AJ's birthday

AJ turned 6 years old on July 3rd. He had a party that night with family and friends. We didn't have time for much, so it was a basic "eat cake and ice cream, open presents, and say goodnight" kind of party. Thanks to everyone who came or sent him cards/presents!

We planned a "Pirate" party because we live on Pirate Lane, but we haven't made the time to do it yet. We're considering an end-of-summer party or some such, but haven't made any decisions.

We moved!

I know this post is about a month overdue, but be patient. I've been busy.

Joe and I moved into OUR first house on June 22, 2008. We decided purchasing a house would be a lot less stressful if anyone in the industry didn't stand to gain from the buyer spending more money. Everyone gets a commission based on what you spend, so it's in all their best interest for you to buy quickly and spend more money. Joe and I definitely don't think that's fair to the buyer. We also learned not to trust anything anyone says, especially if they tell you they'll give you something but insist that you don't have to sign any paperwork. There's a whole novel I could write about this subject, but I won't to save space (and avoid giving anyone reading this a serious headache).

Here's a picture of the house.


It's two-stories, 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms. There are some definite things we're not really fond of, but this is by far the nicest place we've ever lived. In the tradition of Andrea's blog, I'm going to do a little flashback of the places Joe and I have lived since we got married.

#1 June '01-July '01: Logan, Utah. We started out in a one bedroom apartment just off campus (755 North 800 East for those who might know). It was so tiny! There wasn't even a door on our bedroom. Things weren't working out with our jobs, and Joe's boss in Orem begged him to come back and help out for a while, so we moved...

#2 July '01-Sept. '01: Orem, Utah. We didn't have an apartment on such short notice, so our friends, Brett and Jeni offered to let us sleep in the spare bedroom of their apartment until we found something. That lasted about 2.5 weeks until I got accepted into the nursing program in Logan. I had to commute for a week of that until we found..

#3 Sept. '01-Oct. '02: Logan, Utah (987 N. 150 W.). Our next apartment in Logan was in a little area dubbed "Little Tijuana" by our friends, Brandon and Darcy Burke, who also lived there. It was a dumpy 2-story townhouse, but it was home. We have some good memories of that place. That's where Peggy lived for a while when she was first going to Utah State. That's the house we brought AJ home from the hospital to, but it was tiny with a baby. We learned that some friends of ours were moving out of their super-nice house a few blocks away, so we moved...

#4 Oct. '02-Feb. '06: Logan, Utah (272 W. 775 N.). This is probably the best place next to our house now that we lived. It was the upstairs of a house. We had 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. The landlady was really kind of weird. She'd always blame us for things that went wrong. Like the water heater rusted out the bottom and water leaked into the carpet a little bit before we noticed it. I soaked up as much water as I could and called her. I'm not sure what she expected, but I think she really thought I'd been salting the bottom of it to make this happen or something. But it was cheap, and like I said, it was a really nice place to live. We definitely would have stayed there until Joe graduated except that the city of Logan found out that she was renting the house as a double-unit (her weird son lived downstairs from us). This is a big deal in Logan. She was either going to be fined big time or one of us had to go. She kicked her son out! However, she couldn't afford to keep the place as a single unit. In the interest of not worrying about having the house super-clean (with 2 kids at this point) all the time and having to move out on someone else's terms, we decided to move. In retrospect, she wanted WAY too much for the house, and we totally could have stayed there another year, but hindsight...

#5 Feb. '06-Dec. '06 Logan, Utah (506 W. 200 S.). We moved into the top floor of a super-old house that used to be a chiropractic clinic. It was a crazy house because people had just changed things over the years to adapt. The floorplan totally didn't make any sense and there were weird things like a century-old church bench built into the living room. The owners were a young couple downstairs (Jake and Brittney Nielson) who we got along with really well. It was so interesting though because people would always stop by and tell us stories about stuff that happened in the house (like how their cousin's niece's sister-in-law's twins were born on the bench). Joe graduated college that fall, and we got a job offer in Kansas, so we moved...

#6 Dec. '06-May '08 Lenexa, Kansas (10810 Noland Ct.). This was another dumpy townhouse, but it was what we could afford when we moved. We loved living in Kansas! We only had one real threat of tornado that fizzled very quickly in the time we lived there. I was a lot more scared by ice storms that left you without power for days and days than I was by tornados. We made a lot of really good friends in Kansas, and we miss them. And I (LeiAnn) miss the humidity! It never really bothered me, but living back in the dry air really does. I hate the extreme hots and cold throughout the day here. I swear I'm just cold all the time here. Not only that, but there's always stuff to do in the city. I miss just going shopping and finding any store or restaurant that I might want (except they didn't have a Gandolfo's. Oh, my heavens, that sounds so good right now, and I don't have one here either! Ugh! My life sucks!). Anyway, we did miss our family in Kansas, and Joe was not particularly fond of his job, so when his friend offered him a position in his home town, we decided to move again...

#7 May '08-June '08 Moses Lake, WA (4398 Rd. E.9 NE; AKA-Joe's mom's house). We stayed with Joe's parents until we could get into our house, which took WAY too long, by the way. It was nice to have someone fix meals periodically for us, but the lack of our own place/living out of suitcase really got to us after a while. It was a relief to sleep in my own bed after so long.

#8 June '08-present (1705 E. Pirate Lane). Some things I really like that I've never had before in this house are a completely fenced backyard, grass that's free of dog poop and/or glass shards, my own master bathroom, an attached garage, some permanence. What a relief to be at a point that we can finally put some roots down!!

Husband Tag

Thanks a lot for the tag, Andrea and Peggy. As if I don't have plenty of other things to blog about :)

1. What is his name? Joseph Bryce "Spaztik" Johnson.

2. Who eats more? Joe and I are tied because neither of us eats anything. We're both too tired and lazy to cook, so we just starve. Maybe I eat more because if I get really desperate, I'll eat a bowl of cereal. No, we're tied. If Joe gets desperate, he'll drink a soda, and that's got to have at least as much sugar (if not more).

3. Who said "I love you" first? I said it first, but in my defense, I wasn't as serious about it as Joe was. He called his mom after spending one weekend with me and told her he met the woman he was going to marry.

4. Who is taller? Joe is taller, which I really like. I was really concerned about ending up with someone who I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing heels next to. Not a problem for me now.

5. Who is smarter? This is a common argument in our house. I got good grades, and I think I'm really book smart, but Joe is by far more savvy than I am. And he remembers EVERYTHING, so he always kills me at trivia games. Just ask him anything; like how many electoral votes some President won by, and he'll tell you. It's ridiculous.

6. Who is more sensitive? I think it used to be me, but it's definitely Joe now. He's always talking about how he "just wants to be close" to me and crap. Ugh! Just kidding. I wouldn't have it any other way.

7. Who does the laundry? Here is how Joe helps with the laundry. He puts his clothes in the dirty clothes basket. When the clothes are cleaned and folded, he's allowed to put them back in the proper drawers or closets. Anything in between those two steps is my job.

8. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Depends on how you look at it. Joe just always sleeps closer to the door than me. He says he feels like he's protecting me somehow. I think it's because he doesn't have to walk all the way around the bed and smack his leg against the footboard that sticks out just wrong and leaves a permanent baseball sized knot/bruise on my leg because I hit it every dang time....

9.Who pays the bills? I do, which is funny because Joe is the finance guru. However, we are very open about money with each other and have the same goals. It's been one of the best things about our marriage. I don't envy people who fight about money and who's spending it.

10. Who cooks more? Hmmm...if there's cooking going on, it's generally me that does it. However, refer back to #2.

11. Who is more stubborn? Me. I'm kind of a brat.

12. Who is the first to admit they are wrong? Joe is. But I have issues with saying sorry until I really am sorry. It takes me a few days to calm down and realize that I probably share some blame for whatever tiff we were in. But until then, I think saying sorry is totally lip service, and it bugs me to say it and not mean it.

13. Who has more siblings? I have 5, he has 3.

14. Who wears the pants in the family? The key to a happy marriage is for the woman to wear the pants and let her husband think he wears the pants. I'm not there yet. We both do.

15. What do you like to do together? When we aren't working all the time, we like to golf together, snowboard together, play games, have friends over, cook over-the-top extravagant desserts, etc. However, lately we just watch each other play the Wii.

16. Who eats more sweets? Probably me. When I'm not totally anorexic, I really, really like ice cream and chocolate.

17. How did you meet? The first time we met, I went to an activity that my friend, Jeni's ward was having. Joe was in her ward and totally the center of attention for reasons I couldn't fathom. Joe says that he noticed me, but I was in the middle of a "sausage party", and he didn't feel the need to join in. The next day, I went to their church after eating at my nephew's baby blessing, and Joe was kind enough to tell me that I had food in my teeth.

18. First kiss? We had spent the entire evening talking to each other, and it was really late. When our friend dropped Joe off at his apartment, I turned my head just enough, and he landed a peck on me. It barely even counted as a kiss.

19. Who proposed? Joe had all these plans for this really romantic proposal (of which I knew nothing). He was going to drive me up the mountain and spread out this blanket while we listened to a CD he made me of all our favorite mushy songs. And then, when our song came on, he was going to dance with me and propose as the song ended. But the CD player in his car wouldn't work! So he kept driving all over Logan in the middle of April trying to make it play and getting really frustrated that it wouldn't work. I kept saying really brilliant things like, "Uh, why didn't you stop at Blockbusters? I thought we were getting a movie." Finally, he settled for a good ol' Mormon standard and suggested we walk around the temple. I still had no clue what he was about. I was SHOCKED when he knelt down in an icy puddle and pulled out a ring. I just put it on my finger and looked at it for a while. Until finally, Joe spoke up and reminded me that, "You haven't said, 'yes,' yet."

20. What is his best feature? I like everything about him.

21. What is his greatest quality? Joe is comfortable around all types of people. He always has lots of friends because he can talk to people and find something they have in common.

I'm tagging anyone who reads this and wants a chance to brag about their husband.

Funny

Kids are funny about names. It takes them a while to figure out that the name you generally call them may or may not reflect their entire names. AJ took a really long time to figure this out because his name is actually Andrew Joseph Johnson. But now that he's decided it's true, he's set out to make sure his sister doesn't make the same mistake about her own name. I overheard them argueing about it the other day. He was trying so hard to make Natalie say her whole name, Natalie "a little bit" Johnson! (Her name is Natalie "Elizabeth" Johnson).

Hiatus

Joe and I have been deserately cut off from the rest of the world for weeks now due to our move into our house and a lack of internet, phone, or tv. You'd think with all our free time, maybe we'd be all moved in. Unfortunately, that's not the case. We still have boxes and boxes all over the house. Pretty sad, huh? When I get a chance, I have a whole bunch of posts to do: the house, AJ's birthday, my parents' visit, etc. Be patient. It's gonna take me some time to get everything done!