let's backtrack. joel and i have had a pretty amazing summer so far. memorial day weekend we went back to bend, oregon to visit my dad. joel has never been to bend, so it was really fun to show him my old stompin' grounds. we also decided to bring roxy along for the ride, which made it even more of an adventure, but also really fun for us! it was also a lot of fun to see my dad and the new house he's building. we went up to pilot butte, naturally, to see the amazing 180 degree view of the city and cascade range. we also went down to the farmer's market in downtown bend and strolled through drake park. lastly, down to smith rock and hiked around a bit.
the day after we came back from oregon, i started a new position at work, interim regional manager. a few weeks ago i was told i was being made permanent. so yes, after 8 long years with pier 1, i've hit the "big time!" no, but seriously, i love my job! i have 13 stores, as far north as idaho falls and as far south as orem, ut. joel also had some great success at work that week, he got a raise on his salary and more bonus potential! life's been wonderful, and we feel so blessed!
what else? well, i guess next was my annual trip up to seattle for the 4th of july. my uncle has a house out on the san juan island of decatur, so my family always tries to make it up there for the holiday. it is so beautiful, quiet and serene, a peaceful getaway from the city life. there isn't much to do up there except hike, boat, and crab if you're into that. we spent a few amazing days wandering the island and spending time with my family. we even found a purple starfish that we were going to bring home, but it unfortunately did not survive the plane ride. apparently, it wasn't dried out enough, and by the time we got home, we had a ziplock full of purple mush! ew.
after we spent a few days up on the island, we went back into in seattle for the remainder of the trip. joel had never been up there before, so we did some of the "touristy" things like pike place market and a trip up to the top of the space needle. i'll add some pictures of those later. overall, we had a really good time and didn't want to come back to work!
i suppose the other big news is that the rumors you may have heard are true. i am expecting. i'm due in january and we'll find out in a few weeks if it's a boy or girl! we weren't planning on a baby this soon, but we are abosolutely thrilled!
finally, we decided that with a baby on the way that we needed to make more progress on our house hunt. so, we are in the process of buying our first home! it's in north salt lake and if everything goes as planned, we'll close on august 15th.
so yeah, like i said, life has been busy! both joel and i are so happy and are very excited for all of the changes going on right now. we know we don't deserve all of these wonderful things, but feel so blessed and lucky that we have so many great opportunities right now.
