Our Little Tender Mercy...

I've wanted a puppy since my parents left good 'ole nepher titi and king tut behind in kansas. Although Jeff and I had basically decided we just couldn't have a puppy while living in an apartment. So when i got baby hungry, and we weren't ready for that either...i guess jeff started thinking the whole puppy thing looked a little bit brighter. So when work was crummy, and life seemed mundane and i was a little down in the dumps jeff knew exactly what i needed. Ginger. She is a 4 1/2 month old Vizsla. We were going to the pet store so i could "play with the puppies", and ended up leaving with her. She is so wonderful we love her. She is so smart, is already potty trained in less than two weeks. And she just never ceases to be unbearably cute. A few things about the Vizsla breed. They are hunting dogs originally from Hungary. They are nicknamed the 'velcro dog' because they get really attached to their owners, and tend to follow them from room to room, they aren't content with merely being in the same room but must be right there with you. They are pleasers. They live to please their masters. They desire to be one of the family, and like to feel included in the family activities. They are great with kids, they are short haired....so they don't smell terribly bad, and don't shed much. they are very affectionate, love to give kisses, love people in general, and love other animals. We have found all of these traits to be true. Ginger will follow me from room to room, in the kitchen if i'm at the counter making something she's balled up sitting on my feet. if i'm on the computer she's sitting on my lap. If i'm using the toilet she's sitting right there next to me cheering me on. Jeff was taking a bath one day and Ginger was not content with sitting there, she jumped in and layed on his chest. We think this has to do with her wanting to be involved with 'family activities'. I honestly think she thinks she is helping us accomplish things. Having the hunting gene in her blood has become very evident as well. We will throw her animal, or a tennis ball, and she will wait, and stalk it (watch it while in a crouched position) then she will creep up on it, and pounce, and she's loves bringing back what she has caught! Not only are her stalking skills quite acceptional, but she loves creating an obstacle course out of our condo. She will take the most difficult route possible to get from point A to point B. She will go over under, and around the bars on our dining table chairs, almost like self-inflicted hunting dog training.She is such a cuddler, and even though we got her to appease me, she seems to be a little biased towards snuggling with jeff. We've been taking her on 2 hour walk/runs in the reservoir by our house and it's so fun to see her pick up scents. We took Ginger over to another couple in our ward who have to quite large dogs for a little play date. And she kept up with them surprisingly. They were trying to play keep away with her toys but she is so small that she would sneak up from behind or the side, and slip through their legs and get her toy back. She has motivated us to get things done, and has definately forced me to prioritize and organize my life. It was so sad, the other day i was excited that i was able to sleep in till 7:00 (yeah 7:00 am has never been what i would consider sleeping in!) But surprisingly enough I enjoy it.

First day we had Ginger, and she's already snuggling up with her daddy.....

She looks super mal-nutritioned here (again taken the first day) but we've been fattening her up

She's very quick to make friends...
Ginger venturing into the creek at the reservoir...she loves water.

Ginger imposing on jeff's bath

she's so darn cute!

Speaking of her helping us, and acting like she's involved. this is ginger helping me write this blog post. She was on my lap and had one paw on the keypad most of the time- her contribution!

i will follow up this post with a video post of ginger fetching!

LIFE with the HarrisES

So much has gone down since my last post....we had our little colorado shindig...it went pretty well, and all of jeff's family was able to make it

We have some pictures that we had taken there.....of family and friends.
Here are jeff's parents (and significant others) and siblings(with significant others), myself, and my parents.

My momma and pappa obviously

Jeff's oldest sister Davina and her husband Brian.

Jeff's second sister Mindy and her wife Sarah.

Jeff's older brother David and his girlfriend Fairann.

Jeff and I if you couldn't tell....

Jeff's younger brother Quentin and his fiance Becky.

We had some jet skiing.

Dad played some music, and mom sang some, but i dont have a picture of her singing

Some socializing....

Some eating....

My friend Ginger came all the way from Manhattan KS!

I've become quite close with Pegg and her daughter Alexa since I moved out here. They're wonderful! And Pegg made the delicious pasta salad for the event.

Not too long after our little celebration we ventured out to utah for the big family reunion, however i forgot my camera so there are no pictures here.
Then just a few days ago we got back from Kansas. We went there for my cousin amy's wedding, and as you can see she looked absolutely beautiful! It was a great ceremony, and her and chris are so adorable together, and i was so busy being a bridesmaid i was only able to snap this one photo. It was a super quick busy trip but very nice, and i'm so glad we were able to go. I was able to visit some old friends, and see a few family members.

So since the reunion in utah, jeff has gotten quite the golfing bug and went a few times since we got back home. Finally he was able to convince me to go along. We went yesterday and I got a birdy on the first hole...he's a picture of my beautiful hit. We went with a friend of ours and i must proudly say i had the best hit of the day. Jeff beat us both though. Well that's about all the exciting stuff for the past month or so. I'm still working at the Daycare, Jeff still driving and doing his side stuff. We're kind of looking for a house (i'm sure more seriously when we have a proper down payment) but looking the same, preferrably for a house with some land so that we can build a big shop for jeff to run his business out of. So it would be nice to get a house so we could get jeff's business off the ground so he doesn't have to drive a truck the rest of our lives but it would also be fun so i could do all kinds of decorating, and of course being able to start making babies would be fun too.

Incase you can't see this clearly that is my ball like 3 feet directly to the right of the flag. that spot front and center is a leaf. Well hope all is well with everyone else. I know life is so great, we have so much to be grateful for! I'll try to post again soon.

So it's been a good while since my last post, just thought i'd put some pictures up of some fun stuff we've done since January/February or so.....

Jeff and I share a love of hiking and doing outdoorsy stuff.....and jeff more specifically loves to rock climb, and i've always wanted to try it. So jeff took me to his favorite climbing spots so we could hike, and i could try out my awesome skills to give me a good idea of what i was gonna be getting myself into this summer! We did some free climbing and I rather enjoyed myself.


And i thought "I" was a poser...

okay so maybe i am a little more of a poser, but jeff definately brings his 'A' game most of the time.

What better way to come closer to nature than by doing it like they had to do back in the book of mormon times.

This is the beautiful view up in Castlewood Canyon

It got a little steamy up there. Something about a man who can climb like a wild man.

Also jeff took me on a date a WHILE ago to this place called Amazing Jake's it's like Chucky Cheese, but really just an excuse for adults to be able to play games, waste money, and act like a kid ago.
This is what i spent most of my tokens on the gambling games! i understand now why the church frowns on that, it was addicting and not at all rewarding.

Then Jeff who didn't spend all of his tokens on gambling games got to use his on cool games. So needless to say i was jealous and learned my lesson.

We also had a huge blizzard a couple months ago, so jeff and i went sledding down this super steep hill.

As you can see jeff is at the bottom of the hill building our ramp....i caught like a foot of air, it was flippin sweet.

our cars and "yard buried in snow"

We took a trip out to Utah the first week of May for Jeff's bestfriend's sealing, and were able to be there for my mom's b-day... well on the way home we stopped in Palisade which is the exit right after Grand Junction because jeff wanted to go look for his house that he lived in for a couple years during the summer with his dad until age :4. I thought yeah we'll drive around he'll think stuff looks familiar, and we'll go on our merry way. Well not even 10 minutes after taking the exit we were pulling up to his old house. His memory of details astounds me. I don't even remember much about my baptism at age 8 except for the fact i thought this lady from the ward was gonna make a cake and bring it for me, and she NEVER showed up! THANKS ALOT LADY! So here is jeff standing infront of his old house.

Most of you probably don't even bother stopping by my blog cause of my reputation of writing too often and too much but if you read this i hope you enjoyed it. And there will be more to come. I just dont' know how soon! i'm out- Ingrid Harris

We are so Artsy right now.....

Today when jeff got home from work he informed me that he wanted to do a pastel of aurora borealis with a mountainous landscape for his sister Mindy, and that he wanted to run by Michaels to get the materials. And i had been wanting to play around with his wood burner, so we decided i'd do that while he drew and colored........so we picked up some wood, and his supplies, ordered a pizza, and came back and got to work.......


First I decided if i was going to screw up i might as well screw up trying to burn MY face into a slab of wood, it's not perfect, but then again not tooo bad for my first time using a 950 degree piece of metal to draw something.

And it didn't take long at all for me to catch the woodburning bug. As soon as i finished my first masterpiece i wanted to make something for someone else, considering most people wouldn't want a piece of wood with my face on it, plus that'd be pretty tacky for me to give to someone. So a brilliant idea came into my head, i could do a woodburner of my attractive little brother who graduates this year, and it could be the ultimate graduation gift, what 17 year old boy doesn't want a wood burning of himself.......by the way he doesn't look at blogs so i figured it was safe to post pictures of it on here, plus i'm horrible at suprising people.

Here he is the man of the hour. I felt this one was much better than my first attempt at wood burning, i think he'll like it.

Alright enough about me the amateur.....lets talk about jeff the professional artist......here is the genius at work.... And this is the finished product right before he hairsprayed it, and put it in it's lovely frame, to be shipped to his sister. Sorry i didn't get a picture of it framed and all, i'm an impatient woman!

I hope you greatly enjoyed our art show, donations to the ingrid & jeff art fund, can be made payable by cash or check, or gooey choc chip cookies! Love, The Harris Clan

Our First Home Together !

So we've been married for 20 days now......and so i figured i should prob. write a blog. I moved into jeff's apartment which i will show pictures now. the past 2 weeks or so i have given the crib a little TLC as to make it less bachelor paddy. I'm going to give you a tour of our apartment, but not only am i going to give you a tour, i'm going to make you feel as though you are actually here seeing it for yourself......alright so i don't have a job yet, and have alot of time on my hands.......so here we go.

This is our front door, and as you can see right by the front door is a white board/ cork board so that jeff and i can ourselves or one another messages or reminders, and we can keep important papers pinned up where we won't loose or forget them....handy huh?!

Now lets say you just walked through the front door and turned to your left, you would then be entering our kitchen....

Yeah sorry nothing special in here.....

Alright now lets go back into the entry way and continue straight into the living room.....

This is where jeff makes me fires all the time....and where i make s'mores-yum!

Here's a cool lamp that jeff and i got with a few of our target gift cards-thanks guys! oh and the really awesome christ painting my parents got us for christmas...thanks mom and dad!

oh and you're probably wondering what that white thing on the wall is, well dont' worry i'll tell you.

What we have here is a 126" screen for our projector, which is used for watching CSI, and other awesome television entertainment, watching an action packed movie, playing a game of rockband, or checking my facebook, or gmail.....cool huh? i'll never need to wear my glasses ever again (if i were to spend the rest of my life infront of this screen) but who's bragging?

Alright now we have the rest of the apartment still so we can't stay here looking at that awesome screen, on the opposit wall we have our dining room. complete with projector chandelier. oh and our cute christmas tree courtesy of my parents, THEY ARE SO NICE!!!!

alright now there is a cool window that connects the dining room, living room, and kitchen all together. Talk about classy!

Here's the same coolio window from another perspective......take it in baby!

Now i skipped the first room in the hallway, cuz it's boring it's the laundry room, plus i realized that my bra's were hanging up in the picture and that's embarrassing-and guess who's too lazy to go and retake it. So here is the second room down the hallway the bathroom. Which i decorated! I love these colors together, the towels that you see were the inspiration for this room.

rest of the bathroom.

This is the third room of the hallway but the first room on the left side. This is our spare bedroom as you can see there is a pile of bedding, which is because we haven't gotten a bed in this room yet. which is also why not much decorating has been done, i have to wait and see what kind of space etc. i have to work with but the colors are black, red, and white.

other corner of the spare bedroom.

Now at the very end of the hall is our bedroom..... and this is all i have, due to the fact that blogspot is being dumb, and won't let me upload any more pictures.....but we also have a big walk in closet, and a bathroom off of our room, and then there is a shower room that connects that bathroom with the first one that i did have pictures of

.....so i guess it wasn't EXACTLY like you were here seeing it for yourself, but ah well i give up. Hope everyone had a wonderful new year!