Three Years is a Reeeeaalllllllyyy Long Time

We had a girls day recently; I shall post on that soon hopefully.

While at this girls day, I was enjoying a good conversation with my smart and adorable niece Kailey.

It went something like this: 

(exact wording may be off because I'm getting older by the day and don't remember things so well, but you should get the gist of it)

Me: The last time we had a girls day like this you were probably about Ammely's age. You were just a baby.

Kailey: That was before you were married? 

Me: Yes. That was before I was married.

Kailey: I was five when you got married?

Me: No. How old are you now?

Kailey: Five.

Me: I've been married for three years. What is five minus three?

We count our fingers to find the answer.

Kailey: Two! I was two when you got married.

Me: Yes!

Kailey: Three years is a reeealllllllyyyyy long time!

Well, I feel like maybe her view of three years and my view of three years is slightly different, but there is some truth to what she says.

Three years IS a really long time. 

And I don't think I should let our third anniversary go by without even mentioning it. 

We've done a lot in three years. 

We got hitched.

June 11, 2010

 We moved away for a year to a state that doesn't house any of our family.

I graduated from college.

Ammon started a new career path.

We moved again - back to Arizona.

Ammon got a better paying job.

We got pregnant.

We moved in with my angel grandparents.

We bought a house.

We had a baby.

Ammon got an even better job closer to home.

We moved into our house.

Close as I have to a picture of our house finished - pretty sad, huh?

We went to Disneyland!

Our baby had her first birthday!

Ammon turned a quarter of a century old.

And that's just the surface, chronological stuff!

We've also had a few tears and disagreements.

Countless laughs and smiles. 

Hugs and kisses.

Miles and Memories.

Hard work and Hard Play.

And Prayers and Strengthening Moments.

We know each other better every day.

We love each other better every day.

We get a little better at...well, life, every day.

And I know Kailey is right when she says three years is a long time. 

But I'm glad that three years is just the beginning for us. 

I'm glad that three years will be but a tiny blip on the timeline of eternity. 

I'm glad for all of the adventures that are still ahead.

And I"m glad for all the adventures that have planted us here, at our three year anniversary.

This is the best we did for taking a picture on our anniversary. Pretty pathetic. We should have had the amazing Tamzon take our picture - but then, she did more than her share by taking in our Ammely for a few hours.

We're Dreaming a Dream - The Snowflake Episode

We fancy ourselves dreamers. We like to dream about our future. And we like to dream big. One of our favorite pass-times is to design and tweak the floor plans for our dream home. We fantasize about the stuff we'll have and the secret rooms and the big rooms and the closet space. More than that we dream about the outside too. We want trees galore. And a garden. And an oober big lawn.

We want space.

Which means we want land.

And we want that land in a small town. Small town life is just awesome. It just is.

So we've plotted out a few small towns and intend to scope them out to see where we want to plant our roots when the time comes.

First on the list - Snowflake, AZ.

When Memorial Day weekend was upon us we seized the opportunity to take the trip.

We met up with some great friend of ours - Rocky and Holly. Holly is from those neck of the woods and they just happened to be heading that way for a wedding. It was just a couple months ago they were having their own wedding - aren't the lovebirds adorable? We love them!

So Friday afternoon we met Rocky and Holly, fueled up the car and filled up the car with fuel for our bellies - all of the road trip essentials: beef jerky, sunflower seeds, gigantic drinks, donuts, gummies.

These were especially invaluable in keeping the little princess a happy passenger:

We followed each other along the 3-hour drive and then checked into our hotel that night. We were not expecting much for the cheap price we paid for an unknown hotel in a teeny-tiny town but we were very pleased. It was very clean. Very nice. Perfect place to hang out and sleep for just a few hours. And they filled our bellies with a hot breakfast in the morning.

After breakfast we made our way to the main attraction in Snowflake - the LDS temple! (which was extra convenient seeing as that's where the wedding was taking place for Rocky and Holly's family)

All of the temples are gorgeous buildings and this was no exception. It was extra stunning because it actually sits on a hill.

We spent a good amount of time here and just enjoyed. It was the perfect place to get a feel for the area. We could see for miles.

Plus, Ammely loved it. Our little girl loves to be outside.

And she loves to make friends with big kids.

 And she loves to spend time with Daddy.

 And Mommy too.

From there we split ways with Rocky and Holly and headed out to check it out. We continued to keep Ammely happy through the miles of driving with good ol' fashionied sugary-bribery.

The first property we looked at stole our hearts. 12+ acres. Just 4.5 minutes from the temple - which means it has views of the temple (sadly not pictured). 

Just look at all that space!

We (we=Ammon) talked to the realtor for a long time. Got all the details.

We stood on the rock and dreamed that "one day all of this will be ours."

AND it's on the corner of Plum Blossom and Cherry Blossom! Could you have an address more ideal than that?!

From there we actually headed into Snowflake to see what they had to offer. It didn't take much to sell me on the place after visiting this little beauty:

 What more could a girl need?

Plus the grocery store had all of the good stuff...

 ...and none of the bad...

Seriously! This impressed us the most. Why don't ALL stores do this?! I don't want to look at that trash every time I check out. And I REALLY don't want my husband to see that trash every time we check out either. Problem solved!

And we got a little taste of the local flavor - a little Mexican place called Eva's. So good. I mean, if Ammely is smiling while she eats it, you know it's good.

We checked out the local Optometrist office, the library, the schools, the parks.
We talked to a few of the locals.
We drove out to the middle of nowhere and looked at other properties.
We took another spin down Main Street and then buckled up for the 3-hour haul home.

It's lucky we made it home alive! "Look mom, no eyes!"

We fell in love. It's a small town. With a temple. Does that happen?! In Snowflake it does.

Maybe one day we'll call Snowflake home.

Every day our "someday" gets closer.