me, Paul. Just in case you can't figure out what the picture means, its supposed to represent writers block. I bet you didn't know I was writing a book did you? That's because I'm not writing a book, ha ha, but I do write songs on my guitar from time to time, during those times, when I have free time... which is pretty often now adays. So I've put some effort into getting my fingers back in shape and I've come up with some sweet tunes as far as the guitar goes, but I have no clue what to write down on my notepad. I did actually start writing one song about Iowa, and how its so cold, and how there are a thousand dead lady bugs in our basement. However, I never finished it, and now its not so cold anymore... so that song may have to wait until next year.

SO.... I am here to ask anyone who reads this blog to leave a comment and tell me what you think I should write a song about... keep in mind I'm not a very mushy person, so love songs may not work out so well. Also, I want you to know, that there are no stupid ideas... I've written some hilarious songs about very random things... like one song about a good friend of ours who has a very distinct and loud laugh, and it turned out awesome of course! So, if you have an idea, let me know, and I will consider it.

I blame my lack of creativity on the state of my life right now: I'm waiting until July to start a full load at school, and so when natalie goes to work, I'm kind of like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, when he starts to lose his mind and talk to a volleyball... good times Wilson! So, help me out!!! That's all... peace out!

Happy Birthday Jesse Merrill!!

And yet another, and the last, Kissell birthday of the week. It's my baby brother's birthday. Happy Burfday Jesse! He's turning 19!!!! I guess he's not really my baby brother anymore... I'm OLD!

I'm so happy that he came along as our family's caboose. I love his compassion, how hard he works, and how much he loves our Mom! He's done an awesome job taking helping her out these past few years. We're all greatful he's been around to keep her company and help her out.

Super proud of you Jesse! You're gonna rock the mission in Wisconsin!

Happy Birthday Jeremy!

It's my big brother's birthday!!! (yes another birthday, we had lots of cake this week in our family!)

Jeremy and I went to pharmacy school together, it was absolutely awesome!! I can't imagine pharmacy school any other way, I had a built in study buddy who HAD to like me no matter what. It was also fun to get to know him as a friend (and let me tell you, you get to know someone REALLY well when you sit next to them 6 hours as day, 5 days a week and study with them for hours on end nights and weekends), not as my uber cool 9 year older brother who did no wrong. I really do count him as one of my closest friends now and am greatful for his example to me growing up.

Love ya Jer!!!

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!!! She's the most wonderful woman ever and has been an inspiration to me in so many ways. So I thought I'd list a few ways in which I am like my mother:

Obviously we don't look ANYTHING like each other... oh wait... we look a lot alike! And she's a pretty, pretty lady (not to brag) ;)

She's a pharmacist, just like me! She went back to school when she was 38 with 4 children and had a 5th while she was in pharmacy school. She managed to graduate with honors, which I did NOT do. AMAZING!!!

She and I sound alike, talking voice and lauging. I LOVE her laugh!! I used to use her laugh to locate her at gatherings!

She is an excellent home decorator... I LOVE decorating and am so glad that I inherited that from her.

She was an amazing Primary Chorister, the kids loved her and she loved teaching them. While I don't do the singing thing, I also love teaching.

She makes amazing pies, especially cherry pies.... I spent one summer making a pie a week till I could almost equal her pies. Now I can make a pretty mean pie!

Her rolls are also amazing... they are still the only roll recipe I make to date. Not only the only recipe I make, but I roll them the way she always did too, although she frequently likes to tell me that "there ARE other ways to make rolls"

She LOVES a good bargain! Her weekly therapy has long been "yard-sale-ing". While I am too lazy to wake up to get good deals at yard sales, I can rarely force myself to pay full price for ANYTHING.

She has a beautiful yard... I don't have a yard yet, but I really want a beautiful one!

She has a funny habit of not correctly hearing what people say... what she thinks she hears are frequently hilarious! I don't necesarily hear things wrong, but I have fun thinking what could be mis-interpretted.

She did a wonderful job making holidays amazing for us as children. I love all of the traditions she and my dad established for us... I can't imagine the holidays any other way... I'm so excited to have a family and carry on those same traditions!

I love my Mom so much!!! Happy Birthday, MOM!!!

Simple Things

Simple things make me laugh. Like today I discovered that I can vacuum my ENTIRE house (our rental house) from one centrally located outlet. And it's not an amazingly long vacuum chord nor does it have long hose, it's just one TINY house! Can't wait to move!

Oh yeah... we bought a house!

Don't ever let anyone tell you that patience doesn't pay off... granted I hate being patient, but it worked this time. We got the house we made an offer on last week!!! He reconsidered and realized that our offer really was more amazing than he originally thought it was... and now we have a house! We close, hopefully pending inspections etc, on April 20th. Hooray!!!
I meant to have a cute picture of paul and I in front of our future house... but I forgot to take one. BLAST! I'll get one when we have the inspection on Thursday... maybe.

Is it bad that...

- For our 1st (our one and only 1st anniversary) on the real day I worked 8 hours so we delayed it, then when we "celebrated" it all our "plans" fell through and we ended up eating dinner at Chic-Fil-A and renting a movie (actually a TV show on DVD) and watching it at home?

- I stepped on my magical weighing machine, the Wii Fit, and I was genuinely suprised that I had gained 2.2 pounds over the weekend after skipping a work-out, eating at Red Robin one night,Chick-Fil-A the next and eating many of the lovely chocolates my hubby got me for our anniversary?

- I'm trying to justify putting my bald tires back on my car? Apparently WalMart refuses to put tires back on your car if they are too bald... silly tire nazi's!!

(p.s. NOT my actual tires! They're not THAT bald AND I don't own a BMW... yet)

Disappointment....

So we made an offer on a house this past week, it wasn't exactly our DREAM home, but knowing that we're only going to be here 3&1/2 years, sticking to our house budget, and trying to get the TV/man room for Paul, this was the best one we found. Don't get me wrong... I liked it and knew that with my sweet design skills and my bowstaff skills (oh wait don't need those for home ownership... or do I?) I could make it mine. Yes it's a ranch, not my typical style (I like traditional older houses typically), but the location is amazing, it has beautiful hardwood floors, and a man room (OH did I mention sweet purple countertops?)



So we made an offer... and a counter-offer... and a counter-offer. And we still don't have a house, he wouldn't lower his price to one we wanted. Sad story. The saddest part is that Paul and I still drive by it almost daily. We have a home-designing sort of program on our computer and have designed and decorated the whole house... we're hoping he wakes up someday soon and realizes what an amazing offer we gave him and that he really wants to sell to us. Really.

1 year down... forever to go.

One year ago today Paul and I got married in the Spokane, WA temple. It was a chilly, WONDERFUL day! Paul is a wonderful man, he's the most patient, caring and considerate man I know. I love my hubby a ton and am so happy that we get to be married forever.

My Baby Brother is Going To...

My baby brother got his mission call!!! He's going to Milwaukee, WI....

Just a mere 3 1/2 hours from me here in Iowa... interesting!



Congrats Elder Jesse Kissell!!!

P.S. Found this out AFTER I first posted this. One of his best friends from our hometown that he has known since he was 4 is going to the VERY SAME MISSION!!! Leaving on the VERY SAME DAY!!! What are the odds of that?!

So congrats Elder Jesse and Elder Blake! Watch out Wisconsin!

Faith in technology

Hi everyone,

This is Paul by the way. I just thought I'd share a little story. I don't know if any of you use a sonicare toothbrush, but they're pretty awesome, and they turn off automatically after two minutes! Well, the other day I was brushing my teeth, and for some reason my toothbrush forgot to turn off. I think I brushed for about five minutes before I realized what was going on. As a result, my teeth got really really clean. I just think its hilarious how much we trust technology sometimes. I've let myself become too lazy to tell my brain to pay attention to how long I brush my teeth... yeah... that's pretty lazy.

Then I got to thinking about my cell phone. I'm pretty sure I have two phone numbers memorized out of all the numbers programmed in my phone. That's ridiculous. I hardly even know how to drive anywhere besides school and church, because all I do when I need to go somewhere new, is follow the instructions on my phone. And so... if I lose my phone, I won't be able to call anyone I know, or be able to get to any of their homes... luckily though, it does work, so maybe I can use the stop watch function on my phone as a back up to the faulty timer on my toothbrush. That way I won't have to use my brain... because its sooo difficult! lol

My New Favorite

I haven't blogged for a while... so I figured this one should be a doosie!!!

And now I will wow you all....

My new favorite thing in the world is... Yoplait Cherry Pomegranate Yogurt. DELICIOUS!!! I'm trying to lose all my post wedding weight... ugh. Gained back every ounce that I worked for months to lose. And this is my new delicious addiction. You should all try it. I found it at WallyMart.



I also bought the blueberry acai but haven't tried it yet. I'll keep you posted. I KNOW you'll be at the edge of your seats just waiting. ;)