We got a puppy and bought a house!

Life has been QUITE a whirlwind these last two months.  I know I always say that, but this time, like seriously!!!
On September 27th, a coworker told Brent about a friend of their's that was going to be selling their home... 4 bedroom house on 15 acres of forested land.  Brent texted me from work and said, "Please call this lady, today!!!"  So I did and we set up that we could come look at it that weekend.  I had never seen Brent so excited about a property and the house was good structurally, and spacious enough, and even though it's a fixer upper it's totally liveable in the meantime so we can spread the fixing up over time!  The house wasn't on the market yet so we told the woman right then and there we wanted to buy it and let's start the process (without realtors) which also made the price a lot better!  It felt so peaceful every time we went up to see the house and walked through the property. It felt SO right!  Every time we were away from it we'd stress and worry of course that it might not work out.  But low and behold two months later on November 22nd, the home was officially OURS!!!
This is a crappy picture of the house from my phone.  I'll take more someday... probably ;)

Right after we decided to try to buy the house we started looking for a dog (you can't live on 15 acres and not have a dog!!!!).  We had just watched Homeward Bound for movie night and we've always liked Golden Retrievers so we started looking up on the internet to see if by ANY chance there might be some for sale near by (we live in a rural area so the odds were low).  We were shocked to find out there was a litter right here in Coos Bay for a reasonable cost! They were 3/4 Golden 1/4 Husky.  We wanted a male because we wanted him to be big. Luckily the biggest looking one of the litter was also the family's favorite (they felt like he was the quickest to catch on to things).  They called him Ice Bear.  We paid for him and they held onto him for us for a few weeks until we arranged with our landlord if there would be anyway we could keep him at our place.  They let us on the condition he stay in the kitchen and yard only.  We were excited to finally bring him home!  We finally settled on the name of Thor, hopefully he lives up to the name and isn't a scaredy cat.  Ha ha.  We're still adjusting to being dog owners, it's SO hard, especially dealing with the poop and potty training.  But we love him and the boys are finally opening up to him and are friends with him now. It seems like it happened right around when we moved to the house and didn't have to keep him locked in the kitchen.  He doesn't scare them with his jumping on them anymore either so that's good.  It's been much happier for him being able to be at the new house.
It's crazy looking back at these pictures, I can't believe how tiny he was!!!! He was a little fluff ball!

Okay... to review events over the last two months.... a lot of other things have happened but I do a pretty good job at documenting stuff on Instagram, unless the picture is taken by our Canon 5D, in which case it waits and waits. But it's worth the wait, the pictures are always so much better.

We went on a fun MINI-VACAY!
We got the opportunity to go up to Lakeside and stay at Brent's co-worker's house. It's boat access only.  So we hopped on her boat and drove out to the house. The kids had a blast on her boat, not sure what Thor thought of it.

I think Brent had a lot of fun driving the boat.  He gave me a turn... just doesn't quite thrill me much.

Look at her gorgeous house and gorgeous yard!

And gorgeous view!

Sanna and her puppy.  She carries this little fluffball every chance she can get and he just lets her.

I think these two will always have a special bond. So glad she has him.

Speaking of special bonds... these two are always up to something. Either partners in crime having a blast or fighting with each other.

shouldn't have brought the oreos on this trip... so many oreo covered smiles!

I spent too much time doing this....

In the morning Brent took the kids out on the canoe.  I think we have some go pro video of that.  But anyway, they were out canoeing for a while. Sanna got splashed on pretty bad so they took her in to the dock to send her up to the house to get changed.  Griz was going to follow and was walking along but then he all of a sudden changed his mind and turned back to jump back on the canoe.  Brent and Chico were already pushed off from the dock and Griz jumped for it landing directly in the water.  I wish I could have seen it, picturing it is just hilarious.  Brent and Chico were laughing so hard when they were telling me the story.  Oh man did Griz stink from that water near the dock when he came back up to the house to get showered! He was a good sport though and I think he appreciated the hilarity of it.

Brent left the next morning for a business trip then he got back and several hours later I left for the airport to photograph my cousin's wedding.  And I almost missed my flight! This pregnancy brain is going to kill me! I got the time switched in my head (1:50 was what I thought and it was actually 1:05) and then I left my phone in the car and it took longer to drive there, and I had to park in the overflow!  Stress when I'm pregnant is not my favorite!!!  Once I was on the plane the stress was over and I had a fun but short trip.  Enjoyed seeing everyone and we all nearly got blown away by a cold front that came in right before they came out of the temple for pictures.  Good thing I had taken her formals during my last visit in August so she has pictures that look like this:

instead of all like this:

Just kidding, they didn't all look like that. We still got some great ones. We just had to hide behind buildings and walls.  And the sky wasn't nearly as gorgeous as that day in August but at least it wasn't raining on us!
While I was in Utah, we tried to see the gender, Stephen was 80% sure... I'll reveal next post cuz he was right.

When I got back we went on a nice Sunday evening stroll on the beach...

He loves digging...

This is the look on her face when she saw the sunset...

The Ward Trunk or Treat was the weekend before Halloween.  I was too busy/lazy to take any pictures but luckily my friend Heather is a photographer and brought her camera along and sent these to me after.  Thanks Heather! They're the only Halloween pictures I got of my boys.  Bad mom this year in that regards.

Soccer was every Saturday morning, and Sanna's team was always first at 8:00 am.  Talk about freezing!  She has so many layers on in these pictures, ha ha! Still has her wonderwoman face painting!

Thor is pretty much a celebrity at these games.  Kids and adults alike love to come and pet him.

Halloween Day! Sanna decided to be Supergirl for the actual day and we did her hair all cute. So cute in fact I even got out the camera! Miracle of miracles.

If you want a good laugh look up on Instagram what happened later on that day...