March Madness

This weekend included basketball, a LOT of basketball.  So, while we were watching basketball we did some home improvement projects.  We finally finished all the painting on the main floor!  Well, except for the doors, we are waiting for it to get warmer so we can paint those outside.  Here is this weekend's March Madness project -

Before:

 During:

 After:

We were a little hesitant to try this because we were worried it would just be one of those epic Pinterest fails.  But it was actually a lot easier than we thought it would be and it turned out pretty good for our first try.  Brian is worried I'm going to put stripes all over the house now, haha!

Indianapolis Getaway

Brian got some tickets to the Big 10 tournament in Indianapolis from work so we decided to make a weekend out of it.  Our bishop got tickets too and went with his two sons, so we hung out with them during most of the games.

The last game of the day was a blow-out and a lot of people left so we moved down to the second row.  The next day, the game was on TV and we happened to see ourselves.  It's hard to tell, but this is a pic of the TV and that's us!

 
The next day, we explored downtown Indianapolis.  We went to White River State Park, the NCAA Hall of Champions, and the Sailors and Soldiers Monument.  It was a really fun weekend!

This monument had a very small, very scary elevator you could ride to the top.  I used the excuse that I didn't want to wait in line to not ride the terrifying, tiny elevator to the top and tried to convince Brian to use the stairs.  He was unconvinced until he saw that the elevator was $2 and the stairs were free. 335 stairs later we were finally at the top.  Brian refused to use the stairs down though and I had to ride the very tiny, scary elevator.

Blue Jackets Game

Brian got some tickets for the Blue Jackets game at work.  We went with our bishop, who Brian's works with, and his son, JT.

Our tickets were on the second row.  It was super fun to be that close to the glass but it also meant that we couldn't really see the other end of the ice around the penalty boxes.

A Visit From Brad

We really wanted to go to Utah to see Brad before he left on his mission to Wichita, KS but Brian couldn't take any time off of work and two tickets to Utah is pretty pricey.  One to Ohio seemed a little more manageable, so we asked Brad if wanted to come spend a couple days with us instead.

The first day Brad was here, he and I went to a morning session at the temple.  After that, we went to the zoo!

 After the zoo, we met up with Brian and went to dinner and then to see a movie.  We saw Monument's Men.  Brad was trying to get in as many of the new movies as he could before he left.

The next day, Brian took off work and we headed up to Kirtland.  On the way, we got lunch at a hibachi place that was really tasty!  Sadly, the temple wasn't open for tours but we still got to stop and see it and then took a tour at the church sites and headed down for a tour at the Johnson Farm as well.

 After our tour at the Johnson farm, we were planning on heading back to Cleveland for a Cavalier's game, but we didn't realize how far away it was.  So instead, we found a indoor golfing dome and hit a few balls!  Then we grabbed some pizza and headed home.

The next day, Brad flew home.  It was a really quick trip, but we were super happy that we got to spend some time with Brad before he left.  We had lots of fun with him during his trip here and we are going to miss him for the next two years, but we know he is going to make one heck of a missionary and are super proud of him!

Valentine's Day

Brian and I had a great, low key Valentine's Day.  We had dinner at home and then watched a movie with our favorite treat - Muddie Buddies!  Brian also surprised me with roses when he got home from work!

Another Trip to Utah

In January, I went back to Utah again.  This time, Brooke and Darren flew me out to watch their kids while they went to Hawaii!  It was so much fun to play with the kids and be able to see and spend time with everyone.

Unfortunately, I'm really not used to having 4 kids and so I had a few other things on my mind instead of taking pictures and I only got a few.  But we had lots of fun!  We had a movie night with Grace and Marie, played dress up and house, went to see Frozen, had a sleepover at Grandma's, and have FHE with Brian's family at Jan's house where there was a lot of dancing to Frozen.

I got really lucky with the timing of this trip because I was in Utah for Brad getting his endowments out.  I didn't know before hand and didn't bring my recommend, but luckily the temple was able to call my bishop and it worked out and I was able to go.

 The timing was also great because I went straight from Utah to Tuscan, AZ for a race before I headed back home to Ohio.  It was literally 100 degrees warmer in AZ than Ohio and I tried not to rub that in too much to Brian.  

Family Pictures

 While we were in Utah for Christmas, we did family pictures with both sides.  My side needed to do them because we were already missing 4 babies since the last one and we needed to do them before Brad left for his mission.  On Brian's side, we were missing baby Sarah in the last ones and we weren't sure how long it would be before Brian and I would be back to do more.

 It was really cold the day we did pics and some of these babies weren't liking that too much.  We would take a couple of pics and then warm them up in a car and then take a few more and then back to the car.  I don't think they were loving it though. . .