Our Pullman Place

This week I wanted to show off our new place! The blog update is a little late because I had to get pictures while the rooms where relatively clean, which was harder to do than I would've liked! We were very excited to upgrade from our studio/1 bedroomish apartment to this bigger place-we have so many doors!



Our Living Room! Taylor still needs to straighten his USU poster and I want to do some type of world map by the shelves above the couch.

The Kitchen! I love my curtains and this room is pretty bright and cheery.  Dishwasher and disposal are the best things ever! I still need things to go on my shelf.

The top pictures are the Master Bathroom and the bottom pictures are the Guest Bathroom.  I still need shelving in the guest bath.

Master Bedroom. I still need curtains and some décor to fill in the blank spots on the walls, but when it is clean it looks very nice!

Declan's room is coming along. I can't decide if I should raise the decals up higher on the wall or leave them as it.  I also want to put his name up by the picture frame.

We also have a guest bedroom, but it is also my sewing room and is currently more of a disaster than I could tackle.  I do have to have it clean by the time Grandma and Grandpa Hatton get here this weekend, so I'll update with pictures of that room when I can!

Family Updates:
Taylor: Taylor is thoroughly enjoying his free trial of Amazon Prime streaming.  He even watched Sharknado which has to be one of the worst movies of all time.  He is getting ready for school to start at the end of August and is getting all of his necessary items.  His biggest complaint is that the electronic versions of things cost exactly the same as getting the print versions, but luckily he only needs the notes printed by the university and possibly one book. 

Elise: I'm still trying to keep the apartment in order, which is hard during lazy summer days.  I'm feeling about ready for school to start just for the structure that it will bring to our schedule. I am excited to be preparing for teaching, which was a pleasant surprise from this past week.  I'll be taking on the Earth Science course at UCA (where I taught full-time last year).  It should be very flexible. Just enough to keep me busy, but still be able to have Declan be my number one priority.  Plus, it also means needing less student loan dollars which is definitely a good thing!  I was feeling nostalgic with all the signs for back to school and teacher discounts, so this is the perfect solution.

Declan: He is a rolling fool!  Declan can now successfully go from his back to his tummy and from his tummy to his back.  I'm starting to feel up to doing some serious sleep training, so I'm tracking his sleep and feeding this week so we can jump into that the first week of August.  He still hates his rice cereal, so we're not trying any additional solids yet.  He loves sitting and looking around, especially outside and loves more physical play (like being tossed gently in the air).  If he gets overtired, he becomes a bit punch drunk and you can get him giggling like mad at just about anything.  He also made friends this past week with our neighbor's cat Oreo and our friend's dog Davis.  He got licked in the face a lot and didn't seem to mind.  He may be a mini-vet in the making!

 



Catching Up: Another Week in Pullman

This past Sunday we ended up being crazy busy! So I'm a week behind on updating you all on our adventures.  We attend church meetings every Sunday in Moscow, Idaho.  Taylor and I had both been asked to speak during the first hour meeting and during the third hour I was teaching the lesson.  We had prepared for those tasks and Declan was a trooper!  Right before meetings began, we met with a member of the Bishopric (church leaders) and they asked me to serve in the Primary Presidency.  This means that every week I will get to attend second hour meetings with all the children in our ward.  We don't have too many above age three, but by December there will be at least 23 nursery age (18 month-3 year old) children!  So Sunday afternoon was spent in meetings talking about the needs of all these cute kiddos and then Taylor and I were invited to stay for dinner with some of our neighbors.  Everyone here has been so nice and friendly!  Unfortunately, I haven't taken too much time to escape outside to socialize. A lot of our neighbors go outside during the heat of the day, but our apartment is one of the lucky units that has an air conditioner.  I dread the upcoming utility bill, but it is so worth it!  We just stay inside and cool all day.   We have definitely hit the mid-summer slump where Taylor and I are both a bit bored.  We keep telling ourselves that it is okay for us to be lazy for a few more weeks, because once vet school starts Taylor will be crazy busy.  We keep finding random errands to run and keep us busy.  We drove to Lewiston and got some wooden t.v. dinner trays that work great as tables for my sewing machine and serger. We are working our way through lots of movies and books.  I just finished the Harry Potter book series again and we are working on watching all of the Planet of the Apes movies. We are also doing very well with our goal of trying all the flavors of Tillamook ice cream.  Here's the rankings so far:
1. White Chocolate and Raspberry Yum
2. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
3. Tillamook Mudslide
4. Udderly Chocolate
5. Chocolate and Peanut Butter Swirl
6. Huckleberry
7. Fireside S'mores

Taylor's WSU blanket
(He declined being in the picture)

8. Grandma's Cake Batter

Family Updates:
Taylor: He finished up his blanket project and it looks great! He also went biking with our neighbor and was motivated enough to do his own 14 mile route two days later.   Taylor has been doing great with getting in shape this summer and has lost 10 pounds.  He also spends time working on his Senior paper and surfin' the web.







My stylin' do

Elise: I think the biggest thing I've done recently was cut off all of my hair.  I still go back and forth on whether or not I like it. One day I'll be feeling super cool and stylish and the next I'll be wondering if I look like a boy and feeling like it looks more like a 70s shag cut than a trendy look.  I've also spent a lot of time on Facebook this week as I've been hosting an online Jamberry party. It is fun to have all of the tools to be in touch with so many family members and friends. Technology is so cool sometimes!

Tasting cereal for the first time. 

Declan: He is getting so big! I can't believe he is already 20 weeks old.  He'll be starting solid foods soon, but I let him taste some rice cereal and he wasn't a fan.  Taylor also got him to roll from his tummy to his back four times in a row!  Unfortunately, he has refused to do it since.  He is a super happy boy during the day.  He has had a few random days where he seems to have some teething pain and he'll scream, but luckily it only lasts for a day or two before he is back to his usual self.  We are still working on getting bedtime routines down and then from there we will progress to having him stay asleep when we set him down and hopefully sleeping in his own crib!


We also had an amazing dinner and family home evening with our neighbors last week.  There are so many wonderful people here in Pullman, and we're excited to keep making friends. However, it doesn't stop us from missing all of you. Please keep in touch and I'll continue with the updates!

Fourth of July Fun

For Taylor and I, one of the HARDEST things about moving to Pullman was the fact that for two years we would be far away from our family members in Utah. 

Hatton Family
{Photo Credit: Tasha Poulsen Photography}

                 

Rasmussen Family

However, one of the BEST things about moving to Pullman is the fact that for two years we will be close to our family members in Washington! 

Last week I was excited to receive an invitation to have our little family attend Fourth of July celebrations with my Aunt Ruth Ann and Uncle David. Their family lives on a farm just outside of Toppenish.  Their three daughters (my cousins Marci, Tawni, and Melody) all live relatively close by and it made for quite the party!  We wanted to break up the 3 1/2 hour drive, so on Thursday we drove over to Grandma and Grandpa Tuckett's house in Mesa.  Grandma welcomed us with her usual supply of food and ice cream.  We even broke out one of the movies my Aunt Sheri recently sent to her. On Friday we all piled into Grandma's car for the trip.  It was fun to drive past all of the farms and orchards.  Grandma narrated the drive with stories about the family while Grandpa listed off the crops he could see and asked where we were about every three fields or so.  Taylor and I also enjoyed seeing Mount Rainer and Mount St. Helen's on the horizon and Grandma told us we should try to make a trip out that way sometime. 

In Toppenish I made a point to look out for the murals, and I'm pretty sure I was able to pick out the mural completed by my friend and UCA co-worker Helen Olsen.  I'd love to take the time to go back and explore more of the "City of Murals".  We spent the afternoon eating tons of food at the Kezar's luau themed barbeque and watched the kids enjoy the sandbox, makeshift kiddie pool, and water slide.  Grandpa was soon ready to get back home to his own bed, but luckily some homemade Butterfinger ice cream was ready for us before we left!  It was the kind of delicious stuff my Dad would have loved! 

Grandma was nice enough to let us stay one more night and we headed back to Pullman on Saturday morning.  Traveling sure made us tired, but being able to be around family this Fourth of July made it all worth it!

Family Updates:
Taylor: This week Taylor found some WSU fleece and decided to make a no-sew tie blanket.  We used some JoAnn's coupons to purchase the materials and he has been working at measuring, cutting, and tying.  He also made it through all three Jurassic Park movies and still found time to play on the Xbox when he wasn't watching Declan.

Elise: I had fun shopping at WinCo this past week and for me figuring out grocery shopping has always been a big part of feeling settled and at home.  I still remember sobbing after leaving my bag of groceries on the bus in my first area in Portugal.  Culture shock can be rough!  I'm still adjusting to having my days be about taking care of Declan and our home, but hopefully I'll be able to settle into a routine before Taylor starts school in August!

Declan: We've gone through more outfits this week than we have in a long time!  Declan has been spitting up a lot, but he has also been giving us lots of laughs.  He did great on our trip and rarely cried in the car.  He loved talking to Grandma Tuckett and Aunt Ruth Ann even got him to laugh.  He is still working hard at trying to move around.  

 

We are enjoying our Pullman adventure so far, but miss all of you!