All posts by Paige

Beach day

Vacations, ,

This beach day happened back a month or so ago in Texas, when Carson and I stayed with my family for two weeks while Josh had his new job training in Dallas. It was the day before Carson and I flew home, and we went to Galveston beach with Jennie, Mom, and Shelby. And I’m so glad we did. It was definitely one of the best parts of the Texas trip.

We were only there for about an hour and a half later in the day, but it really was perfect for Carson. And he loved it! When we first got there he did a lot of poking at the sand and studying it intently, and then he got wet from the first little wave, but he liked the water and after he warmed up to the sand, he was all over the place! He crawled and crawled and crawled. I think he liked just having a wide expanse to crawl around in. Later I held him up and helped him step through the shallow waves, and he loooved that, too. Lots of laughs and smiles. My two fears (that he would eat the sand or hate the wind) were unfounded; he accidentally tasted sand once or twice and never went back, and he didn’t seem to mind the wind at all (though it gave him some pretty rad beach hair).

Here’s a ton of pictures…my mom basically followed Carson constantly, snapping picture after picture, and I’m so grateful. And Carson had a great time! Now I’m sad that we live so far from a beach… :( but we’ll have to make it back to one someday soon!

Our courtship story, and a special surprise for me

Just Life, Other, , ,

I don’t know who knows the story of how Josh and I met, but here it is:  Our senior year of high school, Josh and I both went to something called Y Weekend at BYU. We went to the campus, got a tour, attended some sporting events and classes, and got to know other seniors from all over the States. I think there were about 40 people in our group.

Josh and I didn’t really talk or get to know each other during Y Weekend, but we recognized each other enough so that, flash forward a few months to the first week of our freshman year at BYU, we recognized each other when we were put into the same New Student Orientation group. After a fun weekend at orientation, with more campus tours and a dance, Josh and I knew each other, had talked, and started to be friends.

During freshman year we hung out a few times, and went on a few dates (including Preference, so I’m a supporter of girls’ choice dances), and really had fun together. But Josh was only at BYU a semester before he left for his mission, and he lived in the Heritage dorms and I lived in Helaman…you know, long distance. ;-) So we stayed just good friends. But as a Christmas gift for me, right before Josh left, he surprised me in the lobby of my dorm and gave me a super nice card (still have it and love what it says) and a framed picture. It was a photo that I had taken a few years before on a vacation, one of a pier and an old boat at sunset, that Josh really liked and had put on his photography blog (and you probably know that Josh is awesome at and loves photography). So the picture had special meaning. I loved it and put it up in my dorm room, and then each other room I had the whole time I was at BYU.

Flash forward two years to when Josh got home from his mission, and really, things just clicked. He started writing me (I was in Spain) when he got home, we exchanged emails, we both ended up at BYU in the spring, we saw each other for the first time, we went on our first post-mission date (an amazing magical date – a photo scavenger hunt, of course), and pretty soon after that we were seeing each other every day, then dating, then in love, then engaged, then married. :) BYU in the spring and summer was a wonderful time to date and fall in love. :)

Anyway, flash forward to yesterday, a few years later, when we’ve moved from BYU, married for three and a half years, with a ten-month-old baby and a new life, and we’re hanging up pictures in our new house (our last big move-in task, yay!). I found the framed boat picture (which I’ve always kept on display in our house), but I needed a frame for a picture of the Savior that we’ve never hung (and I was starting to feel guilty). The boat picture frame fit the print of the Savior perfectly and even matched, so I figured I’d put it there for now, just until we get a new frame, and then the boat picture goes back to where it was (it’s still very special to me). But when I was changing the picture, I was shocked to find, hidden behind the boat picture, a nicely matted picture of me and Josh during our preference date, with a short hand-written note from Josh on it. Wow! I had never even seen that before! It was so crazy to think that Josh gave that to me almost seven years ago, and I had that picture and note the whole time, but never found it until we were married with a kid! Crazy! I started shouting with so much excitement when I found it that Josh (who was hanging pictures upstairs) thought Carson had taken his first step.

It was a really neat experience. Kind of felt like something from a movie. Thanks for letting me share. :)

We got iPhones

Big Events, Just Life, , , ,

And I’ve decided the new iPhones are responsible for the lack of posts lately.

See, now that Josh and I have iPhones, we use them as our cameras. And we just haven’t emptied our phones and put the pictures on a computer yet, so I don’t have access to pictures to blog about. Oh, and we’re trying to sort out computer stuff and set up a family computer so we can have all of our pictures in one location, but we haven’t gotten around to that either. But we’ve been taking lots of awesome photos over the past few months, don’t you worry.

For now, as far as pictures go, the only thing I’ve got are these pictures from Carson’s 9 month photo shoot during our stay in Texas (thanks, Mom!). But these pictures are so adorable, you shouldn’t need anything else. ;-)

As far as updates, life is good! Josh and I have felt all grown up lately, leaving BYU and getting a real job and moving and all. It’s exciting, but admittedly kind of weird sometimes. But yes, we’re doing all kinds of grown-up things like moving into a bigger house (in a nice neighborhood, though 15 minutes from just about everywhere), buying a second car (with no good public transportation options for Josh and our house 15 minutes from just about everywhere, a second car became a necessity), and even having the missionaries over to dinner (being called “Sister Lyman” by the missionaries probably feel the most grown up of all).

Carson’s been doing his fair share of growing up, too! This week I cleaned through his toys for the first time, packing away all the baby toys he’s no longer interested in. Aw, growing up! He loves exploring the house, climbing up and down stairs, and walking – with assistance. He’s not quite walking on his own yet. He’s still eating really well, and his latest favorite food is toast. He loooves it and once he sees toast, he won’t eat anything else (even his old favorites, like bananas) until the toast is completely gone.

We can’t believe Carson will be 1 in August! This past year has been amazing and incredible; we’ve been so blessed to have Carson join our family, and we’ve been blessed in numerous other ways, too.

Well, there’s a small update, but this week my goal is to get the iPhone pictures onto a computer somehow, and then I’ll have no excuse reason not to blog. ;-)

Graduation, moving, new jobs, family visits, and other big adventures

Big Events, , , , , , ,

NOTE: This post has been a draft for a few weeks, so it’s a little outdated. I was waiting until I could get the pictures the right way, but I still haven’t figured out and I guess something’s better than nothing, right? So sorry for the big lack of updates, the out-of-date post, and the sideways pictures. Hope you love us anyway!

Sorry for falling behind in the posts! Life has been busy. Isn’t it always? But really, life lately has been more-than-normally busy with some pretty big events: graduation, moving out, finding a house, moving in, and travel.

Josh graduated in April with a bachelor’s and a master’s in Information Systems at BYU. And did I mention that he was the Masters of Information Systems student of the year? :) Seriously, Josh is an amazing student. He’s always loved learning and been a really good self-learner (something I really admire about him). He worked really hard his whole time at BYU, got great grades, impressed his professors, and graduated with two great degrees. And – even more impressive – a great job! Josh is now working for a company called Pariveda Solutions, at their Denver office. It’s a great company that we’re excited to be part of. And it’s the same company Josh interned for two summers ago.

So after graduation, we had about a week to pack up our house. My mom had helped us start when she was in town for graduation, but Josh and I had the bulk of it to do ourselves. But we’re both pretty organized people. I like making lists and planning in advance. We wrote down each packing task we had to do on our wipe-off board and divided them up into days, then checked things off as we got them done. We even were a day ahead of schedule. But, holy cow, moving kicked my trash! It was hard! Actually getting out of Provo and taking care of all the last-minute things (sooo glad we loaded the truck a day early) was rough. And not just the packing and the loading, but the long long drive and the unloading and moving in…that’s a lot of work! Here’s some things I learned from moving:

  • Ask for help! I wish we had had more help, especially with packing (and mostly babysitting Carson). (Thank you, thank you to Caleb, Sam, Zach, Luke, Heather, Melanie, and everyone else who did help!) Sometimes it’s hard to ask for help…I never want to be the one who has to ask. I never want to inconvenience anyone. Why is it that we’re so reluctant to ask for help sometimes?
  • We took our time loading. Sam and Caleb came over and helped load the van like a game of Tetris. It was great. I wish we had taken as much time and brainpower to unload, though. We were so eager to get everything out of the truck and into the house. And we were working against a deadline. It’s not like we dumped everything into the front room – we put a little thought into it – but I just wish Josh and I would have decided more in advance where we wanted everything to go. But maybe a little reorganization as you move in is unavoidable?
  • Be sure to take care of myself physically and spiritually during a move. It’s easy to pull late nights, eat too much fast food, and overdo it with lifting stuff when you move. But especially with a little one to take care of, I think I overdid it. Josh, Carson, and I all got colds after the big move.
What’s your moving advice? Since we’re just renting, it’s pretty much a guarantee that our family will be moving someday in the future (though let’s really just not think about that right now). How do you make moves go smoother, especially with young kids?
.
Well, after we drove to Josh’s parents’ house in Denver, we stayed with them for a few days while we looked for a rental house. We received lots of blessings and felt very grateful to find an amazing little house that we were able to move into in just a few days. We love it! More pictures and descriptions to come later.

After a week of unpacking, moving in, and (thank goodness) a little bit of relaxation, we all flew to Texas – Josh to Dallas, where Pariveda’s headquarters are located, for a two-week work training; and me and Carson to Houston to stay with my family.

This past weekend was halfway through the two week training, and Josh was able to come down to Houston to see us, yay! It was a  blast. Now Josh is back in Dallas and Carson and I are still here and grandma and grandpa’s, but on Friday we’ll all fly back to our new home together. I miss Josh a lot, but Carson and I are having a very fun and relaxing time here.

So that’s our big catch-up post on life! I’ll try to post more pictures soon, but here’s a little bit of everything that’s happened lately. (Click a picture to see the caption.) Hope you’re all doing well!