School's Out Forever (or at least for now)

After taking a nice long break, I've decided it's time to get back into blogging!

I went to see Jonathan present his Senior project. His professors and classmates all loved his version on the Weasley's clock from Harry Potter. When he finished his presentation and opened it up for questions, one of the first ones was when can they buy it.

I was sneaky and took a few pictures of him.

Two short weeks later, Jonathan officially graduated!

On Saturday, we had a party with lots of family.

After all of the festivities, Jonathan decided that for his first week of no homework to have a Harry Potter marathon. Each night when I got home from work, we watched a Harry Potter movie. It was fun, but also nerve-wracking because we were both convinced he should be doing homework instead of hanging out with me. Now that it's been almost two months, we are loving our evenings together!



Spiritual Enlightenment: To the Boys and to the Men - Jonathan remembers this talk when he was a boy. I am grateful that he listened and followed through with the counsel given. I have no doubt that he was able to finish school and get to where he is today because of his obedience. Together, we are now following the counsel given to the men. I know we will be equally blessed for following that counsel.

Twelve

In just twelve short weeks, Jonathan will be done with school. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around it. It always felt like this was in the far distance, but it is quickly getting here. Whether we are ready or not!

Our schedules actually work so I can pick him up from his Monday night class.

Our goal is to have a job lined up by then.
Luckily, I can find job postings while I'm at work. It's a very exciting time right now. I can't wait to see where Jonathan will be starting his career..

2017

This is the year Jonathan and I have been looking forward to for a very long time.
This is the year Jonathan graduates.
A few months ago, I saw this encouraging poster.

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It's been a good reminder for me. I have the tendency to see that we still aren't quite there yet and this helps me see that each little step is benefiting us. I feel like this is the year that all of our persistence pays off. Jonathan will be graduating this May and starting his career in a field he absolutely loves. I am grateful to be married to a man that is persistent in everything he sets his mind to. Including in pursuing me more than seven years ago.

Making Dreams Come True

Jonathan started his internship this week. To say he loves it is a major understatement. He comes home from work with more happiness and energy than he has before going to work. Our evenings are spent together because he's gotten in plenty of time doing what he loves at work and can instead focus on time with me.

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I am so grateful that we are making his dream career come true. It's been a long road, but it's worth each and every sacrifice. This is just a small taste of how it will be after he graduates next spring! (It's 363 days away!!!) We don't know where we'll go next, but we've started coming up with multiple exciting plans!

Happiness

Jonathan and I have been married for over three years now. I had a completely different vision of what our life would look like at this point. It was wonderful. But as usual, our life played out very differently than the plan that I had.

I struggled and fought the differences at first. I would get upset at times because things just were not going according to my schedule. All of these feelings exploded after we lost our baby.

Our only purchase for our baby.

I felt like there was no coming back from all that pain and the losing the future I started envisioning and experiencing with our baby.

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It's taken a long time, but I finally realized that our kids are going to come when they need to be here. Instead of focusing and fixating on that, I see that I have plenty of goals and dreams that rely on me and I'm so excited to work towards them. I'll be sharing more as the preliminary steps start coming together, but for now I just want to say that life for me and Jonathan is so good. He has been trying to push and pull me to this point and I'm grateful that he never gave up on me and that he understands a little bit better that I just needed time to work through everything.

Almost Home

This past weekend, we moved to Utah. The drive, though long was smooth. The only rough weather we had was fog just before we made it out of the salt flats. When I saw that, I thought I'm from California, fog is easy to deal with.

We went straight to the hospital to visit Jonathan's brother who had surgery just the day before. He was in pain, but he wasn't sick! Then we went to my cousin's to get the key to our apartment and it was after 11 before we made it back to our apartment. We decided to just take up our mattress and not worry about anything else. After carrying it up 2 flights of stairs, with some help from a neighbor too, we opened the door and the apartment was far from ready for us. 

That's our mattress sitting outside until the apartment is clean.

I'll share more of the details later, but I felt like this is a good start. In the next few hours, the cleaning crew should get here and then we will have a home. 

A Little More Faith

Christmas came early this year for us. In November, Jonathan applied to various universities and got in to all of them. It was such a blessing to finally feel like we had options to pick from. Well, we weren't sure about which school to pick, so naturally we went to the temple. It was obvious where we needed to be. So, we are going to be moving to attend....

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Utah Valley University!

Jonathan is beyond excited to be back in school and getting closer to finishing his degree and starting a career in something he loves. I'm so happy that we will be so much closer to Taylor, Kenzie, & sweet {not so little anymore} Mercedes. We'll also be closer to Chris, Annie, Seth, & Clara and Hannah in Vegas. We will still have lots of family to be with.

As we've been working on moving, there have been some road blocks along the way. Jonathan's still waiting to hear back about what credits transfer and last night the apartment we were trying to get was leased. Needless to say, I was very discouraged.

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I was searching for something. I looked in the places I had remembered seeing it, but it wasn't there. As I started looking in more and more unlikely hiding spots, I said a quick prayer asking for help to find it. I felt like I should go back into my bedroom and look in the most unlikely place. I did and sure enough there it was the whole time. After finding it, I got the impression that I just need a little more faith with the move like I had just experienced. Everything will work out, but I need to trust that it will as we continue to get ready for the move.

Highlights of '12

On New Year's Eve, Jonathan and I were chaperones for a youth church dance. We had the tough job of guarding some exterior doors. To help keep ourselves occupied, I thought it would be fun to come up with a list of the top twelve things that happened/ we did this year. I'll just share a few with you.

Jonathan had his first experience of going to Disneyland for multiple days!
(I want to go back just to be in Cars Land!)

 I loved our trip to Idaho during the summer especially because all 17 Patterson's were together.

At the end of this month, this picture will be outdated because baby Charlotte will be here!

Jonathan saved my life when I passed out at the temple.
(I'm only being slightly over-dramatic.)

We also were very regular with our temple attendance and
I know that has been such a blessing in our life.

We have a real plan for our future! (And this one really feels like it will stick!)

We survived our separation due to Girl's Camp (which I still have yet to blog about, it will come).
(I loved Camp, just not being away from my Mr. Nelson!)

Our car was stolen! (And promptly returned.)

2012 was our first calender year together!
(And it didn't even feel like it was that long!)

We have a deeper understanding of each other than we did the year before.

Last year was a wonderful year and I have a feeling that this year will be great too!

The End of an Era

We have officially moved out of our first apartment. It's exciting to start a new chapter in our lives, but it is still hard to be moving on from where we started our life together.

Our crazy packing mess.

We had so many good times there and lots of normal life times there too. I can't say that I am not grateful for this opportunity my parents are giving us. It is going to be so helpful as we continue on our journey together. My parents did the same thing that we are doing early on in their marriage and I am so grateful that they are willing to do the same for us.

I miss the amazing sunsets we could see from our window and staircase.

I will share some of the crazy stories about where we lived and will soon share pictures of our rooms as soon as we're settled in. (School and work have been keeping us a little too busy to finish getting settled.)

One of our first gifts for our apartment was
my flower doormat.

It's Seriously 2013!?

I feel like I've really fallen behind the times! Christmas and New Year's have already come and gone and I feel like I'm still stuck somewhere in September. Well, needless to say I have some catching up to do with all that we did last month, but I will save that for later!

We've already been very busy this month and it's only the 12th!

The reason we've been so terribly busy is because Jonathan and I are moving. This last summer my sister and her little family we're living with my parents and after she moved out my parents offered to let us move in to help us save some money. Jonathan and I discussed it and we felt that it would be better to move in January rather than in the middle of a semester. So, that's what we've been doing. This week was our painting week. My mom has been dying to paint the orange room and the pink room for a few years now and this was her chance of it finally happening!

No more orange walls and ceiling! I was very adamant that we needed to prime the orange room because I knew it would drive me crazy if I saw even a little bit under the new color.

The residual paint after priming the ceiling. (Can I just say that I HATE painting ceilings!)

At least I had a hot painting partner!

It's unreal to think that we are actually moving. We have been in our apartment for almost 2 years and it is our home. We slowly started telling people that we were moving and somehow random people at church were coming up to me and asking about our move. It's going to be hard to leave our wonderful ward. I've loved being there. A couple of weeks ago at church, a group of girls came up to me and started talking about girl's camp. I had to tell them that I was moving and wouldn't be going and they shunned me for the rest of the day. (Luckily, a couple of them have forgiven me!) I feel like we've been so blessed to be part of such a wonderful ward. I can't wait to be part of the ward I grew up in again, but I will always remember how wonderful our first ward as a married couple has been.

We still have a lot more to do before the month is over! I'll try to share more.

I Am Grateful for Changing Seasons

I love how much the earth changes from month to month and season to season. Everything is bright green and blooming in the spring after a cold winter. We enjoy fruits and large shady trees in the summer. Now we can enjoy crunchy, colorful leaves and crisp, cool mornings.

 This year, I haven't been looking forward to the change to fall because I get cold so easily. (I even use blankets in the summer time.) This past week or so, I've been changing my tune. I've focused on how the scenery and sky has changed. We've had huge, puffy clouds fill the sky and trees that look like they are on fire.

 I sometimes find myself focused more on getting to various places rather than enjoying the scenery from my window. I focus on how pretty other places are compared to where I live right now. I'm working on being grateful for the beauty of where I live.

Is It Seriously November?!

Boy oh boy! Time really seems to be going faster! I still have a hard time believing that September is over... Well I just need to get with it!

Life has been fairly low-key as usual for us, though some changes are coming. 

I'll talk more about that later.

Jonathan's been working on a new app idea.

I'm learning about inductors. It's ok if you don't understand the math, neither does Jonathan.

Since it is November, I plan on doing the same thing that I did last November. I'll be sharing something I'm grateful for every day of the month. It helps me get more into the spirit of thanksgiving (especially since I'm not too keen on the traditional dinner part of the holiday, I would good with some fish and a green salad but whatever!) Anyway, I know that I don't express enough gratitude in my life and this is something that really helps me.

Today I feel particularly grateful for my Father in Heaven. I am so grateful to know that He loves each and every single one of His children. His purpose is for us to be happy and to grow into strong, dependable, faithful men and women. Sometimes that path involves pain and heartache, but He is there to lift us up and help us through those times when we feel weak. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father knows me personally and knows all of my weaknesses, and yet He still wants me to come home to Him. And He feels this way about each and every one of us.

Changing Seasons

I usually love the change from summer to fall. I love the colorful leaves, the cozy fires, the rain, the cuddling under blankets. I was enjoying it, until it started getting cold again and then it was rainy and windy. 

I know that we need the rain, but I get tired of being so cold all of the time.

I guess I just need to go shopping for sweaters.

Even though it was cold yesterday, I did love all of the huge clouds.

It was amazing to see a sky filled with massive, puffy clouds.

At least I can enjoy the beauty, 

even if I am shivering the whole time!

My Biggest Project Yet!

I finally finished my biggest project that I have tried so far. I updated a chest that was Jonathan's parents, but they didn't want any more. I called it the green thing because I wasn't really sure what it was other than green...

I have spent a lot of time on pinterest and I love seeing all of the painted furniture and reading the tutorials. I decided  to paint the green thing. I originally thought about painting it a nice creamy off-white color, but after awhile I realized it would just blend in with our white walls and light tan carpets. So, I had to think of a different color... I thought about different shades of grey... but it didn't stick either. Then I knew that it needed to be navy! I talked about doing it and finally started to actually work on it in July.

Getting ready to move it to my parent's house.

All of the random stuff that was in it.

Yes, we have a huge tv and can't afford a tv stand.

After we got the green thing moved out, I started getting just some of the many supplies that I would use for this project. Before anything else could happen, I reattached part of the interior that broke off.

Wood glue is a wonderful thing!

 I left the chest out in the hot sun and the old green paint got all bubbly and weird. The lesson learned is if you really like a piece of furniture, don't let it cook outside in the sun. Lucky for me, I was going to strip the old paint anyways!

Before:

Farewell green paint!

Ready for some love!

 The paint came off really easily on the lid and three of the sides. Jonathan saw it at this stage and was confused by the stripes.

The front was the hardest part to strip off the old paint.

I spent a few hours on stripping just the front.

I used some pretty harsh chemicals to get rid of the old paint.

 Once I was done with all of the stripping and cleaning, I could finally get some paint back onto the chest (at this point it was no longer the green thing). I was really nervous/paranoid about painting. I kept worrying that it would be terrible. (I had these feelings later in the project...)

All prepped and ready to paint!

The primer went on beautifully! I got great coverage with the spray paint and nothing horrible happened!

Next up was the blue. I was again paranoid, so I made my mom supervise me at first and then got comfortable enough to do it all by myself. I was rather concerned when the color was a bright blue rather than navy, but I just kept thinking that it will be better with more coats and I was right.

A few coats later, the chest was navy and gorgeous!

The most anticipating part of this project for me was to find the perfect knobs. From the very beginning of this project, I knew that I wanted the knobs to each be different. Lucky for me, Anthropologie has the perfect knobs for me. They have my favorite colors and some great patterns. This was one part that I knew I needed my mom's help again because she knows my style and she can visualize how the finished product will look.

These were the possible knobs.

These ones made the final cut!

One of the final steps was to seal the chest. I did a lot of research and because this was going to be our tv stand again, I decided that sealing it would be good to protect the paint on it. I saw one tutorial that used a sponge roller, so I went ahead and used one. I was paranoid about my coats being too thick, so I made sure I only had a small amount of sealer on the roller. It was horrible! There were so many air bubbles on it that it totally changed how the chest looked. It was an ugly blue thing! I didn't take any pictures of the horrible bubbly chest because I was so distraught! My mom came out and helped me sand down the bubbles and then put a fresh coat of paint.

Re-sanding the chest.

 The second time we applied the sealer, we used a nice brush. It looked so much better!

The next thing to do was paint the interior of the chest and lid. The chest was lined with old ivy paper and I just wasn't feeling it.

No more ivy!

Before I could attach the new feet, I had to take off the last one. Three of them came off easily, but the fourth one would not budge! I got really creative in trying to get it loose. I used the dremel to get some separation between the chest and the foot. It kind of helped, especially when I started to chisel away at the foot. Eventually, I got enough leverage and unscrewed the foot. Next up, was adding the pretty new feet!

We did have a small problem with the new feet. The bolts that they came with were too big and really short. At this point, I was ready to just glue them on and call it good. (I was really ready to be done with this project). I told Jonathan about my plan, and he told me that we should get the proper sized bolts because we needed to it the right way. I'm glad that we did it the right way. It was worth it.

Using the drill press to make deeper holes.

My favorite part of working on the chest was figuring out where the knobs would go. It took about two dozen different combinations and then we found the perfect fit!

The first try!

They are so very pretty!!!

One of the finishing touches on the chest was trimming the bolts on the knobs. It took so long, but it made it so much easier to fill the chest with all of our games.

 When I started, the head of the dremel looked like the one on the left. I used one and a half heads to cut through all the bolts.

The extra pieces of bolts.

 The chest was finally done!!! All we needed to do was move it back home.

My baby finally came home!!!

 Our chest is now the home of all of the games we rarely play. I have storage in the closet again!

Our tv looks so much better now that it's off of the floor.

I am so glad that this long project is finally done and it looks so good. It was quite an adventure with all of the steps and now I feel like I can tackle another furniture project. Watchout coat rack, you're next!