Welcome to Snowflake

This past Friday and Saturday we officially moved to Snowflake. Dad Saline and Jon's cousin Michael were nice enough to bring down a giant horse trailer and they helped us load our wall-o-boxes (which had grown quite a bit since my last post) and all of our furniture. It was a big job! In fact, Michael's mom Beth, his sister LaRee and her boyfriend all came over with their trucks to help us load some stuff! It was so nice of them to take the time to do that!

On Saturday morning, we got up and unloaded everything. This went way faster! My Mommy and Daddy were there too and we were able to unload in just about two hours! Then Mommy and Daddy and my sister Buggy Butt (Laney) helped us start the unpacking process. Phew!

I actually enjoy the unpacking part. It's fun to find new places for things, and it gives me a chance to re-organize my life. A perfect way to start a big change in our lives.

Jon's first day at his new job at the Taylor Law Offices (working as an actual attorney!!) yesterday, and he really enjoyed it! And I begin my new job at the Carriage House next Tuesday. I have worked there before - a few years ago - and it will be fun to be back.

Oh - let me tell you a little bit about our house! It is an actual house! We have lived in an actual house on campus, but it still felt like an apartment because of the way the community is set up. This is an actual house in a neighborhood with people who are established, with new families...it's just a "normal" neighborhood instead of such a temporary neighborhood. Does that make sense?

We have 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a huge backyard with grass and a sprinkler system - and our fridge has an ice/water dispenser on the door!!!! It even does crushed ice!!! Wow!!

We are so excited about the new chapter in our lives!

I will post pictures of our house and stuff when we get unpacked....right now it's just boxes everywhere! :-)

Growing Wall-O-Boxes

Well folks, as you can see, the wall-o-boxes is gradually getting bigger and bigger. We still have two weeks until M-Day (Moving Day), but between classes, Jon's work, and Easter, we are really trying to get as much done as we can early. This weekend is going to be a big push, and by the end of it, we will probably be living out of suitcases. We already only have 2 cups to use, but that is perfect - why do we need a whole cabinet of them when we aren't expecting any company, and we can just wash these two over and over again.

We had a little bit of a delay on the packing last weekend, but it was for a great weekend! The entire Saline family was down here in the valley for little Heidi's Birthday and little Elle's baby blessing. We did the birthday party here at my house, and it was great! Everything looked so cute! Shaunalee had great ideas and my entire dining room was decorated in pink and green for her "sweet pea" theme. No, I didn't get a picture of it - I was busy - but trust me when I tell you it was really cute!

Sunday we went to Elle's blessing. She looked beautiful in the amazing dress my sister-in-law Nikki made. Can you believe that? She made a blessing dress!! And it was an incredible dress!! She is simply amazing!
After the blessing we went to Brenden and Nikki's house for a little lunch/dinner party.

It was so fun to see everyone and watch all of the little kids playing with each other.

I am getting anxious to move. I don't really like the "in-between" stage. It will be nice to be up there and settled. It will be nice for Jon to be at his new job. I will be so happy to have a job again to be bringing in some extra money. It will be great to be up there with family (though I will really miss the family we have down here).

I can't wait to post pictures from our new house! Only 15 more days (not that anyone is counting....)

Thank you all so much for your sweet thoughts you wrote about my last post. We really are excited about this new job and this move - everything is just working out so smoothly, and we just really feel like this is the right move for us - and we can't wait!


As you can see, the packing process is well under way. These are not the only boxes we have finished so far, some of them are just in other rooms, and they are too heavy for me to want to move them to our wall-o-boxes....so they are waiting for Jon and his muscles to come home!

Now, I have some thoughts about moving (I know, you are not surprised - I have thoughts about everything!) and I am going to share them with you:

1) I do not like packing! My dad says that the first punishment given to Adam and Eve after eating the fruit was having to move out of the Garden (as you can tell, he does not like moving either!)

2) Even though I don't like packing, it is nice to go through all of our stuff and get rid of a lot of it. Our goal is to not have to buy any new boxes....it's amazing how much junk you collect after even just a few short years!

3) This is our 4th move in 3 1/2 years, so we have a little bit of a system. Our boxes are already labeled, so most of the time we can just make sure we fill the boxes up with what it says on the outside - we already know that the stuff will fit, and we don't have to waste more Sharpie ink

4) Sharpies go dry much quicker when you are writing on a dusty cardboard box.

5) Clothes make really great bubble wrap. Bubble wrap is kind of spendy - and, we have used paper towels in the past, but that's a huge waste! Of course newspaper works great, but when you run out - clothes or spare material are a great alternative! It's summer, so it's not sweater season, so why not use those sweaters to wrap up your breakables? You need to bring your sweaters with you, and this way your breakables get padding, and you don't have to waste an entire box on sweaters! (Dirty clothes are great too.....of course none of you have enough dirty clothes just laying around to use for a move like I do...)

6) Last time we moved we ended up moving all of our stuff at least 4 times! We would stack everything in one spot, then we would need to clean that area, so we would move everything to a different spot! When we were finally moving them into the truck, they were in a back bedroom and kind of hard to get out. Not very bright on our part! This time we are stacking everything right next to the front door - duh right? Live and learn I guess.....

7) Finally, the last time we moved a lot of our pictures and picture frames (you know, the ones that go on the wall) got all scratched up or broken...and I am trying to figure out a better way to pack them. The problem is that our pictures are all different sizes and they don't fit in boxes very well. Do any of you have ideas about packing these difficult pictures?

So, those are my (incredibly boring) thoughts about moving. I am really excited about getting up there and unpacking - I think unpacking is fun because it's always nice to put your things in a nice new place.

If any of you have any brilliant moving tips that you have learned - I am all ears! Anything to make this process easier would be so great to hear!

Movin' On Up

That's right, we are movin' on up the mountain. To Snowflake that is.

Jon has accepted an offer from Shawn Taylor, of the Taylor Law Offices in Snowflake so we will be heading up there in May.

We met with Shawn and his wife last weekend. Jon talked with Shawn for a while and then we all went to dinner at Eva's (where else?) so we could all get to know each other. I really like the Taylors! They are incredibly nice and I love how family oriented they are and the office is.

Jon was given an offer at Weisburg and Meyers down here in Phoenix (where he is working as a clerk right now), so we had a big decision to make. Don't get me wrong, we have felt so blessed to have a choice between two great jobs - there are so many people who can't even find one decent job! We are really blessed.

We weighed the decision and did a lot of praying and fasting.

In the end, we felt very strongly that the move up to Snowflake is the right one for us.

So, we are going to start packing up the house (we are going to start now - there is only about a month and I really don't want to be rushed! Then we can go through stuff and get rid of the things we don't need. It would be really nice to do some deep cleaning) and head out.

It's an exciting change for us! It will be nice to be closer to family, but we will really miss all of our friends and family down here.

Look Out Snowflake - Here We Come!!

Finally!!!

I just posted that I would keep you updated on Jon's law paperwork, but I didn't realize that I would have something to talk about so soon!

Well, last night we checked the mail, and there it was...Jon's certificate that says that he has officially been accepted to the Arizona State Bar! That means the is officially an attorney!
We not longer have to qualify it with "well, he's still waiting for his paperwork, so he's not an attorney quite yet..." because he is official!

I am married to a full fledged attorney! Holy Cow!

Our entire lives together have been in anticipation of this. When we started dating, Jon was just starting to get his acceptance letters back from different law schools and he was trying to figure out which one to attend. While we were dating he (well, we...) decided to go to ASU and he began to prepare to go. We got married and two days later he started his first day of law school. Three years later he graduated (with honors), and began to study for the Bar Exam. A few months later he found out he had passed. Then we waited for his Character and Fitness paperwork to go through. We got a letter to tell us that he passed that, and we turned in his Oath of Office paperwork....and we waited again.

But now, here we are almost exactly four years later (since we began dating and the law school process) and we have reached the goal!

I could not be more proud of my husband. I know that you probably get sick of hearing me say that, but he has gone through so much to accomplish this. It has been so hard on him, it has been really frustrating for him, it has been stressful and exhausting - and now he can breath a sigh of relief because he is finally Jon H. Saline, esq.

So fancy!

Now he just needs to figure out where he wants to work and what he wants to do with this new title!

And so another chapter in our story begins!!

Malori Reviews All Sorts of Stuff

First of all, this does not include the video that I keep promising.
Second of all, I was recently told that my posts are way too long...and I have been trying to take that advice and shorten my posts...but this post is going to be long. If you get tired of reading, please feel free to stop. You do not have to read the entire post, it won't hurt my feelings.


In my last post I mentioned my yoga class and how much I love it! I ended up needing one credit in order to stay in our student housing, so I found a yoga class that fit my schedule. I was really nervous to take it at first. I was afraid that I would be the chunky chick who had only done a "Yoga for Dummies" video in her living room and had zero flexibility. I had no idea what to expect from a real yoga class.
I was so thrilled to discover that nobody else in the class had ever taken a yoga class before! There are ladies in there who have 3 or 4 kids and are trying to lose the "baby weight". There is a middle-aged man who is trying to recover from a car accident, and many other people who are just learning. So, I was not the only one with no experience.
My teacher is incredible! Of course she is absolutely beautiful and I don't think she has an ounce of fat on her - solid muscle - but she is so patient and she doesn't judge us on our lack of flexibility. She is understanding and she modifies for our levels of ability. But, she is also very good at pushing us. She doesn't let us get away with keeping everything super easy. We break a sweat each week and we get really great stretches every week!
Now, I don't know if a class would be this fantastic if it were in an actual yoga studio place where the people who attend are hard-core yoga folks, so I might continue to take it at a Community College....but I would recommend that everyone take it! I want to take a yoga class continuously for the rest of my life - it just feels so good!


There are only two seasons of this show on Netflix. I don't know if those are the only two season ever, but I wish there were more! This show is so darn cute! It is like a giant chick-flick! Christina Applegate is absolutely adorable!
Here's the basic idea - Samantha Newly wakes up from a coma after having been hit by a car, and she had amnesia. She can't remember anything about her life before the accident. She doesn't know her friends, her parents, her boyfriend...anything! As she is going about her life, she learns, both through other people and memory flashbacks, that she was a terrible person. She was mean to people all the time, she cheated on her boyfriend, she didn't have any problems with hurting peoples feelings or breaking the law.
Now she is trying to start over as a good person, but her past keeps sneaking up on her.
This show is so funny. You absolutely fall in love with Christina Applegate's character and her best friends and boyfriend.
I really recommend it!


Ok, this picture is a little bit scary, but it is the cover of the book. I have read a few of Steven Kings' stuff in the past and have been extremely impressed by how darn talented he is as a writer. That having been said, I have not enjoyed all of his stories. I'm not a huge fan of horror, so "It" and "Carrie" were not my cup of tea ("Carrie" wasn't so much scary as it was depressing). He does have a book called "On Writing" that is awesome. It is...well...on writing. He writes about how to write. Defiantly worth picking up if you have any interest in writing.
About "'Salem's Lot" - obviously this is a vampire book, but it is nothing like "Twilight". It is set in a very tiny town that is out of the way of anywhere. Steven King has an incredible way of making you remember everyone in the whole town and you actually feel for them.
I don't want to ruin the book for you, and I think that anything I say might mess it up for you. But, it is a really great book. Not too scary and it really sucks you in. Steven King is so darn talented!



Jon and I just got some refurbished iPhone 3Gs and we also switched to AT&T. AT&T was running a sale for $50 iPhone 3G's, but we looked at the refurbished ones and found them for $20! So we got 2 for half the price of one - on sale! We didn't switch to AT&T because we wanted iPhones though. We switched because we can get two phones with data plans for less that what it costs to get two phones with no data plans with Verizon. Not to mention how unimpressed with have been with Verizon's customer service lately. When I was ordering our phones online I was able to chat with a sales representative and she was so darn nice! I was really impressed with how kind and helpful they were and they stayed online with me until I was able to check-out and complete my purchase. I know that is just a way for them to get sales, but I am telling you that they were way more pleasant than Verizon has been to us.
Now we are still really new to AT&T so I will let you know how it goes, but I am loving the iPhones! My last phone didn't have any games or anything - texting and talking and that was it! Now I don't even know what to do with everything I can do!! It's almost overwhelming! Plus, texting is way more phone when it pops up in little "thinking bubbles" - I don't know why that makes it so much more fun, but it sure does!!
What is the most exciting about this switch is the fact that we actually have phones that work! Jon's old phone would only stay charged for 3-5 minutes, then it would turn off and you would have to plug it in for 15-20 minutes in order to turn it back on! This got really frustrating when we were trying to figure out plans for the day or when Jon has to work late and he has no way of letting me know or whatever. It also makes me worried to drive without phones ya know? What if something happened?
So now, we both have phones that work and I don't have to worry about my hubby as much! Yay!


Finally, this isn't so much a review as it is me venting a little bit. As you know, Jon graduated from law school in May. He then studied like crazy and took the bar exam in July. We waited for months and finally learned that he had passed the bar exam! Then we waited (less than patiently) for his Character and Fitness report to be approved by the Supreme Court (it's a report full Jon had to fill out that told them every place he has ever lived, people who knew him in those places, and every place he has ever worked, and people who knew him there. We had to wait for the Supreme Court to mail a letter to each of these people and they had to mail a letter back about Jon's character, and they had to do a complete background check of him - which was easy since Jon has never even had a traffic ticket!).
Finally a letter came in saying that he passed the Character and Fitness part. He should be an attorney by now right? Nope, not yet. He had to fill out another form that he had to get notarized because it was his oath of office and he had to send that in to the Supreme Court. Now we are waiting for his certificate to come in to say that he is actually, finally an attorney! That should come in any day now, and it is feeling like an eternity! This has been such a long process and it is getting so frustrating for Jon because he is so ready to actually work as an attorney!
It will be so exciting when we finally get that paper - stay tuned for updates!
I'm so proud of Jon and everything that he has accomplished! He is such an incredible man and I am so lucky to have him as my guy!

I hope that wasn't too long and boring.....