New Year, New Lives

I just realized I haven't blogged in over 7 months. Wow... Let me do a quick update, then tell you all about my new found love.

Ian and I finished up our lives in CA the end of December (2011). I went from Deseret Industries to Toys R Us (30 miles one way to 2 miles one way). Since Ian didn't always work the same schedule as me, my in-laws would take me. I know they were glad when I was closer to home, so I could either walk or it wasn't so much on the gas if they had to come and get me.

We started out the new year moving. We got to UT Jan. 4th and moved into our new place Jan. 5th. We live in a 3 bed, 2.5 bath townhouse on the end unit (only share 1 wall), and it's a non-smoking, non pets facility, so I love it. We're right across the street from Jordan Landing, a strip mall which has 2 gas stations, plenty of clothing stores, restaurants, a Sam's Club, Wal-Mart, Target, Sears Grand (Sears and K-Mart mixed), Best Buy, etc. We never have to go far to get anything, or to just get away.

2 weeks after moving in, Ian applied for a company called Intermountain Health Care (IHC). It's one of the largest medical companies here in UT, and he works at one of their main hospitals, fixing computers, updating software, etc. He loves what he does but it's only an internship, so he's done the end of March. It's been nice having the paychecks coming in and being triple what he made in a month at Famous Footwear in CA, working the same hours. He's gone from 7:40-5 (8-4:30 job with 30 min lunch) and he's home on the weekends. I love having a reliable schedule, where I'm not waiting to make doctor's appointments because I'm not sure what his schedule for the next week will be. I'm hoping it continues so we can continue this lifestyle of eating healthy, continuing our stockpile, and not living paycheck to paycheck. We're finally able to pay off debt we haven't touched since we opened it. I don't wake up depressed in the morning, I wake up wanting to clean, do school with the girls, play with them in their toy room, exercise, keep up with laundry and cooking, etc. I love how I feel now that we're here and we're stable.

Hunter turned 5 in February and we had a nice party for her. We celebrated small the night of her birthday, then threw her a party that Sat. where my cousin Sharon made a cake for her (she has the pictures on her camera, sorry), we had presents, and the adults could get together and talk while the kids played.

We've also been able to host get togethers. We've had 2 of Ian's cousins over on his mom's side with their spouses/boyfriends, had my cousin and her husband over and a new friend I made through an adoption group I go to out here.

That's what's up with us in a nutshell. As soon as I get our pictures back that we had taken from my cousin, then I will post them on here.

My newfound love.... I started couponing back in April 2011, and I LOVE it. I wasn't able to acquire much since I didn't have a lot of room, but I made sure to stay with it. Things were tight financially when we first got here, but now that we have storage space and money, I plan to add to my stockpile. I will also be starting a couponing blog here shortly, and will post the link on here so you can follow my deals and how to do them yourself if you want to start.

Blogger is not wanting to upload my pictures, so I will add them later.