ISSI and Logan

This past week Brynn was able to go to Salt Lake for the the Intermountain Suzuki String Institute, or ISSI. It was a great week full of Twinkles and catching up with old friends. She arrived on Thursday (the Vances were kind enough to let her stay with them), started classes on Friday, and basically sat and listened to beginner violinists for a week and a half.

She wasn't able to take very many videos, but this teacher was having a lot of fun watching the kids try to do everything he did.

A highlight of the trip was going to visit Caitlin in Logan on Saturday night and Sunday.  We got there in time to catch the tail end of the Summerfest  and see some awesome photography and art as people were taking things down.

Cait put O in an adorable hiking backpack.

Even though we got there at the end, there were still a lot of booths open!

Bonsai trees.  This place is awesome.

On the walk back to Channer's, Owen wanted to snuggle Cait, and this was the only way, given the circumstances.

On Sunday, we met Mike to caravan back to Logan with him.  And we ended up in the literal middle of nowhere.

On Thursday, Seth drove up to SLC, so we decided to hike up Lisa Falls.

Brynn wore the worst possible shoes for scrambling up wet granite, so we didn't go up very far.

Seth was much braver, though, and ventured up further than Brynn dared go.

On our drive back to Phoenix, we had a little bit of time to kill, so we decided to stop off at Bryce Canyon for a second.  We can't wait to come back when we actually have time to go hike! It's absolutely breathtaking!

We had a fantastic time in Utah this past week, and we can't wait to go back!

Checking More Boxes On The "Grown-Up To Do List"

Seth is well on his way to becoming a real grown-up.

After a nice interview today with the owners of SBD-Studio, John & Juan, they have decided to offer Seth a position on their team as a Landscape Architect! They will get back to him with an employment offer letter this week. We feel good about it, and will most likely accept! Also, their names really are "John" and "Juan." John Suarez is from Bolivia, and Juan Brenes is from Spain. But it's funny because they are both named John.

Seth likes their office and the other employees he met today. The owners are passionate people, who come from a well respected design background. In addition to design work, they are actively involved in the construction and maintenance side of projects. SBD-studio was formed in 2008, and is a small office. They work on a variety of project types including commercial, urban planning, hospitality and resorts, architectural, educational and corporate campuses, residential, and more. They continue to excel, and are know for their designs throughout North, Central, & South America. They even did a project in Acapulco! We're really excited about this opportunity, and can't wait to see what the future holds!

Curtains!

Our bedroom window lets in a lot of heat, so we bought some room darkening curtains yesterday and put them up this morning.

They even match our soon-to-be quilt!

We also found a book case at Walmart for $30, so we put that together last night.

Seth put it together like a champ!

We're excited that our little apartment is starting to feel like home!

The Time We Bought a Bed Frame

Brynn's siblings were so generous, and gave her and Seth a gift card to IKEA to buy a bed frame.  Since we live 5 minutes from the store, we thought it would be fun to pop over there and pick one up the day after moving to Phoenix.

After looking around for a few minutes, we decided on one. We wrote down the aisle and bin number, went down to the warehouse, and stared at the box.  Obviously, the frame came collapsed, but the headboard was still 6 feet long.

We drove our biggest car, a camry, to pick up the furniture, and Brynn didn't see any way that we were going to be able to fit it in the car.  We didn't even know anyone with a truck. So, we loaded it in the cart and took it out to the car and stared at it for a little bit longer.  We considered laying the front seat down and smashing it in from the back seat, shoving it in the back seat with it hanging out the window, strapping it to the top of the car, and hanging it out of the trunk, but nothing seemed to work.  

Finally, after about 10 minutes standing in the scorching heat, Seth discovered that the back seats lay down.  The hole into the trunk was pretty small, and the box was pretty wide, so Brynn wasn't sure it would fit that way, but Seth was able to finagle it into place.  The trunk wasn't quite able to close, but because it was such a short drive, it didn't give us any problems getting home.  Unfortunately, Seth was so fast getting it out of the car that Brynn wasn't able to take a picture, but it went together fairly quickly! We can't wait to get the rest of our apartment together!