Harli's 'H'

This is the wall decoration I made for Harli's room a couple of weeks ago. I was super excited to finish it because it took forever to do! I'm pretty happy with it though - it's just happy. :)

I'm thirty weeks along now, and I'm starting to get ANTSY! I just want to meet this little girl... But then I also have to remind myself in the same breath not to get too excited, and just enjoy this "alone time" I have with Mike while I still have it - because Heaven knows, life as the Orencoles know it is about to change big time.

I'm slowly getting used to Starkville/the South. The heat is becoming bareable and the culture is starting to make a little sense... The thing I miss the most about home (besides family and friends) are the mountains (which is funny because I never realized how much I loved them until I didn't have them around anymore.). So enjoy them for me while you're there, would ya?!

Mike is ROCKING school. Seriously. He is doing really well and I'm so so proud. :)

That's about the extent of our excitement for now... Keep in touch 'yall.

Finally! A house tour.

Hi! Welcome to our home!

Yes, Mike did all of that yard work. He's awesome at man stuff like that. :)

The condensed version of the back yard...

The shed. (It really is manly on the inside, I promise...)

See, I told you!

Inside the shed - (this picture was taken before Mike rewired the whole thing and installed 3 shop lights and a motion sensored light on the outside all by himself. He did a really great job.)

One of my favorite places in the house. I'm surprised that couch doesn't have a little worn out patch where I like to curl up.

Living room

Kitchen

Note here: when we moved in, these cupboards were kind of really ugly. They were the fake brown manufactured stuff. So we decided to jazz them up a bit and paint and antique them... We banged them out in about 2 1/2 days (which was pretty amazing considering when we painted the cupboards in our old house it took almost a week). We still have a bit we'd like to do, like a backsplash, but that's on the back burner for now.

Dining room

I love this little corner or the dining room - a table full of family. :)

Side A of the office

Side B of the office

My little desk area of the office. :)

Guest bathroom

This is where our spoiled dogs spend 90% of their day, asleep.

Our (mis-matched, hodge-podge) bedroom

Harli's room

These organizer bins are SO SO cute. Loooove Target! :)

The master bath - it has two kind of rooms to it. This half...

And that half...

...And that's our house! Feel free to visit any time... :)

Coating Ceremony

Getting a little blog-happy here.... ha ha

Here at Mississippi State Vet School, they do a little ceremony the first day of classes called the Coating Ceremony. During the ceremony they have each member of the class go on stage and a vet places a lab coat on them, welcoming them into the field of veterinary medicine. It was really neat. This sounds like a little love-fest for my husband, but it makes me so proud! They all looked so official. It's weird to think in four years he'll be a "real" DOCTOR! (Yay for that!) ("real:" kind of an inside joke. MSU CVMs have this joke that "real" doctors treat more than one species. ha ha)

MSU CVM Class of 2014

This picture is kind of nerdy, but I had to post it... It reminds me of all those pictures my mom has of me when I was young, starting my new schools, with my little backpack, holding my lunch box. :)

Macho, macho, macho maaan

Mike has a good friend, Kaleb. (I really do believe they were separated at birth. They're like twins. Talk the same, react the same, think the same... crazy.) And as we all know, Mike has two homes - one of them being the gym (also Kaleb's other home). For a while, Kaleb and Mike lifted together, and right before we left, Kaleb's sister, Randi, who is really into photography came and did a mini photo shoot with the twins while they lifted. So we just got the pictures back. They are so cool - they totally show off the boys' personalities and their true intensity when they hit the gym. I'm proud to call him mine. :)

"The twins"

Another little update.

So... Mike has started school finally. They're really still just in the orientation stages, but it's school nonetheless. He is so excited! I'm not sure which he's more excited for - to learn the stuff or to get the books! :) ...which are RIDICULOUSLY expensive by the way.
Mississippi is still great.
Other than the "Fourth-of-July-a-mony" last Sunday, the ward is awesome too. We've already made some great friends. I'm so glad to have that base. I'd be SO bored and even more homesick without it.
...Speaking of which... The closest temple to us is 3 hours away in Memphis. So we decided to make a day out of it last Saturday and get a session in before things got too hecktic around here. So we head to Memphis... Three hours later we arrive in Memphis... Drive up to the front gates... "Hmmm.... Sure looks dead around here...." "Well, let's call their number." "Hello, you have reached the Memphis temple. Just a reminder, we will be closed Saturday, July 3 for the holiday." UUUGGHH!!!!! That sucked. Call us true Utahans, but don't they get Monday off?? Needless to say, it kind of truned out to be a crummy day, having to drive for 6 hours to do nothing. (Not much to see in Memphis. It's actually kind of a hole to be honest.) Guess we learned our lesson, huh.
We've finally finished unpacking though (well, except for Harli's room) and painting Harli's room and the kitchen cabinets, which feels really nice. I love our house! It's just perfect for us. (I'll post some pictures soon.)
In the mean time, I'm just hanging out at home while Mike is at school. I actually really like it. It's a nice change. My nesting instinct has kicked in, and when I'm done, Harli's room is going to rock! ;)
Pictures coming soon!
Miss y'all.

We ARE alive.

...Even though I don't really feel like it, not having the internet or TV at the moment. (Thank goodness for cell phones, right!?)

Anyway, we made it, and we love it! :) It's pretty darn hot and humid, but it's a nice change from the rain we'd been having everyday before we left. The people here are so great! They are the nicest I've ever met. ...And our house is so so cute! We FINALLY closed yesterday, so it's officailly ours. Can't wait to finish decorating and getting settled.

...More to come as soon as we get re-connected to the outside world. ha ha Miss ya'll!

The results are in....

...And...

IT'S A GIRL!!

Yessssss! I'm so SO excited! ...Mostly to play dress up, but the Mommy part won't be too bad either. ha ha

Also...

So I'm a little late in posting this, but...
Mike graduated from USU! Yay! It's been really nice for him to just come home from work and not have to worry about homework and what else is going to be due and how he's going to do on this or that test... It's almost been a relief for me too!
Congrats, sweetie! 4 down, (at least) 4 more to go!

Dr. Lyle McNeal - very very smart man. He has been a major influence and great resource for Mike during his time here at USU.

Gotta love Grama Robb. :) Mike has a picture of him on his high school graduation day with Grama in his arms, so it was only fitting we'd get take two!

I felt the baby kick today!

It really is in there! ha ha
We get to find out the gender next Thursday... My vote is a boy. Mike concurs (and insists).

Cute or what?

My mom sent me some family photos a while ago and I ran across them again today... They were fun to look at, so I'll share. ;)

This is my dad one day after church. Probably my favorite picture of him ever. Still has that little smile too. :)

This is my Grama Schwartz. I kind of looked like her at that age.

This is who I would love to name one of our boys after. His name is Frank, and I've kind of fallen in love with the name Franklin lately.

This is my mom and grampa on their horse Old Blue. :)


I love old photos.

More to come....

I.
Heart.
Mississippi.

Nothing but good came from our trip there. I can't wait to tell you more.

A little (Ok, not so little) update...

Well, where do I start!?
First and foremost...
Mike got accepted to Mississippi State University Veterinary School! Wow. What an accomplishment for him. I'm so so proud! School starts July 1, and we finally got our house sold so we'll be out of here by the last week of May. (Eek! So soon!) This will definitely be a new experience for the both of us, so we're excited.

To tell me that he had gotten accepted, he came to me while I was making dinner and told me that he had an assignment that he had to do for class, but I had to do it and it had to be when I was distracted. He sat me on the couch and brought out a white board with hangman on it. I was kind of confused for a minute, but I started to play. Long story short, this is what it said...[Mississippi accepted me to vet school.]
I thought that was so clever!

Next, Easter/Conference weekend...
For the weekend, we went up to both of my grandparents houses in Idaho. I love spending time with them. :) When my mom was a kid, she used to make sugar Easter eggs with her grama. Every Easter, my Granny would make a couple with the grandkids and great-grandkids. They have been this cool memory in our family for a long long time, but because I was too young, I never got the chance to make them with my Granny, but I wanted to try. My mom, my sister, Zoe, and I had a blast! It was a ton of work and they broke a couple of times, but I think the memories and a proud Granny looking down on us was worth it! :) [She was the inspiration of my choice of wallpaper too... Don't you love it?]

This mixture is sugar and egg whites with food coloring. You bake it, and that is what makes the hard egg shell.

Always double check the recipe. Always. I've learned my lesson on that one!
Finished product! (Zoe's is the yellow and mine is the pink)
Now we have a fun decoration we can keep for years to come and remember the fun we had making them. :)

In other news,

We are going to have a baby!! I'm about 13 weeks now, and my due date is October 17th. I really want a girl, but Mike is set on having a boy. We'll find out right before we leave what we're going to have. Either way we're totally excited!This is a picture from my 12 week ultrasound (that was surreal). It's not super clear, but you can tell it's in there! ha ha

Other than lots of new changes, we couldn't be happier! :)

[Oh yeah, It's Mike's birthday today... Happy Birthday sweetie!!]

Kick me.

This morning I was running late (as usual), and didn't have the time I would have liked to get ready, so my hair ended up really flat and yucky. I was subconciously whining to myself about it all day. Made it through work and I came to the Sports Academy to work out. I go to put my hair up, and this lady with a shaved head looks into the mirror next to mine and rubs her stubble and says, "Well, at least it's growing back!" with a smile on her face.

It was one of those moments that just makes you stop and think and kind of kick yourself for being so selfish and worring about such small and simple things. Now, I don't know her personal story. I don't know if she actually had cancer or some other type of illness that made her loose her hair or if it were even her choice. I just made me grateful that I have hair. That I have two legs to get me through my de-stressing runs. That I am healthy and happy and can get through life with considerable ease.

Thank you, God.

Yay for Vet school interviews!

So this week Mike is headed to Vet school interviews...
Thursday to Mississippi State, Saturday to Iowa State, and then next Friday to Washington State. I am so super proud of him. He has accomplished so much and this is so important to him. I know that he will just do awesome.

His preference would be to go to Washington (where he interviewed last year), which is also where I would like to end up too. It would be closer to family, the climate would be similar, it's a really good school, and Washington is just a great place overall. I'm really rooting to end up there. Really rooting.
Wish him luck!!

Merry Christmas to you and yours, from me and mine.

Christmas is here! I'm so happy. I love Christmas and all the festivities that it brings.

Good food, good friends, and holiday cheer. Love it.

While deciding what to get people for Christmas this year, I had an idea to visit the local antique shop. Holy moly. I am so in love!! I have found so many down right COOL things there. So much history and so many stories. Thus, my new found love of all things vintage/old/antique. (That includes old people too, ya know! ;)

After the gifts have been given, I'll post pictures of them. They are fabulous!

I think I might have a stye. Yuck.

How do I get rid of it?!

(PS- Mine is not that bad yet... It just hurts!)