Testing My Learning Skills...

Oh my goodness.... What have I gotten myself into?! I am trying to tackle a skill I established back in college. Editing photos in Photoshop! I remembered that this semester long class on this one program was hard, but what I didn't realize that 6 years later I have NOT retained any of the information. I am searching and searching online to try and spark some sort of remembrance of this challenging yet so useful program... HELP me anyone that has a good resource. I am tempted to enroll myself into a class. I have been exploring the idea of taking a photography class as well... Maybe I should add this to the mix as well... I am starting to feel very very defeated. I will hopefully one day be back to the level I was in college!

Summer Nights

As the summer is rapidly coming to an end.. honestly how can this be?! It seems like once you have big person obligations... jobs, bills, etc the summers seem to FLY by. Either way... we have really enjoyed the summer nights this year. For some reason our neighborhood is a breeding ground for 100's of frogs. I think that is the cutest thing. They are all over the front and back yard. I just loves escaping out into the yard (I say escaping as I have to do this without Duke seeing) to watch the cute little frogs hop all around. It makes me sad to think in no time this little night time ritual will be gone until next summer is upon us. I know most people would find this reptiles to be an annoyance, but I just LOVE them.

I have to constantly keep my eyes on that little stinker of  a yorkie-poo. He just LOVES the frogs in a very different way. He wants to eat, play, chase these poor little guys. He is unbelievable sly when it comes to catching the poor little guys. He is constantly being punished for having a frog in his mouth. As I mentioned in my last post... He is extremely smart and stubborn. He doesn't seem to forget ANYTHING.... He will sit at the back door for hours waiting for his chance to go catch a frog.  Either way... I am sad that in no time these precious little animals taking over our yard will be gone.  I keep meaning to catch one and give one to my friend (I often call her wonder women). She is a mother of 4 boys 4 and under. She is an amazing mother and I know that her boys would just love having a pet frog. I better get on this fast, since summer is rapidly fading.

A Man's Best Friend!

For some a man's best friend his childhood pal or even his best college buddy. In our household it is a 6 pound on a bad day 7 pound Yorkie-Poo. Yes, he is one "big" ball of energy. Many might ask how can something so small be A.) so much work and B.) such a joy to have around the house? Well, let me try to explain... It might take many posts to truly understand all of the TROUBLE I mean joy this little guys brings to our lives...

It was roughly a year and half ago when my firefighter (just my boyfriend at the time) and I went looking at 7 adorable Yorkie-Poo puppies. It was just a spur of the moment sort of thing. We never planned on placing a deposit on a puppy that evening. Before we knew it we were sitting in a room with 7 of the tiniest puppies you have ever seen running around us. My heart was set on the smallest of the bunch. A sweet little girl. She was marked differently then the rest of the puppies. She looked like she would have a much lighter face then the rest of the crew. She was running around and would come when you called her. She was just adorable. My firefighter on the other hand was dead set on having a boy if we were to get any puppies at all. Being that he came from an all BOY house. His mother raised 3 boys all within 4 years of each other. Along with the 4 boys they had raised 3 different BOY poodle dogs over the years. After the loss of their latest dog SPARKY, who the boys still talk about! ( I refer to them as boys like they are not 3 grown men by now) my firefighter always seemed to want another buddy. Well, his wish was coming true. I utilized my strong sells skills I have obtained over 6 years in the outside sales industry. It really wasn't that hard of a sell as I could see he was becoming attached to this very loyal little boy that was sitting to calmly at his feet (I emphasize calmly as I am certain that he was pulling a fast one on us, as this was the last time this Yorkie-Poo was ever calm). No matter when my firefighter moved in the room this little boy followed him... It looked as though no matter which puppy I had my heart set on that this little guy had his heart set on my firefighter. We went back and forth with each other saying... Should we?! This is a BIG commitment. Not only in our relationship, but in our everyday lives. We did not live together and had no plan to prior to being married. Who would keep this little guy everyday? Who would be the one training him? We both new I would be keeping him and I would be the one with him everyday. Me being the softy I am this could be a HUGE problem when it came to training... We decided to take a giant leap and place an 100 dollar deposit on the loyal little buddy that kept sitting at my firefighter's feet.

It would be almost 2 weeks before the little guy was ready to come home. It was Friday evening and we were sitting in traffic to pick up our little puppy! He was just so sweet laying in my lap the whole way home. The precious little teddy bear face. How could he ever cause any trouble?! Well, boy was I wrong... Over the next few months this little face got into all kinds of trouble!!

Duke.. 6 Weeks Old! He is about as big as my hand :)

We went round and round about what his name should be... I was set on Maverick! Don't ask me why... It just seemed cute. My firefighter was set on a much shorter and rather funny name being that he was going to be SO small. As you can see... He was officially named Duke on the night we brought him home (to his 1st of many homes over the course of a year and a half). Little did we know that there wouldn't have been a better name for him. He might have weighed roughly a pound the next morning when he went for his checkup... but his personality was much larger then a pound. He was the 1st of the 7 puppies to leave his mom and I am certain that he wasn't at all sad. He never looked back. He must have known the he just struck GOLD. Being that I come for a HUGE pet family. I was just a sucker for him. He went to puppy training classes and once we (Duke & I) moved back to my mom's we even had a personal trainer come (possibly a waste of 3 Benjamin Franklins my firefighter would say). Oh well :) He has been such a fun little guy. You can often hear my firefighter call him his "little buddy" or my call him " my baby boy." No need to bother telling me that his nick name might change as soon as I as I have a baby of my own. As of right now he is "my baby." He is the smartest, most stubborn little buddy we could have ever added to the mix. He seems to fit both of our personalities and even on the worst day brings laughter to our lives. I love having this little black ball of fur running around the house, especially when my firefighter is off protecting others lives.  You will probably often hear me refer to him in my post as he is most likely getting into some sort of trouble each and every day! I wouldn't change it for the world and maybe one day I can talk my hubby into getting another one! Here's hoping :)

Duke... Needing to be groomed in this picture desperately!

A Year to Remember...

I should start by saying that I have been meaning to start blogging for WAY too long now. My initial thought was I will blog about the wedding planning process and then buying our first home. Obviously, neither of these happened since we are 4 months into our marriage and already living in our first home. So.. as many say better late then never! I will start by giving a brief recap of both of these life changing events. Here we go with the blogging...

What a year is has been for the NEW Johnson Family! It all started long before a year ago when we met through a mutual friend and soon after started on a journey that would forever change our lives. My firefighter asked me to marry him on July 31, 2010... Of course my answer was YES!!! We had been dating for 16 months at the time we were engaged. Being the typical hopelessly romantic girl, I was completely sucked into the wedding planning process. I think almost immediately the whole bride thing got the best of me... The dreams of the picture perfect wedding could now become a reality.  At one point in my life my dream job was to be a WEDDING PLANNER. As you could imagine planning my own wedding was the perfect side job for me.  I LOVED every process of the wedding planning (expect of course the waiting for the actual day to come).

In addition to planning our wedding, my firefighter and I thought why not try and buy our first home  at the same time? Being that my soon to be hubby was still living with his parents and I had recently moved back home to save money for the BIG day... We had to decide where we would be starting our lives as soon as we said the I Do's. We both came to the agreement that we did not want to waste any money on renting an apartment. This meant that we had to get on top of looking for a house. As you might have heard with the low interest rates and the even lower real estate prices we figured this was the perfect time to live "The America Dream" of owning our very own home. We started this process right around the holidays... With many heartaches and frustrations we had issue after issue with finding the PERFECT home. By "perfect" I mean the right price, location and being able to close in the right time frame. It seemed as we had every odd against us.. How could we really pull all of this off before the BIG day that was quickly approaching?! I kept telling myself, "God has a plan for us and if we are meant to own a home we will." Well, that was in fact true... We had found the PERFECT house months prior and we unfortunately a few days too late. The house had just opened escrow. BUMMER! Our agent decided that why not just put a backup offer in?! What will it hurt? With every other house we saw... We kept thinking of the house we called Purisima (because this was the street it was located on). I think just about when we had given up hope (I think which was about early to mid March). We were at dinner with our other love, our iPhone's, which I often wonder how on earth did I EVER live without an iPhone (sad I know). My firefighter looking once again at the updated MLS listings when blurted out... "Purisima is back on MLS!!!!!!!" What? How can this be? They were in escrow and we had a backup offer in. This triggered me to quickly dial our real estate agents number...

We patiently waited roughly 12 hours hear that yes in fact they had fallen out of escrow and they were accepting our backup offer. Our prayers had been answered. God did have it in his plans for us to live on our beloved Purisima house. Being that we were only like 45 days away from the wedding we were thrilled. Everything went as planned... We closed escrow on April 13, 2011. Exactly 10 days before were to be husband and wife. My firefighter was a little bummed that this only gave him 10 days to be a bachelor, as he was moving in before the wedding and I would move in after.  My firefighter quickly moved into what was our 1st home. Without me moving in yet we still managed to disagree how certain things should be... Like the infamous TRASH CAN disagreement (I will leave this for another post).

                            

 Either way we were SO excited to have one of the big hurdles out of the way... Now onto the last minute wedding details. I thought I had myself quite organized and put together. Boy was I wrong. It seemed like everything needed to be done in 2 days, while I was still working a full-time job. Fortunately, everything came together beautifully. We had an amazing wedding day. We were so thankful for our families (especially my mom) who made it all possible. It was everything we dreamed of and more. I found myself wanting the night to NEVER end. How can this day be over so quickly when I spent month and months planning?! Luckily we will forever have the beautiful pictures and memories to remind us of how we started our lives as husband and wife.

I have to say that it was quite the journey to finding the man of my dreams. It involved a lot of heartache and questions... Again, we have to remember that God has a plan for us and even though we never know what the plan is, we know that he knows best. He knew that all of those sleepless nights would be worth it in the long run. I am so thankful to have such an amazing man and companion in my life.  I cannot wait to see what else God has in store for us... It is a beautiful life and I am so grateful for all of our blessings!