Best Valentine's Day Ever!

What a wonderful year this is turning out to be! For Christmas my parents gave Evan and I tickets to the play "My Fair Lady" in OKC. It was February 11th and we counted it as our Valentine's Day celebration. It is such a fun story and we really enjoyed a night on the town.





I am one of those girls that loves getting a bouquet of flowers - so thanks to my sweetie for finding this beautiful arrangement!



And of course, no Valentine's day is complete without buying a house! :) We are looking to close mid-late March (fingers crossed). Here are some fun pictures for y'all to check out. This first one is the SOLD sign! And a good view of the front of the house.



Here's the entry way with the door (one of our favorite features). We are going to change out a few of the light fixtures and things to fit our style more, but those things will come later.



Here is the cute kitchen. It doesn't have a formal dining room, just a cozy little nook right off the kitchen. It's a very open floor plan with the kitchen, dining, and living rooms all one open space.



Here's the living room, with a cool fire place.



The next two pictures are the counter-tops that melted Evan's heart :) They are SO beautiful and I hope these pictures help give you some idea of how unique they are. The first one is of the kitchen island and the second one is from the master bathroom.





Not to mention - the garage. It's technically a 4 car garage. You see the three on the front of the house and the fourth is a tandem with the third and the door faces the back of the house. It can be used as a shed for outdoor equipment, etc...



Ah... and my favorite part: the back porch. I have big plans for this porch. I see a little outdoor cooking area, a beautiful seating area, maybe a hammock... a girl can dream right :) Either way, we are in love with the house and can't wait to make it ours.



Here's a view of our property and where the house sits on it.



We are so grateful for the opportunity to buy this house and want to thank the Bagley's for their continued support. We miss you all and can't wait to have you come visit some time!

We hope you had an amazing Valentine's day and that the rest of your month goes wonderfully too!

Drink up!

Hi-o! After a weekend stuck indoors being sick I'm... still indoors being sick... I've survived by watching endless amounts of Monk episodes AND drinking water.

This is the subject of my post today: water.



I've been working out and eating right (mostly right) for a whole month. I should have been losing a lot more weight than I was losing and I was getting pretty upset about it. During my hard-core Wednesday work out, my friend suggested drinking more water. It couldn't be... water? No...

So I tried it. I went from 24 oz to 72+ oz a day and have seen dramatic results! I'm now losing the amount of weight I've been working for and feeling great about it!

Now the fun part - friends and family working toward a healthier you - I challenge you to drink more water! Drink up me hearties yo ho!

They say...

They say the hardest part is getting your shoes on and getting yourself out the door.

Every morning I cringe a little about getting up and going to the gym, but when I get there I'm a powerhouse! I could stay there all day - thanks endorphins!

Evan has a two hour lunch break and uses that time to work out with a friend at the gym on "campus". It's a megaplex of courts, machines, a climbing wall, and even a pool!

We're excited because we're finally doing it. Thanks for all your support!

We love you and we'll see you in April!

It was all for this:

Hello, hello! Sorry about the hiatus from blogging - but we're back! Instead of doing a recap of everything that's happened, we decided to do a "where are they now".

We moved! We now live in Edmond Oklahoma.



We are in a ground level (finally!) apartment for a year as we do some house-hunting!



Evan successfully defended his thesis and earned his Master's degree in Geology. Go Evan!!



Evan started worked at Chesapeake Energy as an Associate Geologist. He already has some great friends working there and is excited to apply the the knowledge gained from 24 years of schooling (from day one to now)!



I had my last full-time day of work on December 1st, but will be working part-time through January. So, I will be using my time to focus on a strict diet and workout schedule. Evan and I have a long way to go until we're healthy, but with your love and support we know we can do it. And if any of you even so much as mutter mint chocolate chip ice cream to me, I will round-house kick you to the face!



We have new callings at church. We are the Valiant 9 co-teachers and I'm going to, additionally, be working with achievement day girls (any fun activity ideas?).

As always, we love and miss you guys like crazy! We are looking forward to having schedules that give us plenty of time for vacations - hopefully we'll be seeing you sometime in the spring :)



For now, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Best news - EVER!

Seeking - one top notch geologist. Status - found!


Evan was offered an Associate Geologist position with Chesapeake Energy, of which he quickly accepted.

Breaking news! I've got a first hand account of the whole thing:

"We stopped at a rest stop in Kansas on our way to Minnesota. I checked my e-mail while waiting for Lacey when I noticed a reply to my 'Thank You' e-mail I had sent to one of the interviewers. I opened the letter and it was much larger than I expected. After reading three or four sentences that expressed their appreciation for my visit, I read:

'I am pleased to make the following contingent offer of full time employment as an Associate Geologist in our Oklahoma City office.'

Lacey then arrived and I handed her the phone immediately. She read and read with a shocked look on her face. We did it! I got the job we wanted with the company we wanted in the area we wanted.

I will start work on or before December 5th. All I have to do is finish my thesis and I get to start. This is a good motivator to finish earlier so I can start earlier."

Within the next 9 months we'll buy a house in northern Oklahoma City in or near the city of Edmond. We will move and begin the next phase in our lives.

Holy crap and hooray!!

100 Miles South of the Border

And we're off! This time we headed to Minnesota. On July 1st Sierra had a baby girl, Sophe Ann!


Both mommy and baby are doing great! She had an easy pregnancy and an even easier delivery.

But I should start at the beginning...


Our first stop was in Duluth to see Zak, Crystal, and boys. Not even just to see them, but we arrived just in time for me to register in a race! Zak ran the 5 mile (in just under 48 mins) while Crystal and I walked the 2 mile (in just over 40 mins). We cooled off with some popsicles, chatted about life, gave them all big hugs, then went on our merry way to Bemidji to see Sophe.


Who looks just like her mom, no her dad, no her auntie... no, just like Sophe :)


One thing is for sure, it was love at first site! She is just so precious and sweet. There is nothing quite like holding a two week old baby...


Or saying congrats to mom and dad in person. Great work you two :)

We couldn't visit the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" without getting out on one! My dad rented a pontoon and we bopped around Cass Lake. I had every intention of staying on it - but I somehow (fully clothed) couldn't resist it's appeal. A clean, beautiful, cool and refreshing dip :) I'm a sucker for lakes.


A little wind blown - but loving it! That fella in front is my parents "adopted son". He's working at a scout camp for the summer and gets to spend his one day off with them - lucky boy. We made it worth it -




On Sunday we dined like kings:


Hearty whole wheat french toast, fresh Minnesota strawberries, and cool whip :)

The boys shot some guns:


Hopefully killing some mosquitos, I forgot how bad they were up there.

We visited with family:


This is my granny, holding Sophe :)

And we all spent a lot of time holding the sweet new baby:








Love her, love her, love her!

Then we waved farewell - goodbye Smiths, we love you!

All we are is dust in the wind.

A great way to capture an amazing moment is to take a picture. So what does putting multiple pictures together do? Let me know after you read through this blog.

So many of these pictures have been shared on our other family members blogs, but I wanted to share my own spin on things.


It was almost 3 years ago that Evan and I were sealed for time and all eternity in the Columbia River Washington temple! We had a quick moment to reflect on that time by taking pictures outside it on our second evening in WA. It was great to continually point it out as we adventured all around the Tri-Cities area. It was especially pretty from the top of Badger Mountain!


We climbed to the top with Rachel, early Friday morning. It's amazing what you can do if you put your mind to it! Not only was my body invigorated with the climb up but so was my mind as we had a great discussion on the way down.

We spent so much time in the great outdoors! The 80 degree weather was a great vacation from our nasty 100 degrees in OK.


Each day we tried to take a walk. My favorite walks were with the nieces and nephews. There was a llama and some goats by Grandpa's house that we befriended/ harassed on a regular basis.


Race you back to the house!


We also took the opportunity to dig around in Grandpa's garage for things to do. Look what we found:


I now know the proper way to play croquet - anyone up for a game?!

Our adventures outside continued as we supported Charith and Thomas in their Triathlon.


The human banner of family members gave them just the boost they needed to speed through to the finish line. (High five Rachel!) Make that a double high five for the suggestion of going shooting!





6 out of 7 kids showed off their skills and guns were blazing! Watch out for that one with the knife - he's got the maddest skills of them all!

Of course you can't play outside in the summer sun without getting hot. So let's take a dip: 1, 2, 3 - JUMP!


We spent a lovely afternoon in Ryan and Donna's beautiful pool with almost all the family. (Photo courtesy of Rachel.) Craziness ensued and you couldn't wipe the smile off my face if you tried :)

I feel that way about the whole weekend we spent in Washington! We made so many great memories and this post barely scrapes the surface. It was so good to see everyone! We miss you all terribly and are so grateful for your support as we try to figure out our own way though life.